Guardians of Grayskull Mailing List

[Grayskull Cartographer]

I have archives of the original Guardians of Grayskull mailing list ([email protected]). I would like to make the archives available to the MOTU / POP community, and I would like to get opinions on the best way to make it available, understanding that I do not run a website.

Perhaps He-Man.org would like to host them? Otherwise, I may upload the archives to archive.org.

The emails start with message # 10 (10/12/1996) and end with message # 15287 (1/12/1998). My original mail stores are in Eudora 4.x format but can probably be read with a generic MBX/MBOX client. I converted the email to an Outlook 2013 PST. The Eudora stores have a size of 37.4 MB, and the Outlook store has a size of 137 MB. Both could be shrunk by compression to ZIP files.

It is amusing to read some of the old posts. There was a time when we did not even know how many episodes of She-Ra were produced.

[Penny Dreadful]

WOW! You have the '96 to '98 messages?!?
That's back when I was on it!
I'd love to see those again!
Dropping you a PM.

Hopefully, they can be archived at the Org?...

[JVS3]

We'd definitely love to archive them here, if you are willing to e-mail them my way. And thank you for offering!


My e-mail is jvs3 (at) he-man (dot-to-the-dipity-dot) org
Thanks!!

[Grayskull Cartographer]

Hello Val,

I am glad the archive will be preserved on the Org. I will write some additional details about the archive and then send it to you.

Thank you,

Jacob

[Adam_Prince of Eternia]

I suppose it is good that they will be preserved for posterity, but when I was exchanging emails with people nearly 25 years ago, I did not imagine that they would be seen by anyone outside of those exchanges. So it is weird to me that what, at the time, were conversations among members of a closed group, will not be available to be read by the public. I do not even want to think about opinions I had when I was 15 years old.

[JVS3]

I suppose it is good that they will be preserved for posterity, but when I was exchanging emails with people nearly 25 years ago, I did not imagine that they would be seen by anyone outside of those exchanges. So it is weird to me that what, at the time, were conversations among members of a closed group, will not be available to be read by the public. I do not even want to think about opinions I had when I was 15 years old.

I know I had some posts of my own I don't want to read any more.

But, the conversations themselves were really interesting. So I'll probably do something like block out / remove the names & e-mails of who posted for anything posted on the Org.

[Grayskull Cartographer]

Hello Val,

I have emailed you the archive. The attachments total about 25 MB. Please let me know if you do not receive the email and need a different delivery method.

Jacob

[BooperScoop]

What did the MOTU community even talk about in 98? That was quite a while after NA ended, right?

[Mosquitor]

I would certainly be interested to see some of those, but I know I posted a lot of embarrassing nonsense back then, as a 16-year-old kid with manic teenage angst

[Adam_Prince of Eternia]

What did the MOTU community even talk about in 98? That was quite a while after NA ended, right?

Sword of Power vs. Lightsaber

[Tallstar]

I'm really looking forward to reading all of the conversations from this mailing list. I want to say that I got the internet around late 1997 or early 1998? So, I completely missed out.

Prior to that, I had to live vicariously through some friends who had internet access. They were kind of on the selfish side when it came to other people using their computer. Most of the time I would be in a chair next to them watching in awe as they had conversations on AOL.

[Grayskull Cartographer]

What did the MOTU community even talk about in 98? That was quite a while after NA ended, right?

There was so much to discuss because we knew so little, and we learned from each other's memories.

We did not even have a complete list of MOTU or POP episodes, much less their production order. We did not have a complete list of minicomics. Over time we grew our collective knowledge.

We supported each other's efforts to build websites - Adam Tyner's site, Scott White's Cringer site, my The Sorceress' Site, Busta Toons and Zadoc Angel's site. Video capture cards were uncommon in those days, so many of us were hungry for each new image or video another posted. My map and tour of Castle Grayskull might not have been as complete, but for input from fans on the list.

We discussed our recollections and perspectives - How strong is He-Man really? What is the relationship between Teela and The Sorceress? Was "The Greatest Show on Eternia" really the worst episode? Did anyone like Loo-kee?

We exchanged fan fiction and discussed how new He-Man series might be developed. One intriguing idea was John T'lustachowski's "Greyskull Tales" scripts.

