"Thank you for your passion and your energy! Thank you, thank you very much!"
This is how the manager of the Masters of the Universe brand, Josh Graham, received the around 40 informants who attended the invitation from the Mattel company to visit the workshops of that line of toys and audiovisual products and, incidentally, attend the presentation of new products associated with the popular superhero of the 80s. The event was held a few days ago at the company's facilities in Los Angeles.
Most of those present responded with applause and cheers to the greeting and words of welcome from Graham, who would soon be joined by the team of designers and engineers behind the dolls, vehicles, castles and pots that make up the MOTU universe: the acronym in English of the Masters of the Universe by which almost all those gathered there referred with all familiarity to the brand, which they seemed to know almost as well as their own creators and re-creators.
It is not usual for a general information journalist to attend presentations in which the recipients and future transmitters of the information are as enthusiastic or more enthusiastic as those who provide it. But such is the world of youtubers, bloggers and fan group leaders with a website or a channel on social networks.
Mattel's call was for the press and influencers, but the vast majority of the journalists gathered there were highly specialized in toys, series and movies of this type.
Among the guests from a total of seven countries in Europe and Latin America, in addition to the United States, were, for example, the Mexican youtuber Rodrigo de Orduña, whose channel for collecting old toys, Mudhunter, has more than a million followers. Or the journalist and entertainment critic Jana Monji, a Californian well introduced to the world of Hollywood and always with a focus on the Asian side of cultural products. Or the drummer and collector of action figures, as well as vinyl records and limited editions of films, Andrés Medina, an Argentine resident in Mexico who runs the film and series website Spoiler Time. As well as the Mexican installed in Los Angeles Rubén Pérez JR, representative of the site entertainmentrocks.com and whom we find recording a video next to the enormous figure of He-Man placed in the lobby of the Mattel facilities in El Segundo, south of Los Angels.
Everyone seemed to vibrate before the imminent tour of the MOTU workshops.
The walk through the backstage of Masters of the Universe began with a visit to the sound booth in which the summoned who wanted could double He-Man pronouncing his magical and most famous phrase: "I have the power!"
The itinerary continued with a guided tour of the Masters model workshop and the scanning center, with its spectacular spherical tent with 64 cameras for making three-dimensional figures.
And at the end, an intensive session on the development of MOTU toys in the so-called Eternia Room, with an announcement of everything that is coming to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the blond hero, whose third series, Masters of the Universe, will be released this year by Netflix: Revolution.
At the culmination of the visit, the designers and the manager of the brand presented the novelties that will go on sale in the coming months: the figures of Masterverse Deluxe Revelation Duncan, Skeletor of Masterverse New Adventures, the vehicle of Origins Ground Ripper and Mekaneck , Frog Monger Origins, the Origins Anti-Eternia He Skeletor, the Origins Flocked Moss Man, and the Origins Snake Mountain and Origins Eternia playsets, the latter funded by crowdfunding.
As you can see, the passion for He-Man is such that the second largest toy company in the world in terms of sales, behind Lego, gets its fans to help finance production.
Passion and energy! That is the key.
