Barney Cohen

Bob Arkwright

He-Man and friends face a problem with plants that proves so difficult to solve that they are forced to an unprecedented extreme: a team-up with Skeletor! Can our bony friend be trusted to help save Eternia from certain destruction? And who is the mysterious hooded stranger spreading these pernicious plants?

Teela, Man-at-Arms, Cringer (Battle Cat), Prince Adam (He-Man), Ram Man, Sorceress, Orko, King Randor, Queen Marlena

Skeletor, Evil-Lyn, Mer-Man, Trap Jaw

Dwarf villagers, Evilseed

Wind Raider, Attak Trak, Small Trak, Talon Fighter

Duncan is suffering from allergies, but he doesn't get to have any sick days: an emergency call comes in about a broken dam, and he rushes off to help, with Teela (for once!) volunteering to stay behind. Adam wanders off, provoking grumbling from Teela, who doesn't know that he and Cringer are about to transform into He-Man and Battle Cat (even though Cringer would rather have a nap). They meet up with Man-at-Arms (who is briefly delayed by a weed-filled Wind Raider) and help to rescue the little villagers and patch up the dam; afterwards, they learn from the rescued villagers that the dam was broken by some rapidly growing vines that sprouted from seeds they were given by a mysterious hooded stranger. Man-at-Arms stays to offer additional assistance and learn more about the hooded seed man. He-Man suspects Skeletor, but is interrupted in his contemplations by the floating head of the Sorceress, who nags him most urgently to return to the palace. There he finds the building overrun with more vines, encircling and constricting the royal couple and Teela, who tells him a story about a hooded stranger that sounds very familiar. He-Man ditches his parents to hold up the crumbling palace; when the vines mysteriously retreat, he returns to find Teela and the king and queen vanished.

He-Man's attempt to take the Talon Fighter to Grayskull is foiled by even more vines, whose clinging is so insistent that even the Sorceress's powers can barely teleport him and Orko away. She explains that she wasn't able to save Randor, Marlena, or Teela, and doesn't know where they are. He-Man decides to call Skeletor to get to the bottom of things, but Skeletor is hip deep in vines as well. Their call is interrupted by the real culprit: Evilseed! He pulls back his hood to reveal a head shaped like an artichoke. He controls the plants of Eternia and has all of He-Man's friends hung up in a tree, hog-tied and trapped (we see that at some point when we weren't looking and He-Man wasn't paying attention, Battle Cat was also taken!). He is standing on the dam from earlier, poised to pour water over Eternia and feed his army of plants, assuring they will conquer everything.

Skeletor whines and fumbles about in Snake Mountain without finding a solution, as his minions are taken from him one by one. First Evil-Lyn is yanked out through a hole in the wall. A call to Mer-Man shows him wrapped up in malevolent seaweed. Trap Jaw helps for a while by zapping the vines with his freeze gun, until it runs out and he too is nabbed. In the meantime, Sorceress and He-Man have analyzed a vine cutting and hatched a plan to make it snow on Eternia by lobbing a huge ice ball over Grayskull; the only problem is, they need Skeletor's magic joined with theirs to make it happen. Eventually Skeletor becomes desperate enough to accept their offer of alliance, and is transported to Grayskull. He short-sightedly attempts to betray his allies by stranding a teleported He-Man in the icy regions of Eternia and attacking the Sorceress, but is unwillingly convinced into helping by even more vines and the knowledge that it's this or the destruction of everything.

The combined zappy magic of Orko, Sorceress, He-Man, and Skeletor as they stand together on a tower of Grayskull hits the flying ice ball and causes snow flurries over Eternia, which turn Evilseed into a brown pile of dead leaves and free all the captives. Skeletor, threatening future selfishly evil deeds, departs docilely by portal.

End with a Joke: Orko, contemplating why Skeletor is always doing wrong, considers his own punishment for wrongdoing, which is being sent to his room. He-Man says this is a good idea, and the next time Skeletor does wrong, he should be sent to Orko's room, because it's so filthy. He-Man agrees to go and help Orko clean the messy room, then tells the Sorceress not to wait up, since this is going to be one long job.

