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03/03/2004: The Masters of the Universe Coloring Book.

Looking at the main page, I noticed that I hadn’t done a He-Man article in many months. Whoops. Making up for some lost time, here’s my review of an insane Masters of the Universe Coloring Book, featuring two stories and some strange games and puzzles. The stories contain everything from Skeletor driving clouds to forcing marriage on Teela, so it seemed like something I had to show you. Review spans several pages, but it’s mostly a quick read, so get readin’ quick.

Posted by Matt. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 123 comments

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I swear I had, like, four of these books. And you can still find them at thrift stores, I’m sure.

Ghosted by D-d-dave-some @ 03/03/2004 3:13 PM EST

Damn, I reload and there’s already a comment

Ghosted by Cyanyde @ 03/03/2004 3:14 PM EST

Great article, Matt. The coloring book reviews are second only to NES reviews for my favorite theme on XE. And yes, every thrift store in America has these lining their shelves.

Ghosted by Justin @ 03/03/2004 3:24 PM EST

I had that very same coloring book. Good times.

Ghosted by BaronVonHotPants @ 03/03/2004 3:25 PM EST

Did this book have any "Color by Numbers" pages? I just remembered that some of those activities didn’t have actual numbers, just different amounts of DOTS to correspond to their colors. I guess it was for kids who understood, for example, the "concept" of 3, but not the "character" for 3.

Didn’t they base "Awakenings" on that disease?

Ghosted by D-d-dave-some @ 03/03/2004 3:34 PM EST

why is Teela riding Spirit from she-ra?

Ghosted by prowlus @ 03/03/2004 3:34 PM EST

D-D-D — no, but I have one of the books you’re talking about.

Ghosted by Matt @ 03/03/2004 3:35 PM EST

Hey BeastMan, Get yer Gorilla-Grip off me!
Bwahahahah Yep, that’s a keeper!

Ghosted by Cyanyde @ 03/03/2004 3:41 PM EST

Okay, this is kind of weird. I was going to read the article, but then I realized that I didn’t have enough time because I have a psych test in about 1.5 hours that I have to study for. But the strange coloring scheme that some kid had used caught my eye. So, I scrolled back up and Matt had mentioned the coloring, plus Freud was mentioned. Freud is going to be covered extensively in my psych test today. That seemed strange to me, kind of a coincidence. Okay, must study now. I’m hoping this post makes sense.

Ghosted by Andrea @ 03/03/2004 3:57 PM EST

Even waay back then, I thought that some of these books were odd. But fun. That said, I had a pretty cool Batman coloring book that had a fairly decent story in it. The Joker was "cured" and opened a chain of fast food joints. then certain people began turning up dead, with grins. Laughing Boy had also studied ceramics in prison and had sculptures in each location. He was using the piezoelectric qualities of the ceramics to brainwash people into buying his food, and the dead guys were scientists and doctors who could have put his plan in the crapper before it’s implementation. Without the vibrating sculptures, the burgers tasted like crap. My nephew has an old Batman coloring book with Catwoman in a costume kinda like a evening gown. The bat gets some interesting books to color.

Ghosted by kingklash @ 03/03/2004 4:15 PM EST

http://tvshowsondvd.com/dic/
"Later this year UAV Entertainment Corp is planning on releasing episodes of Inspector Gadget and Super Mario Bros in the order in which they aired. Each disc will contain 5 episodes and interviews with Andy Heyward, Chairman and CEO of DIC Entertainment as bonus features.

UAV needs your help! They’ve asked us to set up this special form so fans of the series can send in questions for Andy Heyward. Andy Heyward was directly involved in the creation of Inspector Gadget, and has been the driving force behind all of DIC’s productions.

Feel free to submit questions for either series as many times as you want, assuming you’re asking a different question each time.

Note: Questions should be about the shows, not about the technical aspects of the discs, the number of episodes, release shedule or other shows they may release. These questions will be answered on the DVDs; you will not get a personal response. Questions that are not about the shows themselves will be deleted."

