Today in the AFi archives we have a Cinderella story.   The little monkey that could.     Back in the 1980′s when Mattel was producing the original Masters of the Universe toy line they were re-purposing animal figures from their ‘Big Jim’ line.  The tiger became Battle Cat, the eagle became Zoar and SCREEEECH.  And then there was Gygor.  Gygor was concepted to be a repaint of the ‘Big Jim’ gorilla… but it was never meant to be.   Gygor was never released in the original line. 

Flash forward 20+ years and thanks to Mattel and the Four Horsemen, Gygor is now a reality and he’s coming to your collections September 15th via MattyCollector.com.

Mattel tells the story like this:

So one of the big things we wanted to do for the MOTUC line is to introduce figures that never quite made it into the vintage line. Much like He-Ro, Gygor the gorilla made it as a prototype into the vintage line but no toy has been made…until now.

Originally based on the "Big Jim Gorilla" (much like Battlecat or Zoar) Gygor was set to be a large gorilla figure in the 1982 line. While he was cut due to logistics, we are proud to present the first ever MOTU Gygor figure in the new Classics line. Truly, this is what the MOTUC line is all about.

Gygor was originally shown to fans at Mattel’s press event at Toy Fair 2010.   Mattel was quick to point out that he was not just a rehash of The Four Horsemen’s Gorilla Grodd figure from the DCUC line, going so far as to post a comparison shot of the two of them next to each other on their Facebook page.   There are a lot of parts that are clearly new such as the head, torso and hands, but when you look at the arms and legs of the two figures the hair patterns are so similar that you would swear that some Grodd parts were just scaled up.  When you look really close you will see some subtle differences between the sculpts such as some tufts of hair on the forearms used to hold his wrist armor in place.

All armor on Gygor is removable.  All his joints are tight,and his paint is clean.   His torso and legs are thick rotocast vinyl and his arms and head are abs plastic.

Fans will note that with a few new parts this buck could easily be used to give us figures of the Shadow Beasts.  

The final oversized beast/pack for 2010 will be an army builder two pack shown off at Mattel’s fan panel at SDCC on Friday July 23 at 1:00 in room 29ABC.

You can see all the pictures in Gygor’s entry in the AFi Archive.

Share:

Posted by JuliusMarx