I always thought Matt Tracker's car (I can't even remember the name) was kinda crap as essentially its doors just opened. Rhino was an awesome toy though. I also liked Vampire. I actually enjoyed the figures too. Even though the articulation was crappy by todays standards, I liked removeable helmets. I actually trolled Ebay for a reasonable condition Pirahna a while back as that was always the one I wanted but never even saw in real life. I didn't find one though, and now the feeling has kinda passed.
I know the feeling, I enjoyed the few MASK toys I found back when (the old Kay-Bee Clearance stores were great for finding these, that's where I found some of the Split Seconds late-release ones). I never did get a Hurricane (the blue '57 Chevy that turns into a tank) and Ebayed one. Pretty fun in a retro way, but not terrifically complex when compared to modern TFs. I'd love to see someone take these on in a modern way. Look at some of the great transforming vehicles Lego was able to do in the Alpha Team lines. If Kre-O was feeling both ambitious and nostalgic, it'd be fun for them to do a Kre-O MASK line of transforming vehicles. The masks would be easy enough. Tim "toy geek"
Wow, and this thread appears out of the blue just as I'm dropping the cartoon. Sat through about 46 episodes before finally giving up because I realized that they'd dropped anything that might even remotely resemble an original plot (like the one where they knock off David Copperfield's disappearing Statue of Liberty trick by turning it into a basic but over the top blackmail scheme) and just settled for the "VENOM does treasure hunt in some country around the world, MASK stops them" plot formula, which made it unbearable repetitive. I might just skip the rest of season 1 and watch the season 2 at some point since, at least by the sound of it, it does something original again.
Yeah, some of the vehicles were kind of lame. Robot Chicken did a great job pointing out all the flaws in song: Adult Swim Video - Robot Chicken - Put a M.A.S.K. on it - YouTube The Rhino was my favorite of the MASK team and I did enjoy playing with Condor quite a bit, too. Funny, I never got any of the VENOM vehicles.
Last season has some fantastic episodes. IIRC 'For One Shining Moment' and 'Race Against Time' are very good solid stories.
Before I got really into Transformers, I was into M.A.S.K. It was tough catching on when all I had were a couple of the toy insert catalogs, some bio cards, and whatever I could glean from when my friends let me borrow their M.A.S.K. videotapes (which was rare as hell), but the line will always hold a special place in my heart. Hell, my parents would probably keep my Rhino toy longer than I would, because that was one of the lines (along with Starcom) that THEY liked me to have. I'd love to see a mask reboot, and they tried it once in the 90s by re-releasing some of the older figures, but it didn't catch on. It could be the closest we get is M.A.S.K. characters in GI Joe and Stealth Force.
It's actually a shame that the 'Specialist Trakker' figure included in G.I.Joe's 25th Anniversary toyline was nothing more than a nod to MASK on Hasbro's part. If they made an all new toyline with the characters done like modern G.I.Joe and updated new versions of the MASK vehicles, that would be epic. Sadly, to Hasbro it seems MASK is too much like their other properties combined (Transformers and G.I.Joe) and don't want a product to compete with another of their own products....or something.
I've been prugeing toys as of late and it looks like MASK is on the chopping block.Still have to go through all my tubes of toys to make sure I have it all.Would there be much of a market here for it? Really don't feel like dealing with ebay with it.
Ha! only now do I find the M.A.S.K. thread here on TFW2005. I've always been a HUGE M.A.S.K. fan, even more so than I was ever a Transformers fan. I'm lucky enough to have a complete general release M.A.S.K. toy collection, most of it still MIB. It's currently all in storage, but even just knowing it's there is a nice thought. My last and pretty recent purchase was the (rather weird) Argentinian carded Jackhammer turret on a hill, with the repainted Cliff Dagger. A revival of M.A.S.K., in the form of a new toy line and/or a movie would seriously be a literal dream come true: many nights have I dreamt of going into a toystore and suddenly finding out they had re-imagined M.A.S.K. toys for the 21st Century.
I really liked MASK for about a year and a half. Had the Camaro with the door wings, the motorcycle that turned into a helicopter, and the jeep that opened up and a boat popped out. One of my friends had the Rhino, so there wasn't much point in getting my own. The Venom vehicles I had were the blue plane that turned into a helicopter, the black SUV, and the motorcycle with the side car. I don't remember too much about it because I haven't seen anything about it lately except for on Robot Chicken.
So, you owned Thunderhawk, Condor and Gator for the MASK side, and Switchblade, Jackhammer and Piranha for Venom. A good selection, considering these were the vehicles most often featured in the first season. Piranha was the first M.A.S.K. vehicle I ever owned, but Switchblade is probably my favorite vehicle. I still know every vehicle name, every character, and I remember pretty much all the names for the masks too (and even what the masks were supposed to do).
I was close to reviving this thread myself but I was beaten to the punch TFs will always be my first love, but MASK is probably second. Awesome toys and awesome concept. And the show was really good. I actually learned a lot about the world from the show, things like Ayers Rock, El Dorado, Lippizahner Stallions, etc, and it was pretty smart for a kid show. (Let's just forget about the "racing" season, which was just dumb). I own most of the first and second series of toys, and I played with them a lot as a kid. I fell out of it around the time of the Split Seconds, so I only owned a couple of those. I don't know EVERY character, vehicle, and mask, but I know a lot of them. Once I finish my G1 collection, I'd like to finish my MASK collection as well. It's nice the prices aren't horrible like TFs, but I'm amazed this line hasn't gotten more love. I'll post some pics of my stuff when I can
F*** Kre-O: someone actually used proper Lego to recreate M.A.S.K. vehicles and figures! Check out Orion Pax's site: he's the absolute Lego king of recreating iconic '80's toys and other stuff! He's also done quite a few Transformers in Lego.
That's a wonderful picture! It reminds me of the M.A.S.K. commercials from back in the '80's which ended with the two kids actually looking up from their toys (I believe) and looking at an actual Kenworth truck rolling out of a gas station just like Boulder Hill. If I remember correctly, the Kenworth truck in the commercial was actually blue, instead of red, which always struck me as weird. Let me see... this is the one! Yup, blue truck... But that gas station doesn't look like Boulder Hill. This one is a comparable commercial: it's kids looking up from playing with Thunderhawk, and seeing a real life DeLorean(!) with it's gullwing doors closing... Never saw this one before, but again I'm puzzled why they're showing a different car. Oh well, I guess the DeLorean was the most famous car with gull-wing doors, and customizing a real life Camaro might have been a little expensive... Also looks to be a commercial with a real life 'Gator' type Jeep.