Sea Devils 71
The Mattel Sea Devils made so few catalog appearances in their all too brief run in the early 1970s that it’s important to point them out. I never had a Sea Devil growing up as I wasn’t two by the time the line was cancelled, I would have been ALL OVER this line though.
My fascination with scuba diving was slightly obsessional during the early 1970s….
More Sea Devils:
I never saw the alien creature or his shark, but I had the Commander Carter figure and the vehicles as pictured above. Your description is slightly off in that the figures weren't the same as the Major Matt Mason line. The Major had a much higher degree of flexibility owing to the better joints on the arms and legs. I could never quite bend Commander Carter's legs into a proper sitting position in his "Sealander" vehicle. Also, they didn't have proper heads — if you see a picture of one without the helmet, the divers had these hooded wetsuits but the rubbery "hood" part was the actual head, and their human faces were separate pieces of hard plastic stuck on. It was creepy as hell if you thought about it too long. I'm pretty sure both the reduced articulation and the odd head design served a dual purpose: reducing production costs as well as making the figures more durable under water.
I've often wondered if the Sealab 2020 cartoon possibly started life as a toy tie-in for Sea Devils but the association was dropped when they toy line vanished, and Saturday morning television got a bit more strict about blatant toy merchandising for a brief spell.