These photographs are an incredible discovery. None of the pictures feature a child playing with M.U.S.C.L.E. toys; instead the pictures were taken by a child. These pictures represent the actual perspective of a child playing with M.U.S.C.L.E. figures.
The pictures were submitted by Matthew along with the rich history he remembered about the pictures. The photographs were taken in the first half of 1986 in Shelton, Connecticut which is roughly an hour’s drive from New York City.
The date of the pictures is able to be confirmed by the Kodak stamp on the back of the pictures. The photographs were taken in Matthew’s tree fort with a Fisher Price 110 camera. Apparently he was playing with his M.U.S.C.L.E. figures and wrestling ring, pausing the action periodically to snap the pictures.
It seems that one of the shortcomings of the Fisher Price 110 camera was that the viewfinder was severely offset from the actual iris, which led to pictures being framed askew to the right. In an effort to fully illustrate the effect, the scanned pictures have been minimally cropped and not rotated.
Matthew was especially amused how the awkward viewfinder actually let to a bizarre looking rock being in nearly every picture. He also noticed that the matches seem to be closely monitored by figure #89. Matthew’s assumption was that as a child he believed the figure was a camera and did not recognize the figure as a watch.
 Picture 1 |
 Picture 2 |
 Picture 3 |
 Picture 4 |
 Picture 5 |
 Picture 6 |
 Picture 7 |
 Picture 8 |
There are three additional pictures. The first two are photographs of M.A.S.K. figures. They have been included, because they were all part of the same “toy photography” session Matthew had in early 1986. It seemed inappropriate to separate the pictures and only seemed to add to the childish voice of the group of photographs.
 Picture 9 - MASK |
 Picture 10 - MASK |
The third picture is simply a scan of the back of one of the pictures. All of the pictures had the same Kodak stamp.
Kodak Stamp on the Back of All the Pictures
If you would like to submit M.U.S.C.L.E. related pictures from your childhood, please email the pictures to the University of M.U.S.C.L.E.. An accompanying description to provide additional information about the pictures would also be greatly appreciated.
#1 by galactiboy on January 12, 2010 - 12:45 pm
What a find!
And to think w/o the UofM images like this might never have been discovered or shared! How cool!
#2 by Nyarlathotep on January 12, 2010 - 4:33 pm
Hear hear, well done!