#tallstar interviews

[birindale]

Princess of Power Secrets Revealed

Another interview of the late Jon Seisa by he-man.org user Tallstar, still available to read on the forums! Tallstar also did a series about Jon’s creation of the Star Sisters, which you can read in full in my newly minted Tallstar Interviews tag. Everyone say thank you, Tallstar.

The below is an annotated version of the post, because I can’t help myself, including a reproduction of a since-deleted bio of Kitty Black-Perkins by the South Carolina African American History Calendar. Why cite a calendar? Hell if I know, but I’ll be damned if I don’t preserve it. Here we go:

For those of you who have been following my series of historical articles on Mattel's '87 Star Sisters, the trio of unproduced figures for Princess of Power (along with their pet, Glory Bird), you will recall that Jon Seisa was brought on to Mattel Toys in October of 1985 to conceptualize this extension line, a line which ultimately never got off the ground due to fact that toy shelves were bogged down with older product that wasn't selling fast enough, and thus resulted in low orders from retailers. Since tracking down Jon in early March of this year, he has become an invaluable resource for information on the vintage Princess of Power toy line. He has acted as a middle-man of sorts between myself and former employees who pre-dated his arrival at Mattel Toys. Back in late March, Jon was awesome enough to offer to reconnect with his former boss, Chris McAdam, the Design Manager for the whole of Princess of Power, for additional details.  At the time, she was just getting back from Hong Kong and extremely busy with her VP job, but took some time out of her schedule to pass along some interesting tidbits of information and history on the evolution of the brand to Jon, for myself and other fans.  However, by the time Jon heard back from Chris McAdam, he had gotten tied up with design jobs and couldn't relay the information to me until more recently. Before passing on Jon's message, I would like to preface (as I did in previous articles) that some of the information contained therein could potentially change and/or be clarified as I (hopefully) start to hear back from some of the employees mentioned in it. PRINCESS OF POWER SECRETS REVEALED - PART 1     "Chris McAdam relayed to me that the original Princess of Power She-Ra was first developed not in her group in Girls' Toys (before I got there in 1985) but in the NBC Group (New Business Concepts), a special separate blue sky design team headed by Susannah Rosenthal, at the time, and located in an isolated location.[[Footnote 1]]  It was the doll designer Justine Dantzer who created She-Ra.  Justine is one of the 3 Dantzer sisters who are all known doll/toy designers in the industry.  I knew Justine, briefly through a mutual friend, but more so her sister Elonne; I didn’t know Marlene Dantzer, personally, though saw all of them at parties and industry functions. Originally, Justine proposed the idea of a female superhero named She-Ra as an antithesis to He-Man for the Masters of the Universe product line; because her observation was that the line lacked a female character, [[note: They only had Teela, and as Justine Dantzer’s first designs were for a Teela sister, it’s not out of the question but slightly dubious with this phrasing]] and thus this would add an interesting twist.  The aesthetical look and play accessories, and even a castle were created and constructed for She-Ra for Justine’s initial prototype prelim creation and presentation.  It had a more masculine and rugged quality to it (than the later Princess of Power line) due to its original placement in boys toys. As strategies formed and coalesced, the idea emerged to place it in Girls Toys to empower girls. [[note: according to Janice Varney-Hamlin, she’d been attempting to launch a fashion/action flanker brand for some time, including by tying it to MotU, and she only succeeded when the Boys’ department’s concept had “no articulation, no hair, no fashion, not attractive at all” and it was summarily handed over to feed the Barbie brand. unclear if that’s true]] Chris McAdam was part of that evolution after it was handed over to the Girl’s Toy Design Group.  The objective was to “feminize” and “soften” the aesthetics for girl play. Chris was able to get the talents of Kitty Black (Perkins) on the project (click HERE [[←that link is broken: see footnote 2]] for biography), who at the time was a new emergent designer in fashion dolls at Mattel (who later became one of the top celebrity designers on Barbie).  Kitty created the clever flashy and sassy action fashions with some sort of transformation feature.  Noreen Porter was used to create the wonderful illustrations of the dolls for their sculpts with more feminine proportions and prettier faces, and also their superhero accessories." Of Noreen Porter, Jon had this to say: "We were fortunate to have in the POP design group a fabulous and highly talented in-house veteran doll designer/illustrator named Noreen Porter who worked on the main POP line... and specifically on the Bubble Carriage, Spinerella, Catra and She-Ra.  Her illustrations where highly technical anatomically correct depictions and were incredible masterpieces (done in pencil with perfect highlights and shadows),  The sculptors could literally use her illustrations to sculpt directly from.  I understand that eventually Noreen went into medical illustration, a perfect field for her, IMHO, due to her meticulous attention to illustrative details." My thoughts: Although I could be wrong, from what I gather, the Crystal Castle playset that was constructed for use in Justine's presentation may have been the same as the version shown in the U-Matic videocassette discovered in the Filmation Archives. (I believe it was Emiliano that posted the ARTICLE some years back.)

