In honor of the new Masters of the Universe animated series, this week Geoffrey brought some episodes of the 1980s He-Man cartoon to the table. Perhaps fittingly, since this cartoon was explicitly made to market the toys, Geoffrey didn’t remember plots so much as toys that he liked to play with.
In this episode we discuss “To Save Skeletor” and “The Mystery of Man-E-Faces”. In our bonus episode for paid subscribers, we’ll be talking about “Disappearing Dragons”
Here’s Geoffrey’s hazy summary:
“I watched He-Man all the time when it was on TV when I was a kid, but can't remember a single plotline from an episode. What I remember is the theme song: ba da DA da, ba DADA da da da, ba DADA da da da, da da and the bit where he says "By the Power of Greyskull, I have the Power!" I also remember having many He-Man toys and playing with them a LOT. They were cool as toys went, and much bigger than Star Wars guys, which I also liked. I had battle armor He-Man and Skeletor, which had breastplates that showed marks on them when you clicked them, like they'd been hit in the armor. Super cool. The guys in these episodes are ones I am pretty sure either had myself or friends had: Kobra Khan, who was an action figure and also a squirt bottle; Webstor, who had a hook thing; Man-E-Faces, whose face turned around; Lockjaw who had cool arm attachments; and Whiplash, who you could turn sideways and then he would spring back and you could hit things with his tail. Oh, also, I was a big Cringer fan.”
We were surprised at how much we found this to be okay watch!
We also talked a bout about The Toys That Made Us, a Netflix documentary series that has a great episode about the He-Man toys. We definitely recommend that one if you think it sounds fun.
Geoffrey recommends the new Masters of the Universe animated series, though he does give a minor spoiler/caveat about the premise of it. Julia hadn’t seen the series and was surprised by this spoiler and felt like it was understandable why it might upset He-Man fans. If you’ve seen the new one, what did you think?
If you’re having fun listening to us, please tell your friends about us! Subscribe to our newsletter at thisiswhywerelikethis.substack.com for free, or pay $5/month to get access to two bonus paid episodes each month! We’re also on Patreon if that’s your jam! Rate and review us! follow us on Twitter where we’re @thisiswhy_pod! And, of course, you can always drop us a note at at thisiswhywerelikethis@gmail.com.
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe