“The Sleepers Awaken” is not a tremendously notable episode (though RCA/Columbia releasing it on home video by itself instead of paired with another episode as was their usual strategy is quite a dubious tactic), save for one thing: it’s the first to feature George DiCenzo, who was a #Filmation regular (including the title character on Blackstar, which He-Man owes much inspiration from), and would end up being cast as Hordak on She-Ra. I’m not sure why he went uncredited on He-Man, though.

However, the episode (including its position in the viewing order) are quite notorious as this episode has a lower production number than the first Montork episode.

The reason for this is simple: #Filmation policy was to re-assign production numbers if a script fell through. We know this because a production recap written by JMS for She-Ra’s first season partway through production directly refers to this policy in multiple episodes, so it goes to show that it happened on He-Man as well.

“Wizard of Stone Mountain” takes the time-worn plot of a character being duped into selling their soul to the devil and actually does something with it. Firstly, it’s actually happening in animation, which the networks would never have allowed (and probably didn’t earn #Filmation any fans with the anti-occult crazies of the day), and secondly, He-Man actually faces down Satan himself! Granted, it’s not explicitly named as Satan, but it’s plenty clearly him.

HOWEVER….. the episode has an issue.

#StarTrek #TAS: All Officer #Logs (#50th #Anniversary Special)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObT7inBFkzc&ab_channel=JohnDiMarco

#Trek #StarTrekTAS #TheAnimatedSeries #AnimatedSeries #Animated #Animation #Filmation #FanMade #Kirk #Spock #Scotty #Uhura #Sulu

“Quest For He-man”, in addition to establishing a tradition of #Filmation of improperly rendering the name of He-Man in episode titles, introduces Zodac (reframed by Filmation as a guardian as opposed to an enforcer) and gives us our first real taste of Ram Man and Cringer’s unique brands of comedy, as well as introducing two of the show’s more recognizable stingers, the first composed by Shuki Levy (the show had been using pre-existing stingers by Ray Ellis from previous Filmation shows).

at #Filmation.

Other things marking this as a later episode: the Attack Trak’s sarcastic personality, Skeletor calling Evil-Lyn a “boob” (one of his more common insults), and this being the first appearance of the revised “Yellow N” Westinghouse-era Filmation logo.

A word about the change: it was clearly done because someone correctly determined that the outlined “Blue N” in Filmation would disappear on stations with less than ideal reception, and as someone who watched the show on such a

The likeliest answer is that Tom Ruegger’s original script had issues (most likely, the humor was far more prevalent than it already is in the finished episode), but Ruegger (who was, I think even by his own admission, a poor fit at #Filmation) left for Hanna-Barbera rather than make the necessary revisions. It’s probably a testament to both the strength of the premise and of Larry DiTillio’s skills as a writer that the story wasn’t scrapped and the production number reassigned, as was common

Halperin has even looked down on the idea of “sending messages” in media, and specifically He-Man, in interviews, which besides being some right-wing dogwhistle bullshit, it shows that he really didn’t get, nor CARE to get, what #Filmation was about.

So, yeah, fuck that guy, basically.

They (and other episode adaptations) were written by Michael Halperin, who takes quite a bit more credit for the #Filmation series than he should (Lou Scheimer is on record as not knowing a thing about his supposed bible for the cartoon), and clearly doesn’t get the morality play aspect of the series AT ALL, because his comic ends with He-Man fighting spirits summoned by Granamyr, which is infinitely reductive. (The rest of the story is littered with the type of violence #Filmation abhorred.)

“The Dragon’s Gift” is another one of the great episodes of He-Man, and another sterling example of the ethics of the show, and of #Filmation. He-Man’s refusal to take the life of Skytree to save Man-At-Arms despite the consequences is unflinchingly moral and successfully avoids making a big fight the climax of the story.

For whatever reason, Mattel adapted this episode into one of the mini comics they packaged with the toys, and the results are inferior in every way.

