Mattel Announces 'He-Man' And 'TMNT' Collab 'Turtles Of Grayskull' Toyline

I love having the power!

Mattel has announced a collaboration with Paramount that brings the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles of New York City all the way to planet Eternia. It’s The Masters of the Universe Origins Turtles of Grayskull, and, releasing next year, it’s going to be a prominent facet on the toy end celebrating Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’s 40th anniversary.

The collab between Masters of the Universe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles allows all the fanficy dreams of teaming the Turtles with He-Man. Leonardo and Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo and more characters acquire Eternian-style battle gear, while He-Man and his allies battle his Mutagen Mutation. Skeletor will wear Turtle-inspired armor. Merging these narratively jam-packed worlds unlocks even more storytelling opportunities and creative possibility for all players. In the key art, Splinter, Casey, Krang, Beast Man, Ram-Man, Trap-Jaw, Hordak, Teela, and Man-At-Arms are also present. The turtles seem to have their original series proportions but no irises, like the 2003 4Kids series.

“Bringing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles into Masters of the Universe is a dream come true for many action figure fans. This is an unprecedented moment to collide fan-favorite properties – never been done before in the rich history of both brands,” said PJ Lewis, Vice President and Global Head of Action Figures at Mattel. “This collaboration represents two great brands that will ignite the imaginations of fans young and old alike.”

“It’s thrilling to see this special collection between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Masters of the Universe come to fruition,” said Dion Vlachos, the Executive Vice President of Licensing and Retail, Consumer Products & Experiences at Paramount. “Two incredibly popular franchises with multi-generational appeal coming together for a one-of-a-kind crossover toy line is something we know fans will embrace.”

This is far from the Turtles’s first crossover. Setting aside its own inter-continuity crossovers, it’s made Usagi Yojimbo practically family. Sometimes the crossovers are multimedia, like with bringing Usagi to Shredder’s Revenge, or crossing with Power Rangers in comic and television continuities, with toys tying into said comics crossovers or with DC, through different Batman/TMNT crossover comics for comic and animated series continuities, and the Injustice 2 video game. There were figures in the original series era with them as Star Trek characters. There have been crossovers with Garfield and Archie (separately). There are Ghostbusters crossover comics, and Cobra Kai crossover toys being the one most recent to this. Crossovers are as common to the Turtles as it is to Scooby-Doo at this point.

However, while these franchises are meeting for the first time, the strongest link they had before Turtles of Grayskull was laid out just this year. In the box office hit Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, the big chase scene featured SlackCircus’s “Fabulous Secret Powers” version of 4 Non Blondes’s “What’s Up” following said original. The “Fabulous Secret Powers” video was built from original He-Man and the Masters of the Universe clips.

Source: Press release via BusinessWire