Masters of the Universe Classics Archives - Page 12 of 104

No Shipping Options on Digital River Bugs Mattycollector January Early Access

Even if you wanted to spend about $50 to pick up a Masters of the Universe Classics Ram Man during Mattycollector’s January Early Access, you were head-butted out of the buying process. A bug in the Digital River shopping cart kept Club Eternia subscribers from completing their purchases this morning – no shipping options were presented in the drop-down menu, and any attempts to continue would result in an endless loop on the page.

I was looking to pick one up for a Free Stuff giveaway and made a couple attempts thinking that I couldn’t read the highly unintelligible Captcha codes. Very frustrating! Just chalk it up as another snafu in Digital River’s service record during their Mattycollector tenure.

No Masters of the Universe Classics Two Bad, But Ram Man Returns for Mattycollector January Sale

I’ve been critical in the past that Mattel’s Early Access for Mattycollector subscribers provided little value. However, I can’t really say that about their first sale for 2014 – the remaining Ram Man stock goes up for grabs first in Early Access, and I’m guessing he’ll be gone in a few minutes – way before everyone else gets a shot the following day. Add the fact that the Club Eternia offering, the very popular Two Bad, does not have any inventory available for day of sales, and subscribers to Mattycollector’s last remaining club should be starting off the year happy. Whether this is good for the line overall – I’m curious what you guys think.

The DC Universe Classics Captain Marvel Jr. (aka Freddy Freeman), MOTUC Dekker, and the Ghostbusters Ecto Goggles will also be on sale. Here’s the link to Early Access for January, which opens tomorrow at 8AM PST. All access opens up Wednesday at 9AM PST. Let’s hope this sale does better for Mattel than their December sale – last I checked, none of the items had sold out or even been tagged with the warning of low stock. I was able to add 99 Castle Grayskulls (the order limit) to my cart – $29,700 plus $2,499 for shipping (and don’t forget sales tax!) and they can be yours!

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Size Counts – a Pictorial Comparison of the MOTUC Castle Grayskull and the Castle of Power

While Mattel was still playing coy with regards to its plans for its Masters of the Universe Classics Castle Grayskull playset, Mat O’Toole was set on recreating his vintage Castle in the MOTUC scale. When he finished it, requests for him to produce more started flooding in from collectors worldwide, which he did in limited quantities. Over time, his Castle of Power has grown into a sideline endeavor for him – furnishing Masters-themed accessories for your Castle, whether it’s the official Mattel Castle or not.

I was one of the lucky fans who was able to get one of the replica Castles from Mat. And now that the official Castle Grayskull from Mattel has landed at my doorstep, I figured I ought to take some size comparison photos.

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Want to See How the Four Horsemen Made Castle Grayskull?

Eric Treadaway’s Desk Jockey feature on the SourceHorsemen website has got a cool series of posts underway right now. Taking a twist on the popular holiday theme, it’s the Twelve Days of Grayskull. TDoG covers the creation of the Masters of the Universe Classics Castle Grayskull prototype, starting with the blank armature. Very cool!

They’ve posted eight days so far (I’ve included a few of the pics from the first three), so if you haven’t seen it, you can start catching up before the big finale.

DESK JOCKEY HOLIDAY EDITION: THE TWELVE DAYS OF GRAYSKULL

Back in January, when I was digging my original Castle Grayskull playset out of the basement, my three year old son saw the castle for the first time and was instantly fascinated. He actually came into the office with me that same morning which was when the digitally output armature first showed up at the studio. At that point it went from fascination to a temporary obsession. When I first saw the size of the armature, knowing the amount of time we had to work on this monster, I knew I was in for some very long days and nights at the office! To keep my son up to date on the castle I decided to take shots of the castle every night when I was wrapping up work. It was really the first time I started using my phone to document projects in progress, and it was actually the beginnings of the idea for the Desk Jockey segment!

via DESK JOCKEY HOLIDAY EDITION: THE TWELVE DAYS OF GRAYSKULL «.

Mattel Missing the Mark with Epic Creations?

Maybe I’ve been conditioned over the years by quick sell-outs, but it was still somewhat of a shock to check in on the Mattycollector December sale to find that the big three Epic Creations items, the Masters of the Universe Classics Castle Grayskull, and the prop replicas for the Batman Utility Belt and the Ghostbusters Neutrino Wand, are all still in stock. None of the three are even at the point where they’ve got the special tags indicating they’re “Almost Gone.” This is particularly surprising for the Castle – from the point of pre-order through the pre-hype for this sale, Mattel has consistently said that they’d have just a very limited amount of Castles for day-of sales.

If we don’t see this change in the short term, here’s what I’ve reasoned could be behind the slower than expected sales.

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