Unbored

So, it’s retro time again, and this week I’m going to hold my magic sword aloft and shout BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL! because I’m watching a He-Man episode this week.

He-Man was, like many cartoons in the 1980′s, created primarily to promote a toyline. The said toyline was a series of action figures that blended some sci-fi elements, such as laser guns, vehicles, and robots, with the trappings of fantasy, especially Conan the Barbarian, for inspiration too.

He-Man himself was a character who gained his strength from his furry pants magical sword, given to him by a sorceress, and his arch nemesis was an incompetant hilarious evil sorceror named Skeletor. 

But they also existed in a world where his best friend and bravest ally was Man-At-Arms, who rocked around in a suit of technological armour and a moustache to make the village people proud.

He-Man never held the cult notoriety that Transformers did, and it didn’t last as long on TV or in comic books. However, it is well remembered for it’s toyline, and like many other retro cartoons, people remember most of the basic facts about it – that He-Man had an alter-ego in the boyish and irritating Prince Adam, and that every week he’d regularly trounce the incompetent and mostly comedy relief forces of evil, with no real effect on it the next week, all in order to sell more toys.

My memories of He-Man are vague at best. It wasn’t on TV as often as Transformers, and I liked that more because it had robots, which are machines, that turn into other machines. And I like machines and technology, even when I was little. Most of my friends were also into Transformers more too, but I do remember catching He-Man from time to time.
He-Man also has the dubious honour of being the first cartoon to be turned into a live-action movie, with Dolph Lundgren being the ‘most powerful man in the universe’. It also starred a young Courtney Cox, who would later go on to become Monica in Friends.

The move was a commercial flop…

Anyhow, YouTube has the whole He-Man series available in complete episodes for free, so I started with the first episode of the first season – The Cosmic Comet (what a title!) so let’s see how things go…

So, the episode begins with the very familiar opening theme. Once that’s done, we’re launched into the episode with two of the bad guys attacking Castle Grayskull, the source of all He-Mans’ powers, and apparently a whole lot more, because, according to Evil-lynn the sorceress, the ‘stars are right’, and a comet streaks across the sky-

But this is the first episode of the first season… we don’t get any explanation of the origin of He-Man, the castle, who the baddies are, or any kind of real in-depth origin other than the opening credits. It’s full furry pants engaged! We’re just going straight into things!

Anyhow, He-Man throws Beast-man (wow, imaginative name!) off the drawbridge, and then reflects Evil-lynn’s magic back at her using his sword. They fall into a big pit of mud, or maybe poo, under the drawbridge, complete with comedy sound effects, and then swear to be back another day.
Well, so far so Hanna-Barbara.

One thing to note about this show so far, is that the animation is pretty chunky and primitive – it looks very 70′s and crude. All the characters are quite simple-looking, and the colours are quite… plain, with little shadows or shading. But maybe I’ve just been spoilt by anime… either way, it really hasn’t aged well…

So, He-Man, Man-At-Arms, and Man-At-Arms moustache are sent by the Sorceress (I wonder what her real name is?) to go and find a wizard who is apparently the ‘Keeper of Comets’. She doesn’t explain what that means, so maybe it’s like being their carer, or their handler or something. Maybe he has to feed them and water them every day, and let them out for a blast around the solar system.

So, they ask permission from the King to go (He-Man has changed back into Adam at this point), and he comments that he is glad Adam is ‘taking some responsibility at last’, like he’s some kind of unruly teenager who sits in his bedroom all the time, or keeps coming home drunk.
Considering the fact that he’s still buff as hell as Adam, he obviously must have some sense of responsibility or drive. And if I was him, I’d just be like ‘Responsibility? Fuck you dad, I’m He-Man!”
Anyhow, that sadly does not happen, and instead the King decides they should take Teela along, in case Man-At-Arms porno moustache and Prince Adam’s pink shirt don’t let them get taken seriously enough. The two guys give each a ‘WTF’ look, which they should have reserved, because then Orko decides he wants to come too.

Now, just a break for a moment to explain Orko.

In every action cartoon there’s always an Orko. Thundercats had Snarf, and the Transformers… well, they had Wheelie. And I fucking hate Wheelie. But there’s always comedy, light-hearted companion character, who regularly screws up, gets in the way, or otherwise performs some kind of action that either makes things worse for the bad guys, or unexpectedly saves the day for the heroes. Orko is this character in He-Man, complete with annoying voice and stupid look. He’s apparently a magician, but his magic goes wrong every single time he tries to do it, making him less that useless in any capacity.

