It Took Me nearly 50 years, but I found it!!

So when I was a kid, back in the 60's one Christmas I got a toy set from Mattel called "Major Matt Mason". Anyone remember those? They were these bendy rubber astronaut figures which looked pretty lifelike, and they had a bunch of accessories. Major Matt Mason was their commander, and they had other figures too. They supposedly lived on the Moon. Boy, lemme' tell ya, I was "into" Major Matt Mason toys like nobody's business! They were all I wanted. So, over their relatively short run (66-71 I think) I got a bunch of Major Matt Mason stuff for Christmas and BD's, etc. At one point I had the space station, the lunar crawler, the space sled and a bunch of other stuff. (Note - wish I would have kept all that stuff because it's worth a fortune now, but that's another thread).



On a side note - a few years later I even sent Major Matt Mason on a real space mission when I was into Estes rockets. Yep! We rubber banded the Major himself onto a big 'D-engine' Estes rocket and launched him. One of his bendy wires in his arms had broken, and I had another one, so he was kind of expendable. Plus, one of his legs was kind of melted from a terrible plastic spaceship crash and resulting BBQ lighter fluid and modeling glue fire in the garage (that was a COOL one...and boy did we get in trouble too! Mom even got "the Stick" out on that one!....OUCH!)

Anyway, all my friends wanted to come over and play with the MMM stuff. We'd dream up these elaborate space missions and so forth. Major Matt Mason was straight-up COOL! In some respects he was my idol, but I digress. Shortly after MMM, and as the MMM craze was winding down (much to my horror!), Mattel came out with another action figure series, but these figures were underwater adventurers, and they were even cooler in some respects. For one thing, we had a small pool so the SCUBA genre fit right in. Well, I never got any of those toys, but one of my friends did. Now he didn't think it was nearly as cool as I did. In fact, he kind of thought they were dumb, so he was always doing dumb stuff with them. I would beg him to let me borrow them so I didn't have to do the dumb stuff he always wanted to do, but he'd never let me. At one point we were wrestling in the pool trying to gain control of this one SCUBA diver figure in a desperate game of "keep away". Somehow, I don't even remember how now, the one action figure he had got launched about 40 feet in the air. It arced up and over onto the roof of my house. POOF...Gone! DAMMIT!!

We looked high and low for that figure, even venturing onto the scary roof once (when Mom wasn't home). We rooted through all the bushes, looked in all the gutters, we looked everywhere. Never did find it. In the following weeks/months I had saved up some money, and wanted to go to Toys R Us to get one of these guys myself. I mean, they had SCUBA tanks and everything! Well, by the time I went looking for them they were nowhere to be found. At the time, I didn't even know what their name was, so when I'd go in the store I'd try to describe what I was looking for and everyone would just shrug like they didn't know. So, it was back to Major Matt Mason. That was as good as it was going to get.

I eventually outgrew Major Matt Mason and life moved on. For many years afterwards though I always wondered what happened to the action figure which flew up on the roof. I would lay awake at night trying to mentally figure out where he could have gone. It was almost like a treasure quest; I didn't want to play with the figure anymore as much as I just wanted to solve the mystery. Well, I never found him. We moved away and that chapter of my life ended.

Several years ago I remembered this whole series of events for some reason. And, in addition to wondering what ever happened to that stupid action figure, I was bound and determined to figure out what the name of the action series was. Now, armed with the Interwebz, I should be able to find out anything, right? Nope. Then it became a quest of sorts...some stupid fun thing to do on the internet when I was bored.

Just today I was looking at some guys blog about the Major Matt Mason genre of toys. The guy was a history buff and big time collector. There was even a conspiracy element to the disappearance of Mattel's Major Matt Mason and the Moon landings (interesting). Moon Conspiracy

In the course of reading something caught my eye...a reference to a similar sized series of underwater action figures similar to MMM. Wow...could I have finally stumbled onto and discovered what these mystical toys were??? He didn't go into much detail, but just enough to give me something to search with.

Voila! SUCCESS!! Almost 50 years later....Sea Devils.



