| Roger Sweet | |
| Birth Place: | United States |
| Occupation: | Entrepreneur, inventor |
| Nationality: | American |
| Known For: | Originator, creator of He-Man |
Roger Sweet is an American designer. He grew up in Akron, Ohio and graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and the Institute of Design in Chicago, Illinois. He served as a lead designer at Mattel throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s and worked extensively on the Masters of the Universe toy line. Before working for Mattel, Sweet held design positions with Walter Dorwin Teague Associates, an industrial design firm, and other design firms. He worked on the accounts of such companies as Boeing, Rubbermaid, Hoover, and Procter & Gamble, and on such products as the interior of the Boeing 747 jumbo jet airliner, and the Downy and Scope packages.
In 1976, Mattel's CEO Ray Wagner declined a request to produce a toyline of action figures based on the characters from the George Lucas film Star Wars.[1] [2] Upon the commercial success of the film trilogy during the next few years and all related merchandise, Mattel attempted to launch several unsuccessful toylines, none of which captured the public's imagination or made a significant dent in the toy market.[1] These included: Kid Gallant, a medieval knight; Robin and the Space Hoods, a sci-fi figure; and the daredevil Kenny Dewitt (pronounced "Can He Do It)?"
Roger Sweet was a lead designer for Mattel's Preliminary Design Department throughout much of the 1970s and 1980s.[1] [2] According to his book Mastering the Universe: He-Man and the Rise and Fall of a Billion-Dollar Idea, Sweet made He-Man with the idea that the character's simplicity would make it effective: "this was a powerful figure that could be taken anywhere and dropped into any context because he had a generic name: He-Man!"[1] [3]