Some of us participated in five MOTU/POP -themed Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. The first campaign took place on the list, but later campaigns recruited players from the list and then took the game off-list.

We initiated trades for action figures, comics, and VHS tapes; and gave feedback on trading partners.

The Guardians of Grayskull listserv was the start of the MOTU/POP fan movement. Had the community not been active, I doubt we would have seen the 200X and later series, comics, and figures.

- - - Updated - - -

Sword of Power vs. Lightsaber

He's not joking.

[Night Stalker]

I don't remember if I belonged to this specific email list, but Good Lord do I hope not. If I did, I hope I can't be identified.

I don't even like re-reading stuff I wrote 25 minutes ago, much less 25 years ago. 16 year old me was probably an even bigger jerk than current me.

It's amazing though that it's still floating around. I can't wait to see it.

[Jukka]

There was so much to discuss because we knew so little, and we learned from each other's memories.

We did not even have a complete list of MOTU or POP episodes, much less their production order. We did not have a complete list of minicomics. Over time we grew our collective knowledge.

We supported each other's efforts to build websites - Adam Tyner's site, Scott White's Cringer site, my The Sorceress' Site, Busta Toons and Zadoc Angel's site. Video capture cards were uncommon in those days, so many of us were hungry for each new image or video another posted. My map and tour of Castle Grayskull might not have been as complete, but for input from fans on the list.

I remember the map of Grayskull.
Also was it you behind the webring Sorceress' Site?

Also someone had a cool site "the Other Side of the Sword".... can't remember who.

And another fan who had "musings" in the title of one of their html pages... I remember the fan made articles on characters. One was about Modulok, and he counted all possible ways to attach the toy parts. Wish I remembered that what the name was..

We discussed our recollections and perspectives - How strong is He-Man really? What is the relationship between Teela and The Sorceress? Was "The Greatest Show on Eternia" really the worst episode? Did anyone like Loo-kee?

Ah the discussions of recollections.

I sadly was never part of the mailing list. Didn't understand what those were when I got online around 98.
I was still learning about html pages. Heck forums were a new thing for me, and took over a year to register on org. Before that I simply e-mailed A TON with guys like Alessio, Scott White and of course James (who propably still has nightmares from getting emails with sender "Perhe.Issakainen(at)Kolumbus.Fi" hahaha.

The Guardians of Grayskull listserv was the start of the MOTU/POP fan movement. Had the community not been active, I doubt we would have seen the 200X and later series, comics, and figures.

The activity in fandom helped. Otherwise no Commemorative figures. No legal threats to James and Zadoc from Hallmark over video-files....

[hadley]

I sadly was never part of the mailing list. Didn't understand what those were when I got online around 98.
I was still learning about html pages. Heck forums were a new thing for me, and took over a year to register on org.

I *think* I was on the list, so I’m interested in seeing the archives.

The part about registering stuck out to me. In the early days of discussion boards (wwwboards they were called) you didn’t have to register. So I remember being like “what the heck is this about?” when you had to register here. I think I finally did when the commemorative figures came out. Indefinitely lurked a bunch before registering. I regret not having that tasty Feb 2000 reg date.

Back when the org was a landing page that took you to Tyner’s site and the the other one (memory failing me), was there a wwwboard that didn’t require registration?

[Adam_Prince of Eternia]

I *think* I was on the list, so I’m interested in seeing the archives.

The part about registering stuck out to me. In the early days of discussion boards (wwwboards they were called) you didn’t have to register. So I remember being like “what the heck is this about?” when you had to register here. I think I finally did when the commemorative figures came out. Indefinitely lurked a bunch before registering. I regret not having that tasty Feb 2000 reg date.

Back when the org was a landing page that took you to Tyner’s site and the the other one (memory failing me), was there a wwwboard that didn’t require registration?

I had a computer at home, but did not have Internet service until broadband service was available through our cable television provider. At the time, my mother did not want web browsing preventing incoming calls, and she did not think we would use it enough to justify a dedicated phone line for it. I accessed the Internet at school and at the library, so it was difficult to keep up with the volume of emails that were being exchanged on the mailing list. I eventually opted to get them in a daily digest, and replied only to emails that piqued my interest. My primary contributions were to details of episodes of the animated series, as I worked at a video store, and was able to procure most of the commercially available VHS releases; and to hypothetical discussions, such as the limits of the powers of He-Man, which fictional weapon is more powerful, etc. I visited He-Man.org daily, and spent quite a bit of time visiting the forums, but I did not register until activity shifted from the mailing list to the message board.

