Story - David Chappe, Teleplay - David Chappe, Robby London

Lou Zukor

Using a pair of invisibility helmets, Skeletor kidnaps Prince Adam from the palace and hides him away, most unfortunately on the same day that a magical mishap has vanished away the power sword. Orko and Battle Cat resort to a desperate journey through time to get the sword back, while Duncan must use all his gadget-making skills to rescue his friend.

Prince Adam (He-Man), Man-at-Arms, Orko, Teela, Cringer (Battle Cat), Sorceress, Stratos, He-Bot

Skeletor, Beast Man

Elmas, Elmas's partner (two guys riding in a tractor in the opening scene), wolf-bats, swamp hopper, giant, a host of other unnamed creatures from Eternia's past

Unnamed exploration tractor, sky sled, Basher/Doom Buster, Attak Trak

At Snake Mountain, Skeletor and Beast Man watch remotely as the "activator" they've set up near Mount Crona, the biggest volcano on Eternia, starts the lava flowing. Their plan is to move on Grayskull while everyone is busy fleeing the disaster. Too bad for them that He-Man is already flying around right nearby and stops the eruption. Does Skeletor let this get him down? No! For he has another plan, involving two invisibility helmets and a royal kidnapping. At the palace, Teela is showing Adam a cool gadget her father made that attracts "things that fly." Nearby, Orko has been trying to use a magic wand to clean up his room and instead succeeds in vanishing Adam's power sword (which the prince had unsheathed and was foolishly waving about)! Skeletor then neatly swoops in, freezes Adam and Orko, and using one helmet on himself and the other on the prince, swoops right back out of the palace again, instructing Orko that He-Man should be sent to the Banshee Jungle to trade for his prisoner. Orko fesses up to Duncan about their little sword problem; when they go to the Sorceress for help, she tells them the sword has been sent back in time. She sends Orko and Cringer through the Time Corridor to fetch it back. She has another job for Duncan...

Adam, meanwhile, has been chained in a cave whose entrance is blocked with "laser bars," and Skeletor plans to turn He-Man to stone with his staff when the hero shows up. Adam has his own plan: to use Man-at-Arms's "beeper" to attract Stratos for a rescue (preferably before a howling swarm of wolf-bats show up). In Eternia's past, Cringer and Orko find a big giant wearing one of Orko's hats and using the power sword as a whittling knife. When polite requests fail, Orko enlarges the hat, the blinded giant drops the sword, and the dynamic duo nab it and make their escape - with the entire population of the wild jungles of ancient Eternia hard on their heels. Duncan is there to meet them when they get back, with his own side project: a robotic remote control He-Man!

Back at the cave, Adam has successfully attracted a pack of wolf-bats (they look exactly as you'd imagine), but fortunately also his friend Stratos, who fights off the bats and takes Adam's location back to Duncan. Duncan sends his He-Bot off in Attak Trak; Skeletor and Beast Man spot the decoy and pursue in their Basher. With some stretchy help from Orko, Adam's friends get his sword through the laser bars of his cage and he says the magic words. Just as the real He-Man smashes out of the cave, Skeletor rolls the Attak Trak with a well-placed laser blast and approaches to turn his enemy to stone through the broken windshield - but wait! He-Man's face comes off, revealing the robotic face underneath. Then the real He-Man appears and blows the bad guys over. Beast Man is easily captured and Skeletor has lost his device for turning people into stone, so He-Man and Skeletor can face off one-on-one - right? No; like any good bad guy, Skeletor loves to cheat. He puts on his invisibility helmet. He-Man cleverly (?) throws Orko's robe over the next invisible thing that hits him, and is able to rip off and destroy the helmet. A now-visible Skeletor runs for his staff, but before he can use it he is enveloped in a cloud of rutting wolf-bats - He-Man, we learn, slipped Duncan's beeper in Skeletor's belt. Skeletor flees on foot with wolf-bats in pursuit - a sight that even the caged Beast Man can enjoy.

End with a Joke: With the fight just over, Orko wants to run back to the palace and tell the king; but Duncan reminds him that he still needs to clean his room. An argument ensues in which Orko still wants to try to use magic for the job, and everyone else is trying to explain that he's an idiot. He promises not to use magic, then winks and crosses his fingers. Oh, Orko...

• He-Man (having just stopped a volcano): Too bad I don't have time for a steam bath.
• Skeletor: Once I have the prince, He-Man won't be far behind.
• Cringer: Hey do you mind? I get a little nervous when I travel more than a hundred years away from home.
• Beast Man: And Eternia will be ours. / Skeletor: Ours, Fur Face?! / Beast Man (stammering): I meant yours, yours!
• Skeletor (having knocked He-Man onto his butt): Sitting down on the job, He-Man? / He-Man: One thing's for sure - I won't stand for you!

