If you grew up in the 1980’s then chances are good that you watched He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. He-Man was one of the most popular cartoons of the day and had almost every other kid running around screaming “I have the power!” at the top of their lungs while pretending to wield the same sword that He-Man has. The merchandise often outstripped the cartoon, meaning that there were so many characters that it was hard to know just which ones really belonged to the franchise and which ones were some designer’s unilateral attempt at something they thought might be acceptable to the toy manufacturers. Overall the cartoon was one of the best aspects of the franchise, but after the initial run and especially after the live action movie it really lost momentum.
I’ve heard rumors that there might be another attempt in the works to bring it back though.
10. The episodes with Skeletor were never shown in France.
The censors thought that Skeletor was just too scary for kids and thus didn’t air these episodes. That kind of narrows it down though since Skeletor was the main villain.
9. Orko had a different name to start with.
His original name was Gorpo but in order to save on animation costs his name was changed as it allowed the animators to flip the animation cells and use them twice thanks to the formation of the name.
8. He-Man is rumored to have come about due to a toy deal that Mattell wanted with Conan the Barbarian.
Mattell backed out of the deal when Conan earned an R rating and then developed the toys for He-Man.
7. Prince Adam is supposed to be a teenager.
Prince Adam wasn’t supposed to look so much like He-Man, but to lower animation costs they were made to look much the same just with a different outfit.
6. At the end of each episode the characters gave life advice to younger viewers.
GI Joe did this as well in order to communicate with the younger viewers and teach them valuable life skills and morals.
5. A few characters from He-Man made appearances on She-Ra.
Considering that she’s He-Man’s sister it was only natural that such a thing would eventually happen.
4. There were only a few characters that seemed to realize that Prince Adam was He-Man.
This one was kind of hard to accept if you weren’t a kid anymore and were watching this show because it’s just about as inane as Superman and Clark Kent, which this aspect of He-Man is derived from.
3. Dolph Lundgren played the live action He-Man.
The movie was a colossal flop even though there was a plan to do a sequel. Another one would have to be CGI to make up for it.
2. The original composer refused to work on the cartoon.
He wasn’t given anything up front since the producers were testing the market to see how the cartoon would do. He was offered residuals for his work but he declined and walked away.
1. The toys and the characters on the show were often not in sync.
The toys were coming out faster than the cartoon and as a result they didn’t often appear on the cartoon at all, or certain characters on the cartoon weren’t made into toys.
It was a great cartoon in its time but now there’s just so many questions to be answered.
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