• He-Man: I feel the bony finger of Skeletor; don't you, Battle Cat?
• Skeletor (selected portions of his conversation with He-Man): Back up, muscle boy . . . they're bugging the big bones out of me . . . who in the great bone world did do it?
• Evilseed: My plants and I have slept for years. Now we waken to claim Eternia. Behold my sturdy tree; behold its strange fruit! (gestures to tree holding all the captured heroes)
• Mer-Man: Skeletor, if there's a good bone in you, send help! / Skeletor: There isn't! Never has been; never will be.
• Duncan (tied up in vines with other bickering characters): I think we should all be quiet. We're not doing ourselves any good by - / Evilseed: Silence!
• Skeletor: Never will I set foot in Castle Grayskull until the day I enter as its conqueror.
• Skeletor (to He-Man): Don't you ever feel like doing something evil? / He-Man: Don't you ever feel like doing something good?

• He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat: Portions of the loop are used to show He-Man on the cat, and also in reverse to show him getting off
• He-Man from above, runs to mid-screen and pauses, battle-ready
• Skeletor laughs, head back: Not actually laughing, but the same animation is used when he cries "No!" in reaction to Evilseed's threats
• Skeletor leans in close to the viewer: To emphatically stress his intention to never unite with the powers of Grayskull
• Skeletor shakes his fists, three-quarter view
• A look through widespread legs: He-Man jumps down on the Ice Mountain
• He-Man picks up and throws a rock: When lifting the ice

One full
Variation - Just before his transformation, a short sequence of Cringer cowering on a couch with a cushion is inserted.

Brought to you by Teela
Teela suggests that, just as Skeletor and He-Man joined together, you should try working together with people you don't like. It might turn out okay... maybe.

Skeletor manages to get into Grayskull: MU009 was the last time Skeletor managed to actually get inside of Grayskull, though that time he managed it without being asked in.
Landmark Episode: Skeletor's being in the castle, the rare team-up of villains and heroes, and the fun character of Evilseed make this a Landmark Episode.

• In the opening scene, a computer voice alerts Duncan to a problem; the voice sounds just like Attak Trak.
• The flooding that we see on Duncan's computer is the same flooding animation used in MU024, when Lokus the imp started causing trouble for Mallek by smashing another dam.
• In this episode we see Duncan forced to take the "Small Trak," which is a version of the Attak Trak that looks much more like the toy. It's still the wrong color (blue instead of red), but otherwise is a pretty good representation. This will be the Small Trak's only appearance in the series.
• Apparently there are a bunch of little (non-Widget) dwarves living in Eternia! We hear a couple of their voices, and they all sound rather suspiciously Orko-ish.
• He-Man demonstrates his ability to create his own tornado by holding up his power sword and shimmying his upper body a lot. We will see him do this again in several other episodes, the next one being MU030.
• When Sorceress's floating head appears to He-Man, her lips don't move when she speaks to him. This is an interesting version of her telepathic messaging that - cough, cough - lazy animators - cough - we've never seen before.
• There are a lot of vehicles to see in this episode, though the characters don't get a chance to use many of them because of Evilseed's nasty vines. I listed Attak Trak in the Vehicles section because you can catch a glimpse of it in a couple of shots of the hangar.
• He-Man states that he was saved by the Sorceress using the "space portal." We've heard of the "space portal" before, in MU005, when it was used to transport our heroes to Phantos. In MU009, the bad guys made use of some "space portals." In this case, it really just looks like the Sorceress using her magic to teleport people: there is no trippy cosmic-looking room or even an oval opening with shiny gold textures inside. The Sorceress also uses the "Window of Spirits" to talk to Skeletor on his desktop dome. The window, like all viewing screens in Grayskull, looks like her Time Corridor window.
• The writer of this episode is named Barney Cohen, and it will prove his only writing credit for the series. He does a fantastic job, but he seems to believe that the best thing he can do for Skeletor and people talking to Skeletor is to have them mention "bones" a lot (as can be seen from some of the Memorable lines I've selected).
• We get some good interior views of Grayskull in this episode: a look at Sorceress's lab, which has much the same look from when they were building the ray fuser in MU014, and some other familiar shots of spooky columns and floating planets.
• Trap Jaw demonstrates his ability to bend the muzzle of his gun arm to scratch his own chin.
• The Sorceress takes some time out to explain that Grayskull is where her powers, and those of He-Man, come from, and where they are at their strongest. The claim is also made that Skeletor will be "stronger than ever before" when he comes to Grayskull - which doesn't seem to have been the case in other episodes where Skeletor got into Grayskull (see MU009). We'll see some very direct visual evidence that the castle is where He-Man's powers come from, in a memorable transformation scene of MU083.

