The Intro/credits sequence to the show is quite expository. I don’t know if every intro sequence is the same, or if they cut out the exposition later, I don’t remember. I suspect that, in the interest in making the show as cheap as possible, they continue to use it, because it cuts the need down for original animation.
The sequence introduces Adam – Prince of Eternia. Prince Adam tells us that one day, he held his sword “aloft” and chanted, “By the power of Grayskull, I have the power!” This is the way in which he arbitrarily discovered, and I quote, his “fabulous secret powers”. That’s right. Fabulous. I didn’t think anything could be more fabulous than his skin-tight, white shirt and pink, sleeve-less, collared vest, but I guess I was wrong.
Seriously, what could be gayer than Prince Adam’s outfit? He completes the ensemble with skin-tight purple pants and boots topped off with a white fuzzy ring around the top. As if that is not bad enough, he ripped off the haircut of the narcoleptic Prince Valium from Space Balls. Except it’s the other way around apparently. Space Balls came out in 1987, 4 years after He-Man started. Maybe it was just a popular haircut in the 80’s, I don’t remember.
Next he introduces us to his giant pussy. No, seriously, Cringer, his giant green cat. But also, Cringer really is a pussy. He’s probably even afraid of his own shadow. Except that when Prince Adam turns into He-Man, Cringer turns into Battle Cat. Which is kind of fucked up because it seems likes its against his will. He’s clearly not inclined to confront danger, and now, just because he has a helmet and a saddle, he has to let He-Man ride around on him and put him directly into harm's way. What the fuck.
He-Man claims that only three friends share his closeted secret - The Sorceress, a leggy bird lady, Man-At-Arms whom, based on his (lack of a) name, appears to be their lone military personnel, and Orko. I don’t know what the fuck Orko is. Some kind of floating, dress wearing ghost, I guess. I have a feeling that a few more than these three people know Prince Adam’s secret though. He seems pretty flaming to me.
Together, they defend Castle Grayskull from the evil forces of Skeletor. Why Skeletor wants into Castle Grayskull so bad is beyond me. Maybe they have some kind of killer bathhouse grotto in there or something. I guess we will have to find out.
The episode opens with an as-yet-unnamed woman standing outside Castle Grayskull with her companion, Beast Man. Beast Man has some gnarly bags under his eyes, which I’m pretty sure signifies that he’s an alcoholic.
The woman explains to him that the stars are in the right position, the Cosmic Comet is flying by, and so now is the time to open the gates of Castle Grayskull. As far as I know, all comets are cosmic, so that seems a little redundant, but what ever. Also, if the damned castle only opens under such specific circumstances, it must be a pain in the ass to get in and out of that place! Anyway, for some reason this means that she uses some kind of freaky-ass eyeball telekinesis to open the door. That was easy. Why has Skeletor been trying so hard to get into Castle Grayskull if all he had to do was get his bitch to stare at the door when the stars are out?
Oh, I see. It’s not that easy. He-Man is on the other side of the door already, all mounted up on Battle Cat with Man-At-Arms by his side. He calls Beast Man “fur-face”, which pisses him off for some reason. I mean, seriously. You are supposed to be an evil henchman and that’s what gets your goat? Fur-face? Also, its true. You have a furry fucking face. If you don’t like it, get a razor and shave that shit. Though I can’t say I blame you, I hate shaving too. So Beast Man gets pissed off and charges He-Man who pulls him up - by the scruff of his neck like some kind of mother kitten - really close to his face like he’s going to kiss him. Psych! You thought you could get with this? Think again! He-Man instead tosses him into a tar pit, conveniently located next to Castle Grayskull.
By the way, from what I’ve seen of the topography of Eternia so far, the place is pretty fucking barren. There’s just a bunch of rocks everywhere, and, apparently, random tar pits. And the sky is red. Why the fuck would anybody fight over this? Its kinda like the Gaza strip, I guess.
Out of a bewildering sense of duty to Beast Man, the unnamed bitch tickles up a magical energy blast and throws it at He-Man. Isn’t that just like a woman? Throwing shit at you when she’s pissed? God forbid she just be direct about it and explain what’s chapping her twat. But it doesn’t matter because He-Man uses his sword to deflect her blast, which strikes her and triggers a brief acid trip or something, and she gets dizzy and falls into the tar pit.
She and Beast Man invite themselves back some time, and He-Man tells them they have to wash up before they come back and make sure they wipe their feet on the mat, thank you. For some reason, it seems like every time He-Man speaks, his voice echoes. It doesn’t happen when Man-At-Arms speaks. I don’t know if they recorded his voiceovers in a tiny bathroom stall, or if they just thought the effect made him sound more macho, or what. I’m thinking the bathroom stall, because they clearly spent as little money on this production as possible.