I will ask about the Photon show being on Club Mario and how Matt should do commentary for the DVD if Photon is ever released; or any other DIC DVD that could use Matt’s expert knowledge.
http://www.dicentertainment.com/dic_shows.html#AShows

Ghosted by ME @ 03/03/2004 4:31 PM EST

Quality with a capital Mer! This ranks up there with The Worst Witch article! (An astounding feat indeed!)

Ghosted by Slacker @ 03/03/2004 4:39 PM EST

these were my bread and butterwhen i was a kid. especially good on extended road trips.

Ghosted by Mikey @ 03/03/2004 4:51 PM EST

I had Go-bots and Donkey Kong activity books back in the day. It seems that, not only are these books written by people with only a passing knowledge of the subject at best, but seem to be written by people with only the slightest grasp of the English language.

Mat, you going to feature any of those "Draw what you think Teela and He-Man see" submissions?

Ghosted by Rayzak (my website has hostess sushi!) @ 03/03/2004 4:53 PM EST

I found an Eastah egg! I found an Eastah egg!

Ghosted by trajeal @ 03/03/2004 5:14 PM EST

Bahahaha! Gold! Comedic gold!

Ghosted by Evin @ 03/03/2004 5:25 PM EST

Phooey! I access on an iMac, and I never get to see a lot of the commercials and junk. Any suggestions?

Ghosted by kingklash @ 03/03/2004 5:28 PM EST

ok,i almost pissed my pants laughing at this,and i believe i had the cloud story.i distinctivly remember the spirit of greyskull at the end.

Ghosted by meef @ 03/03/2004 5:45 PM EST

Man, I used to love these when I was a kid…I also had one of the Spider-Man ones, which I colored in religiously. Has anyone seen any of the recent dollar store superhero coloring books? They look like crap!

Ghosted by Nemesis @ 03/03/2004 5:53 PM EST

Wow! What a great read! Thanx, Matt…. BTW, most of the "odd" things in the book (i.e. Beastman being usefull, two halves of the Power Sword, Spirit of Grayskull) are there b/c these stories are from the time before the toon, if I know my MOTU… And I sure do .

Ghosted by Papa_Taz @ 03/03/2004 6:15 PM EST

Matt, I’ve only read "Cloudy Climbs", but I have to say it is one of the funniest things I have seen from you in some time. Iwas in tears laughing so hard. "Really hates monster feet . . " Dude! Brilliant!!

Ghosted by Dane E. Coffey @ 03/03/2004 6:45 PM EST

Man, this is convincing me to buy some coloring/activity books and have some fun.
Like the $2 Crash Dummies one I saw a few days ago…

The Law and Order coloring book:
http://www.brandonbird.com/lno_color.html

Ghosted by RewolfJ @ 03/03/2004 6:48 PM EST

Here is what I thing they saw…

http://rayzak.com/pics/heman.jpg

Ghosted by Rayzak (my website has hostess sushi!) @ 03/03/2004 7:13 PM EST

The Attak Trak has power that just won’t quit? That damn toy broke after like, 10 minutes of normal use. It became just another He-Man toy I would throw and pretend they were flying.

Ghosted by Rayzak (my website has hostess sushi!) @ 03/03/2004 7:22 PM EST

I thought "Color a Cunt" was odd, but this title takes the cake!:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0736411933/qid=1078359398/sr=1-116/ref=sr_1_116/104-5217531-8826353?v=glance&s=books

Ghosted by RewolfJ @ 03/03/2004 7:26 PM EST

So lemme get this straight….the ultimate holy grail of skeletor…the SECRETS of castle greyskull was that it had a tv?

Skel wasted every ep of the cartoon just trying to watch tv and when he did, that killjoy, he-man broke the reception.

Poor skel.

Ghosted by vyle @ 03/03/2004 7:31 PM EST

I want an Attak Trak. At least the colouring book promoted literacy, even if the commercials didn’t…

Ghosted by Gabbylicious @ 03/03/2004 7:33 PM EST

Matt, the Supersize needs an article before it is gone forever.

Would you like to ‘Supersize’ that? Too bad — you can’t
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-super03.html

Ghosted by ME @ 03/03/2004 7:37 PM EST

These coloring books could not have been written by the same authors of the little booklets that came with the original he man action figures. They were much more creative. Any chance of getting a hold of one of them matt?

