I once read somewhere that it must have
taken a VERY hungry man to eat the very first lobster. Who would’ve thought that this oversized bony
& spikey insect looking thing from the sea would taste oh so good! But I'm getting off-topic….this isn’t a food blog
afterall. Meet Clawful, the Warrior with
the Grip of Evil!
As part of the 3rd wave of
Masters of The Universe figures, Clawful (get it? Claw-Full? Or Cl-AWFUL? Oh I
just love those terrible He-Man puns!)
made his toy debut in 1984. He
wasn’t one of the figures I actually had since I really didn’t have many He-Man
toys to begin with, but I do remember him making a strong impression on me
through the cartoons.
Unlike most of Skeletor’s crew, he wasn’t
THAT much of a bumbling idiot. In fact,
in many cases he was portrayed to as being smarter and more ambitious than most
of his fellow evil masters. At one
point, he was even referred to by Skeletor as his “right-hand-man”. Even back then, I knew that meant something
special. Anyway, as much as I enjoyed
his character in the cartoon, since I didn’t have the toy, I didn’t really care
much for it, add to the fact the toy looked nothing like he did in the cartoon.
It turns out that it was the animators who where wrong as they based their drawings on an early Clawful design. He basically ended up looking more like a red lizard or dragon. Oh and here’s an interesting tidbit, although the toy design had Clawful sporting an oversized right claw, animators drew him with two similar sized claws. The reason being why they made him symetrical was so they could easily flip the animation cell over should he need to face a different direction.
It turns out that it was the animators who where wrong as they based their drawings on an early Clawful design. He basically ended up looking more like a red lizard or dragon. Oh and here’s an interesting tidbit, although the toy design had Clawful sporting an oversized right claw, animators drew him with two similar sized claws. The reason being why they made him symetrical was so they could easily flip the animation cell over should he need to face a different direction.
Anyway, in the 2002 reboot of the He-Man
cartoon, Clawful’s design was made more faithful to the original toy…on
steroids! Seriously….look at how much
this guy grew. Unfortunately that wasn’t
the only thing they changed. Maybe it
was all the steriods, but Clawful was no longer the intelligent right-hand man
of Skeletor. They made him into the
stupidest of all his henchmen (no, really) and to add insult to injury, we find
out in one of the few episodes to feature him that he is actually one of the
stupidest members of his race (of crab/lobster people). Talk about a major demotion. But stupid or not, his new design made him
look infinitely cooler and more imposing.
Unfortunately, for some strange reason, he was left out of the
accompanying new toyline. Although a
sculpt of him was made, the line was cancelled before it could be mass produced.
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Lovin the lobster tail g-string! |
When the Masters of The Universe Classics
rolled out a few years back, Clawful FINALLY made his modern action figure
debut. Unfortunately, by this time, the
higher-ups in Mattel had “retired” the amped up and ultra detailed look of the
2002 line and were going for a more faithful tribute to the original toy (hence
the term “classics”). So Clawful lost
his super steroid look and went back to looking like his original self…albeit in
a modern updated way.
Although the Four Horsemen (who are still
the mastermind designers behind the Classics line) managed to sneak in a few
extra details that the original toy didn’t have…namely a cool back carapace
thingee and an additional shell themed shield that the orginal toy didn’t have,
they had no choice but to faithfully update the original’s goofy looking
head.
This for me was the biggest
drawback for the figure after seeing their cool update of his head in the 2002
design. We were back with the big black
bushy eyebrows that made him look more like a muppet than an evil lobster dude.
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Long lost muppet.... |
Luckily, a fan sculpter based in Germany
(I’m assuming) took it upon himself to sculp and mass produce 2002 inspired
Clawful heads. I didn’t think twice and
ordered myself one. So now my Clawful is
complete! So there you have it, the not so “cl-AWFUL” history of one of my
favorite Masters of the Universe.
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No longer (cl)awful... |