The M.U.S.C.L.E. Mail-away Poster

MATTEL gave us Millions of Unusual Small Creatures to collect, so as you could imagine, keeping track of what you had in your collection was no easy task! The M.U.S.C.L.E. Poster made by MATTEL is how the methodology of old timey and modern collecting of M.U.S.C.L.E. was built upon.

Restoration and High resolution scan of the original all pink M.U.S.C.L.E. poster. 
M.U.S.C.L.E. enthusiast Doctor Dew created this image back in the day, and it's helped thousands of collectors complete their collection. A million thanks for doing this Doc!

So MATTEL came to our rescue with The M.U.S.C.L.E. Poster. A handy Guide/Poster/Checklist to help keep track of your little creatures. To this day, M.U.S.C.L.E. fans refer to this numbered poster when it comes to collecting. This pink poster is probably the most familiar to all of us who collected M.U.S.C.L.E. in the 80s. The poster featured all 233 M.U.S.C.L.E. in their original pink/flesh color. The poster had little stars in the lower right hand corner of each picture, so you could check off each M.U.S.C.L.E. as you acquired them.

The offer was printed on the back of 4 packs, and 28 packs. You had to mail away for the poster by either sending two four pack proof of purchases, or just one proof of purchase from a 28 pack..

4-Pack poster offer

Mail-away offer from the back of the 28-Packs

This was the poster pictured on the back of 28 packs. It sported a wrestling ring rope border and features way more than 233 M.U.S.C.L.E. The poster is believed to be a prototype and was never made available to the public. Sorry about the quality, but the ring featured on the box wasn't much better. You can see some better quality scans at Chad Perry's site: The University of M.U.S.C.L.E.

Later on as MATTEL introduced colored figures into the toy line, a new poster was made with colored M.U.S.C.L.E. thrown into the mix..

This second generation poster was released after the original, when MATTEL started introducing colored M.U.S.C.L.E. into the toy line. It was identical to the original, with 76 of the figures being colored. The numbers and colors of those were as follows...

BLUE
8, 9, 13, 21, 24, 38, 48, 49, 51, 53, 80, 87, 115, 146, 147, 159

PURPLE
1, 6, 12, 32, 52, 59, 63, 72, 76, 79, 81, 90, 119, 121, 127, 132, 137, 142, 144, 153, 205, 226, 230, 232

GREEN  18, 198, 200, 202

RED
31, 37, 70, 78, 84, 91, 95, 120, 128, 129, 158, 160, 162, 184, 209, 212, 214, 218

ORANGE  92, 203

MAGENTA  105, 170, 176, 188, 201

TURQUOISE  47, 86, 173, 192, 196

SALMON  97, 114, 171