• It's actually quite clever to include Duncan's allergies at the beginning of the episode, subtly foreshadowing the plant-based nature of the story problem.
• I'm sure there's a back story behind the appearance of the "Small Trak" in this episode. My guess is the people at Filmation developed their original Attak Trak design either with no consultation of Mattel or using an earlier toy design that was scrapped before the final, altered toy went into production. This Small Trak seems to be their attempt to retcon in the real toy in order to better sell the merchandise.
• An early shot of Duncan sitting in the Small Trak looks to have a weird animation error, as a big chunk of the vehicle behind the seat appears to be missing, revealing the background painting behind it.
• Duncan helps the slower viewers among us when He-Man starts doing his tornado thing by telling himself: "Of course! He's making a tornado to gather up the small rocks." Thanks, Man-at-Exposition...
• Animation error: when Duncan is sitting at the table with the dwarven citizens, his eyebrows abruptly switch from the usual black to the same brown as his mustache. Just as the scene fades out, they switch back to black.
• I feel like He-Man and Sorceress are sort of ragging on each other in this episode. When she first calls him and he tries to ask her what's wrong, she just brusquely ignores the question, repeating: "Waste no time!" Later, He-Man questions her failure to transport the royal couple and Teela out of danger: "But your magic is powerful."
• There are a couple of disembodied lines of dialogue during the sequence in the royal palace that I think we have to assume are coming from Randor, but sound muffled and unfamiliar. Orko calls He-Man into the room where everyone is tied up with vines, and immediately afterwards we hear a male voice cry "This way!" After He-Man tells Teela to cut his parents loose, the voice says: "Teela! Hurry!" They sound very spliced in, as though someone decided after the fact that it was too weird that we never heard from the king or queen.
• Skeletor comes off as particularly pathetic and miserable in this episode. He spends a lot of time whining about his vine problem, and forsaking his confederates at every opportunity ("I've got to help myself!"). He wants to make a craven deal with Evilseed. He vows to never join forces with He-Man, but two minutes later is calling him for help. When Skeletor does show up, he immediately attempts to betray the good guys. It makes you wonder why the Sorceress calls him one of the three greatest sources of power on Eternia.
• My disappointment with Skeletor aside, this is a great episode. Evilseed is a cool enemy with some impressively effective powers, and the desperate team-up of He-Man and Skeletor is fun to watch. The dialogue is clever and amusing.
• It's a measure of Skeletor's desperation that he asks Trap Jaw to "think of something." Ironically, Trap Jaw's suggestion to "call He-Man" is an incredibly sensible one.
• After He-Man throws the ice ball, he begins a sentence with, "If my calculations are correct . . ." You can't fool us, He-Man; you never learned any math.
• Skeletor smashes a piece of machinery which one could be forgiven for thinking is the "space portal" that is meant to retrieve He-Man; however, Sorceress still manages to teleport him back with no problems. Was the machinery fake, and were they just conning old Bonehead into thinking he'd stopped the teleport? Nothing so clever... in fact, I think the big computer-like machine was just a timer He-Man set so they would know when to fetch him back!
• I love how, after Skeletor's betrayal and her near defeat, Sorceress calmly tells a returned He-Man that "Everything went fine."
• Animation error: Duncan's chest armor is drawn incorrectly, missing some of the pipelike details under his chin bump, when he is freed from the vines at the end.
• The animation of Evilseed as he slowly decays into a pile of brown mush is very cool!