1984 Galoob Blackstar Catalog
Blackstar was a Filmation animated program that made its debut in September of 1981; the series blended science fiction with fantasy (borrowing a little from JRR Tolkien) and saw its end the December of that same year.
Blackstar saw a second life, thanks to Filmation’s next project, “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe,” based on a hot toy line combining science fiction with fantasy.
The show aired again in 1983, and toymaker Galoob would license it for action figures hoping to capitalize on the MOTU craze.
At the time, many toymakers were mining fantasy programs to compete with He-Man, Remco licensed Conan, Warlord, Kazar and Thundarr the Barbarian, hoping to cash in on the craze.
The gambit worked, and Blackstar enjoyed a very positive two years of sales.
Galoob really went all out with the Blackstar range adding many of the main characters from the show, including the impish “Trobbits”.
This is the second year for the Blackstar range and many of the figures were upgraded to have “Laser Lights” which meant sparks flew out of their chests.
Sorry this page got cropped by accident. I’ll try and fix it later.
1984 saw some new bad guys added to the line, each with their own demon character. i find these guys in bins all the time.
The Blackstar ice castle was the big playset for the line and it was a lower-cost alternative to Castle Greyskull, I remember watching people grabbing these with both hands that Christmas at my local Woolco. Smashing box art on that one.
The Blackstar spaceship is based I believe that astronaut John Blackstar came to this planet in. It’s been over 40 years since I watched this show, so I’m rusty.
I’ve always really liked Warlock, Blackstar’s dragon steed.
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>The Blackstar spaceship is based I believe that astronaut John Blackstar came to this planet in
It looks like the one the other astronaut came in, looking for Blackstar. (I can’t remember how similar the ships were, but I don’t know if Filmation would have sprung for a whole new design.) I remember because it looks a LOT like the core fighter from the original Gundam show.
….and the Blackstar figures were pretty good, especially for the time.
Don C.
I remember Castle Grayskull being about $25 bucks when it first came out, so I wonder how much lower the Ice Castle was.
I had Blackstar and Klone. I usually pretended that Blackstar was Hercules with my Marvel Secret Wars toys. And the Blonde Warrior from the Dungeons and Dragons series was Thor.
As a matter of fact, the Spacecraft IS the Core Fighter from Gundam.
For many reasons, is near to impossible that they got the rights to use just that design, so it has been plagiarized.
My two cent about is that someone (maybe an animator) from Filmation had a trip in Japan, saw Gundam and decided to use the design without say anything to the top brass because “well, Japan is far away: who’d ever know?”
Filmation and Galoob risked a lot of legal shit