• Teela, hands on hips, laughs with her head thrown back: at Adam when he loses his sword
• He-Man juggles his sword: robot He-Man when Duncan is testing it
• He-Man punches the viewer: smashing through the wall of his cave prison
• He-Man from above, runs to mid-screen and pauses, battle-ready
• Skeletor runs away from the viewer
• He-Man smiles close-up, looking at the viewer: As he admonishes Orko in the ending scene

One full
Variation - Cringer remarks "This is the part I don't like" just before his own transformation (having prefaced Adam's transformation with the comment "This is the part I like!") (Similar variation to MU002)

Brought to you by Man-at-Arms
Parked in the palace grounds on a sky sled, Duncan points out that in today's episode, He-Man used something even more powerful than his muscles: his brain. You can develop your brain and give yourself great power!

He-Man robot duplicates: MU002's Faker is the spitting image of Duncan's He-Bot. Huh...
Use of the Time Corridor (or other time travel methods): We will see Sorceress's Time Corridor again in, believe it or not, "The Time Corridor" (MU008), and again in MU019, among others.
Skeletor (or another villain) plots to capture Prince Adam: Skeletor's plot will involve capturing Adam again in MU015.

• Skeletor spies on another part of Eternia using a little hemisphere embedded in his desk at Snake Mountain. In previous episodes he has used crystal balls embedded in his weapons to perform the same task, but moving forward we will see this desktop dome become his most reliable method of spying.
• The first of several awkward occasions where the bad guys decide to kidnap Prince Adam in order to draw out He-Man. If only they knew!
• Our second and slightly more detailed look at Orko's room, when Duncan yells at the poor kid for not cleaning up in there. This is our first depiction of Orko as being like a child - the character in the show to which the target audience were meant to relate. Duncan also has to instruct Orko later (like a parent scolding their child) that "hiding a problem won't make it go away."
• Orko argues that he never had to clean up where he came from - suggesting that his origin is somewhere other than Eternia (though his blue pointy ears and lack of legs probably should have already given us a hint). We will learn much more about Orko's origins in MU018 and MU020 - or see my connected episodes category "Orko-specific lore."
• Orko has an old bag of tricks and an "old wand," suggesting that his level of magic has improved and was actually once even worse.
• The first time Duncan is shown to be a technological wizard who invents things like his "beeper" that attracts flying creatures. He can even, on a very tight schedule, produce a He-Bot (though it can't talk or come up with stories about being ambushed like Faker could).
• The first time Adam has ever been walking around with his power sword out - we see what a good idea that was. Fortunately he just manages to stop Orko from revealing his secret identity while Skeletor is in the room. (Proving that he has learned nothing from this experience, Adam will wield the power sword again - with almost as terrible results - in MU061.)
• Our first view of Duncan's workshop, with lots of fun gadgets and mysterious switches and machinery.
• When Duncan and Orko come to the Sorceress for help, she tells them that she already knows what's going on, demonstrating her magical knowledge of events outside Grayskull.
• The first time the Sorceress is seen on her stone throne in Grayskull. Previous episodes have afforded us only brief glimpses of the interior of the castle, usually just stone rooms that look basically medieval. The throne and the huge Time Corridor panel next to it take us into more mystical territory.
• Stratos appeared as one of a large company of heroes at the end of MU004, but this is his first episode with dialogue. We also see him showing an ability to shoot beams from his hands, which he will use only irregularly in other episodes.
• Orko reveals his ability to stretch his body like Mr. Fantastic when he reaches his way between the laser bars of Adam's cage.
• He-Man makes the first use of his powerful breath, to knock over his enemies and disarm Skeletor.
• In the category of "things that go into/come out of Orko," Orko opens his hat and pours a huge amount of water (we all hope it's water) over Beast Man, because you might as well douse Beast Man when you have the chance. He also easily vanishes away the power sword behind his back, for storage purposes.
• Duncan has a little gadget that makes a cage over Beast Man. He activates it and then says, "My porta-prison will hold you until we get you to the prison mine." So... they have slave labor?! Anyway, this is the first documented case of the good guys actually capturing a bad guy with the intent of detaining him/her. The prison mine will feature again in MU010. We will also see the porta-prison return in MU021.
• "My havoc staff will take care of you," says Skeletor in his final fight with He-Man - thus happily naming his weapon for us.
• On the subject of wolf-bats, it's worth mentioning in passing that we will see this creature design used again, in MU093 and MU112.

