
Former American sweetheart Tom Hanks has signed on to be a part of Universal's Major Matt Mason, a live-action feature based on the vintage Mattel action figure that will be written by Graham Yost. This is all fine and dandy, except, what the fuck is a Major Matt Mason? It's not even on Wikipedia and a google search revealed very little. I know Mattell is eager to cash in on old toys with movies like Candy Land and Stretch Armstrong, but at least people know what those are. I think Mr. Hanks should stick to Toy Story 3. After some further research I found that Mason was the leader of an astronaut team that lived and worked on the moon, and fought a few hostile aliens. He was the hottest thing going in the years leading up to NASA’s first trip to the moon and wasn’t retired until the 1970s. Despite being retired for so long, Matt Mason is remembered very fondly. A mint Mason is an “unofficial crewman” on many NASA flights, and one even flew with John Glenn in his final Shuttle flight in 1998.
--Clark Herer