Ghosted by mike b @ 03/03/2004 7:43 PM EST

Not to disparage the color commentary, but the greatest thing about the article was that little psycho’s coloring choices. I can’t even begin to imagine the mental deficiencies he was coping with.

Ghosted by squee4242 @ 03/03/2004 7:48 PM EST

One giant coloring/activity book I remember having was one for Defenders of the Earth,the eighties cartoon/toyline featuring the King Features Syndicate action/adventure comic strip characters (Flash Gordon,The Phantom,Mandrake the Magican) and their battles against Ming the Merciless. The only real thing I remember fromt he book itself was a maze where you had to help The Phantom get back to his Skull Cave in the African jungle.

Ghosted by Overlord @ 03/03/2004 8:33 PM EST

Matt, was the baseball player all 6′10 of
Randy Johnson?
http://www.spawntoys.com/Baseball/mlb1_johnson.jpg
http://www.ardmoreite.com/images/111699/johnson.jpg
http://www.colosscollect.com/mags/si/si011105.jpg

Ghosted by She-Man @ 03/03/2004 8:59 PM EST

"Draw what you think TEELA and HE-MAN see."

*cough* Photog *cough*

This was brilliant. Great commentary, Matt.

Ghosted by Rainbowfeet @ 03/03/2004 9:29 PM EST

I copied one of the pages and well, I used the paint program to color a great picture of Skeletor It was pretty cool. But a complete waste of time. Still I have something to do at work tommorrow if they have no work to give me.

Ghosted by Rowan Steele @ 03/03/2004 9:30 PM EST

on top of it already rainbowfeet:

http://phocusmusic.com/teela.jpg

Ghosted by chad @ 03/03/2004 9:32 PM EST

I wonder if these were closer to the *first* MOTU minicomics. This is something I never knew about until I read them at He-Man.org. They were more like illustrated booklets than comics. (Kind of like the Princess of Power minis where Catra was the only villain, whose evil plots involved stealing jewelry and stealing She-Ra’s boyfriend.)

The plot of these 3 or 4 are wierd: He-Man is just some cave bumkin who leaves his village to battle evil. He ends up saving the Sorcerous (which I know is the wrong spelling, but my Franklin Spelling Ace declares is an acutal word–maybe I want Sorceress?), sometimes called the Goddess–anyway it’s just the snake armor version of Teela. She gives him the Battle Ram and two different harnesses–one giving him super strength and one that projects a force field. (They both looked like the same harness to me, but what the hey.) This would explain the scene where Mer-Man is disrobing him. And you thought he was just a perv.

There’s no royal palace that I can see. (That would come in the second timeline, just before the toon-like third one. Three continuities in one minicomic toyline. Geez!) Stratos and Man-At-Arms are both hermits who have a shaky friendship with He-Man, who lives in a cave. The Power Sword has been split in half because it’s the key to Castle Greyskull.

Teela is just a clone of the Sorceress/Godess that Skeletor once tried to use to take over the Castle, but turned on her so she joins the Heroic Warriors. This is also where the "Spirit of the Castle" comes from.

And yes, these stories are just as odd as the ones in the coloring book. Head to He-Man.org, and look in the comic section.
http://www.he-man.org/primary_sects/comics/html/index.shtml

You’ll want "He-Man & the Power Sword", "King of Castle Greyskull" (which was later used as a View Master 3-reel set–I still have it packed away somewhere), "Battle in the Clouds", "The Vengeance of Skeletor", "The Tale of Teela" (which is actually a comic in the DC arcs, but it’s an odd story anyway so just read it, darn you!), and then just look around. It’s all up there and readable.

Hey, how often do *I* get to act like a know it all and be right?

Ghosted by ShadowWing the Technorganic Autobot @ 03/03/2004 9:57 PM EST

Wow. Just when I was wondering if the 80’s revival was going to wipe out true nostalgia of the era, I see a review of some old merchandise that barely made sense when it first came out, much less now. You can really weed out the poseurs from those who were consumed by MOTU as a kid when you whip out this shit.

