UofMUSCLE.com – M.U.S.C.L.E. Figures from Mattel

When the French-Canadian 28-pack was added to the archive I thought it basically completed the ephemera aspects of History 100. What more could be added?

A sticker.

I have already talked a little bit about this 4-pack. As I said before, I think this sticker was added to “US” 4-packs to get M.U.S.C.L.E. figures to Canada as soon as possible.

Front

Back

Here is my completely irresponsible speculation. What if the least frequent Class A figures, the ones that tend to show up in Western Canada, come from the last factories to produce French-Canadian 4-packs?

Here is the chain of events I imagine:

• Bandai starts producing Flesh “US” packaging. These are the initial shipments to stores worldwide. (The sticker is added for Canada.)
• Bandai starts producing Flesh, with the poster offer, and in both English and French-Canadian. (I believe the Non-Poster figures are dropped at this time too.
• M.U.S.C.L.E. becomes a hot-seller, but Mattel won’t sink more money into the product. Color figures are introduced.
• The 50/50 4-packs are introduced.
• To effectively meet production demands, based on the Color complexity, Bandai uses some Chinese factories.
• These Chinese produced 4-packs contain the Class A figures because Bandai didn’t have the same level of control in their factories.

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If any M.U.S.C.L.E. collectors have 28-packs, French-Canadian packages, or anything else M.U.S.C.L.E.-related they want to share, then submit pictures by email the University of M.U.S.C.L.E..