Review – M.A.S.K. Buzzard

Line: M.A.S.K. * Manufacturer: Kenner * Year: 1987 * Ages: 4+

A sleek Formula Race Car, complete with driver, the Buzzard is just one of the toys from the M.A.S.K. “Racing” series that was released in 1987. A little over 9″ long and 5″ wide, the Buzzard — despite the fact that it splits into so many different pieces (see below), and the fact that it is over twenty years old — feels like a heavy, durable toy; even when I accidentally dropped the car it held together and didn’t split into its separate components.

Like the other vehicles in this third series (see Wikipedia’s list of M.A.S.K. toys), the Buzzard was shown in the last episodes of the M.A.S.K. cartoon (which is even available on DVD now, or you can just watch the vehicle transform in this video on YouTube) and that’s where I first encountered it.

Transforming the Formula Race Car into its two motorcycle-like pods and the aerial drone is as simple as placing the vehicle on a flat surface and then pressing down on the roll bar just behind the “driver’s” head. I put driver in quotes because in reality the visible driver is a robot that pilots the aerial drone (shown at right). The Buzzard’s human operators — Miles Mayhem and his evil brother Maximus Mayhem — are each in one of the two pods. If you look closely at the top of the pod you can just make out one of the brothers inside.

The drone’s wings are activated by a second button behind the driver (the gold switch just behind the roll bar).

Each pod has a retractable cannon that must be slid out manually; I guess not every feature can be activated by a button, even if it would have been a lot cooler if the cannons had popped out automatically as soon as the pods were separated from the drone. And even though they’re two-wheeled vehicles, each pod is very stable, rolling quite comfortably on the fat racing tires.

(If you’re interested, I recently posted about the Buzzard in my LiveJournal and in that post I took a shot of the pod’s cockpits opened up.)

Miles and Maximus Mayhem (or, in my case, Miles times two).

I bought my Buzzard on eBay a few years ago at a pretty good price for a toy that was listed as “complete.” Unfortunately, as soon as I opened the box I realized that the toy wasn’t completely complete; according to the M.A.S.K. Guide in Lee’s Toy Review #109 I own two Miles Mayhem figures and do not have a Maximus. In the image at right you can see the two figures, each in a different mask; notice how their chests are the same color . . . the Maximus figure has a purple chest and not blue. So while I have both masks that were released with the Buzzard — the purple-coded Flexor mask on the left figure and the green-coded Deep Freeze mask on the right figure — I’m stuck searching for a replacement Maximus.

(To keep me frustrated, which appears to be important to the universe on most days, the Lee’s Toy Review guide shows the mask colors/names as I’ve stated above while Albert Penello’s M.A.S.K. website shows that the purple mask is Deep Freeze and the green is Flexor; I’m not sure which source is correct. If anyone has the original box and can check the packaging for hints I would appreciate it.)

Closing Thoughts

I’m sure it’s just the nostalgia talking, but the M.A.S.K. Buzzard is an awesome, fun toy, every bit as great today as it was when I drooled over it twenty-plus years ago. As a race car it’s a fast, strong rolling toy that streaks across the floor (much better than some of the toy cars I’ve owned over the years) and as a M.A.S.K. vehicle it’s actually three-in-one, which is always a great bonus in a toy. Definitely one of the best M.A.S.K. toys in my collection.

Philip Reed remembers watching M.A.S.K. cartoons before school each morning; the show came on at about 6 am and he had to be out for the bus by around 7 am, so each morning he was up and ready for school just as the opening credits were starting. Cereal and cartoons, what a life!