Subject: He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. First aired in 1983 and left an indelible mark on those who watched it.

Plot in two sentences: Mild-mannered playboy Prince Adam of Eternia has been bestowed with "fabulous" powers to become He-Man and protect the secrets of Castle Greyskull with the help of his friends, the Masters of the Universe. The primary antagonist is a fellow called Skeletor, and -- here's the sticky part -- he wants Castle Greyskull for himself.

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I wasn't looking forward to this one. He-Man is another cartoon that I hadn't seen since it first aired, and I have oh so many fond memories of watching it and obediently petitioning my family to buy me all the He-Man toys that were cranked out by Mattel. But something curious has happened to He-Man the show over the years -- while it's maintained a cult following, there seem to be an almost equal number of detractors out there, geeks like myself, that have since seen episodes and littered the internet with rants tantamount to, "What the hell were we thinking?!? This is awful! Dude, look how gay Prince Adam is! Pink shirt! He-Man wears furry underwear! There's furry underwear everywhere! Hahahahahahahaha! Lame."

So the nostalgia factor for He-Man comes with a premeditated bias on my part, and as I set out to watch some episodes on DVD, I was filled with trepidation. Exactly how badly was my inner child about to be crushed? Even more so than when I pulled the head off my Moss-man figure and couldn't get it back on?

I think it's important to stop here and say a few words about Skeletor. If there's one guy that DID survive the test of time and memory, it's our literally bone-headed bad guy. And sure enough, seeing Skeletor through modern eyes proved to be the best part about re-watching He-Man. He's a surprisingly complex character for a bad guy -- he seems to have an awareness of his personal situation that extends beyond the range of your typical megalomaniacal villain. He looks at his personnel and tries to apply their specialties as best as possible, although as a group they are pretty defective and incompetent henchmen. It's fair to say that the Henchmen Guild (Local 22) keeps some pretty low standards. Yet he works with what he has, and if there's one thing that he does well, it's come up with really stellar evil plans that still remain, at their heart, simple ideas that are easy to execute. Skeletor's big problem is that the show’s writers love to have the good guys thwart him with healthy doses of Deus ex machina, but more about that in a bit.

Skeletor's other issue is that, as a leader and manager, he tends to be a little overconfident and tries a bit too hard, probably to cover up his wee bit of cowardice. For some reason, it struck me that in a lot of ways, he's cut from the same cloth as Vizzini from The Princess Bride:

Beast-Man (as Fezzik): You never said anything about killing anyone.

Skeletor: I've hired you to help me win Castle Greyskull. It's a prestigious line of work, with a long and glorious tradition.

Beast-Man: I just don't think it's right, killing an innocent girl.

Skeletor: Am I going MAD, or did the word "think" escape your lips? You were not hired for your brains, you hippopotamic land mass.

Trap-Jaw (as Inigo Montoya): I agree with Beast-Man.

Skeletor: Oh, the rust-bucket has spoken. What happens to her is not truly your concern. I will kill her. And remember this, never forget this: when I found you, you were so slobbering drunk, you couldn't buy a freeze-ray!

[turning to Beast-Man]

Skeletor: And you: friendless, brainless, helpless, hopeless! Do you want me to send you back to where you were? Unemployed? In the hills of Eternia?

Remember, one should never go in against a guy with a skull-head when death is on the line.

The overall look of the show is as good as I remember, although it might be due to remastering. The animation style is colorful, the recycled bits seem to be disguised pretty well, and there's one really amusing thing that you'd only notice by looking back at the show -- it bears an amazing stylistic resemblance to Baywatch (which actually came later). The characters love to go running, and a lot of the action appears slowed down from full-speed animation. When Teela runs around in her uniform (armor over a white swimsuit with fur-trimmed boots), you could swear that the series is one episode away from a David Hasslehoff cameo.

There's a whole lot about He-Man that really could be called "cheesy." Being created solely for the purpose of selling a line of cheaply made toys (in the sense that there are only a handful of the same bodies for the dozens of characters in the series, all painted differently and given different heads) is going to pigeon-hole you as a writer into a lot of problems. Like getting to the point of creating characters like He-Man's ally, "Fisto," whose heroic power is an overly-large hand. Inside a big metal fist. Although to Fisto's credit, he has an awesome mustache, which makes me think that the writer that created Fisto (and fellow ally "Ram Man") probably cut his writing chops in the porn industry.

Disposable character syndrome aside, there's still the issue of the easily resolved plots. Say ol' He-Man is trapped in a different dimension (which happens a lot) -- the power of Greyskull can get him home, no problem! All he has to do is whip out that sword of his, say the magic words, and boom! All your plot difficulties are resolved. Some magical artifact has been broken and needs repair? Power of Greyskull. Teela spill coffee on her pretty white uniform? Power of Greyskull -- that stuff's better than Oxy-Clean. My follow up question is if the power of Greyskull is so damn… well, powerful, then why does it take He-Man, Man-at-Arms, Teela, the Sorceress, Orko, and the rest of the Masters of the Universe to keep Skeletor at bay?

There was one thing that caught me completely off my guard -- I had forgotten about the morals. Every single episode ends with one of the characters breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience, to explain/teach/reinforce the moral of the day's episode. Things like, "never play somewhere where people can't find you" and "it's important to protect our environment." Granted, some of them are also equally stupid like Ram Man's classic, "Ramming things may look like fun, but it really isn't," moral segment. Still, the fact that the producers and writers even took this step to begin with -- even going as far as trying to teach about the Magna Carta at one point -- gives the series an important bit of credit during a time when children's programming was starting to worry more and more about entertaining instead of shaping young minds. Not bad for a show that was created to sell toys. I wish more of the cartoons that I see on television made that kind of an effort. Although there's something lamentable about Fisto talking about how it's good to lend people a hand.

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In today's essay, Dustin learned that sometimes having preconceived notions about something can be a bad thing. In the case of He-Man, he thought that because so many other people thought badly of it, he'd surely not like it either, thus ruining a good memory; but Dustin was surprised to find that he liked the show in spite of what other people said and was able to enjoy it in new ways. So remember, while sometimes it's good to heed other people's advice, there's no replacement for seeing something for yourself. See you next time!