Sunday 12 May 2013

Kenner Collector - was a M.A.S.K. revival on the cards? Were there more missing vehicles?


Re my previous post, Missing M.A.S.K.Snowmobile, I've gone back to the Kenner Collector website for another look as I was curious about something else that I'd seen - and found another couple of interesting things whilst there.  I thought that I'd share them with you all.

From their website we read -

"Kenner’s Morgue wasn’t the only thing still located at 2950 Robertson Ave. in Cincinnati, Ohio during the final days of Kenner.  In the same warehouse that stored all of the pre-production material I wrote about earlier, was a section that Kenner referred to as the Museum.  This is where Kenner kept final production examples of many of their toy lines.  These saved items went all the way back to the beginning days of Kenner, and in many cases included multiple examples of each.  One ex-employee recalls that one to four cases of each toy were to be kept, but that may have varied based on if the toys came in variety cases like action figures.

The term museum makes it sound like they were being preserved for historical reasons, but the toys were being kept more for practical reasons than for historical or sentimental value.  The toys in the Museum were constantly being used as part of the toy making process.  Kenner employees working on new toys could check items out of the Museum to use on their projects.   There are a lot of reasons they would need to do this, including seeing how certain action features worked on a toy so they could duplicate it, or if they needed to kit-bash the toys to turn them into other items for presentations and proposals."

The guys at Kenner Collector have a 98 page document split into 5 sections - and from part two of five we see the following excerpts -


From this inventory list above, we can see which M.A.S.K. toys were in the "museum", it's Bin Number and Location plus the number of each item in stock (wouldn't this be nice to have in your own private collection?).  Perhaps this list can also answer the great debate amongst M.A.S.K. fans?  "Thunder Hawk" or "Thunderhawk" - looks like it may be the first of the options!

On the left hand side, any that have a date shows when someone last accessed one of these toys - there seemed to be plenty of activity even long after M.A.S.K. was no more.  Perhaps Hasbro intended to do something with these great toys?

The following pieces of information I overlooked on my first visit -



On the list above, there is mention of a M.A.S.K. packaging sample - the "TX" beside denotes the Employee who destroyed this (boo!).  What I didn't notice first time round, is the date of 1994.  

Nor did I notice the M.A.S.K. instructions 1992!  This would suggest to me, re my comments above, that Hasbro had seriously considered re-releasing our favourite toys!

However, this isn't the reason why I went back to this site.

On my original viewing of this document I came across the information regards the M.A.S.K. Snowmobile and I had noticed the following that I've pieced together -

Mentions of - 

  • "Dragster" (Afterburner?); 
  • "Jet Cycle" (Vampire or Barracuda/Jackal?), 
  • "Lamborghini" (Stiletto?), 
  • "Stingray" (Wolf Beast?), 
  • "Volkswagon" (Dentonator?), 
  • "Water Tower" (Thunderball?), 
  • "Corvette" (Raven), 
  • "Helicopter" (Switchblade).


But then, are they?  If the "morgue" is where prototypes were put, then why these vehicles?  Why aren't they named if they are the prototypes of released toys - especially as there is no mention of all of the other vehicles.

And what is "Bob Cat"?  Is this the name of another Missing Toy?  Or simply a description of Vandal in it's Illusion form?

Thank you for reading and maybe I've asked more questions than I've answered.  If you, or someone you know, has the answers to any of these questions, feel free to comment below or e-mail me.

Remember to keep up-to-date on my Facebook Page.

4 comments:

  1. I believe the MASK bobcat would be the Vandal vehicle. My dad worked in the construction business and that's what he and I have called those loaders for a long time.
    I think you correctly identified the other vehicles.

    Its possible that the "mask pkg samples" is from the 1994 movie The Mask which starred Jim Carrey. Would be interesting though if they were really thinking about a M.A.S.K. comeback.

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    1. Hey Jason,

      Good to hear from you, it's been a while. I initially went back to look at the "Morgue" document as I was sure that some of the other listed vehicles may not relate to production toys. Reason being that these were prototypes - if they have this handful of prototypes, why don't they have prototypes for Thunderhawk, Rhino, Jackhammer, etc.

      What I'm assuming is this -

      The activity on the "Museum" list coupled with the 1994 Packaging and 1992 Instructions would suggest defo M.A.S.K. But then they realised that the Trademarks had all expired and therefore turned this into Vortech instead.

      I never collected Vortech nor knew anything about it but after some Facebook discussions I've had recently, I checked out Albert's page for images.

      Going by the link you have recently posted re Erik's find over at boulder-hill.net, the only way to move forward is to bring out trademarks as the originals are lost for ever!

      Perhaps You, Me and Wyatt will have to join forces and strategies to try and bring back M.A.S.K. so that one of our movies can be made!

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  2. That`s very interesting, M.A.S.K. P.N.A. investigation!, Thanks for that information William, really i don`t know why Hasbro isn`t working that project to re-release again, in my opinion...the best & revolutionary toy from the 80`s...M.A.S.K., I will re open my Web page(M.A.S.K. direct to the point) on Facebook soon...I`m working on it. William, Jason...what we can to do to write to Hasbro to respect?...We can send a big photo from M.A.S.K. in a frame to the HASBRO postal address...what you say?

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    1. Hey Jose,

      Thank you for your comments and as soon as you have your sites back up and running let me know and I'll share them - as I'm sure that Jason and Wyatt will on theirs.

      I'm trying my best to resurrect M.A.S.K. - I've been in contact with a couple of people at Hasbro, but I guess if you go to boulder-hill.net and read up on the recent issue over Trademarks then you'll understand why they are keeping their cards very close to their chests.

      I hope that Hasbro are aware of the growing number of fans thirsty for a re-release and especially for a movie - I'm sure you know that there are two scripts ready to go when Hasbro are ready.

      I look forward to hearing more from you.

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