So then He-Man’s bosom buddy, The Sorceress, appears to him and tells him that its not over as Skeletor plans to use the comet against him. He-Man is like, so fucking what? And the Sorceress is all like, no, really, its not like usual when he fucks with you. Now he has this Cosmic Comet thing. She mentions someone named Zagraz, a wizard and keeper of the comets, and that they need to go talk to him. I thought she said Snodgrass at first. Then I thought it was Zodgrass. I ended up going to IMDB to check, and found that there are only four voice actors in this whole episode. Cheap asses. I bet they didn’t get paid per character either.
He-Man’s sword swirls at the screen to signify a jump cut. He-Man is once again Prince Adam and is in the palace hall, or what ever, which is different than Castle Grayskull. He is talking to his father, the King. The Queen is sitting there with him on their complimentary his-and-hers thrones, but she never says anything and her name is not in the cast credits from IMDB. So, Man-At-Arms is asking the King permission to go on some secret mission for the safety of the kingdom. Also, apparently, Man-At-Arm’s real name is Duncan, because that’s what the King calls him. Apparently only the king gets to call him that and every one else has to refer to him by title. Prick.
The King is all like, “OK, if you say its necessary for safety. Prince Adam, it’s nice to see you get off your lazy, good-for-nothing, freeloading ass and do something useful for once. But since you are such a hapless fuck-up, Teela, the Captain of the Guards, has to go to over see things”. The scene ends and still nobody has used the King’s name. In fact, if his name weren’t Prince Adam, you probably wouldn’t know the King was his father.
Wait, wait, and wait. So even though Prince Adam is really He-Man, he is such a sissy-boy lazy sack of shit that this chick, Teela, even if she is Captain of the Guards, has to baby-sit him? Further, the King doesn’t want to know what this secret mission, which is vital to national security, even is??
So, okay, Prince Adam did say that only three people know his secret. Although, I think Cringer should count in that group because he does fucking talk, you know. He could tattle. But anyway, He-Man would rather his father think of him as this prissy fairy, Prince Adam, than to reveal himself as the alleged “most powerful man in the universe”? What ever dude, have it your way. But if my dad was shitting on me all the time, and I was really secretly some awesome kick-ass muscle man, I’d probably let him in on it.
Cut to Skeletor’s castle, where he is chilling with the still unnamed bitch and Beast Man in his room-with-a-view, which is actually the mouth of a giant stone snake that wraps around a mountain and serves as Skeletor’s base. Its pretty cool, except that it looks over the barren beauty that is Eternia. Man, this country sucks. Or is it a planet? I’m not sure. They all join hands for a game of evil ring-around-the-rosy.
Or at least I thought it was until this white substance appears in the middle, so now I think maybe it was a circle jerk. The suspicious looking ball flies up and slimes the Cosmic Comet, which now really looks like sperm. Seriously. It was all red and fiery before.
Skeletor totally has a raging ‘gasm just before the scene ends, so now I’m convinced that it was circle jerk. For those keeping score, we still do not know the name of the unnamed bitch OR Prince Adam’s father, the King.
The He-Man logo wipes across the screen to transition to a new location. I kind of like this gimmick at this point. It makes it very clear where the scenes change, which is nice for reviewing the episode and screen capping. But I suspect it was also a way of wasting time and spending less money on unique animation sequences. Anyway, some kind of tank vehicle is driving through the beautiful gray rocks of Eternia, and is transporting He-man, Teela (his chaperon), Man-At-Arms (Duncan, ha ha), Cringer (the pussy), who talks for the first time, and that thing, Orko (floating, dress-wearing ghost). The wheel design on the tank reminds me of that carnival ride, The Zipper.
They are on the way to visit Zagraz. By the way, we have seen two characters so far that the audience has not been told their names. But Zagraz has not even appeared on camera and yet we know his name. He-Man arrives at Zagraz Mountain where the wizard is not sure if it has been 100 or 200 years since he’s had a visitor. Jesus. This place really is Eternia. Wait a minute. Surrounded by bountiful rocks? A solitary existence? A red sky? Fuck, I think we’re in Hell. I mean, how else can Skeletor exist? He’s just a skeleton for fuck’s sake. If its not that simple, then this is a more grand biblical allegory. Which would mean that Jesus just pretended to be a gay ineffectual hippie, but secretly was this super ripped, ass-kicking muscle man.
I digress. Zagraz explains to everyone that he controls comets with magic. He tried to control these particular two of them, the Cosmic Comets, which are depicted as swirling around each other like the sperm-chase opening sequence from Looks who’s Talking.
