Like many kids, I always wanted to be an astronaut. My love of science-fiction and comic books was born from a love of space and being an astronaut was high on the list of “coolest things to be.” Major Matt Mason was the greatest astronaut toy and was the next best thing to being an astronaut.
The toy itself was simplicity: it was made from a bendy plastic material with a metal skeleton holding it together. Because of the design, you could bend and pose Major Matt Mason in a variety of ways, making him perfect for putting into other toys.
All the Major Matt Mason toys I had were hand-me-downs from my brothers: he was produced in the late sixties and I was a little too young at the time to get my own. And while the ones I did eventually play with were a little scuffed up, it didn’t matter: he still looked like an astronaut and had all the cool accessories.
My favorite Major Matt Mason accessory was his helmet. It had a hinged visor for opening and closing and fit not only on Major Matt Mason, but also on certain Fisher-Price people (I had a pine-wood derby car “driven” by a Fisher-Price person wearing a Major Matt Mason helmet when I was in the Cub Scouts).
We probably did have some other accessories for the Major, but I can’t recall any of them: it was likely that my brothers broke them long before I was playing with them. The joints on the Major also would break after a time: the plastic would become a little brittle and the metal would start to poke out of the “skin.” In the early 70s, you couldn’t buy any new ones, either. Too bad: of all the toys on my list, I think the Major Matt Mason toys were the most educational of the lot.
Captain Lazer was also part of the Major Matt Mason toy line, strangely enough, even though the good Captain was a 12 inch doll with very little in common with the much smaller and much more flexible Major. Captain Lazer had a very dorky helmet that I loved and used on my G.I. Joes and the Silver Knight. Captain Lazer was also recycled into Battlestar: Galactica toys.
- Major Matt Mason’s Base on the Web: a great site with a lot of photos and old catalogs and advertisements.
- Spark’s Major Matt Mason Site
- Major Matt Mason: Mattel’s Man in Space
- Wildtoy’s Major Matt Mason Site
Other Toys I Wish I Still Had
- #10: SSP Racers
- #9: Hot Wheels and Sizzlers
- #8: Microvision
- #7: The Six Million Dollar Man
- #6: The Star Trek Tracer Gun
- #5: Silver Knight/Gold Knight
- #4: Space: 1999 Eagle Transporter
This entry was posted on Monday, February 13th, 2006 at 7:49 pm and is filed under Toys. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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