[Night Stalker]

I think, and I may be mistaken, that you could originally post as a "guest" here on .Org in its earlier inception.

I was an emancipated minor, so I was on my own at age 16. I had a crummy Compaq Presario desktop, but internet access was spotty since I couldn't regularly pay my phone bill. My main contribution to the fandom of that era was providing photos of the rare Euro figures (Tytus, Megator, Laser Lights, etc.)

Now, I didn't have a flatbed scanner, so the way this was accomplished was by taking photos, having them developed, then physically mailing them to someone on the Email distro to upload. Prior to Google, if you ran an internet search through something like Dogpile or Alta Vista, my photos were some of the only available for certain figures.

I also at that time had the highest resolution video available for the commercial releases of the animated series, as I had them all on Laserdisc and RCA Selectavision (which were relatively high def in comparison to VHS). I also had the highly coveted Japanese Laserdisc release of the live action movie, which in addition to being the only widescreen release available, had a stellar transfer, stereo soundtrack and optimal color correction. It honestly looks better even today than the Blu Ray release. (Shout out to Ken Crane's Laserdisc of Los Angeles! Gone, but never forgotten.)

I received many blank VHS tapes in the mail with envelopes containing a few bucks to cover return postage. I dubbed them off for free, just so folks didn't have to sit through multigenerational dubs from a VHS source. Many hundreds of hours wasted on that before I had to stop taking requests.

I eventually recorded a "master tape" of sorts on to S-VHS, and sent that to a videophile friend who could burn it to VCD, which was easier to disseminate. Matter of fact, not long ago I found a long, long dead torrent file from the early 2000s which was an .iso file folder containing these same VCDs. The cool thing was that if you had a Sega Dreamcast, you could watch VCDs if you burned them a certain way, so you didn't even need a VCD player.

I hate to be the old man yelling at a cloud, but kids today will never appreciate the lengths we had to go through to get this information out, prior to Internet 2.0.

[Adam_Prince of Eternia]

This was a very exciting time for the fandom. Foremost, because people were finding their tribe. He-Man was a pop culture phenomenon, but most people grew up, and moved on. But these people were still carrying the torch for it, and the first thing they did when they got access to the Internet was to seek out more He-Man. There was no centralized resource of information, so these fans became pop-cultural anthropologists, and pieced together information from their collective memories and contributions. Everything was new. Things like The Powers of Grayskull and He-Ro: The Son of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe were huge revelations. There were petitions to get Hallmark to release the complete series on DVD, and for Mattel re-release the figures. The community seemed much smaller then, but it was affirming to discover that there were other people just like you who never stopped caring about He-Man.

[Grayskull Cartographer]

I remember the map of Grayskull.
Also was it you behind the webring Sorceress' Site?

Also someone had a cool site "the Other Side of the Sword".... can't remember who.

And another fan who had "musings" in the title of one of their html pages... I remember the fan made articles on characters. One was about Modulok, and he counted all possible ways to attach the toy parts. Wish I remembered that what the name was..

Yes, I built The Sorceress Site.

I forgot that I had a webring. I checked and found that the webring no longer exists because it was setup on Geocities, which no longer exists.

[Universe]

I was on this mailing list! I would love to see these archives - although I'd be a bit sad if I couldn't find my own posts if all names get censored out.

I remember trading for figures and VHS tapes. Got Scott White to send me about half of the He-Man series on VHS by mail - I still have those VHS in a box!

Also remember someone talking about the unproduced figures He-Ro and Eldor which no one had ever heard of, they offered to scan copies of the catalogue and mail them to members for like $3 + shipping. Still have my scanned copy!

Me and another member mapped out Eternia using episodes and golden books for details of where various landmarks should be located. Was involved with some fan fiction for a while, as well.

Some of my best internet memories are coming home from school, racing to the computer and logging on via the 28.8k modem to download 50 new mailing list messages. Great times!

