He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special

Neither a sophisticated or carefully developped script, but an amusing and cute larger episode celebrating christmas. It is one of the few opportunities to see He-Man and She-Ra in action together, what is also nice. There is also time enough to know several creatures from both Eternia and Etheria. While our beloved cartoon is characterized by a strict manichaeism, in this christmas special, as is usual in christmas specials, christmas spirit may soften even the hardest hearts. Although never abandoning manichaeism, for sure... Merry Christmas!

How do you bring Christmas to Eternia? Orko, naturally. Plus some kids that need to get back home; the plot's as trivial as you'd expect from a MOTU holiday special, but it has its moments. I've always been an Orko fan myself, and he fares the best of the impish '80s cartoon sidekicks. Then again, this is also just another excuse to hear Skeletor complain a lot, especially with his beef with Hordak.

I have no memory of this as a kid, but it's cheesy fun as an adult. It received a whining appraisal by my 9 year-old too, so that's another plus.

It is just my opinion but I believe that He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was television's first infomercial. It was, you have to admit, a day-in day-out 22 minute commercial for crappy plastic dolls. The animation, used over and over again, makes up about three feet of film and the scripts are best suited to lining the bottom of the birdcage. So what other explanation could there be?

The show was five colors of stupidity thanks to the unremarkable minds of the once powerful company known as The Third Rei . . . er uh . . . I mean Filmmation. To us students of animation, Filmmation did for cartoons what the federal government has done for education, cutting costs until there was nothing left. The studio cut costs by recycling the same cels over and over again. The effect is that characters repeatedly move and talk in the same patterns in every episode and rarely moved or spoke outside a designated set of eight specific body movements. For a similar effect, check out CSPAN.

The show wasn't exactly Shakespeare. I imagine that the scripts weren't discussed in a board room so much as they were conceived in the elevator on the way to the second floor. The stories revolved around He-Man's attempt to thwart the latest evil plan by Skeletor, a muscle-bound mench with a skull-face who none-the-less had expressions. Skeletor's plans ranged from kidnapping to fist fights to book burning (that's not a joke) and they usually got snuffed out by some lame dialogue and a sword fight. The last two minutes of the show were toddled out with some lesson extracted from the day's events. Sometimes when the show presented little more than 22 minutes of fighting, the lesson was given to the old standby - Say No to Drugs?

Even with all this feux ingenuity flapping about at Filmmation the show never-the-less became an enormous hit, lasting three years and selling millions of crappy plastic dolls.

In 1985, in the midst of this popularity came an idea so staggeringly stupid and unbelievable it still stuns me even today - the studio turned out a Christmas special. Not just a Christmas special, but an Hour LONG Christmas special complete with dumpy cute kids, a puppy, a phallic-shaped spy cam and He-Man dressed as Santa Claus. But wait it gets worse.

The story begins when He Man's comic relief sidekick Orko accidentally gets beamed to Earth during a test of Skeletor's new spy satellite. Orko manages to get back Planet Eternia, but brings along two Earth children, Alisha and Manuel. Now, Alisha and Manuel fit right in on Eternia because neither have anything interesting to say, both perspire cuteness and we the viewers just want to strangle the sugary sweetness right outta both of them. Oh, and they brought their cute lil 'ol puppy along with them and he's godda widdiw swedder on! Awwwww, *hack* *cough* *gag*

It was probably not by accident that the two are brought to the planet Eternia just at the same time that Earth is gearing up for the commerce assault known as Christmas time. People of Eternia have no concept of Christmas and why should they even worry about it, they don't even have a mall?

Now, as goofball as this may sound, Horak and Skeletor don't like this Christmastime nonsense and so Hordak orders Skeletor to kidnap the kids so he can do away with them. Alisha and Manuel are so nauseating that my heart welled up a wan hope that Horak would succeed (Hey! Leave me to dream). If he had then I would have been spared a this jaw dropping exchange:

Manuel: `Christmas is lots of fun. We get presents and we do a lot of fun things.'

Skeletor: `You mean you get in FIGHTS!'

Alisha: `No we do FUN things.'

Skeletor: `But fights are FUN.'

Pick your jaw up, you're going to ruin the carpet.

Into this chaos comes a whole batch of new characters, my favorite of which are the Monstroids, knee-high little cyber-cuties that look like mech-rejects from Rainbow Bright. They have blue faces and they fight pretty well (as well as they can with only five cels of animation) and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Filmmation was using them to parade their new toy line.

Skeletor's heart (pause) melts just a bit when he begins to carry that puppy and and dog licks his face. From this bit of germ-spreading exchange, he learns the true meaning of Christmas so much so that he wants to send the kids back home instead of sending them to Hoard Prime. Hordak attempts to grab the kids and pull them onto his spaceship but Skeletor zaps the ship with his staff (the one in his hand) and sends the ship hurtling into the cosmos. The kids go home with all kinds of new toys from Eternia and promply send their parents into a catatonic shock. I know the feeling, I'm still feeling the effects myself.

He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special (1985) is a movie I recently rewatched for the first time in a long time on Tubi. The storyline follows some children that are accidentally sent to Eternia at the worst time ever, just before Christmas. Initially, they run into Skeletor and his horde which sounds like doom and gloom; but when Christmas is at risk, could Skeletor change his ways and save the day?

This movie is codirected by Bill Reed (Earthworm Jim) and Ernie Schmidt (Duck Tales & Mighty Mouse) and contains the voices of John Erwin (Babe), Alan Oppenheimer (Westworld), Linda Gary (Switch), Melendy Britt (Cheers) and Lou Scheimer (Chappie).

I absolutely love this movie and it brings so much nostalgia back from my childhood. The He-man music is classic and it's always fun seeing Eternia. She'Ra's grand appearance is epic as is Skeletor and his zings at any and everybody. The ending is surprising and very entertaining; and I must say, Skeletor truly steals the show.

Overall this is a very fun movie that is a must see for anyone who grew up in the 80s. I would score this a 7.5/10 and strongly recommend seeing it once.

He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special

Hanging with 1980s cartoon characters is really awkward since they're always trying to sell you their old action figures or one-hour holiday specials.

Therefore, it's no wonder that the children in this animated movie are ill at ease spending their first Christmas with He-Man.

When the wizard Orko magically transports a spy-ship from Eternia to Earth, he meets two small humans who got lost while looking for a Christmas tree.

When Orko later returns to Eternia, he brings them and their Christmas spirit along, which intrigues Orko's friends: He-Man and She-Ra.

However, Horde Prime fears good cheer, so he orders his underlings Hordak and Skeletor to kidnap the earthlings.

With both He-Man and She-Ra's supporting cast present, as well as a lighthearted Skeletor, A Very Special Christmas is a holiday feast for fans of all ages.

Unfortunately, on Eternia, the only meat served during Christmas dinner is My Little Pony. (Green Light)