Fright Pit Evil Lair of Gruesome Ooze He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Origins Playset Item No.: No. JMJ23 Manufacturer: Mattel Includes: Slime, presumably Action Feature: Slimes figures, lights up Retail: $48.99 Availability: June 2026 Other: The Slime Pit, Reimagined
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I got the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Origins Fright Pit despite having negative interest in the original Slime Put from the 1980s. Toys like The Real Ghostbusters Firehouse, the Slime Pit, and others incorporated slime or goop or other stuff as the gross-out toys of the 1980s looked for new ways to be interesting and oozy. Even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sold cans of ooze with little figures in them, since slime in the form of Mutagen is central to their origin story. The mini-comics and commercials for He-Man used the slime as something that causes your good guys to turn bad, but holy water turns them to good, but a rainbow will make them even more evil than the first time. (Points to anyone who gets the reference.)

The original toy was a hit, and was popular enough for Mattel to bring it back for its Harry Potter toys' Harry Potter Slime Chamber Playset. The play functionality worked for generations, so now it's back at a much higher price. That's the collector market. Maybe we'll see it repurposed in Batman or some other Mattel line, because slime has been popular and kids love this stuff.

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I don't have an original to compare, but the new model certainly seems larger. Standing about 14-inches tall at the top of the dinosaur skull, this item is built slightly differently than the original. Two hand puppets flank either side, rather than one coming up from within the pit. The clear green slime plastic basin is screwed in, and now has two green LED bulbs with different settings of blinking. This is probably the single greatest improvement, because the green light lets you "slime" a figure without actually applying goop. (Warning/guarantee: I will not be trying out the ziplock goop bag on my figures.) It makes it look like an evil vortex is coming up from the ground, and it takes three "AAA" batteries to do it. The button is off to the side nicely integrated into the rocky base.

The deco is great. Inspired by original toys, it seems they opted for more of a spray deco - it's very retro. I've seen this on a number of old toys - sofubi, dinosaur bellies, Godzillas - and the brown is applied generously to the bone parts. The red gate also seems to be fading a bit, with similarly understated tones on Hordak's face and the block wall behind it. It looks like an old toy more than it does something modern, so the jointed skull and arms and lights are a nice bonus. To have something that looks old, still feels like a toy, but can also be seen as "modernized" is pretty much what I want out of a vehicle or a playset. It has to be a little crappy, and the spray sells the illusion of oldness fairly well.

The skull has a ball joint at the base. This lets you turn it or pose it looking up or down, sliming a guy. The top of the skull is hinged, so you won't lose the piece - and you can probably store some junk in there if you want. The neck plugs in to the red gate, and doesn't move.

The toy has three foot pegs. One in the slime pit works perfectly for holding your figure in place while you adjust the skull or the bone arms. There are two more off to the sides, each of which seems pretty worthless. The step is too small for a figure to stand with both feet, and the figure articulation doesn't allow for the hip to be up high enough to step up. There's also a fourth peg in the slime pit, and it's absolutely huge. I assume it's there for removing the green plastic slime piece once you've unscrewed the bottom, because nothing else seems to fit with it.

There are four indentations along the sides, and I was able to put weapon handles in there. It's like you're putting an umbrella in the sand at the beach.

The instructions say you can connect it to the Fright Zone. You can't. It can sit next to the Fright Zone, but that might get in the way of moving the arms. There are no connecting tabs or hooks, either, so they just kind of hang out together. They match nicely, but I wouldn't recommend reorganizing your shelves to get them to connect.

Is it worth $50? If one figure is presently $20-$25, it would seem to be. This set is bigger and about as interesting as two or three action figures. I'm always interested in places or vehicles for my figures to go, and Mattel has done a pretty good job with their offerings over the past seven years. If you can get this for a fair price, I'd say go for it. It's not as cool as Castle Grayskull, which had a figure and was $60 when it came out, but we've also seen figures jump 50% from $15 to $22. If we're taking inflation into account, an electronic playset with slime and action features is a better buy than what Star Wars fans have been getting.

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