Michael Utvich

Ernie Schmidt

Bow and Adora meet a cowardly dragon named Sorrowful and decide to see if Castaspella can magic some courage into him; but Hordak decides today is the day to take over Castaspella's realm of Mystacor! They're all on a collision course with wackiness!

Spirit (Swift Wind), Princess Adora (She-Ra), Bow, Kowl, Castaspella

Hordak, Imp, Mantenna, Leech

various Etherian citizens, chick, Mayor of Elberon, Sorrowful, Horde soldiers, Arrow, Mystacorian soldiers, Castaspella's horse, Greenvalers, King Gruff

Horde destructors

Bow is bored! He enjoys freeing towns from the grip of the Horde, but not the aftermath, which involves attending endless victory celebrations and listening to stuffy thank-you speeches. Finding he's fed up with the long-winded words of the mayor of the latest liberated town of Elberon, Bow and buddy Kowl wander off in search of trouble to get into. They soon find it in the form of an old well which seems to have dried up. Just as Bow is in the process of dropping a rock down the brick-lined hole to judge its contents, a passing villager, late to the ceremony, advises them that they'll get no water from the well, since during the occupation the Horde used it for a fuel tank. Fuel tank?! The dropped rock, apparently made of a mineral prone to striking sparks, sets off a gigantic explosion, launching a huge jet of flame from the mouth of the well. The gout of fire can be seen from the whole village, and fortunately one of the other ceremony attendees is She-Ra, already astride Swift Wind. The pair quickly enact the only possible solution: spinning around the fire at breakneck speed to whirl it into a convenient ball, then drawing the fireball through the air to a nearby body of water where it can be harmlessly doused.

Afterwards, with the danger seemingly passed, Princess Adora appears and learns through Bow and Kowl's post-mortem sniping how Bow instigated the incendiary problem. The day's adventures, however, are only beginning; for with an earth-shaking rumble, the old well shatters to pieces as out of its depths crawls a gigantic dragon! Adora knows just how to deal with this problem, and it involves her leaving to ... do something; but the gallant Bow insists on grabbing the young lady and running for the shelter of a nearby cottage, shutting them both inside. Kowl, unceremoniously abandoned without, upsets the dragon with his calls for help, causing the creature to swing around. Its tail inadvertently swipes the cottage, flinging the structure high up into the air. It crashes back to earth on a convenient pile of shock-absorbing hay.

Within, we find that Adora and Bow have both survived the fall, just slightly shaken and covered with various unsecured household articles. Bow doesn't realize that the impact has left him clothed in a pink ankle-length dress, and strides outside to remonstrate with the dragon. He finds that the creature can speak English, and it compliments his dress, leading him to stalk off in embarrassment. Adora next tries speaking with the creature, who proves to be named Sorrowful. We learn that he's a fairly miserable beast, desperate for friends, ashamed of his own extreme cowardice - and mighty ticklish. Finding that Sorrowful is a harmless enough fellow, Adora offers to help him by taking him to the nearest magic-user, Castaspella, who should be able to cast some courage into the big lug. The thrilled dragon, unused to friendly assistance, gratefully accepts. They're off to see the magician - the marvelous magician of Mystacor! When the heroes arrive, they find a patronizing Castaspella is skeptical of the advisability of aiding a dragon; but Adora wins her over to the cause, and the queen - who finds that even a few harshly spoken words can send the poor creature off into a dead faint - agrees to give it a shot.

Here's where the Horde comes into the picture. In the amazingly coincidental way that things happen in both Eternia and Etheria, it seems that today is also the day that Leech and Mantenna have nearly completed the job of carving a road right through the middle of Castaspella's kingdom of Mystacor, leaving it vulnerable to conquest. Hordak, hearing this news from a Horde trooper (who he happily rewards with an exciting trip down a trapdoor), sends his tiny minion, Imp, off to the targeted territory to do some spying and reconnaissance. Little Imp is therefore on hand to witness as Castaspella attempts to magically embolden the cowardly dragon. Her ceremony of courage is a big failure, however, and a ball of sparkles that she levitates into his face does just as little good. Imp looks on with great amusement at all these things, and eventually decides he can depart and report to his cohorts that the way is clear for their attack: there's only a hopeless coward of a dragon to stand in their way.