A friend of mine actually had this book back in the day– I remember the sea monster’s head on the cover being far more disturbing than it had any right to be. Seriously, it’s like some lost soul got sent to hell and then turned all scaly and long-necked. Far too human of a monster to easily forget.

As for what He-man and Teela saw… I’m torn between Photog and badger badger badger.

Bitner Bitner Bitner Bitner Bitner…

Ghosted by Alt-Tab @ 03/03/2004 9:58 PM EST

Sorry for the double post after the way too long response but I forgot to add "Click on "Masters of the Universe". I was going to edit in the preview, but when I went back the whole form was blank I didn’t want to retype all that for one sentence. Can you blame me?

Ghosted by ShadowWing the blablabla @ 03/03/2004 9:59 PM EST

Hilarious Article. I had that same coloring book. Boy, that brings back memories.

Ghosted by Troy @ 03/03/2004 10:05 PM EST

funny shit once again

Ghosted by Scourge @ 03/03/2004 10:09 PM EST

Mine sucks, but I’ll post it anyway.

http://mywebpage.netscape.com/NoEarlOn/4.gif

Ghosted by Teirusu @ 03/03/2004 10:15 PM EST

Note about mine: Wait a couple of seconds, it’s animated (Sorta).

Ghosted by Teirusu @ 03/03/2004 10:16 PM EST

Hey She-Man, just wanted to say that Matt said "basketball" player, so it wasnt the Big Unit.

Well known? New Jersey? I’ll go with Jason Kidd (6′4", taller than the avg. person) or 6′9" Kenyon Martin.

Hope this helps (if anyone else cares).
http://www.nba.com/playerfile/jason_kidd/index.html?nav=page
http://www.nba.com/playerfile/kenyon_martin/index.html?nav=page

Ghosted by Mizzat @ 03/03/2004 11:12 PM EST

Point Pleasant? As a previous resident of the town, I just have to point out that, if you were at the boardwalk, it’s Point Pleasant ‘Beach’. And yes, there is a difference. I never met a basketball player there, though. Kathy Ireland, on the other hand…

Picky-ness aside, your captions to this book were hilarious. Thanks for all the great stories and (sometimes embarrassing) memories!

Ghosted by Lackadaisical @ 03/04/2004 12:06 PM EST

Point Pleasant Beach it is, then. My friends and I actually go there quite a bit during the summer. The boardwalk can’t compare in sheer seedy joy to the almighty Wildwood, but it’s a Hell of a lot closer to where we live and there’s lots of bars. Plus, I love that stupid little aquarium. And the fact that the parking lots sometimes become full, necessitating street parking roughly 18 miles away from said boardwalk.

Ghosted by Matt @ 03/04/2004 12:09 PM EST

Awesome stuff as usual. Good to see a new He-man update, and one of the highest quality at that.

Ghosted by Rood @ 03/04/2004 12:19 PM EST

Yay Chad!!

Ghosted by Rainbowfeet @ 03/04/2004 12:28 PM EST

well this is actually what they and what i should only hope to see.

teela and He-Man

Ghosted by CheyenneWay @ 03/04/2004 12:34 PM EST

im so tired i cant remeberm what i was going to tyope……..disneyland trip tommorrow… ^_^ >:O

Ghosted by heeloyd @ 03/04/2004 2:41 AM EST

It’s all pretty funny, but… for some reason… that last page had me laughing at an impudent volume for such an early hour. Especially "The Square Who Acted Like an Oval" and Skeletor’s eyes reading "cut out", like he’s possessed by the spirit of Dave Coulier as "Uncle Joey", except that the exact quote is "Come on, come on, cut it out!", but I’ll just pretend that Skeletor’s eyes are giving you the gist of what Spirit Uncle Joey is thinking.

Anyhow, damn, I can’t find a picture and don’t want to go through my brother’s "archives" under the stairs this evening, but, if someone has this, please, please draw in the "Alphabet Pet" from the early 1980s X-Men Coloring Book and add a sign saying "Alphabet Pet: PROPERTY OF MAGNETO!" for the ultimate colouring book crossover!

Ghosted by Steve Brandon @ 03/04/2004 3:26 AM EST

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