While the wonky stock usage is strange since Sutherland’s role as He-Man’s production director meant that he directed the rotoscoped stock footage using local bodybuilders, the pacing and moments of truly good animation are no surprise given his record at #Filmation.

The meat of the story (finding friends and exercising personal choice over one’s life) are good, valid things that deserved the quality direction it got, but the infantilizing of Orko is not my favorite thing at all.

What saves the episode, I think, is that this was directed by Hal Sutherland, the last episode of he’d direct, and the next to last before helming Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night, Filmation’s underrated (and shockingly dark) sequel to the book (and not the movie, as Disney tried to insinuate in a lawsuit that helped to doom #Filmation). While Sutherland’s use of stock footage has some wonky bits, and there are a couple of odd animation errors near the end, he paces things quite well.

“Daimar the Demon” is one of the earliest examples of a pretty awful trend on He-Man: the casting of Orko as a little kid. Now obviously, he’s the show’s sidekick and intended as an audience surrogate (as evidenced as being voiced by Lou Scheimer, who always voiced those characters at #Filmation), but episodes like “Dawn of Dragoon” show that he’s incredibly capable, if a bit lacking in confidence in his abilities on Eternia. This results in a bit of a misguided premise.

“Prince Adam No More” finds He-Man and #Filmation at an early crisis point: concerned that the show’s two leads (He-Man and Skeletor) were far too one dimensional to carry an entire 65 episode season. However, Paul Dini yet again had the answer: focus on character conflicts.

Adam is upset over being viewed as a goof-off, and Beast Man finds himself exiled because Skeletor decided to use him as a scapegoat for the repeated losses to He-Man.

These two threads fuel a classic episode.

“Song of Celice” is a bit run of the mill, but since it was released on VHS and Beta in the ‘80s, it’s infinitely familiar. However, the tastes of RCA/Columbia masked for years the awful legacy of this episode: #Filmation reused Celine’s model far too many times across Season 1, a consequence of the low budget of these episodes.

It also marks the end of a studio experiment to introduce new characters, as Lizard Man appears for the second and last time.

“Dawn of Dragoon” is, to put it bluntly, one of the lynchpin episodes of He-Man and #Filmation in general. Besides introducing Dree Elle and showing Trolla for the first time, we get a defining episode for Cringer and Battle Cat, to go along with Orko.

But the true highlights are the famous reverse transformation (Grayskull of Power the By!”) and the fight with Dragoon and its conclusion, where a humbled and remorseful Dragoon reconsiders his evil ways. This inherent compassion IS He-Man.

This sounds like a good idea since Stratos’s character has been painfully undeveloped so far. The problem is, Marc Scott Zicree’s script is a briskly-paced action yarn that has even less time for Stratos than it has for ANY characterization. This episode is pure plot, and the end result is that the only really interesting things are the quality effects animation and the design of Molcrom.

#Filmation

Of He-Man’s first 25 episodes, only two were skipped over by RCA/Columbia in their wildly popular line of VHS and Beta tapes, and both fell into such obscurity that the only reason fans knew of the episodes before DVD because of PAL home video releases, which means that the recent German Blu-rays are the first place they’ve been seen as intended in 40 years.

The first of these episodes, “Reign of the Monster”, is the first episode to feature Stratos.

#Filmation

“A Friend in Need” is something that the networks would have NEVER have allowed in 1983-an anti-drug episode. It very much follows the template of all future such episodes, both at #Filmation and elsewhere, and is as such extremely parochial by modern standards, and quite safe since Ileena is merely a guest character.

But the main flaw is that it’s one episode, and the cycle of addiction is compressed almost into incoherence.

Still, the intent since it’s for kids is at least noble.

-The confrontation between He-Man and Skeletor at the Blood Falls is without a doubt one of the best expressions of He-Man’s unflinching moral code, and is a great example of why this show-and #Filmation in general-was so special
-This episode is possibly the earliest known example of a retake in an American cartoon being ordered after the first airing, a practice that became quite normal in the ‘90s. In the original take, which was seen in the RCA/Columbia video release