The Tale of Pigboy and the Masters of the Universe

In the mid-80s, Mattel ran a contest where the winner would get a role in the upcoming HE-MAN movie.

The movie would be called MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (MOTU). Produced by purveyors of quality GOLAN-GLOBUS, the movie strays dramatically from the narrative of the original cartoon with most of the action taking place in modern day (mid-80s) Earth as opposed to the mystical Eternia. Not unlike the TRANSFORMERS movies, the Masters of the Universe gang ends up hanging out with some young American teens, giving us the perfect way into the story. (In MOTU, Courtney Cox plays Shia LaBeouf.)

The original idea was actually to have the film set on Eternia throughout and be much more faithful to the cartoon... but, as mentioned, this was a Golan-Globus production. For budgetary reasons the script was changed to have it set on Earth and reduce the amount of sets and strange characters they would need to create.

The production ended up being a rushed affair and yet director Gary Goddard was required to squeeze in the winner of Mattel's contest...

And thus the winner—third grader Richard Szponder—ended up appearing in heavy makeup as the character of "Pigboy". In his one brief shining moment of glory, he gets to hand Skeletor his staff when he returns from Earth.


An interview with Szponder about his experience HERE.