[[note: that link will redirect you to the forums while the org is down. here’s the article in question on the wayback machine. however, since that’s from over a decade ago, the U-Matic videos themselves were uploaded in the now-murdered Flash. so those don’t work anymore. I found some screenshots (see below for the prototype Tallstar is talking about) but no footage, yet.]]

This seems to coincide with an old book from 1990 about the toy industry called "TOYLAND The High-Stakes Game of the Toy Industry", where it is stated that the original Crystal Castle included a special bird's-beak entrance that would swoop down and pick the figures up to bring them inside of the castle.  Apparently both little girls and their mothers were uninterested in the mechanical feature when Mattel tested it.  They preferred a "softer, less action-oriented product", so Mattel replaced the action feature with a traditional castle door.  This change reduced the cost of the playset. [[note: Justine Dantzer designed that feature. She’s big into eagles.]] The She-Ra in Justine's presentation [[her Power-Con 2016 panel]] is a bit trickier.  It's obviously not the same as the prototype shown in the U-Matic video, as it doesn't have a "masculine and rugged quality." So, it's possibly a version that predates even the wax sculpt that was discovered on eBay a few years ago, because the aforementioned book also mentions that She-Ra's action figure wasn't well received by little girls until Mattel "pinked it up."

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FOOTNOTES (blockquotes which were too long to justify shoving in the middle of the interview)

[1] From -The Plenitude: Design and Engineering in the era of Ubiquitous Computing, by Rich Gold:

NBC was a small group quite literally at the edge of Mattel. We were housed in an old warehouse several blocks from the main Mattel building. Toy design is money and you can’t allow new ideas escape. They had constructed a tilt-up inside of the tilt-up providing two levels of security.

[...] As Louis Sullivan, famous Chicagoan architect, famously stated, “Form follows function.” [...] Susannah Rosenthal, had a different formulation. She said, “Form follows Fun.”

[2] Kitty Black-Perkins: Chief Designer of Fashions and Doll Concepts for Mattel's Barbie line

Kitty Black-Perkins is an accomplished Chief Designer of Fashions and Doll Concepts for Mattel's highly successful Barbie line. Over the years, Black-Perkins's hard work and fashion genius have contributed to Barbie's 300 million plus fashions. Barbie is marking her forty-third anniversary in 2002. For 26 of those years, Black-Perkins has wowed the world adorning its most popular doll.

A native of Spartanburg, South Carolina, Black-Perkins is one of seven children. She was encouraged to dream big by two loving parents and her two art teachers at Carver High School. Her dream of becoming a commercial artist took flight when her aunt in California invited her to visit for the summer after high school graduation. Black-Perkins embraced Los Angeles. She earned her degree in fashion design from Los Angeles Trade Technical College in 1971, and after that, she was on her way. Her career experience as a fashion designer began with several fashion houses in Los Angeles among them Miss Melinda of California, Debbie Ross, A & O Couture, and many others.

In 1976, Black-Perkins was enticed by a classified ad for a fashion designer for the largest toy company in the world - Mattel. Through Mattel, Black-Perkins was given the opportunity to travel all over the world. One of her many lines is the African-American fashion dolls: Shanni and Friends, introduced in 1991; Fashion Savvy, introduced in 1997, and the Brandy line currently on the market. A special doll, designed by Black-Perkins, was donated to the South Carolina State Museum in May of 2001.

Black-Perkins's creative impact as a top designer has been recognized and pursued by some of the industry's top magazines and newspapers. Ebony, Essence, LA Magazine, Woman's Day, and Sister to Sister are just a sample of those who have followed her career in print. In addition, her reputation of 26 years and design savvy have earned her many honors throughout the industry. Some of these include the distinction of receiving the Chairman's Award, the highest recognition a Mattel employee can receive. She was honored with this in 1985 and 1987. The toy industry also honored her with their highest achievement award, The Doty Award. She was chosen Woman of the Year honoree at the annual "Woman Keeping the Dream Alive" banquet sponsored by the National Council of Negro Women in 1994. More recently, she was inducted into the Black Hall of Fame on July 23, 2001.