The little dumbass threatens to practice his magic for an upcoming banquet, so the king decides to let him go along, instantly dooming Prince Adam, Man-At-Arms and Teela, and off they go to find the Keeper of the Comets.

Then we get our first glimpse at the bad guys and their eeeeeevil lair, Snake Mountain – which is, as it suggests, a mountain in the shape of a snake. Evil-Lynn and a gormless looking beast man stand around, until Skeletor, who’s their boss, shows up and starts speaking in his hilarious voice. The bad guys all hold hands (Awww!) and use their magic to take over the comet. Skeletor has a bit of a laugh, which is also hilarious, and then we cut back to the good guys, who are in a tourbus on weird-looking tracks, which no one appears to be driving.
At this point, the animation looks really really cheap. The inside of the vehicle has no detail at all – no one is even sitting on seats, they’re just sort of… hovering… and the cab has no details of any kind. The actual movement of the ‘attack track’ is also steady and solid – now, I know that things were a little more primitive back then, but seriously?

Anyhow, their journey isn’t exactly wrought with danger, as they just sort of turn up and are there.
The Keeper of the Comets turns out to be a moron, and apparently is clueless and kind of dumb and ditzy. It turns out that he accidentally blew up one of the comets he was trying to control, and turned the other one evil (sentient comets? who knew!), and now he’s too old and lazy to solve the problem, and has no confidence in his abilities.

Skeletor and the baddies decide to capture the wizard just in case, and use the comet to send some monsters to capture the wizard. Adam and Teela run around a bit, and then the comet fragments hit, and turn into faceless grey golem-thingies.

Cringer (A big green tiger-thing that’s a coward) runs away, and Adam follows him, giving Teela and Man-At-Arms a chance to show that they’re useless. Adam turns into He-Man, and turns Cringer into Battlecat.
The wizard tries to control the comet monsters and fails. He-man beats them up, while Orko simpers pointlessly.

The wizard passes out, and Orko collects the comet chunks for later. They take the wizard to Castle Grayskull to heal him up, and then go to fight Skeletor in the RV. Beast man attacks them in a stupid looking jet, and the Mobile home decides to grow a sense of humor, which falls flat on it’s face. Some bad animation later, and they shoot down Beast-Man.
Skeleton face and Evil-lynn hold hands again (aww! there’s so much love with the villains) and then attack the good guys using their powers. He-Man declares let’s get ‘em… and then they pass out.
Fortunately, the Sorceress rescues them by teleporting them away before Skeletor can rape them all to death, and the wizard decides they should start a comet arms race by making a cosmic comet of their own filled with ‘good’. They use the bits of comet Orko picked up to make one, filled with the power of good from their hearts…
How digustingly saccharine >.<

Anyhow, the comet is sentient, and they have to send it off into space before the evil one hits.
The comet is on route, and He-Man says he has to try and slow it down. The sorceress uses her magic to make him fly, and then we see how He-Man is the most powerful man in the universe, because he ignores the fucking laws of physics.
He gets propelled into the air, and holds the comet still in mid air.
Yes, not standing on anything, or pushing against anything except thin air, he holds the comet back.

Anyhow, the good comet is propelled back into the air, and they make friends again, and all is happy and right. Skeletor gets a comet in the face, and then everyone regroups at the banquet, where Orko shows off some lame magic, and everyone has a laugh, before Man-At-Arms gives us the ‘moral of the story’ which is not to give up on yourself.

So, that’s the first episode of the series, and it’s got to be said – it’s a lot worse than I remember it being.

The plot is stupid, the characters are weak, and the script is piss-poor. And the animation is ugly, clunky and flat. The character designs aren’t pretty either, and look shoddy and crude.
It is kind of dumb fun to watch, if only to rip into it, and it shows it’s age. Maybe when I was younger I might’ve watched it – but even then, I can see why it wasn’t my favourite show compared to some others.

It did get two reboots as well – one in the early 90′s as which was essentially ‘He-Man in space,’ which didn’t take off and only lasted a single season of 52 episodes (enough for syndication), but did have a lot better animation and character design, and one which was done in the early ’00′s and had a more ‘manga’ art style, and attempts at a decent plot – and thus was sure to fail, despite apparently being a lot better and having vaguely threatening villains and an arc-plot.

He-Man’s fondest memories are probably from the legions of fantastically bizarre and surreal toys, which were supported and advertised by the cartoon, rather than transformers, which had a fictional appeal of it’s own, alongside the toys. It’s interesting to see the differences between the two and how they’ve changed over time, but He-Man is certainly one for the camp-and-dumb archives, and something to remember and watch for shits and giggles, more than anything else.