Forum > Media and Inspiration
The fall of He-man
cavalier973:
Midnight’s Edge has a series on YouTube discussing the cartoon show “He-man and the Masters of the Universe”. He starts with the creation of the toy line, which was originally going to be action figures from the “Conan the Barbarian” movie, and tracks the rise in popularity of the toys and the animated show, the introduction of “She-ra: Princess of Power”, and why a toy line that pulled in $400 million in 1986 only made $7 million in 1987. His next video will discuss the live action movie.
I had heard before that the He-man dolls resulted from plans for Conan action figures—but they derived from the original script for the movie which had been developed by Oliver Stone. Skeletor is basically Thulsa Doom. James Earl Jones’s character in the movie is called Thulsa Doom but is really Thoth Amon using a stolen identity.
I did not know that the He-man cartoon only ran for two seasons. The Dungeons and Dragons cartoon went for three seasons. Of course, there were a total of 130 episodes of He-man, and only a total of 27 for D&D.
hedgehobbit:
An interesting video. Although MotU was pretty much doomed once TMNT came on the scene. Both the toys and the show of that property were significantly superior.
But it does bring up a question. Has there ever been an IP that was hugely popular with boys where the owners of that IP successfully managed to make it equally popular with girls while retaining its popularity with boys? The only example I can think of would be the Star Wars prequels, which seemed to bring in girls with the Queen Amidala character without turning boys away. But, I don't have the actual stats to back that up.
Crusader X:
As kids, my friends and I thought the Masters of the Universe toys were cool, but that the original cartoon was lame. We preferred shows like GI Joe, Transformers, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Thundercats, and Robotech. Even the kid-centered Dungeons & Dragons cartoon was less kiddified than the Filmation Masters of the Universe series.
The 2002 series on Cartoon Network was quite good, though.
Armchair Gamer:
--- Quote from: hedgehobbit on January 17, 2022, 02:00:35 PM ---An interesting video. Although MotU was pretty much doomed once TMNT came on the scene. Both the toys and the show of that property were significantly superior.
--- End quote ---
I don't think there was any overlap. 1986 was the year that MotU crashed and burned; it limped on through 1987 and the live-action movie, but even the plans for that year got scaled back. (Alas for the Powers of Grayskull!) The Turtles started with the comic in 1984, but didn't explode in public consciousness until 1987, as I understand it. I was never a TMNT fan; I followed MotU to the end, then moved into Transformers for a while, then Nintendo.
Ratman_tf:
--- Quote from: Crusader X on January 17, 2022, 03:46:30 PM ---As kids, my friends and I thought the Masters of the Universe toys were cool, but that the original cartoon was lame. We preferred shows like GI Joe, Transformers, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Thundercats, and Robotech. Even the kid-centered Dungeons & Dragons cartoon was less kiddified than the Filmation Masters of the Universe series.
The 2002 series on Cartoon Network was quite good, though.
--- End quote ---
I really liked what I saw of the 2002 reboot, but need to finish it.
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