• The establishing shot of Snake Mountain is accompanied by the sound effect of a wolf howling, which is very classic horror movie but seems unusual for He-Man. We will hear it again in MU009. Contrary to my expectations, this sound effect actually becomes a regular part of the establishing shot, and can be heard at the beginning of several episodes.
• On the subject of spying: now is as good a time as any to point out that, through some amazing coincidence, in all the many times in the series Skeletor uses his magic to spy on the good guys, he never once happens to catch the moment that Adam transforms into He-Man, though probability would suggest there was a pretty good chance for this to happen. Is it just bad luck, or the Power of Grayskull?
• One must ask just why He-Man (not Adam) happened to be flying around on his sky sled right near Mount Crona. The Power of Grayskull strikes again?
• Now is also as good a time as any to take some time to question one of the key devices of the series; namely, the fact that Adam must keep his secret identity of He-Man a secret. ....Why, exactly? Hear me out here. If you're a superhero, naturally you don't want anyone to know your true identity because then your rogues gallery can get to you through your loved ones. But Adam, as prince of Eternia, along with all of his loved ones, is already a target - as this episode clearly shows. So what good is it keeping his He-Man alter-ego a secret? Who is he protecting? Not his father the king, who was already kidnapped and transformed into a goat. I suppose if Skeletor knew that He-Man was Adam, he could just wait until Adam was walking around being all pink and vulnerable, and kill him before he whipped out his sword. It still seems a rather poor excuse for hiding super powers from your family. (One good reason for not telling anyone else the secret: it would require changing the series opening. "Only three others share this secret... I mean, only four others... five... oh boogers.") See MU029, where the Sorceress attempts to explain away Adam's secret.
• It's very amusing listening to a power-sword-less Adam stutter when Duncan tells him He-Man is needed.
• Duncan says that "Skeletor's Doom Buster" was seen near the palace, but we don't get to see exactly what that is. It would be easy to mistake this Doom Buster as another name for the flying "Basher" seen in MU004, given that the Basher does show up later in this episode; but we will eventually learn that the Doom Buster is a separate vehicle, and will finally see it in MU080. It may be that at this point the show writers and animators were a little confused themselves as to what ship was what!
• It's a strange coincidence that one episode after the appearance of Faker, Duncan is set to the task of making a robot duplicate of He-Man. Did the Sorceress get the idea from Faker?
• I know this is the kind of question that only a fault-finding nerd would ask but - if Skeletor's staff can turn things to stone, did he really need the Shaping Staff from MU002? (Whether it's actually his staff that turns things to stone is an open question, however; see later comments.)
• This episode features a host of side characters, many of whom are only visible for a few short seconds but nevertheless had to be drawn, painted and (in some cases) given voices. It's impressive that we are treated to a whole pile of monsters that come racing after Orko and Cringer. It's also entirely unnecessary for there to be two guys riding along in a weird tractor vehicle near the volcano at the beginning, but there they are!
• I'm unable to explain my reaction but I find that my adult self is very easily amused by Cringer's generally sarcastic and fearful attitude; there's a lot of that on display in this episode, and I enjoyed it all.
• Skeletor's noise of displeasure when he discovers he's been fooled by a robot He-Man is pure awesomeness.
• He-Man gets surprisingly ticked off in this episode, and seems to pursue Skeletor with real vengeance in mind. I guess even the nicest guys get sore if you chain them up in a cave for a while.
• Given that Attak Trak is sentient, it seems a little rough that its decoy work gets its windshield shattered. I hope Duncan sweet-talked the vehicle afterwards. One can detect a subtle theme running through the series of Attak Trak being treated cavalierly and left at various locations. See for instance MU016, where our heroes ditch the sentient vehicle and never return to it.
• There is a continuity problem with exactly what device Skeletor is planning to use to turn people to stone. In the first half of the episode, it is clearly his havoc staff that he uses to transform a defenseless tree; but by the end of the episode, it seems that there is a tiny metal cylinder (which he used to freeze Orko and Adam earlier) that is meant to be doing the trick.
• Say what you want about Orko's inability to clean his room; if you ask, that guy would give you the robe off his back. Indeed, when in mid-battle with Skeletor He-Man cries, "Orko! Your robe, hurry!" the little Trollan doesn't think twice, but whips behind a bush and tosses it to him. We are left imagining what Orko looks like in the buff - thoughts no children's show should provoke!
• Sure it was quick thinking to annoy Skeletor with wolf-bats; but He-Man also gifted his arch-enemy with new technology that attracts flying creatures, a device for which Skeletor could surely dream up various nefarious schemes. Lucky for He-Man that the series was very episodic, had a very short memory, and this never came back to bite him. Perhaps we can assume that Skeletor frantically smashed the device while driving the wolf-bats away.