Black-Perkins has always made it a priority to invest time and energy back to the community. She has volunteered to be a guest speaker at several Career Day events and has contributed spectacular one-of-a-kind creations to various charitable fund raisers, raising well over $100,000. Black-Perkins says the best part of her job is the satisfaction of seeing her designs completed and knowing that her dolls are making a lot of little girls happy all over the world.

Black-Perkins resides in southern California with her two children. They are her most prized accomplishment and have been a great source of strength and support for her in following her dreams.

[warriors-official-art]

Title: The Prophecies Begin Graphic Novel 1

Arc: Graphic novel / manga

Type: preview

Country: North America

Characters: Firestar, Graystripe, Tallstar

Artist: Natalie Riess and Sara Goetter

Source: https://warriorcats.com/content/article/interview-with-the-writers-and-illustrators-of-the-prophecies-begin-graphic-novel

[gay-possum-rights]

Kon

It’s been a year now since the loss of my cat, Kon. He was put down last August after we discovered he had cancer. He was 11yrs old; we had him for 8yrs. I feel like talking about him, so read along if you like.

My family went through a rough spot in 2008. My parents were in talks of separating, and my dad lost his job. Our elderly cat Isabella had to be put down, but due to our financial issues the only thing we could do was give her to a shelter and ask them to do it for us. My dad was so depressed from it.

My dad got a promising interview, and then a job! To celebrate, we decided to get a cat. We went to a few shelters, but the last one had the best fat orange tabby; Kon! A family friend lied for us, saying we had no pets, which allowed the adoption. The shelter had a policy about not adopting out unless every pet was brought in to meet the new pet, which we didn’t think would go well.

Kon was 3yrs old and 20lbs living in a tiny cage. Once he came home, he never stopped purring. He demanded hugs and cuddles constantly, meowing if you ignored him. My dad would hold him like a baby and brush him every night. There was a couple of bash attempts which left my dad bitten and crawled, but neither of them every stayed mad at each other.

In 2009 we brought home Misa and Mew Mew, abused rescues. Kon instantly decided that he needed to adopt them, and would cuddle Misa every night. She grew up to learn to meow just as loud as he used to. Kon loved kittens. When we brought in our foster litters, he would check on them and even baby sit. The kittens would climb on him and chew his tail. Each rescue kitten left knowing the great orange tabby. Half of our last rescue litter didn’t get homes, so they got to stay Kon’s babies. 

He snuggled every cat that he could. Even our aggressive cat Tallstar he would try to befriend. He loved the dogs and would cuddle Dante too. Kon’s size made him clumsy, but he never stopped from that. There was never a food bowl too high for him. His favorite spot of all, however, was my dad’s lap. He would be there every night.

When Kon became sick, you knew every cat knew. They cuddled him more; Misa and Mizu never left his side. Even my final pictures I have of him are of them snuggling against him. On our final day together, Kon still purred. With pain in his body and sorrow in our faces, there was still love in his big orange heart. He purred to the final seconds. 

Misa cried for the first week, she hunted for him and wouldn’t eat. When we got his ashes back, she decided her new place to sleep was on his urn. She sleeps there every night now, and gets upset if the lamp next to him is off. 

I miss holding that wonderfully fat cat. I miss his purr. I miss him.

[warriorsredux]

RE: /post/157959468335/eh-iunno-i-havent-read-a-good-many-of-the The five* canon LGBTA+ characters in the series are Ravenpaw (bi or gay), Barley (bi or gay), Tallstar (gay), Jake (bi), and Mousefur (ace/aro). The Erins are not allowed to explicitly point it out in the books, due to them being sold in countries where homosexuality is against the law, but they have confirmed it in interviews. *I've seen people mention others, but I couldn't find any sources of the authors saying as much.

Interesting! I didn’t know about Mousefur. Coulda sworn she had a thing with Longtail. Proves what I know, I guess. 

[birindale]

History of the Star Sisters, Pt. 4

Something of a bonus interview by He-man.org user Tallstar, this time with Cathy Larson (referenced in an earlier interview I posted with Janice Varney-Hamlin). This was posted directly to the forums & is so still accessible! Cathy Larson worked on the She-Ra line as a whole, and was one of the team developing Mattel’s in-house lore (later supplemented by Filmation, specifically Larry DiTillio’s work). She’s the one who named Adora!

Cathy Larson was hired by Mattel in 1973. Through hard work and dedication, she climbed the corporate ladder and eventually secured the coveted Assistant Product Manager position, thereby making her one of the most influential employees to work on the Princess of Power toy line. She was also the Marketing Assistant on The Star Sisters extension line that was planned for release in 1987. In the early 90s, Cathy would go on to become Vice President of Marketing for Arco Toys, a Hong Kong-based division of parent company Mattel, which was acquired in 1986 and served as a letter of credit business offering low-priced, non-promoted toys primarily to U.S. retailers. The Arco Toys Division officially closed in 2000.

I started at Mattel right out of high school and realized very quickly that I wanted to work in Marketing because Mattel was a Marketing company and the bosses always had so much fun creating and advertising toy lines. But without a degree, it took me nine years and many different jobs to finally prove myself. I finally got the Assistant Product Manager job and worked for the Director of Dolls. She-Ra was the first project I really got to take a lead in. What were some of the difficulties / "hiccups" experienced by Design and/or Marketing on the Princess of Power line?

Mattel would bring their major customers into their (then) Hawthorne, Calif offices for presentations of the new She-Ra line. This was always stressful for the Designers and Marketers because we often had to show prototypes which could be quite rough. If too rough, especially on such an innovative line ("action figures for girls") the presentation didn't go well. If the presentation didn't go well often enough, the line could get dropped before it even got a shot. One presentation to Toys R Us, we had very rough epoxy sculpts, which were very fragile. Of course, minutes before the presentation, they were dropped and many arms and legs broke off the dolls. Horrors! But the amazing design team came in and fixed them and they were presented last that day.   The Powers of Grayskull extension line for Masters of the Universe (He-Ro, Eldor et al.) was planned for release the same year as The Star Sisters. Was there any/much communication between the Girls' and Boys' departments with regard to potential crossovers, story scenarios, synchronized product releases and so on?

Not really. The boys department were worried that having girls toys associated with their line might make it too sissy for their target market. Different retail buyers... Different kids... Different advertising venues... No real reason to cross-over. Do you know if the prototype Star Sisters figures featured in the Italian and American Mattel Toys catalogs still exist, and do you recall which employee(s) sculpted them and came up with their names? I don't know about prototypes. They were were often quite fragile and I would be surprised if they still existed. Aldo Favilli was Mattel's head of sculpting during my time on She-Ra. He would not have sculpted them himself as he had many free-lance sculptors across the country. Aldo was a soft spoken older Italian Man, tall and slender, and with the most beautiful hands. One of my favorite people at Mattel. I can see the woman who worked on names but I'm afraid I can't pull her name up from my memory banks. She came up with fabulous She-Ra names like "Castaspella" [[note: that means it’s Justine Dantzer]]. Perfect, right? By the way, She-Ra's alter ego was "Adora". I wanted to name her Dorian (which is my daughter's name) but my boss wouldn't let me so I settled on "Adora". Were any characters planned beyond Starla, Jewelstar, Tallstar and Glory Bird?

Probably not. I'm interested to know if there were any abandoned features and/or accessories? What were they?

Designers and Marketers would brainstorm tons of features and accessories and only a handful would make it into the line. So there are probably a lot of sketches of "abandoned" features and/or accessories. I know Mattel would hang onto these for years for proprietary reasons (maybe forever). Have you contacted them to see if they still have them? They might share them with you.   At one time, "Lee's Action Figure News & Toy Review" magazine reported that the dolls would have come with a mini-comic entitled "Beyond the Azure Star Caverns" and Mattel had plans for a Star Caverns playset, although no evidence has ever surfaced to back up these claims.  Any truth to these rumors? Sounds feasible but I honestly don't remember the details. If the line had started to slow down, a playset would have been the first to come out of the plans. Very expensive to tool and very hard to sell to the trade.   Do you recall if The Star Sisters got far enough along in the process to have packaging ("proof cards", etc.) designed for them?  If so, could you describe what it would have looked like? The 1987 Mattel Toys catalog mentions "four color window box packaging", so I'm curious to know if perhaps it would have been similar to what was released in Mexico for the first series Princess of Power figures, as opposed to the standard blister card style. Sorry, don't remember.  But, more than likely, the packaging was blister cards. [[note: the packaging was revealed at Power-Con four years after this interview & was in fact standard blister cards]] Were there any additional story scenarios for The Star Sisters beyond what fans' know from the final issue of the She-Ra, Princess of Power magazine? Probably not. The Star Sisters appear for all of one minute in a single episode of the She-Ra, Princess of Power animated series, although they look very different from the prototype dolls. Had the extension line received the necessary retailer support and been successful, would there have been any plans for a spin-off series based on this line? Or would The Star Sisters have simply made more appearances on the main series?   If successful, a spinoff most certainly would have been considered. I am curious to hear your thoughts on what you believe the factors were that led to the demise of this extension line for Princess of Power. The demise was a simple and common reason... we shipped too many dolls and they started to back up on the shelves. Once that happens, the retailers start to mark them down... and once that happens, it's quite impossible to continue because they just won't buy any more.  

