Kid Stuff Records was the late 1970s and 1980s licensor for children’s audio storybooks across most of the era’s major properties: Transformers, G.I. Joe, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, and Masters of the Universe. The MOTU titles shipped in 1985 and 1986 in two formats: standard 7-inch 33-1/3 RPM single records bundled with a matching soft-cover storybook for follow-along reading, and a small number of full-length 12-inch LP albums for parent-grade gift retail.
Each 7-inch single-and-book set was packaged in a thin cardboard sleeve about the size of a comic book. The audio side ran roughly 8 to 10 minutes and dramatized a short MOTU adventure with a narrator (often Lou Scheimer, the Filmation studio head, in an uncredited cameo role) and voice-actor portrayals of He-Man, Skeletor, Orko, and the supporting cast. The storybook was 8 to 12 pages with painted illustrations matching the audio narrative. A chime sound told the reader when to turn the page.
The 7-inch set titles included Castle Grayskull, The Sword of Power, Skeletor’s Revenge, He-Man and the Power Sword, The Magic of Eternia, and several others. Each shipped at around $2.99 retail. The 12-inch LP albums (only two produced) bundled multiple stories at $7.99 retail and shipped with a 24-page booklet that combined all the matching storybook content into a single illustrated volume.
The voice cast on the audio is not the Filmation cartoon cast. Kid Stuff Records used in-house voice talent in New York rather than recording in Los Angeles with the Filmation actors. He-Man on the records sounds slightly different from the John Erwin cartoon voice; Skeletor sounds noticeably different from Alan Oppenheimer. The discrepancy is itself part of the collector lore.
Secondary market pricing: 7-inch single-and-book sets in NM with the book and record both intact run $20 to $40 each. The 12-inch LP albums in NM run $60 to $120. Sealed-new 7-inch sets surface occasionally and run $80 to $150. The 12-inch LP albums with the original shrink-wrap intact have hammered as high as $300 at recent eBay auctions.
The audio has been bootlegged onto YouTube by various vintage-toy YouTubers and is the easiest way to hear it without committing to a record player. The original cardboard sleeves with painted artwork are the value driver on the secondary market.
Catalogue source: heman.fandom.com, Kid Stuff Records collector archives (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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