Mattypalooza was at the exact same time as Hasbro's Star Wars panel (which was a real dick-move by SDCC to fans) but the allure of a Toyguru-less Matty outweighed the general assumption that Hasbro couldnt say much about The Force Awakens. Scott Neitlich left Mattel a couple months ago which, of course, begged the question of whether or not the famous "Mattypalooza" panels would continue, and thankfully they are (at least for now). Mark Morse has stepped in to those shoes and led the team in the best Mattel panel in many years. He's also stepped in as the guiding voice to Mattycollector and things are looking pretty interesting in this new, post-Neitlich era.
Friday, July 10, 12:00pm, Room 25ABC. The panel consisted of:
Mark Morse, Marketing Director of Matty & MotU
Rob David, head writer of MotU content
Kimberley McCauley, Marketing Managaer & Strategist
Brandon Sopinsky, Senior Desinger
Eric Treadaway, Four Horsemen
Cornboy, Four Horsemen
The panel was a wild experience and ultimately a bit of a blur. It began with Morse fairly explicitly attacking Neitlich and how he had managed the Matty & MotU lines, then talking about all the amazing potential products they were spitballing (bringing back other past Mattel brands, putting out unreleased product from the '80s and doing more figures in those styles/lines - really intriguing and exciting things), some fun changes to the MotU Classic line and ultimately the reveal of Thundercats in the MotUC scale/style! As a result, by the time they got to the MotU portion of the panel I was just caught up in the slideshow and stopped taking notes as reveals were coming fast and furious.
(In an effort to get all this info to you as timely as possibly I present my notes to you here is rough form, please bear with the brevity)
Attacks "all lines must end"
"'MattyCollector: Where the Collector is King' - Have you guys felt like kings?"
New mission: transparency
No one "face" for Mattycollector, we're a team. If you don't see us on the boards it's because we're working to make you the best product.
2016 - DC, Cars, WWE coming to the site
Looking at more stuff from the vault, like Matt mason, Food Fighters, Dino Riders, etc
Return to things that were done so maybe returning to do second series or unreleased prototypes
Point Dread and Talon Fighter
Comes with Teela 2.0
Seats two figures
A new Collector's Choice sub
6 bi-monthly figs
2 semi-annual special items
will have special sticker on the packaging
New packaging design.
Snake Mountain!
Twice as tall as Castle Grayskull
Bluetooth voice feature
Thundercats!
Four Horsemen sculpts
Subscription exclusive Mumm-Ra
