Masters of the Universe

[Voice From Limbo]

Great work!

I can't believe no one's inserted "He-Man Sings" into this thread -- guess everyone's seen it multiple times. But how many have seen the original movie?

https://youtu.be/1nbmhjsME1w

[Australian Dawn]

Probably closer to the truth of how He-Man was conceived than anyone involved would like to admit.
The show was certainly a strange grab bag of pop cultural ideas. I think anything they could think of that a kid might conceivably be convinced to buy a toy of made the grade, suitability and common sense didn't seem to come into their thinking at all.

But with such a selection of cultural archetypes how could they lose?

And all played straight as far as the kiddies were concerned.

If only more children's shows would follow this tack.

[Australian Dawn]

Did you ever watch Ulysses 31 White Knight? It seems like the sort of thing you would have been into.

[Voice From Limbo]

Hey, cool -- there are a bunch of those on youtube. I'll be watching tonight, thanks!

After a trip to Money Supermarket:

https://youtu.be/nqhLn76kCv0

And a dance:

https://youtu.be/-PgTjhx1VLw

[Australian Dawn]

He-Man works well in parodies because it was played so straight (jokes about pink vests aside).

Whereas it seems to me a lot of todays cartoons often seem to be trying to take the mickey out of themselves as you watch, like they're desperately trying to say that they know it's silly but they're being "ironic" so it's still cool to watch even if it's a bit dodgy.

Screw that.

As A child I knew that if an orange man in Ugg boots and furry undies was fighting a blue skeleton man with duck feet (well, on the toy at least) and a goat head on a stick things must be pretty serious damnnit!

[Voice From Limbo]

To your toy comment, well, if the cartoon is created by a toy company, that's what you're going to get.

As one from an (ahem!) "older generation" (wheeze), I have to confess to having missed this completely. My version was this:

https://youtu.be/Dstk7-Tzr7s

I was in my teens even then, but never missed this most violent cartoon of the 60's -- they actually killed things, week after week! Did He-man ever kill anybody?

Lasted only one season. Of course, this was in the days before the discovery of what merchandising could really do.

Some of the original episodes used to be on youtube, but they're gone now. Most of the ones up now have the same basic look, but they're from an early 80's revival. I missed those, too.

OK, I'll try not to disrupt White Knight's thread any more.

[Australian Dawn]

https://youtu.be/Dstk7-Tzr7s

I was in my teens even then, but never missed this most violent cartoon of the 60's -- they actually killed things, week after week! Did He-man ever kill anybody?

I think there is more destruction wrought with slingshots in those credits than I saw wrought by super-strong, magic sword wielding He-Man in any of the episodes I saw as a kid.

I hope White Knight has found some wargames rules that cover winning fights with the "power of friendship" is all I can say.

[Voice From Limbo]

Having just watched a few episodes of the remakes, I can affirm that the later series was all 80's sweetness and light. Ugh.

The originals were apparently deleted from youtube when a DVD set came out in 2011.

I did find a cobbled-together clip from the 67 originals:

https://youtu.be/viXPBaY0WWA

That's what I'm talkin' about -- Iggoo smash pod people! Pound into ground! Raugh!

[Australian Dawn]

Oh come on! They're just robots. even He-Man smashed robots. I thought you meant killing real living things!

They sure did love floating robots with tentacle arms in the old days didn't they? Must have been easy to animate.

[Voice From Limbo]

Well they did call them pod people.

I may be misremebering, but I'm pretty sure they killed living beings too. Guess I'll have to break down and get the DVD set at some point, just to be sure.