[birindale]

History of the Star Sisters, Pt. 2

Part of a series of interviews by He-man.org user Tallstar. This is the second of four.

Welcome to History of The Star Sisters - Part 2. (To read Part 1, Click HERE)

During the preliminary stage of design on The Star Sisters (Starla, Jewelstar and Tallstar), the design team at Mattel brainstormed several ideas for potential features to be packed out with or included on the figures. This installment will focus on some of the fascinating ideas that were ultimately abandoned, mainly due to the cost involved in incorporating them. Fans will also be treated to Jon's extremely detailed explanation regarding one of the "hiccups" the team experienced with Jewelstar, when going from illustrations and model prototype to produced sample. On occasion, I will interject with some of my own thoughts to give my personal feelings on the subject matter or to inform the readers. As in Part 1, Jon's statements will be in bold text. [[note: indented]]

"Of course, when a toy designer begins work in the prelim stage of design, there is no lack of spectacular ideas, bells and whistles. Everything AND the kitchen sink is tapped for inspiration. We were going to have Starla stand on a small three inch diameter rotating base that would spin when slid across the floor or a hard surface, i.e. a table top, thus she'd spin into action."

(Note to the readers: A pink combination spinning stand and backpack was included with Spinnerella, a rare, highly sought after figure, who made a limited appearance during the release of the 3rd wave of figures. However I am unsure if the design of this stand would have been identical to the one dreamed-up for Starla. What I do know, is that Starla appears alongside Spinnerella inside of the unproduced Bubble Carriage vehicle shown in one of the Mattel toy catalogs.)

"Crystal Star was going to have a sparkle feature where a thumb wheel in her back would activate a friction wheel that would ignite sparks housed within her clear glitter impregnated plastic torso. However, there is the pragmatic phase of honing this all down to the most suitable and doable ideas that are cost effective. Eventually due to the targeted price points, manufacturing costs, budget constraints, affordability and the ultimate goal of meeting the typical product margin, all these wonderful ideas end up cast to the wayside via "Toy Heaven."

The Star Sisters were "feature driven" dolls, where each required what is called a "demonstrative feature." Starla had the star glitter pack with the thumb actuator to agitate the encapsulated clear glycerin fluid with suspended glitter. This was a natural feature for her that translated very well and was cost effective. Crystal Star was designed to fold down into crystal formation. The in-house prototype model worked far better than what eventually emerged in the ultimately produced sample. Something was lost in translation regarding the hinge mechanics developed by the outside vendor, despite sufficient diagrams, illustrations and a model prototype. Subsequently, we decided this flaw was something we were going to later correct during development of the first phase prototypes from Hong Kong production. However, the very appealing glitter impregnated clear pink-peach color of the molded parts was quite beautiful in this mechanically flawed prototype. So for this reason, due to its better aesthetics, it was used for the catalogue photo shoot (Note to the readers: The prototypes shown in the Italian catalog differ from those in the American catalog), whereas the in-house version, though it functioned much better, was less attractive because it was molded in a more opaque and milky resin, not clear enough, which was painted with glitter, externally. Tall Star's feature was decided right off the bat in her "Expandra" incarnation where accordion plastic tubes bridged between the joints of her limbs, waist and neck and was immediately a favorite amongst all concerned. So her subsequent development became one more of aesthetical material decisions, i.e. vacuum metalized plastic versus translucent glitter impregnated plastic, iridescent colored hair versus metallic Mylar accented colored hair, face paint and the "color breaks" to her whole body's aesthetical composition, and so on.

The marketing group mutually and periodically reviewed the design development of the product as we progressed, which is standard practice to keep everyone in the loop and aware of design direction, and of course they submitted their input and suggestions to further enhance the dolls, "play pattern" and the line. Often much out of the control of a toy design group things will change in the "post-takeover phase" where marketing has more persuasion, i.e. Tall Star's name change."

Speaking of the marketing group, one of the most thrilling pieces of history to emerge from the discussions between Jon and I was that, at one point, marketing advocated the addition of a separate collectible item to be packed out with each doll, with the intention of fostering and promoting collectibility. I was instantly intrigued, awe-struck, and (enter about a dozen more related adjectives) because these collectible items would have further expounded on The Star Sisters' powers and delved into the dimension of the esoteric. I felt this harkened back to the darker tone set in the Masters of the Universe toy line in the early pre-Filmation days when everything was a bit more vague and therefore mysterious. (i.e. the Spirit of Castle Grayskull or apparitions appearing to dissuade Skeletor from entering the castle, a corridor etc. or the idea that Castle was built by unknown hands.) Jon explains the idea behind these unusual collectibles:

"...each doll would come with a crystal from the stars, a Star Crystal, that possessed an intangible and innate "Power of Starlight" that, via a Wicca-type incantation recited by the child, could be summoned and evoked forth from the etherial realm of the celestials and brought down to Eternia, manifesting through The Star Sisters a "supernatural presence."

