Douglas Booth

Steve Clark

The evil magician Tauron summons Orko's Uncle Montork and Montork's pet Gark from Trolla, putting them under his power and spelling trouble for Eternia!

Cringer (Battle Cat), Orko, Prince Adam (He-Man), Sorceress

N/A

Tauron the magician, manticore, Gark, Uncle Montork

Attak Trak, Wind Raider, Talon Fighter

We open on an ominous, foreboding magical ceremony. The evil magician Tauron is working up something wicked on his cave altar to help him rule over Eternia! Somewhere nearby, Adam, Cringer, and Orko are stuck out in the resulting magical storm and seek their own cave for shelter. They chose poorly, it seems, since they end up sealed in the cave, and it happens to be the den of a giant manticore! Adam tries to say his magic words, but his power sword is flung into a corner of the cave. Meanwhile, Tauron's spell to summon some allies teleports a be-spectacled, bearded Trollan and his giant three-eyed pet Gark out of Trolla and over to Eternia. Gark comes direct to Tauron, where he is put under the magician's power; but the Trollan is zapped over to Orko and his friends. Turns out of all the Trollans for it to be, this one is Orko's favorite uncle, Montork! Their happy reunion is cut short by the ongoing danger of the manticore. Adam finds a moment to grab his sword and do his He-Man thing, and the monster is finally taken care of. The whole crowd makes it out of the cave, and He-Man quickly seals the manticore inside - then finds a moment to turn back into Adam and pretend he and Cringer somehow got out of the cave separately.

Orko takes his uncle back to the palace for a meal and a catch-up session. The heroes are unaware that Tauron is spying on them in his cave, using a magical (but electronic-looking) device which will prove very important later. The magician sends Gark to crash their lunch. Montork's pet acts much more aggressive than his usual flower-smelling self; Montork catches the bad attitude and starts abusing his nephew. He seems to fluctuate back and forth between being a self-pronounced evil servant of Tauron and just confused. In his evil state, he and Gark shoot up the place, and Adam and Cringer run off to transform. Gark bonks himself on the head, which temporarily seems to break the spell on Montork; then Tauron's floating head appears to cut the crap and get down to business. Montork, now thoroughly under the magician's power, takes off with Gark to conquer Castle Grayskull.

He-Man has somehow discovered that Tauron's control over Montork and Gark comes from an "amulet" (the little electronic device that looks nothing like an amulet, and which He-Man hasn't seen). He hops into a new vehicle, the Talon Fighter, and instructs Orko and Battle Cat to break into Tauron's cave to get the MacGuffin while he heads to Grayskull. Montork and Gark's invasion of the castle is quick and painless: they simply turn into butterflies and fly in the window. Their sneak-attack fools the Sorceress pretty well, and they make it all the way to the castle's Inner Chamber. The Sorceress sends several nagging psychic SOS's to He-Man, who assures her he's coming as fast as he damn well can. When He-Man shows up, Sorceress can only lower the Jawbridge partway, so he leaps inside.

Orko and Battle Cat effectively overpower an unimpressive Tauron: Orko throws a bunch of his magic paraphernalia into the fire, and Battle Cat robs him of his amulet, which the pair then use to hop over to Grayskull. At the castle He-Man is having no trouble dealing with Gark and Montork, since Tauron's spell is wearing off. Gark has become harmless; Montork is still feeling evil, but his magic has been impacted and he resorts to an ill-considered and pointless joyride in the Talon Fighter. Unfortunately Orko's use of the amulet has pulled Tauron with them, and he still has Montork under his power. It takes an impassioned and moving plea from Orko to finally break the spell. Montork hands the amulet over to He-Man, who promptly smashes it with his power sword, causing Tauron to become wrinkly and basically deflate.

With Tauron's spell undone, Montork and Gark are pulled back to Trolla, but not before Montork has a chance to give some positive, loving advice to his nephew.

End with a Joke: Orko, still grieving the departure of his uncle, is thankful that at least his other friends haven't left him. He-Man and the Sorceress declare their job is to stay and keep an eye on Orko. Battle Cat responds to this by laughing - or possibly sobbing in grief. A cheerful Orko, pleased at having friends and being alive, creates a couple bunches of flowers and laughs happily.

• Orko: I don't know; I'm all out of magic. / Cringer: That's the first good news I've heard all day.
• Uncle Montork (in reference to a roaring manticore nearby): Flee from this puny beast? I bet it's only a baby.
• Uncle Montork (in reference to the appearance of He-Man in an enclosed cave): Where did he come from? / Orko: Would you believe it if I told you it was my magic? / Uncle Montork (considers): ...Nope. / Orko: Then I won't tell you, then.
• He-Man (scoffing at a bouquet Montork has summoned in place of a sword): How original; flower power! / Montork: The sword must be in my other cape.
• Uncle Montork: You just proved you don't need magic to be great, Orko. After all, it wasn't your magic that broke the spell; it was your love.