To this day I still wonder what happened to that Sea Devil toy figure, but now at least I know what they were. I've got half a mind to go out on Ebay and buy one just for the heck of it. After all these years, I can still vividly remember that action figure sailing up into the air and vanishing forever. Maybe I'll do just that...and go run a tub full of water, and...well, never mind! LOL!!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk


I remember those 'bendy' action figures from when I was a kid...I had some (not Matt Mason).
The problem with them, as I remember, was that the wires inside the character's legs and arms rusted in the toy box...and the rust seeped through the flex air holes at the toy's joints.

a reply to: IAMTAT

Yeah, the wires were a problem area for the toys. Most times the wires would break if you played with them too much. Then their arms and legs wouldn't stay in place and were just springy. So, as a kid, you almost needed two sets of them. Ones that got the heavy play usage, and another set which were more static.

I don't recall Major Matt Mason stuff at all. Maybe it was after my time of playing with army toys, I was done with that kind of stuff when I was eight or nine, so sixty three or four and later I did not pay attention to that kind of stuff. I remember the GI joe stuff and the little plastic toy soldiers and of course Ken....my sister made me play with her when she did Barbie

We played with cap guns, dart guns, and bows with rubber tipped arrows, we made our own bows and arrows from the woods too, that was always fun and I showed my wife's friends grandkids how to make bows and arrows from the woods. They had a ball, then we went and snuck potatoes from under the potato plants and cooked them on the fire pit in a dutch oven. They really enjoyed learning about those things...even though they were city slickers.

That is awesome, especially when you can remember the excitement.

My first space toy was a buck rogers star fighter that even fired rockets. I treasured that toy and even brought it to school to show off...

Why does every one of those figures have two first names? I’m getting kind of uneasy.

About 20 years ago, there was a contest organized among high-powered amateur rocket enthusiasts to be the first to launch a “hobby” rocket to space (then defined as an altitude of at least 62 miles).

The contest was called the C.A.T.S. (Cheap Access To Space) Prize, and had participants around the world.

Most entries were based on the typical ground-launched rockets (usually multi-staged) everyone is familiar with. Complicated, and prone to failure, especially at booster separation.

I was a member of one of only two teams that chose to make the attempt using a rocket lofted to high altitude (planned at approximately 100,000+FT) before main motor ignition. It is called a “Rockoon” launch system, and was designed to allow us to hit our 62 mile target altitude using a much simpler and more reliable single stage rocket.

Many test launches of the helium balloon-based launch platform were conducted prior to our planned attempt.

The rocket itself was also separately tested many times, although those tests were done somewhat “under the radar” since the rocket motor we were using was not exactly legal to transport in our state!

On at least one of those launch platform tests to “the Edge of Space”, as altitudes above 100K feet are often called, our own Major Matt flew in his own specially designed (unpressurized) cabin to “monitor” the system’s performance.

Happy to report that the Major was safely recovered from every flight, and now lives in comfortable retirement on the grounds of a small aerospace firm in Northern California.

a reply to: ClovenSky

That's pretty cool!

The other toy I liked was the Space 1999 spaceships. Never had any of those though.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Those were great!
So were these :
2warpstoneptune.com...

Remember?

S&F

That was a great story! I want to go look for it now.
All I got was GI Joe. just got him out of the closet right now. Whole foot locker full of accessories, dive tanks, jump suit, machine gun, garand, radio packm and a whole box of goodies. Even a rubber barrel I made with goop in my creepy crawler set.

My grandmother gave me a hammer, a box of nails, and saw for my 5th birthday.
I immediately began work on building a space ship.
It never got off the ground but i had some cool purple fingernails to show off.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

haha, that brings back memories. There were these stupid (IMO) building blocks that sucked: Construx.





I got these a few times and just ended up blowing them up with firecrackers. They wouldn't fit with tinkertoys or legos at all...grrrr

but at least they put out a few glow in the dark pieces which slightly lessened their suckyness.

a reply to: Bhadhidar

you win the internet today with that story!!!


I had a MMM. I think his sergeant sidekick had the orange suit. lots of play time with them
thanks for posting.

