Roger Sweet
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Roger Sweet was a lead designer at the toy company Mattel throughout the 1980s. He claims that his most significant work was originating the concept and design for the Masters of the Universe toy line, which went on to become Mattel's most successful toy line of the 1980s and has retained a strong cult following to this day as well as undergoing several revivals. Sweet claims to have originated and named the line's lead character of He-Man and many other key characters and vehicles of the line.
Prior to his work at Mattel, Sweet spent 13 years in consumer design producing successful products for Rubbermaid, Hoover, Downy and Scope.
In 2005 Sweet's book, Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion-Dollar Idea was released, charting his claimed role in the creation of the Masters of the Universe line and its tumultuous fall from grace as a result of Mattel's politics and demands. While the book is advertised as the "inside story" of He-Man, there is actually very little content in the book having to do with the toy or series. The book mainly covers Sweet's personal experiences working in corporate America, and offers little insight into the franchise itself.
[edit] Controversy
Although Roger Sweet is acknowledged in some circles as the "creator" of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe line, he is not officially recognised as such by Mattel nor the toy industry in general, and is not well-known even amongst MOTU fans. According to Sweet's own book on the topic, the industry at large did not recognise him as the primary creator of the concept, and others have staked their claim to being the true creator. In particular, the book discusses how former collaborator Mark Taylor openly claimed to be the creator of He-Man, making the statement outright and to Sweet's face no less. According to Sweet, Taylor disseminated this claim to the point where many (and possibly most) in Mattel and the wider toy industry believed Taylor's version of events, even to the extent that after leaving Mattel Sweet could not get another job in the industry, and also later publications on the history of the toy industry cite only Taylor as He-Man's originator.
Although Sweet cites many numbered patent application and Idea Disclosure forms filed at Mattel supporting his claim as the creator of He-Man et al, many are stated to include other collaborator's names as signs of good faith. However, although Sweet's claims appear authoritative they are not (as yet) corroborated by any impartial source with access to Mattel's records. As such, Sweet's claim to be the primary creator of Masters of the Universe is, in the strictest sense, effectively hearsay.
Furthermore, even if Sweet's version of events is to be taken at face value, the nature of his assertion is almost purely concerned with the design level, and using the broadest conceptual strokes. Specifically, Sweet conceptualised the exaggerated musculature, pose and "attitude" of the initial He-Man character, as well as the name. Sweet's book clearly states that he originally conceived of and pitched He-Man as a generic character who could be transposed into a multitude of different period/theme settings amid a highly versatile line, as opposed to the singular sword & sorcery setting that the MOTU line came to be as the result of an executive decision. Sweet does, however, claim responsibilitiy for consistently injecting sci-fi elements into the predominantly fantasy world, thus retaining some small measure of his original concept for the line.
Although Sweet takes credit for many of the MOTU characters' visual designs and action gimmicks, his book spends little space indicating who created the mythology, character personalities and backstories of the MOTU storyline, generally suggesting that this was not his concern. He specifically does mention that some of the many fundamental aspects of the MOTU story were originated by other people; in particular he credits Filmation with inventing the premise and characterisation of Prince Adam and Cringer as He-Man and Battle Cat's secret identities (something many fans long-ago surmised on the basis that earliest few minicomics sold with the first wave of action figures gave He-Man a different origin which did not include the Adam persona), a concept which he states his dislike of in no uncertain terms. Sweet's book makes it quite clear by both implication and direct statement that many if not most of the story and character elements of MOTU (essentially everything other than the visual product conception and design) were actually created by the writers of the various MOTU minicomics, comic books and the Filmation animated series.
Therefore, there is some question as to how much credit Sweet should be given as the primary "creator" of He-Man and MOTU, given that so much of the line's conceptual and storytelling elements were evidently created by writers contracted to market the toys via other media. Sweet freely admits this, and has a marked disdain for the animated series (in fact using derogatory slurs several times for Prince Adam, with particular hatred), but he seems to miss the point that it was the animated series that brought and kept fans, not simply the design of the toys. For instance, he says it "never occured" to them when designing the "Snake Mountain" playset to take cue from the designs in the animated series; this has left many to speculate that the reason the MOTU line did not survive longer was because of this incongruity between the series which developed the true following, and the toys produced around it.
[edit] Mastering the Universe book
Sweet's 2005 book Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion-Dollar Idea provides a memoir of his version of the behind the scenes of the corporate culture of the 1980s American toy industry. Sweet (with his co-author and nephew David Wecker) details the behind-the-scenes of the MOTU line's creation, rise to immense populatiry and then dizzying crash in which profits fell from a peak of making $400 million in US sales alone in 1986 to a mere $7 million in 1987. The book is primarily a view of the corporate workplace side of MOTU's creation, and the book actually details very little of the conceptual process behind inventing the individual MOTU characters and products.
However, Sweet's book is also noteworthy for containing many errors, perhaps as the result of poor editorial proofing and quality control as happens to many self-published works. The text contains a higher than average number of spelling mistakes and obvious inaccuracies in its constant citations of sales figures (it seems they had very little provable "fact" to write about, so the few things they did have they used multiple times, even if they were inaccurate). Of specific note are a number of glaring factual errors regarding specific toys/events that any casual to moderate MOTU fan would immediately spot. For example, just a few of these many mistakes include:
-p. 120 "Tri-Klops was a good guy". A well-known classic villain of the MOTU line, Tri-Klops was one of Skeletor's chief henchmen, and was frequently featured as such in the Filmation cartoon. The original toy's product subtitle carried on all packaging and advertisements was "Evil & sees everything".
-p. 132 & p. 207 describe Webstor's pulley mechanism as a thread which "ran through him, through his head and out his hintermost parts." The toy did not have the thread device pass through his actual body, but rather quite clearly fed through a detachable backpack.
-p.143 claims that the Masters of the Universe 1987 live-action film starred "a young Courteney Cox in the role of Teela." Teela was in fact played by actress Chelsea Field. Although Cox did feature in the movie, it was in the role of Earth girl Julie.
[edit] Books
Sweet, Roger; David, Wecker Mastering the Universe : He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion-Dollar Idea, Emmis Books July 11, 2005, ISBN 1-57860-223-8