• He-Man runs at the viewer, bug-height: Charging the manticore
• He-Man juggles his sword: Preparing to stop Montork
• He-Man swings sword overhand: To destroy the amulet

One false start (Adam gets as far as "By the power of -" and has his power sword swiped away from him)
Two full

Brought to you by Orko
An unoriginal Orko essentially repeats his uncle's comment from a few seconds before: there is magic in just being alive.

Orko-specific lore
Skeletor-less episodes in Season 1

• The first appearance of lovable Uncle Montork! Though he's not so lovable when he slaps his nephew in the face at the dinner table...
• The title implies that Orko has several uncles, Montork simply being his favorite. Stay tuned to see if this is confirmed in a later episode! (Spoiler: nope.)
• This episode reinforces the idea put forward in MU020, that Trollans seem to lose a good bit of their magic when they come to Eternia. Montork is supposed to be one of the most powerful magicians on Trolla, but a lot of his oomph is dead on arrival. It's only Tauron's control which seems to give him his magic back.
• Also the first appearance of a new vehicle: the Talon Fighter! It looks pretty much like the toy, except that it's missing the satellite dish on top. As with other vehicles in past episodes, He-Man shows that he can whistle this one up when he wants it. As seems to have become a theme with He-Man vehicles, our hero is forced to ditch it in flight, though thankfully it's able to park itself. It shows no sign of being able to talk.
• As often seems to happen with He-Man villains, we get the sense that the bad guy, who we've never seen before, is well known to the heroes. In fact, Battle Cat even knows exactly how to get to his cave!
• An odd episode, especially after the last one, in that it is severely under-peopled. Even though Adam/He-Man returns to the palace, we never see the king, queen, Duncan, or Teela. As is clear from the "Evil Warriors" list above, it is also one of those rare Season 1 episodes entirely without our usual cast of bad guys.
• Orko for some reason tries for a few seconds to ride on Battle Cat's back, and we quickly see why he doesn't usually do that.
• Another unusual thing about this episode is that it appears well out of the production sequence. According to my DVD set it is episode 23, but its code is MU027 - oddly enough, its code comes after the episode named "The Return of Orko's Uncle" (MU023).
• For the first time we hear the Sorceress worried about people getting into her "inner chamber." (Go ahead: just try not to read anything into that.) It is reached by a very cool-looking set of double doors. Montork seems to have succeeded penetrating much farther into Grayskull than Skeletor ever did! (Note, Skeletor will actually reach the Inner Chamber door as well, in MU075! The door will appear in several other episodes, including MU104, and will even be used in the She-Ra movie Secret of the Sword, though its extreme importance will never again be so emphasized.)
• Instead of having He-Man go through his rigamarole of commanding the Jawbridge to open, he gets the Sorceress to open it remotely, like a garage door. Unfortunately, as sometimes happens with automatic garage doors, it gets stuck halfway open and He-Man has to do a fancy jump to get inside.

• The magic spell at the beginning with Tauron throwing ingredients on the fire is totally sweet.
• In his first dialogue with Orko, Uncle Montork gives a sort of Scrappy-Doo vibe, showing a delusional lack of fear at the scary beast nearby.
• In a shocking lack of care for the security of his secret identity, Adam transforms into He-Man seemingly right in front of a manticore and Orko's uncle. Fortunately neither of them seem to have been watching. Then somehow, He-Man and Battle Cat wander off long enough to turn back into Adam and Cringer and show up again, without alerting Montork's suspicions.
• An early dialogue exchange between Orko and Montork is clumsily animated, showing the floating Trollans moving jerkily between two positions, too quickly to look like a smooth hover.
• One of my favorite scenes in this episode: Montork and Gark look at Grayskull, their objective, and then both turn into tiny little butterflies. "And now to launch our attack!" Montork cries, in his evil munchkin butterfly voice.
• Skeletor has spent so many episodes trying to break down the front door of Grayskull, when all he ever really had to do was fly in the window! Too bad he doesn't seem to have been spying on Montork here, or he could have learned something.
• Continuity error (or something more?): Adam learns from the ravings of "evil" Montork that Tauron is controlling events; however, a few seconds later when He-Man sees the floating head of Tauron, he says, "So you're behind all this," as though he totally hadn't heard about Tauron until then. Either this is awkward writing, or it again demonstrates the separate personalities/consciousnesses of Adam and He-Man.
• In the scene where Montork approaches the parked Talon Fighter on top of Grayskull, the vehicle appears to be floating a foot or so above the ground. It's unclear whether this was intentional or just inaccurate animation! When Montork lands again it clearly alights directly onto the stone flags.
• According to the teleplay, Tauron has a magical "amulet," also called a "stone" by Orko. However it looks nothing like either of those things: it is a little handheld electronic device with a screen and buttons. What it made me think of most was a tamagotchi. Since those weren't invented until 1996, Filmation was clearly ahead of the curve here!
• Let's be honest: even though his minion Montork succeeds more thoroughly than Skeletor ever did in getting into Grayskull, Tauron is a pretty crappy villain. Skeletor often acts through his minions, but Tauron seems entirely dependent on Montork and Gark, and is completely unable to act for himself. He can't even stop Orko from coming into his house and burning his stuff! At the end of the episode he becomes shriveled and bent, making it pretty clear that we won't have to worry about him again.