Castaspella is finally made aware of the danger to her kingdom by a Mystacorian soldier, who imparts the intelligence that the Horde are moving on the nearby territory of Greenvale. The queen declares the rebels must leave right away to lend aid - and Sorrowful must come with them. A bewildered and doubtful Sorrowful, who's never even heard of the Horde, nevertheless comes along; and on the journey there, a circumspect Adora finds a quiet spot in which to transform herself and her horse. So it's She-Ra who reassures the rabbity Greenvale citizens and their leader King Gruff that they will be defended. The Horde forces, led by Leech and Mantenna, have been busily using their robot destructor vehicles to cut down the forest surrounding Greenvale, and now turn their destructors on the rebels. Sorrowful predictably flees in terror at the first sight of danger, carrying an unwilling Bow away on his neck. She-Ra rides off to do her share of fighting, pushing a giant boulder conjured by Castaspella down onto the top of a fleet of destructors which has obediently arrayed itself beneath her. Bow then convinces his unwilling steed to return to the ground, and She-Ra gives Sorrowful a pep talk, draping him in a giant lei of pink flowers that she claims is a talisman of bravery and telling him that he must help keep his new friends safe.

Sorrowful, who has never had friends before, suddenly finds that he has something worth fighting for. The miffed dragon confronts Leech and Mantenna, finally showing some backbone and demonstrating his dragon abilities by torching a destructor to ash. He concludes his lesson to the Horde ne'er-do-wells by chasing them off the scene with additional fiery exhalations. Hurrah! Gathered again after the enemies have been driven off, our heroes praise each other. She-Ra thanks Sorrowful for his help, revealing that the flowers did nothing and the dragon's courage actually came from inside himself. This revelation sends Sorrowful off into another dead faint. He soon revives, in time to receive an invitation from Castaspella to remain in Mystacor. She-Ra then expresses her gratitude to Bow for his share in the victory by planting a tender kiss on the archer. The over-excited Bow collapses in his own dead faint, and a roguish She-Ra turns to the audience to tip us a wink.

• Bow: Freeing towns from the Horde would be a lot more fun without the speeches.
• Bow: It was an accident. / Kowl: You're an accident!
• Sorrowful (to Bow): Whoever you are, you sure have a pretty dress. / Adora: That's true; Bow, you've never looked so lovely!
• Castaspella (casting aspersions): There's no such thing as a harmless dragon.

N/A

One full

14:18 - Our little friend waited a long time to show up, but wasn't trying all that hard today. In an establishing shot of Greenvale showing the heroes' approach, Loo-Kee's head can be seen in the far right foreground, looking away from us.
Did I spot him? YES!

Loo-Kee tells us that, like Sorrowful in today's episode, we can "find" courage inside of us - specifically in our hearts - if we just look hard enough. This is somewhat at odds with a couple of memorable PSAs from Adam and Teela (MU048 and MU087), in which they instructed us that fear is an important instinct, and we should listen to it by running the heck away.

N/A: I suppose you could classify this under "Changing hearts and minds," under the assumption that by the end of the episode Sorrowful has become a member of the Rebellion; but I have chosen not to make this interpretation.

