So what shall we call his powerful sword?
Posted: November 25, 2008 at 1:33 am | Tags: action figures, colouring in books, he-man, shakespeare, talcum-powder
(Image courtesy of an ace colouring-in book I found in a shed at my mother’s house.)
There is something I find oddly compelling about He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Sure, the cartoons were on when I was just the right age, and I had many of toys so it has a pretty serious nostalgia kick. But it’s not just that.
Looking over the line of toys and the accompanying television series (the other way around you might think? Not so..) even now I am struck by how the creators just came right out with it. There was no beating around the bush here, no time for subtlety or nuance. It was all absolutes.
I like to imagine two hard-drinking guys over at Mattel circa 1980 just sat down one night on a deadline and wrote the whole thing out on bar napkins. Then went out and bare-knuckle-boxed a grizzly bear just for kicks. Their thought process would have gone something like this…
Who are these guys? Are they important? Are they powerful?
Well they are the MASTERS of the fucking UNIVERSE so you do the math!
Looking for nice, strong, masculine name for your leading man? Well go no further than HE-MAN. That’s right, you heard me, HE-MAN. (Because just calling him MAN isn’t enough and MALE-GUY-BLOKE-MAN just doesn’t have the same ring to it…)
And it didn’t stop there, either.
A big beast-looking guy? BEAST-MAN. A guy who like ramming things? RAM-MAN. A cat he rides in to battle with? BATTLE-CAT. Bad guy who looks like a skeleton? SKELETOR. (Which was stepping up the creativity a notch. I bet their first idea was SKULL-MAN. Or maybe just BAD-GUY.)
An evil female character? Well, I like to think that at this point one of them just kept mumbling the name of his ex-wife. But just LYN by itself doesn’t do the job. So EVIL-LYN it is! Any ambiguity as to who’s side she is going to be on? Not goddam likely!
And where do they all live?
That’s right, ETERNIA! The place is going to be around until the END OF TIME, way after all us Earth-dwelling pansies are gone!
And so on, and so on.
You have to admire their chutzpah, really.
And now, in case you begin to think there was a kind of noble logic to their approach, here’s a photo of Castle Grayskull,
Which was, of course, green.
N.B Apologies if you found my over-use of profanity and exclamation marks in this post distracting or offensive, but I dusted myself down in He-Man talcum-powder before I began writing and the stuff had a pronounced effect on my tone.
No really, I did.
(Shakespeare mini-bust included for scale. And for its cultural cache.)
The Discussion
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Okay, I have to talk about this because you’re speaking my language and I studied MOTU for three years at uni.
You’re not far off when you talk about the process of creating He-Man. I have read a relatively recent interview with He-Man’s creator (a fan site bailed him up) and he is a crotchety old bastard who was all about the muscles. You ask him what He-Man’s about and he’s all like, “He’s a big pumped muscular man! He’s masculine! He could break you, pussy!” and he knows nothing about the cartoon or the mythology. He’s like, “Prince Adam? I don’t know anything about that shit. He-Man would cleave that Mary in half with his axe!” Don’t forget the original designs were really a Conan clone, complete with dark hair and a horned helmet, and this was changed during the development process to avoid a copyright infringement. I think the later stuff drifted far from the original concept and that’s the stuff that really gets crazy.
What always kills me about these lines is that, like you say, each character is tied to that one gimmick and that’s it. That’s the rest of their life planned out. And the black characters always had it the worst. They had no special powers or abilities, they were all just saddled with an object. MOTU had Clamp Champ who was a black guy that carried around a giant clamp. He must have been like, “That dude over there has giant claws, and that one totally sucks your blood. Can’t I carry a gun” and Man-At-Arms would be like, “No, man. You’re our clamp guy. You’re a champ with that clamp. Stick with the clamp.” Sheera’s black friend was Netossa and she had to carry around an old net. That was the entire scope of her abilities. Write an angry letter!
Ah, yes, Clamp Champ. I always thought he had it tough. Nice to have your comments, Luke. You studied MOTU for THREE YEARS at uni? Why didn’t I hear about that course? I want proof. Scan your Bachelor of Arts (Eternian Studies) and upload it.
Interesting to hear about the interview. You don’t have to tell me about how far “Prince Endor” was from the original concept, though. I somehow still have the 4-page picture book that came with the original He-Man figure. He is a proud jungle-bred warrior, it’s right there in black and white. Did you have Moss-Man? Now there was another one who got the short end of the stick. All he had was a furry texture. Hardly gives him a fighting chance against He-Man et al. He was quite a fragrant figure I remember, he had a definite odour. Not as strong as Stinkor’s though. Obviously. Man I could talk about MOTU all night…
I am afeared of the talc. Seriously.