TV URBAN LEGEND: He-Man's loyal steed, Battle Cat, was simply a re-painted toy from an earlier toy line.
The legendary comic book artist Wallace Wood had a saying that he kept framed in his studio that read, "Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up" (and, appropriately enough, no one knows if Wood actually coined said phrase or if he, you know, copied it). That is valuable advice for a comic book artist trying to hit deadlines but it is also an important thing for the history of toy development at big companies like Mattel and, as a result of said toy developments, it can lead to major character development in cartoons and the like, as well.
This, of course, brings us to the bizarre origin of He-Man's steed, Battle Cat.
As you may or may not know, what we now think of as action figures really boils down to Hasbro's G.I. Joe toy line that launched in 1964 that actually coined the term "action figure" to differentiate these toys from "dolls."
G.I. Joe was a twelve inch plastic doll that had vinyl outfits. As the character became more and more popular, the maker of the toy (Hasbro) began developing different varieties of the toy. In the late 1960s, with the Vietnam War at his peak, the “soldier” aspect of the toy was downplayed and G.I. Joe became more of an “adventurer” than a “soldier
Eventually, the 1970s gas crisis actually lead to problems for the manufacturing of the G.I. Joe toy, which I wrote about in an old Toy Legends Revealed.
But before that point, G.I. Joe established a set-up that multiple toy companies (Hasbro included) basically copied, which was the idea of a toy but then you would have all of the ACCESSORIES for the toy. Like Barbie came with Barbie's Dream House and various cars and stuff, so, too, would G.I. Joe and his ilk come with vehicles for them to travel around in. These ancillary products were essential for successful toy lines.
Mattel's version of G.I. Joe during the 1970s was called Big Jim....
While G.I. Joe was tied more to being a soldier and, later, an adventurer, Big Jim was such a bare bones concept that Mattel has multiple different toy lines based on Big Jim doing ALL sorts of things. Big Jim as a soldier, as a spy, as a cowboy, as a survivalist, stuff like that.
What the Big Jim toy line allowed them to do, as well, was to re-use old toy concepts from different lines, as, say, you had some toys for a series of circus toys, well, then you could have Big Jim go to the circus and then re-use all of those circus toys for this new Big Jim line. Stuff like that. It was very economical for Mattel to just re-use stuff as much as they could. So there was a Big Jim in nature series and that one re-used a panther that had originally been created in 1971 for a Tarzan line of toys...
In this case, it was literally just lifted wholesale. "There was a panther, well, here is a panther."
Years later, that tied in with the creation of Battle Cat.
You see, when the He-Man line was designed, the characters were distinct enough that there wasn't a whole lot that Mattel could re-use for the characters, as they didn't fit the molds of the previous figures like Big Jim. That caused a problem, though, when the original toy line needed vehicles and stuff like that, since He-Man wouldn't fit in the Big Jim vehicles.
On the Netflix series, The Toys That Made Us, Mattel marketing director Paul Cleveland told the following story:
I had managed the Big Jim line, which was an international-only product by then. I knew there were tools [i.e. toy molds] that already existed that we didn’t have to pay for, and this tiger from the Big Jim line Big Jim was a 9.5-inch doll, so the tiger was scaled to a nine-to ten-inch character.
Tony Guerrero was the guy that sculpted He-Man, and Tony looks at me and says, “Paul, you can’t do it. It’s not to scale. It doesn’t look real.”
I said, “Tony, just do it,” and I walked out.
I come back the next day and he says, “I need to show you this,” and here’s this green tiger with orange stripes.
And he said, “See, look.”
I said, “Wow, that looks great.”
And he goes, “Oh, shit.” He said, “Paul, it still doesn’t matter. It’s as big as a horse.”
And I said, “I don’t give a fuck. If it’s as big as a horse, put a fucking saddle on it.” And I walked out again.
So, two days later I come back, and there’s a saddle on it and He-Man sitting on it, and I go, “Damn.”
And that became Battle Cat.
Designer Mark Taylor was the guy who had to come up with the way to re-use the panther figure and he later described it as follows in an interview with the great Battle Ram Blog:
BR: You designed the armor and helmet for Battle Cat as a way to reuse the Big Jim tiger. Can you talk a little bit about that design? The helmet design is quite striking, like some mythical beast.
Mark: I had used the Cat on the Tarzan line, I liked the sculpt but the 5.30″ He Man figures wouldn’t ride on him and I wanted him to ride on a huge cat. Nobody messes with a guy riding a huge armored cat! I had seen a guy ride a regular tiger in the circus and wow!
The head armor came from my childhood sketches and had to be engineered for costs and molding ease or the marketeers would lose it (thanks Ted).
BR: The colors green and orange seem to be pretty prominent on those early toys (Battle Cat, Man-At-Arms, Wind Raider). Is there a story behind that color scheme?
Mark: Not just a story but a lot of work and fighting, those colors were not very common in action toys. They pop but looked somewhat alien. I definitely did not want Battle Cat to look like a real tiger, he was much more that but they sold out on him in the animation and later toys after I left. He or He-Man were NEVER supposed to be silly in my imagination.
Paul Kupperberg then came up with the concept of Battle Cat also transforming from "Cringor" into Battle Cat and that became part of He-Man lore ever since.
By the way, Zoar, the giant bird in the Masters of the Universe line was ALSO a re-make of a Big Jim eagle.
The legend is...
STATUS: True
Thanks to The Toys That Made Us and the Battle Ram Blog and Mark Taylor for the information!
Be sure to check out my archive of TV Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of TV. Click here for more legends specifically about animated films and TV shows.
Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com.