• Continuing a practice seen in the previous two episodes, this story's writer is another newbie to the MOTU/POP Filmation universe, though we'll see him credited with a few future scripts. The director, on the other hand, is MOTU veteran Ernie Schmidt, credited on 15 episodes of the He-Man series.
• One could be forgiven, after watching these first few episodes of the regular series (starting after the introductory SOTS episodes, at 67006), for wondering whether the Great Rebellion were really doing their job. Yes, She-Ra helped the village of Devlan to free themselves in 67006's "Duel at Devlan," but that was more an accident than an intentional plan, and She-Ra was the only rebel member involved. The subsequent episodes have seen She-Ra accidentally getting entangled with pirates when their pirate ship is mistaken as a monster (67007), the rebels having to fight off a Horde attack during the rebels' own self-indulgent festival (67008), and Bow blundering into a Horde attack when he's just trying to recover a stolen ax (67009). Not a lot of freedom fighting going on here! So it's a bit of a relief to find, in this episode's opening, that the rebels have actually gotten around to freeing some villages from the Horde during their off-screen adventures.
• She-Ra begins this episode already transformed - which turns out to be providential, as it allows her to very promptly generate a flying whirlwind and dispense with a giant jet of fire. She was also already transformed for the opening of 67007's "The Sea Hawk."
• This episode brings us the first appearance of Castaspella (putting aside her showing up in the rebel line-up in every episode's opening sequence), queen of Mystacor. Melendy Britt, who does her voice, seems to have been using the patrician tones of Hollywood actress Katharine Hepburn as a model.
• To reiterate some points noted in the commentary below: in addition to its similarities to The Wizard of Oz, this episode shares a few elements with MU084's "Fraidy Cat," where a cowardly Cringer receives a placebo of bravery from Orko and must eventually display some real courage to save his friends. Sound like any miserable dragons we've met?
• The backgrounds used for Imp's scenes with Hordak look suspiciously similar to those used in 67005 to represent the interior of Bright Moon's castle. Hmmm.
• The geography in this episode is a little confusing. Castaspella is definitely the queen of a place called Mystacor; but it seems to share territory with another place called Greenvale, since the road that Mantenna and Leech are clearing through that place is also going to divide Mystacor, and when Greenvale is attacked, Casta rushes to defend what she calls "my domain." Is Mystacor an island of territory situated in the middle of this Greenvale, or is Greenvale a village or city within Mystacor - or are they merely neighboring territories? Unclear. It's also very odd, considering that Castaspella is queen of a domain that includes Greenvale, that Greenvale has its own king (King Gruff).
• We discover that Imp has transformative powers, just like his boss: he can transform his entire body into a bouncy ball! We already saw evidence in 67008 of Imp being able to successfully spy on people without turning into a ball, so I'm not sure why he chooses to do it here, except that it's kind of cute. Imp's transformative powers will become a defining part of his character, and will also be on display in his next appearance, 67017's "A Loss for Words."
• Castaspella's "ceremony of courage" is held near a gigantic statue of a six-armed figure, similar to the avatars of certain Hindu gods or goddesses, like Vishnu. It's unclear whether the statue was integral to the ceremony, as Casta seems to give up on the whole thing pretty quickly.
• The Horde "destructors," as Leech eventually calls them, really seem to have been built as logging vehicles. But take away the big chainsaw blade in the nose, and paint over the Horde logo with a nice coat of teal paint, and you'd have something that looks remarkably close to Skeletor's tank invention from the end of MU052's "Teela's Trial."
• It turns out that the citizens of Greenvale and their leader, King Gruff, are all bunny people. Looking at them, I couldn't help but be reminded of a much more disreputable bunny person, Plundor the Spoiler from MU019's "Quest for He-Man." He came from a different dimension, however - and he was pink, not blue!
• To come back to the point I was making near the beginning of this section: though we hear news of the rebellion having proactively freed the town of Elberon from the Horde, today's story once again sees our heroes being reactive, merely responding to the attack of Mantenna and Leech.
• I should probably start keeping track of all the times She-Ra expresses romantic affection for Bow, so let's keep in mind that our heroine ends the episode by kissing the mustached macho-man on the cheek. Bow faints - supposedly with the sheer happiness of it all - but if we're to maintain the belief that he doesn't swing that way, we can perhaps theorize that he's faking pleasure to avoid further PDA from his friend.
• Our laughing dragon will return - and we won't have long to wait, either! See 67012's "The Prisoners of Beast Island."