They talk about what a shitty wizard he is, because he fucked up and like, killed one of the comets and so the one that survived became all evil or something. Zagraz shits all over himself talking about what a shitty wizard he is, so Teela tries to make him feel better by flirting and stroking his ego. He must be impotent at his age, because it doesn’t work and he keeps shitting all over himself and says he can’t help them because Skeletor had a circle jerk and now he controls the evil comet. Or something.
Back in Skeletor’s castle, he casts a come-hither stare at Beast Man while kind of arching his back and ass in his direction. Beast Man was probably too drunk to fuck, so Skeletor starts commanding the Cosmic Sperm Comet to do something special for him, which immediately causes it to ejaculate all over Eternia. Seriously, cum wads spurt out and fall toward land.
Prince Adam, of course, immediately sees the wads of cum falling down toward the earth. He trips over a rock like a total tool while he’s running to shower himself in them. Teela shoves him out of the way just before he gets hit. I think he was kind of bummed about it though, because he looks like the kind of guy that would enjoy a cum shower.
But maybe it was for the best, as these actually seem to be rapidly gestating zygotes, rather than cum wads. This becomes evident when they spring up into these gray Cosmic Sperm Comet Sperm People. I can tell this is all really dramatic because they cut for a commercial.
Cringer decides he’s going to pussy out of this Sperm People orgy and takes off. For some reason, Prince Adam decides it’s more important to chase after his big pussy, thus leaving Teela and Man-At-Arms to fight them alone, because you know Orko ain't gonna do shit. I guess the King was right; Prince Adam is a fuck-up. Or maybe its like a Superman/Clark Kent thing, and since Teela allegedly does’t know he’s He-Man, he has to do his transformation in secret.
Teela practices her gymnastics and then shoots a ray of some kind from her wrist at the Sperm Person. He doesn’t seem to give a shit, so Man-At-Arms shoots the same kind of ray out of a gun, which the Sperm Person deflects, causing it to hit Teela and Man-At-Arms, who appear to now be covered in gooey cum and fall to the ground exhausted, as if post-coitus. They wish.
Adam says his “fabulous” secret phrase and becomes He-Man. This is one of those stock animation sequences I mentioned in the blog intro post. It’s the exact same animation from the beginning of the show. He’s even standing in front of Castle Grayskull all of the sudden, when they were on Mount Zagraz like two seconds ago. From what I remember re-watching these episodes in college, this animation sequence is used every time he transforms. I don’t think they ever bother to re-animate this through out the whole series. But, then, I didn’t make it past episode 5 in college, so I guess we will find out.
Zagraz gets all hot and bothered and decides that since everyone else is having a big orgy with the Sperm People, he might as well see if he can get it up and join in. So he tries to cop a feel on the pictorials of one of the Sperm People.
I guess Zagraz doesn’t have the magic touch, because the Sperm Person picks him up and throws him. Or maybe its just some kind of fetish midget-tossing foreplay or something. What ever it is, it pisses off He-Man, and so with his golden locks flowing, he saunters up and throws a mighty punch.
Note that this is the exact same punch animation that was used earlier in the episode, in the opening credits, I think. He dutifully takes out the rest of the Sperm People while Zagraz lies on the ground further lamenting his own impotence. The only thing Orko contributes is that he vacuums up the crumbled remains of the Sperm People. Back at Castle Grayskull, Zagraz is catching a nap while He-Man and the crew decide to swing by Skeletor’s place and see what’s up.
One of the scene transition animations happens here and we’re back at Skeletor’s castle. The animation with the come-hither stare and arched ass is recycled as Skeletor again gazes at Beast Man. Damn, he is one horny bag of bones. Then Skeletor addresses the unnamed bitch, whom he calls Evil-Lyn. Finally. At least they bothered to mention her name at some point. Her heavy eyelids make me suspect that she’s been smoking opium or something.
He-Man cruises along in his tank thing, which seems to have some kind of intelligent computer like Knight Rider’s Kit. In fact, it has a name, as they refer to it as Attak Trak. So even the tank gets a name before some of the principle characters. Suddenly, Beast Man is flying a jet toward He-Man’s tank. It is probably not a good idea for him to be flying because I’m pretty sure he’s wasted. I mean, seriously. With those bags under his eyes, he’s gotta be! Sure enough, he gets shot down really easily and crashes his jet into another tar pit. Damn his luck. Better lay off the sauce, Brody.
Skeletor joins hands with his beard, Evil-Lyn, and begs the Cosmic Sperm Comet for its gooey goodness. He asks Evil-Lyn if she feels it, and I think she does. She would clearly tear off her hot pants if Skeletor got a boner for her. Must be the opium I guess, because I don’t know what she sees in him.
