Been trying to post this since last night, but the forum servers have been going nutso again
Anyway...
This week it's time to look at that human battering ram, RAM MAN.
Ram Man was one of the earliest additions to my original collection. I already had He-Man, Skeletor and Man-E-Faces; then one sunny Bank Holiday, I went to a local market with my Mum. We found a stall that was selling MOTU figures at cheaper than shop price, and I guess I must have been really good, because I was allowed to buy not one but two of them! The second wave had only recently appeared in the U.K., and I snapped up both Ram Man and Faker!
I really liked Ram Man. I liked his colours, and his bulky (if hollow feeling) design. Indeed, his springing feature never really worked - usually, you pushed him down over his legs, flipped the latch on his boot to release him back up, and he would more often than not do a half hearted spring and just topple forward. But to me, that didn't really matter, it was the concept, and that he had lots of character about him, as did all of the first two wave characters.
Not long after I had got my Ram Man, the handle on his axe snapped off. My Dad repaired it with a small metal rod; one of only two casualties of my original figures as a kid (the other being Stratos' left wing, which had the clip broke the as I went to put it on fresh out of the box).
On the box illustration, mini-comic, and a great deal of other material, Ram Man was featured in his prototype colours of orange top and red legs. I actually always liked these colours much better. Although I still liked the final colours, I heard someone describe this scheme some years ago as "his Christmas tree colours", and I feel this about sums him up. The change from the prototype to the final released version is probably the most extreme change in colour in the original line.
The accompanying mini-comic, the creativley titled (!) "He-Man Meets Ram Man!", is an excellent tale, and one of my favourite mini-comics, in which Skeletor persuades Ram Man that He-Man is the enemy, and tries to use Rammy's battering ram skills to try and gain entry to Castle Grayskull. (This basic concept of a good character being misled by Skeletor was reused several times for Filmation plots, and stories in other mediums).
Ram Man figures, in my experience, are one of the most common on the second hand market. The soft silver paint can sometimes be found to have scuffed and worn away, and the silver foil used on the figure's wrist cuffs can sometimes found to have gone transparent over the years.
Ram Man was a regular in the first season and some of the second season of the Filmation cartoon, especially in the very early first season episodes, where he often appeared with Stratos. He was presented as quite dwarfish looking, and really stupid - but very well meaning and good hearted.
I really like the 200x revamp of the figure, in that it is essentially almost identical, just bulked up and given a bit more detail. Again the ramming action feature seldom worked properly, although this new version did pivot nicely at the waist. The only slight minus point, as with many of the 200x revamps, was that the colours were darkened down and muted, loosing their original vibrancy. I would also have liked to seen a variant painted in the original's prototype colour scheme.
The Mike Young Productions cartoon went from portraying Rammy as dwarfish, to a hulking figure, towering above most of the other Heroic Warriors. Otherwise, his character was pretty much identical to the Filmation version. This version, however, just seemed to sort of lurch forward rather than actually spring.
To sum up, the vintage figure - I know many will disagree, as the actual action feature wasn't much cop, but in sheer terms of design and character, I like Ram Man enough to give him a reasonable 8.
Those are my ramblings on Rammy.
I'd really like to hear your own thoughts, comments, views, criticisms, memories... anything to do with Ram Man. And whether you post or not, don't forget to rate the vintage figure in the poll!
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