I would have loved one of those scuba guys too!

a reply to: ClovenSky

I made the shrink ray from "Honey I Shrunk The Kids" out of constructs once

I still have a few Star Trek Toys from my youth

I wish I had some of the toys I loved growing up. The quality on them was amazing.

There was the John Deere Tractor that you could only get from John Deere dealers. Oh, and the huge Tonka trucks like the dump truck and the backhoe. All metal with real rubber tires. Those saw some heavy duty playtime for sure, heh.

There was also a set of Breyer horse models. Big ones. Very sturdy and heavy material. I really wish I had those back. They are collectibles now. I remember a palomino and pinto breed.

I also had a couple of 1950's Barbies that were my mom and aunts, but I never messed with those much. My grandmother gave them to a girl that actually played with them at some point.

I remember having a slingshot in my pocket everywhere and a BB gun for knocking bottles off fence posts.

I think I had a Stretch Armstrong at some point. He had gross gooey stuff inside if you broke him.

Those bendy figures, I do remember. I had some, but not the ones you are talking about.

a reply to: Subrosabelow

It almost seems like the toys of the past were made with better materials and care.

I can remember some of the transformers when they first came out. A lot of the construction was actually die-cast metal:



Now to jump into the wayback machine and regain some of the innocence to spend hours with no worries, no cares and a vast excitement to play with toys for hours on end with imagination unbridled.

a reply to: ClovenSky

“The more complex the mind, the greater the need for play”.


Buy your favorite toy (say it’s for your kids), take some time for yourself (it’s proven to be healthy), lock the door if you feel the need (no judgement here),

And allow yourself to play like a kid again!

Unbridle that imagination and ride it to new adventures!

a reply to: Bhadhidar

That's a great story!

And it was really Major Matt Mason on the flight too??

Ummmm....you stole my idea!!!

I mean, my rocket with Matt on board went to almost 300 feet or so...that was into "space"...for an 8 year old!

Just to be safe we had tied the Major off to the chute line in case the rubber bands broke (we couldn't risk losing the Major on his first real mission). This particular rocket didn't separate just below the nose cone, but further back behind a forward set of stabilization fins. So when the chute charge went off the rocket body separated as planned, but then there was a problem. The chute opened, Matt had been ripped from the forward section (good thing we tied him off) and Matt, along with the rear section returned safely to earth. The forward section had a different idea and plummeted straight down like a Jart and stuck in Mr. Jorgenson's roof. I cut his lawn at the time as he was kind of elderly. I didn't have the courage to tell him about the rocket, and he never noticed it. It eventually fell over in the wind and blew off the roof.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I had one and remember Major Matt Mason. You must also be an old fart.

I lost my Major Matt, in a similar accident as yours. We were into the Estes rockets, and I bought one that had an onboard camera, that was purported to take a picture after it popped the cone and was falling back to Earth. That rocket worked, but it couldn't accomodate any more than the two in-line rockets it required to reach its zenith.

Soooo, we set out to make our own rocket, with routed out chambers for four of the 'engines' and then four more. The rocket had a nose cone made of basla, a girth of 2 1/4 inches, and a length of 22 inches, with four majestic tail fins.

When launched with ol' Major as a payload, it swooshed up and over and up and over it a matter of seconds,and was out of sight. Never found the ol' boy, but I know he went out the way he wanted, even if the engines caught him on fire.

That was a great toy. Jet pack and helmet were well made.

Yep, the Estes "CAM-ROC Carrier" as I recall the name. Had the exact same one, but that wasn't the one we used for Major Matt's first mission into space. Launched lots of toads into space with it though. As I recall, the rocket didn't come with the camera. The camera was sold separately. The rocket itself came with a clear plastic tube which went where the camera was to go, so the rocket could still be launched. Perfect spot to stick a 'space toad'.

The pool in our back yard would get covered in the winter time. By spring there were lots of leaves and water on the cover. It was the perfect breeding ground for thousands and thousands of willing 'space toad' volunteers!

ETA - No toads were harmed in the space missions, and all survived. I'm sure some were a little freaked out about the whole thing, hey, they're a toad, but they lived normal toad lives afterwards.