In the end, cost reductions prohibited the addition of this feature.

[birindale]

History of the Star Sisters, Pt. 1

A series of interviews by He-man.org user Tallstar, which I’m wishing now I hadn’t messaged him about bc I’ve since found them on my own & I feel bad for buggin’ him. Parts 1-3 were up on the org & part four’s still available on the forums--I’ll be uploading them in their original segments. This is the first.

When the opportunity arose to communicate directly with the artist responsible for conceiving the unproduced '87 Star Sisters trio, I felt an adrenaline-charged rush of excitement over the possibility of hearing back from this former Mattel employee who, in my mind, is a legend for having been instrumental in giving life to what I believe would have been some of the most innovative figures of the entire Princess of Power toy line.

For a toy line geared toward young girls, I always felt the feature-driven Starla, Jewelstar and Tallstar figures were somewhat ahead of their time and pushed the boundaries of what was possible from a storyline perspective.

Excitement then turned into almost paralyzing awe and an overwhelming feeling of honor when I finally saw the initial response in my e-mail inbox, which divulged some basic information on how the project came into existence at Mattel and left the door open for me to acquire further details.

The artist later promised to send me a word file with some additional thoughts the following week, but little did I know that I would receive a whopping four pages of information that probably had not been recounted in a number of years.

My mind was spinning. Frankly, I fantasized about something like this happening for over a decade. Ha-ha

All of the aforementioned feelings were almost immediately followed by some self-created pressure to come up with a plan for presenting the history behind The Star Sisters in way that would not only do justice to the characters, but also honor everyone who was involved back in the day. After all, this is a particularly important piece of Princess of Power history that's on par with the Powers of Grayskull extension line for Masters of the Universe.

At the same time, I was mindful of the hardcore Princess of Power fans who haven't really heard much in terms of the history of classic toy line over the years; especially when compared to the venerable Masters of the Universe line. (Let's face it. Masters fans have been treated to an explosion of information, interviews, concept art and so on, over the last decade.)

I struggled with several hypothetical scenarios. Finally, I decided Princess of Power fans would probably appreciate an online series of historical articles. This option would allow me to get something out "sooner, rather than later" to the fans who have been fiending for historical background on the Princess of Power toy line, while giving me some time to get into contact with some other members of the Mattel team who also played a role in the creation of The Star Sisters.

By now, many of you may be eager to know the name of the artist I've been showering with praise and admiration. That person is Jon Seisa, an award-winning professional with 35 years of experience as an Art Director, Designer and Illustrator. At Mattel, he served as Art Director Of Advanced Concepts for the Girls' Toy Division during his 7-year run from 1985 to 1992. He also conceived The Star Sisters.

If you don't recognize the name, no doubt many of you will be familiar with some of the brands and products Jon was involved in at Mattel: The Spectra doll line, Barbie and The Sensations, Perfume Pretty Barbie, Jewel Secrets Barbie, The Heart Family Schooltime Fun, and many, many more.

Before I continue on, I would like to preface by saying that, at the moment, I'm conceptualizing this as a two-part series of articles, and they will not be in your typical Q & A interview format, but rather Jon's personal account of working on The Star Sisters. Jon's statements will be in bold text [[note: I inverted this for consistency with other interviews; since I don’t bold intros it’s not as noticeable on this installment]]. He readily admitted to me that his memory is a bit fuzzy on some of the details, as it's been 27 years, so would I suggest that the fans go into this with the understanding that certain information may change if/when more information comes in. I'm hoping the story of the Star Sisters will come together/become clearer when I hopefully hear back from the former Disney employee that was hired to help with the backstory on The Star Sisters, as well as some past Mattel employees who were involved in the marketing end of things.