[Universe]

At 04:40 AM 10/16/97 -0400, ___ wrote:
>Hi guys,
> I was in Spain some time ago and I came across a couple
>super large He-man figures.
>Sadly I've forgotten their names. But they were about 1 foot high.One was
>on He-man's side and the other
>was Skeletor"s. Any ideas?? Are they rare??
>Cheers, Andy

OMG... we knew nothing!

Thanks for this archive, Greyskull Cartographer. This is so cool!

- - - Updated - - -

Anyone wanna know what Vintage prices were like in 1997?

MOC figures: Hordak C6 $15, Kobra Khan c8 $20
Faker 2 C9 $20 BA SKeletor C7 $20
Buzz Off C8 $20 Beastman c5 $20
Buzz Saw Hordak C9 $40
Dragon Blaster Skeletor C8 $30(2)
King Randor C8 $35
MossMan C8 $20
Syclone C8 $20
Skeletor C7 $25
Blast Attack c8 $20
Tung Lashor c8 $20
others in soon!

Eternia, sealed toys/decals etc MINT, c8 box,c10 toy SUPER! $600postpaid!

- - - Updated - - -

Some other cool things I found:

We had the idea around 1997 of starting a snail mail petition to Cartoon Network to see if we could get them to air He-Man episodes. I don't think we were successful, but quite a few letters were sent out.

Another: at some point there was some campaign to get Rosie O'Donnel to use her platform/talk show/celebrity to aid our cause in... something. I can't remember the details of that campaign, but people were mailing/donating MOC figures to her for some reason. Man, I can sort of half remember this from back in the day, but I wasn't involved enough to recall exactly what was going on.

[Jukka]

Hello Val,

I have emailed you the archive. The attachments total about 25 MB. Please let me know if you do not receive the email and need a different delivery method.

Jacob

Bumping this thread a bit... just to see if things have progressed.
I know the world got turned upside down since this thread was created... but hopefully at some point we could see these.

[Night Stalker]

Bumping this thread a bit... just to see if things have progressed.
I know the world got turned upside down since this thread was created... but hopefully at some point we could see these.

+1

Same here, would like to read these at some point.

[Heeeere's Olesker!]

I'm thinking there will be something along the lines of "Let's hunt that Olesker down, take him out back and whip the snot outta him!!!"

What did the MOTU community even talk about in 98? That was quite a while after NA ended, right?

[Night Stalker]

I'm thinking there will be something along the lines of "Let's hunt that Olesker down, take him out back and whip the snot outta him!!!"

Naah! Well, maybe...

I didn't have much of an opinion either way on NA. In my area, the show aired at some ungodly hour (I think it was 6 AM on Saturday morning and 7 am Sundays) on the worst backwater station in the area (WFCT 62). The only time I caught it was accidentally, when I woke up early one Saturday thinking it was a school day. That station had a perpetual sepia tint to it when viewed on cable. It looked slightly better through an antenna, but then you had the ghosting and interference from air broadcast.

That same station also carried Video Power, which I believe you had a hand in as well. I loved that show and tried taping it, because it came on at 3:30pm and I didn't get off the bus until until about 3:35-3:40. I had a 6 hour VHS tape full of Video Power episodes (in sepiatone) missing the first 10 minutes.

But as for NA, it just never clicked with me. The main problem was not the writing, but the voice work. Skeletor and Prince Adam sounded... off to me. John Erwin and Alan Oppenheimer set the bar, and Frank Langella and Dolph Lundgren were also great in their own ways (to me, anyway.) I had also, growing up in Europe, loved the French, Danish and Swedish dubs of the Filmation series.

But NA Skeletor sounded like my math teacher and Adam had a slight lisp. Everyone sounded so... Canadian. They had that weird delivery that I became familiar with through the early days of Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel when the bulk of their programming was produced in Canada. As a non-native English speaker I was hyper-focused on accents and delivery to help me blend in more seamlessly with other 'Murkans. The NA cast just didn't do it for me. I did learn that 'about' rhymes with 'stout' and not 'boot,' so there's that.

I'm kinda glad I didn't give NA the benefit of the doubt as a kid, because the series gave me something as an adult that I could explore as uncharted territory. Piecing the series together on VHS in the early internet era was a fun journey.