Writing my last two posts about the gems of my childhood reminded me of another: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I'm I'm going to try to do it without any gay jokes. Not only because homophobic jokes are wrong but also because they're too easy with this material. The whole show is a set up for
There were a few incarnations of this, but I'm going to stick with the first one, since as far as I know it was the most successful. Like any cartoon of the 80s, it had all the earmarks of the ever present formula and it did it well. It had a main villain who was over the top evil and evil for the sake of evil, the mascot, and the PSA tacked on the end.
Let's start with the baddies. There's Skeletor. You knew as soon as you saw him that he was the main baddie - his freaking face was a skull! His minions included Trap Jaw, a dude with an iron jaw and a prosthetic arm that he swapped out to a laser or a claw or some other tool that suited his nefarious purposes. Since he, like nearly every other male in this word, wore pretty much a furry loincloth and not much else, I really don't want to even think about where he kept his spare parts. There was also the aptly named beast man. He was furry, had fang, and was some kind of beast/man hybrid. And then there was Evil Lynn. She was a sorceress, a master of disguise, and the token female of the group. Anytime a random woman wanted he man dead it was probably her in a costume. Hasbro pretty much phoned it in when coming up with the names and stuck with stuff like Stinkor for the (scratch and sniff) skunk man. Their primary goal seemed to be to make as many unique characters as possible using a single body mold and swapping out the heads and adding a gimmick. Because what parent doesn't want to get their kid a skunk guy that smells like a skunk?
The heroes were lead by He-Man, whose secret identity was Prince Adam, who looked exactly like he man, but threw everyone off by wearing trousers. People would see him and think "hey! He looks exactly like he man and the two are never in the same room together despite claiming to be friends, but he can't be He-Man because he's not wearing furry bikini bottoms!" His most trusted friend is Man At Arms, known to his friends as Duncan, because even the characters in this world realize how lame a name like Man At Arms is. He passes as fully dressed in this world with a chest plate and arm armor to protect him. He is not worried about protecting anything below the waist because all he wears is furry bikini bottoms and boots without a care in the world for his he-junk.. At least I hope it's a bikini. It's possible that the men who inhabit Eternia have the hairiest pubic regions in all of the known universe!
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| Teela, paint me like one of your French guys. |
OK, I've been trying to segue into this, but I really can't seem to get here fast enough. There's an elephant in the room and it needs to be addressed. What is up with the furry bikini bottoms on the men??? Is "furkini" a word? Well it is now. From now on this thing is called a furkini! Anyway, I think Adam may be the only man who has discovered pants and is keeping the secret for himself! Was that why he was chosen to be He-Man? Did the sorceress walk in and say, "Adam, since you already posess the secrets of bifurcated garmentation and long sleeved t-shirts I will also trust you with the secret of Castle Grayskull." Of course, even Adam nods to the fasion elite by wearing a purple furkini over his lavender pants. He aslo seems to be the sole possessor of shirt technology as well. Nearly everyone else wears a leather harness, but only Adam wears a white shirt. But being the modest guy he is, he covers it with a pink vest so as not to flaunt his apparent hording of shirt technology. Only the men seem to be afflicted with a desire for furkinis, the women all wear leotards with no bare midriffs and the men wean next to nothing. Ladies, if you want to demonstrate to a man the sexism inherent to many RPGs and in the fantasy genre in general, make him watch He-Man. not to mention that the (real life, USA) rules at the time prohibited He-Man from punching, kicking or using his sword as a weapon again people, this meant that most fights meant that big burly guys were grappling and wrestling. He-Man could kill all of Skeletor's robot henchmen, but had to get up close and personal with everyone else. That's right, in a stunning 180 degree turn from the norm, the women are pretty much all covered up while the guys are nearly nekkid and hug-fighting. If that doesn't hammer your point home, nothing will.
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| Skeletor felt strangely drawn to this place. |
Okay, so I got that out of my system ,where was I? Oh, yes, I should probably discuss the plot at some point. Skeletor wants to rule all Eternia. Why? I don't have a freaking clue. There's not a whole lot there. it's a mind baffling hodgepodge of futuristic technology like lasers, hover cars, and cyborgs with ancient magic, swords, and castles. That's right, they have laser rifles, but the preferred way of fighting to to bring a sword to a gun fight. The key to Skeletor's plan is to take over Castle Grayskull, and it's power to grant the powers of Furkini, I mean He-Man. The Castle's protector, the Sorceress, picks well-know Shirt and Pants wearer Adam to be the loincloth and harness clad protector. He, along with Man At Arms/Duncan, Duncan's adopted daughter Teela, and a handfull of seemingly random member of the hairy loincloth club for men battle to protect the castle, whose location seems to be onl reachable by magic, from the evil forces of The Deceptacons, sorry, Skeletor and his equally random tag team of terrors. Every now and then the writers would mix it up by adding a new baddie or some other conflict that was not Skeletor's doing. sometimes they even forced He-Man and Skeletor to work together to solve the crisis.
