Variety, Forbes, and other outlets report former Mattel toy designer Roger Sweet has died, aged 91. Sweet, who had been battling dementia for some time, was best known for conceiving and naming He-Man, the protagonist of the Masters of the Universe franchise since its debut in 1982, and for helping oversee the creation of the toy line until 1987.
An undated photo of Roger Sweet, courtesy of his wife Marlene
Sweet was born in 1935, and grew up in Akron, Ohio. He studied at Miami University, and then the Institute of Design in Chicago, where he graduated from while serving in the National Guard in 1960. Before he began working for Mattel in 1972, he was employed by Rubbermaid, Hoover, Procter & Gamble, Boeing, United, and American Airlines, designing the interiors of the Boeing 747, the Downy bottle, and more. He-Man came about as Mattel was looking to develop a boys’ toy line to compete with Star Wars.
On the Netflix documentary series The Toys That Made Us, Sweet said He-Man was inspired by the barbarian archetype, and his enthusiasm for bodybuilding. He pitched the character by bulking up a Big Jim figure with clay, and then presenting it with two other prototypes to Mattel’s executives. However, many of the line’s characters were ultimately designed by the late Mark Taylor, who repurposed a character he had created called Torak for He-Man’s final, soon to be iconic appearance. Sweet opined that the final name for the franchise (which Mattel settled on after deciding the working title, Lords of Power, sounded too religious) was overly long.
Sweet’s prototypes for He-Man and what became Masters of the Universe, as shown on The Toys That Made Us (2017)
Sweet told the The Everett Herald in 2019 that he didn’t receive royalties for creating He-Man. “Three years in a row, midway through managing the original series, I got 50 percent of my salary as bonus[es] from Mattel,” he said. After the end of the original toy line, he worked on fashion accessories for Barbie, and then left Mattel in 1991. He and his nephew, David Wecker, wrote a book about the franchise, titled Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion-Dollar Idea, in 2005.
Sweet was living in a memory care facility at the time of his death. His widow, Marlene, started a GoFundMe to cover the costs of his healthcare earlier this year, which raised almost double its $50,000 goal. They were married for nearly 40 years. News of his death broke on April 28, which was declared Masters of the Universe Day by Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley in the run-up to the original film’s release in 1987. He passed away just over a month before the release of the new movie, due out June 5, which Marlene said she had “no luck” in contacting the producers of.
When looking back on his creation, Sweet noted his interest in bodybuilding stemmed from being a “slender” child. “At age 13, I was 4-foot-11 and weighed 88 pounds, he recalled. “At age 14, I grew 10 inches and weighed 105 pounds. Then I went out for high school football. The coach cut me off the team without even seeing me play, because I was so scrawny.” He said, “I always wanted to be a He-Man and never could. I knew almost every guy in the world would love to be a He-Man.”
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