This is the story of The Star Sisters Part 1:

The Star Sisters doll line was designed to be an extension line to the Mattel Toys She-Ra, Princess of Power (POP) doll line with the lead doll She-Ra of Eternia, being for the girl-oriented consumer market and branch of the Masters of the Universe world and the animation sequels animated by Filmation. At the time, market research indicated that the life expectancy of a doll line is roughly 3 years; and thus, the marketing strategy emerged to revitalize the aging POP brand for additive commercial longevity with an extension line. Hence, The Star Sisters was the subsequent created and proposed result brought forth. However and sadly, orders from retailers and buyers were ultimately disappointing not meeting the projected and anticipated goals, and subsequently the potential line was regrettably terminated. Consumer interests were changing and moving on to other interests and new trends, and consequently the POP line began to overall fade. Initially, I was brought on to Mattel Toys in October of 1985 to join the Princess of Power design team headed by design manager Chris McAdam and under Diana Troup, then design director of Barbie and POP, to help facilitate a creative product vision of what form this extension line might possibly embody. Working with the POP design team in ideation and brainstorm sessions, with illustrators,material and artist vendors, model makers, sculptors, fashion designers, hair rooters, and face painters, we developed The Star Sisters. I formulated a preliminary product positioning for the character dolls that ultimately emerged, creating a mythic type legend of their origin. This first served as an introduction to my presentation to upper management and was used as a rudimentary foundation for further development of the back-story when we hired an outside writer/vendor, (name removed), a former associate of mine from my years at Walt Disney Imagineering prior to my employment at Mattel Toys. The legend was simple. Once upon a bygone eon… The Star Sisters were banished by a wicked celestial witch who entombed the sidereal siblings in a small star that was hurled on a collision course with the planet Eternia, resulting in a catastrophic impact that formed the subterranean Crystal Catacombs of Eternia. Thus, The Star Sisters were eternally imprisoned inside the crystalline formations, awaiting for the day of their liberation. This legend changed somewhat down the road and to some degree with the marketers’ input and the writer hired (name removed), but basically this was the fundamental scenario I had concocted and established, initially. The celestial witch remained nameless because this was not a character (doll) scheduled by management to be budgeted for development within the line. My first significant unveiling and presentation of the doll line was to one of Mattel’s top brass design executives, Judy Shackelford, and subsequently thereafter to Jill Barad, at that time the girls toys marketing director. For the Shackelford presentation, I knew I would be extremely nervous since my very employment hinged on the success of this line, so my strategy was to begin with a highly dramatic ice-breaker by creating something that I could purposely read verbatim, but in a dramatic theatrical fashion, and this would guarantee me that my nerves would not overwhelm my thought process to forget crucial details of my presentational speech. Consequently, I decided to create a legion of The Star Sisters to read, and so I created a large scroll out of over sized ochre parchment and wrote on it in calligraphy the legend of The Star Sisters. I aged the scroll to look utterly ancient and scorched its edges for additive authenticity. But before rolling it up, I sprinkled some baby talc powder and iridescent glitter in its center, and then after rolling it up I sealed it with a ribbon tie. For the presentation I strategically spread out a plethora of exotic eye-catching sparkly materials in intoxicating colorful piles on the presentation table to enhance the visual senses of the world I intended to convey; glitter fabrics, pearlized colored fabrics, lenticular colored plastics, dazzling acrylic clear jewels, large mirrored prisms, strands of crystal and vacuum metalized plastic beads,iridescent foils, Mylars, and so on. As the key people sat before me I began my presentation by relaying, "Recently, I had ventured down into the deep dark recess of Mattel’s dank and musty basement, and to my absolute bewilderment I stumbled upon the most astonishing discovery, the unearthing of this utterly ancient scroll festooned with----- the dust of the ages!" As I spoke I untied the ribbon and unfurled the scroll held before me, and immediately after I uttered the words, "…the dust of the age!" I comically blew off the baby talc and glitter lying on the open scroll which undulated upward into a big billowing white cloud of dazzling star dust. Delightfully surprised, everyone burst out with an uproar of gleeful laughter. Instantly, the ice was broken and the rest of the presentation went exceedingly well… much to my relief, as I settled calmly in the rhythm of my presentation with flawless delivery. The names of the two character dolls "Starla" and "Crystal Star" retained their original names from the very start, but "Tall Star" was a name later established by the marketing group for whatever rationale they cited, most likely for simplicity and to have the "star" aspect integrated into the name, while originally myself and the design group referred to her initially as "Expandra" and then later for my presentation it was changed to "Telescopa". The marketing culture at Mattel at that time had a tendency to rely too heavily on child testing and most often created names that were overly simplistic, often giving children elements within their known sphere of knowledge and influence, rather than promoting new unknown elements to expand their knowledge, like learning a new word. So names marketing considered to be "difficult" for children’s minds to grasp or pronounce were entirely avoided for more simplistic names, hence "Tall Star". Glory Bird was merely a reincarnation of another POP bird with color and aesthetical material changes enhancing glittery visual attributes. I never agreed with this basic Mattel Marketing principle because it promotes the "Dumbing Down of America", particularly since in Mattel’s historical infancy names for Barbie lead and feature dolls and fashions where extremely sophisticated and embodied an "ambience" that allowed children to learn new big words, like "Rhapsody Blue" or "Sophisticated Lady," which later and tragically evolved to painfully rudimentary names with the iconic Barbie name attached as if no one in the entire world knew her name was "Barbie," like "Golden Dream Barbie" or "Western Barbie."