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| "I'm telling you Man At Arms, I don't know how twelve banana cream pies got into your footlocker!" |
Okay, so I talked about the formula for an 80's cartoon above. Remember I mentioned mascots? Well, He-Man, in order to be over the top in every way, has two - Orko and Cringer. Cringer the cowardly pet of Adam who provides comic relief to pretty much any scene he's in. When He-Man points his magic sword Cringer becomes the mighty Battle-Cat. An armor wearing super version of himself who knows no fear. Naturally he can talk and is totally over the top in both roles - imagine if Scooby Doo became Scrappy in every episode. Yeah ,it's like that. Also, we have Orko. A floating rove and wizard hat who serves as court magician and jester for Adam's father the king. Mostly this means that he attempts to cast a spell and it backfires all over Man At Arms. His sole purpose is comic relief and to do the PSA at the end when He-Man is too busy combing his furkini. Occasionally he will provide some plot device or arcane knowledge, but that's pretty rare.
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| Cunning Warrior and kidnap bait |
Duncan's adopted daughter Teela does not know the secret identity of He-Man. Now I usually try to steer clear of sexism and accusations of sexism, but really. They'll trust Orko the Incompetent with He-man's secret but Teela's fragile female mind can't handle it. True, it could be her age, but they never really say that's it, it's just, "Don't tell Teela. Everyone else is ok, but Teela might blab." As though the writers figured out, or got told, what dicks they were they decided that not only would Teela be an accomplished warrior, but she'd be in charge of training Adam. That's right, the Captain of the Guard leaves the training of the King's son to the daughter that he will not trust any secrets. At one point, they reveal the true identity of Teel's mother, but they can't trust her with that knowledge so they wipe it from her memory. He-Man is fine to tell though. Sure, why not. If Skeletor ever captures He-Man he can learn the secret of Grayskull, the secret of Teela's parentage, and the technology of bifurcated garmentation and long sleeved tees. Talk about all your eggs in one basket! Oh, yeah, and all that about her being a skilled warrior? She's also one of only four women in this universe, so she's frequently kidnapped.
And last of all, we come to the PSA. due to FCC regulations at the time, all children's programming must be educational, so Mattell took a page right out of Hasbro's book and got around this by making entertaining shows and tacking on a thirty second PSA at the end. It usually consisted of Orko or the lead character of that particular episode saying something like, "In today's episode, Stratos didn't listen to Man At Arms about taking proper care of his things and Stratos' furkini got all tangle and He-Man and Teela had to go off in search of the comb of Furkini combing. So when your mom and dad tell you to take care of your things, you should do it. And remember, The Power Is Yours!"
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| I just can't figure out why the show wasn't more populare with teenage boys... |
Before I end, I need to mention She-Ra. As near as I can tell, Mattell saw that girls watched the show too and liked Teela and the Sorceress and Evil Lynn and they decided to try to expand the franchise. The created She-Ra, Princess of Power! They kept the primary formula, over the top evil for the sake of evil baddies, anthropromorphic mascot/hero battle mount, inept court magician, PSAs, and shirtless guys. Granted the shirtless guys all rear long pants without furkinis and weigh less than He-Man and company by a good margin. like He-Man, She-Ra's characters were all out of the same molds, She-ra's figure was exactly like Teela's, Evil Lynn's, and the Sorceress' except that she wore a small mini-skirt over her leotard. Being Adam's cousin, She-Ra alter ego, Princess Adora shared in his knowledge of vests over white t-shirts, but even though the secret of pant-wearing seems to be well known in her world, as she preferred some bizarre vest/leotard combination. A leovest? A vestard? My brain hurts. Anyway, her faithful companion was a magic pony what turns into a unicorn with rainbow wings. There was also some king of flying teddy bear/kaola thing and a crazy dingbat magician. It was like the split Orko into two! Her companions are build like Ken Dolls and appear to wear jeans. She-Ra also has a sword, but was under the same restrictions as He-Man - cannot use the sword as a weapon, no punching, and no kicking. Unless it's a robot - which works out great because She-ra's main enemies just happen to be mostly robots!
I didn't really watch this one as much, so I can't really pick it apart and make fun of it the way I did He-Man. let's be honest, a 12 year old boy is not going to watch anything that involves rainbow unicorns. But many women who watched the show as kids agree that She-Ra was every bit as awesome as He-man and made for some good after-school TV time.
BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL, I HAVE THE POWER!!!