He-Man and the gang are rolling up on Skeletor's pad, so Skeletor jumps down from the snake mouth room and, using the powers that the Cosmic Sperm Comet gave him, blasts He-Man and the gang, which immediately causes them to swoon and faint. Those are some powers. He-Man, though being the self-proclaimed most powerful man in the universe, can’t even handle the gayness of Skeletor, so he faints from pure over-stimulation.
Evil-Lyn tries to take credit for their victory, but Skeletor gives her a verbal bitch-slap and puts her in her place. The big fucking cheaters that they are, He-Man and the crew disappear, thanks to a teleportation spell that the now rested Zagraz casts.
Back at Castle Grayskull, He-Man gets all moist at how powerful Skeletor is. For some reason, Orko dumps the Cosmic Sperm Comet rocks he was carrying around, and it gets Teela all hot and bothered. She says she wants to kiss him, and he doesn’t waste any time getting over to her for some kinky cross-species sex. Jesus, dude! Right in front of everyone? At least get a room!
Zagraz casts a spell on the little pile of rocks and tells everyone they have to touch it. I think he’s just trying to trick them in to some kind of kinky rock orgy, which is pretty much evidenced when Teela makes a comment about how evil and wrong it feels, even though she seems to kind of like it. Zagraz guides them to think about all their thick gooey feelings of goodness, which then get infused into the pieces of the Cosmic Sperm Comet. So now the conjoined pieces of the Cosmic Sperm Comet are all good-hearted and shit. That was easy.
Skeletor is on his way to Grayskull in a jet. How many of these things does he have, anyway? Wisely, he seems to be flying it this time. Beast Man, ever the naysayer, asks Skeletor if its safe to pull a Top Gun and fly by Castle Grayskull so they can watch while the Cosmic Sperm Comet fucks it up. Skeletor is pretty full of himself and says its all good, and that they are going to enjoy watching everyone at Castle Grayskull get their brains splattered all over when the evil Cosmic Sperm Comet hits them.
Zagraz whispers sweet nothings to the good sperm comet, urging it to “fly away” and leave the nest. While this is going on, He-Man gets a bro-boner and decides to wrestle with the evil Cosmic Sperm Comet. The good sperm comet listens to Zagraz and takes off, colliding with the evil Cosmic Sperm Comet.
He-Man decides to sit down and chill out since everyone else is doing all the work and he’s tired from wrestling with the evil Cosmic Sperm Comet when Zagraz was ear fucking the newly minted good one. The two sperm-comets fall in love with each other and fly off to go consummate their newfound passion.
Skeletor is apparently not very observant because he still thinks everything is going to plan. He doesn’t, technically, have eyes, so I guess I can let that slide. Beast Man points out what a failure Skeletor is (lucky he didn’t get bitch slapped for it) and I guess they decide to go home and drink their sorrows away, because Skeletor just flies off while yelling “nooooooo”.
Back at the palace, He-Man is Prince Adam again. So, we know how he turns in to He-Man, but we don’t know how he turns back. I wonder if it involves taking a shower, or at least some basic hygiene, like applying some deodorant. For some reason, everyone else is still wearing his or her battle attire. It seems these may be the only clothes they have. Prince Adam is practicing telekinetic juggling or something.
His dad doesn’t seem very impressed, but he says he is anyway, because I guess he feels bad about making him take Teela on his big adventure. They don’t even talk about the outcome of the conflict with Skeletor or tell the King that, like, a Cosmic Sperm Comet almost creamed Castle Grayskull. No, they just kick it and juggle for a little bit. Since Prince Adam’s alter ego, He-Man, seems to be a secret from his dad, does he even know about Castle Grayskull? They are clearly two different places. Would it have even mattered of Castle Grayskull got creamed? I suppose some wait-staff might have been killed, but that’s just acceptable collateral damage.
Anyway, then, Man-At-Arms comes on the screen for some shameless direct-to-camera exposition. He proceeds to recap the episode, as if I had not just fucking watched it. He throws in some morals like, always believing in yourself and trying again if you fail or something. I guess its nice that they added a moral for the kiddies and all, but why the fuck did Duncan deliver these lines? The show is called He-Man, not the Duncan show. Shouldn’t He-Man be the inspirational one? If I ever get sick of writing this blog, I will have to remember these encouraging words to help me keep going. Here’s to hoping I make it past episode 5 this time, because I can say with certainty, this show is god fucking awful.
IMDB Cast list:
John Erwin: He-Man, Prince Adam, Beast Man, Zagraz
Alan Oppenheimer: Cringer, Battle Cat, Man-At-Arms, Skeletor
Linda Gary: Teela, Evil-Lyn, The Sorceress
Lou Scheimer: Orko, King Randor, Attak Trak, Cosmic Comet, Second Comet