[birindale]

History of the Star Sisters, Pt. 3

Part of a series of interviews by He-man.org user Tallstar. This is the third of four. This one has pictures 👀

Welcome to History of The Star Sisters - Part 3. (To read Parts 1 and 2, Click HERE and HERE.) In this final installment of History of The Star Sisters, creator Jon Seisa returns to give his opinions on the produced MOTUC 3-Pack, reflect on his personal project from 1980 that was a partial influence when bringing The Star Sisters dolls to life and answer whether or not there was any packaging in the works at Mattel for Starla, Jewelstar and Tallstar.  Although this will likely be the final interview with Jon concerning The Star Sisters, I am hopeful there will be more Star Sisters goodness to come at a later time.           Do you recall if The Star Sisters got far enough along in the process to have packaging ("proof cards", etc.) designed for them?  If so, could you describe what it would have looked like?

I do not recollect any packaging designs for the Star Sisters; it may have been in the works, but I just don’t remember seeing it, or simply wasn't privy to it. [[note: it was in the works, and would be showcased in the Sander brothers’ 2016 Power-Con panel, a few years after these interviews]]

Did you have any specific inspirations in mind when conceiving The Star Sisters?

Well, in terms of personal inspiration that I drew from in creating the Star Sisters, as far as a sort of jumping board of reference, I think a bit of a personal creation and project did bleed through to help give the Star Sisters life and their inception. This came from an early endeavor I had mutually collaborated with two other Disney artists and writers (Names Removed) in 1980; this was a project of our own enterprise. I would later bring (Name Removed) onto the Star Sisters project to help hammer out some further back-story positioning for the Star Sisters product line. The conceptual project was a musical fantasy film concept entitled “Spectro the RainboWizard,” that we had conjured up and toyed with for our own personal creative expression.

We had created three characters called “The Little Hues” who were rainbow fairies (two shown below) [[note: i poked around and found a third. hashtag bonus art]] They lived in the Magic Prism that powered Spectro’s Rainbow Making Machine, but the prism was stolen by the evil antagonist, a storm wizard, who imprisoned The Little Hues in crystals and scattered them throughout the land and cursed the land with perpetual storms. The protagonist, a boy, coaxes the dejected Spectro out of retirement to free The Little Hues from their crystal entombments in order to bring back the rainbow and the sun which ends the curse and ceaseless torrential storms. So in this regard you can see the influence of the Little Hues in the Star Sisters via the parallel situation and crisis of crystal entombment, though the overall scenarios are really quite different.

Have you seen the produced Star Sisters 3-Pack that Mattel/The Four Horsemen incorporated into the Masters of the Universe Classics line?  If so, what do you think of them?

Yes, I have, and I really must say that I’m really quite pleased and impressed with them; they are wonderfully sculpted creations with great attention to details. They are different from the original Star Sisters targeting the girls’ toy market for a reason, and that has to do with the different toy play pattern that the boys’ toy market demands. In toy play patterns for girls, hair play is a major feature, and of course aesthetical prettiness and a feminine slant, softness. Though Jewel Star did not have hair, she had a high pretty factor of the jewel aspect and girls love jewelry.

(Note to the Readers: Jewestar has hair in the 1987 Mattel Toys catalogs, although it's possible the in-house model did not.)

The dolls were meant to empower girls with “Girl Power” but the feature of actual “fighting” is not high on the girl attribute chart as it is with boys and boy toy play, so with girls other elements are pursued like having dexterity, spinning, agility,casting spells, magic, and powers that make the adversary powerless. Girls rely more on imagination, while boys want to see tangible cause and effect results. For the boy market the MOTU Star Sisters had to be “masculinized” for boy toy play, so I understand their more muscular forms. And of course the hair play feature was substituted with sculpted hair to diminish the “doll” aspect and rev up the “action figure” aspect. I think they did a fantastic adaptation for their primary target market. Also, in terms of marketing and packing them out as a complete 3-pack set, instead of individually, was extremely savvy because as separate collectibles I believe enthusiasm would have waned rapidly resulting in lesser sales, while as a 3 pack it created more intensity and a “must-have” factor that would endure longer, promising higher sales.