• Here's a tip to the citizens of Elberon: if you have a well that the Horde used as a fuel tank, which apparently contains fuel that's so incredibly flammable that the mere toss of a rock causes it to erupt in a towering gout of flame - maybe consider putting a cover over it? And perhaps a warning label?
• Oddly enough, this episode ends up sharing several characteristics with The Wizard of Oz. First comes the moment when Adora and Bow end up in a little hut that flies up into the air like Dorothy's house in the tornado, then comes crashing down (albeit not on top of a witch). Then you have Sorrowful, a cowardly version of a usually fearsome creature, who wants to get himself some courage, and goes to visit a "wizard" (in the form of Castaspella) to do it. The eventual form his physical "courage" takes is not a medal, like that of the Cowardly Lion, but a garland of flowers - but its effects are just as psychological and psychosomatic in nature.
• What actually causes Sorrowful to appear on the scene? We're told that the initial explosion of the well is due to the volatile fuel dump, and I suppose we could just take that claim at face value. But dragons breathe fire, and a dragon eventually pops out of the fiery well. Did Bow's rock land on its head and prompt the initial cough of flame? Or was the dragon nestled right near the storage site in the middle of a centuries-long nap that was disturbed by its incineration? The wakened Sorrowful does not clarify.
• This episode strays out of the realm of homoerotic undertones and into the realm of crossdressing, or drag. Adora survives the catastrophe of riding in an airborne house with just a light fall and a pot over her head. Bow comes out of it with a white handkerchief draped over his head, but also fully clothed in a pink dress. Oddly, the dress appears to come with its bust pre-stuffed, giving Bow a very feminine figure.
• This episode got a full-on guffaw out of me, during the moment where Bow is at his loveliest. When he remarks on the dragon's ability to speak, Sorrowful doesn't seem to think it's a big deal, arguing that Bow can do it also. "But I'm a man," says Bow, pointing to himself in all his lavender-bedecked glory. The dragon gives him a coy smile and a wave of the hand.
• This story's title, "The Laughing Dragon," seems mainly to be derived from the one short sequence during which Kowl accidentally discovers that Sorrowful is ticklish. Otherwise, the dragon spends most of the time being miserable, not amused. It makes for an odd title. One would think "The Cowardly Dragon" or "Fraidy Dragon" (to play off the very similar He-Man episode, MU084's "Fraidy Cat") would have been more appropriate. I suspect the title is a reference to something I don't know about.
• Usually your cartoon villains wait to punish messengers who bring them bad news; but our friend Hordak, after receiving some positive tidings from a Horde trooper, still happily dumps him down a trapdoor. "That was good!" he comments. That's our Hordak! We'll see him get just as much of a kick out of doing the same thing - to Sorrowful! - in 67012. In fact, this will prove to be the first in a long line of instances exemplifying just how much Hordak enjoys dropping people through trapdoors.
• Animation error: for the briefest split second, tiny Castaspella, riding into the shot on her horse and really meant to be in the background, is accidentally layered on top of Loo-Kee's head! Oops.
• Secret identity problems (or lack thereof): Adora finds a quiet, secluded spot to transform just as her friends are setting off for Greenvale. That's perfectly reasonable and sensible; what's odd about the whole thing is that no one talks about fetching She-Ra, and no one seems to question the absence of Adora once She-Ra shows up. If I were She-Ra, I'd feel just a trifle hurt on Adora's behalf!
• Another thing that remains unexplained: why does the Horde need to cut down all those trees? It's a safely bloodless and yet undeniably evil thing for our bad guys to be doing, and it seems to be part of the critical task of clearing a road through the middle of Greenvale/Mystacor; but during the battle scenes, we see an incredibly broad thoroughfare seemingly already in place, with the tree stumps only visible to either side. Is Hordak dreaming of a freeway, like the insidious Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
• Just noting, now that we're ten episodes in, that even though the standard episode opening lists three people who know Adora's secret identity, only two of them have appeared in the series, and neither of those two have shown any evidence of knowing her secret. And just how reliable will Madame Razz be as a secret-keeper, anyway? We'll have to stay tuned to find out! ... To be fair, there's a good chance that if she ever does find out, she'll just forget about it. (See 67013 for the first evidence of Razz's knowledge. That part of the episode is frankly underwhelming and anticlimactic - but overall the story is a corker, and well worth the watch! Proof that Kowl knows Adora's secret can be seen in 67035. The third member of the secret-keeping band, Light Hope, will finally make an appearance in 67021.)