Janis Diamond

Ed Friedman

Strange things are happening in the province of Basilia - and on Orko's birthday! But when some very important items - including a well-known castle with a skull-shaped front entrance - suddenly vanish, our heroes rightly suspect Skeletor. He has pulled one of his most impressive capers yet - one that it will take every ounce of He-Man's strength to undo!

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

Skeletor

Chef Alan, Eternian guards, random Basilian citizens, creatures from the void dimension

Battle Ram, sky sleds

Orko is very excited about its being his birthday, but can't seem to find anyone else in the palace that even remembers the special day. Not even Chef Alan, who for some reason is too busy making something in the palace kitchen to even have time to talk to the Trollan. Orko decides to go see the Sorceress, who surely won't have forgotten him. We're soon let in on the secret, which is that the chef has made a lovely tiered cake with a decorative replica of Orko's hat on top of it, and all of Orko's friends are plotting a surprise party. Adam and Teela are interrupted in their contemplation of Alan's baked masterpiece by Man-at-Arms, who warns them of trouble going down in Basilia. Teela runs off to round up the troops, Duncan goes to get Ram Man, and Adam and Cringer run off to "get changed," if you know what I mean.

At Basilia, a huge whirlwind is causing a lot of very spherical boulders to roll around the place; fortunately He-Man is able to gather up the winds and send them away. But while he is helping, we see his power sword vanish into thin air! Back at the palace, He-Man explains the goings-on to Duncan, while a very impatient Orko tries to get in a word edgwise. When he finally gets the chance, we learn that Castle Grayskull itself has gone the way of the power sword!

The heroes head to the site of the castle, which has been replaced by a glowing ball and some blue bands of light. Duncan and He-Man decide that Skeletor must have found a dying neutron star and gotten some evil assistance in maneuvering this "white hole" over the castle, which sucked Grayskull into another dimension. While exploring the terrain on Battle Cat, He-Man gets a signal from the Sorceress and decides he needs to hop in the white hole. A curious Teela gets too close and is unintentionally sucked inside as well!

In the trippy void between dimensions, He-Man and Teela travel around on conveyor belts and Teela proves herself uncharacteristically a bit of a dead weight. He-Man has to rescue her several times from near-death situations, and drags her along, following the signal broadcast by bird-lady radio. Meanwhile, and unbeknownst to our heroes, a mysterious red globe follows them. They eventually reach another dimension hole and fly through it, landing in a reversed world where trees grow in, water flows up, and Skeletor can get the upper hand on the good guys. When He-Man and Teela find and enter Grayskull, they see the villain seated on the throne and the Sorceress chained in a cage! Skeletor's plan is apparently to learn the secrets of the castle while the Sorceress's powers are reversed - though he hasn't managed to do that just yet.

In the battle which ensues, it appears Skeletor's powers have increased and He-Man is unable to defend himself. At this crucial moment, the red ball that's been hanging around finally reveals itself to be He-Man's vanished power sword, landing in his hand and giving him renewed confidence and deflecting abilities. The Sorceress messages He-Man to lure Skeletor over to a mirror, where she's able to use her reversed powers to bind the villain. There is still one teensy problem, though - the castle and everyone inside of it is trapped in another dimension, and (as Skeletor explains maniacally) once the white hole in Eternia goes away, they'll all be trapped there forever!

He-Man runs himself outside and gets under the castle, where he smashes it off of its rocky base and hunkers down beneath it. At his request, the Sorceress hands all the powers, knowledge, and secrets of Grayskull over to him (for a limited time, we assume), and he manages to lift the entire castle and hurl it back towards the dimensional portal. As the castle flies off, He-Man latches on with a grappling hook and flies back home. In Eternia, Duncan and Orko are thrilled to witness the castle reappearing; but an unbound Skeletor leaps onto the nearest sky sled (which we assume is how he got himself there?) and flies off, hysterically vowing revenge on some future, unnamed date.

Back at the palace, with everything back to normal, Orko is still gamely trying to remind everyone that it's a special, once-a-year kind of day today, but no one takes the bait. Convinced that his friends have really forgotten about him, Orko has his own personal party in his room, until Man-at-Arms shows up to sternly command him to an audience with King Randor (which turns out to be the surprise party).

End with a Joke: A stuffed Orko has made himself sick with conjured snacks in his room, and is completely unprepared for the beautiful birthday cake Chef Alan made in his honor.

• Skeletor: Now we're playing in my dimension, and I make all the rules.
• He-Man: You're a loser, Skeletor!
• He-Man: Help me, Sorceress! Give me the strength of the castle's secrets.
• Skeletor (in great distress): You won't get away with this for long, I'll make you all pay! This was my chance - the big chance I waited for - I will beat you yet, He-Man!
• Orko: I feel strongly about special days! I always have.

• He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat: Just after transforming; and twice more in other parts of the episode
• He-Man smiles close-up, looking at the viewer: While thanking Teela for her help
• He-Man runs away from the viewer: While drawing Skeletor towards the mirror in Grayskull

One full

Brought to you by Orko
Orko very pertinently warns us against overeating, especially sweets.

Skeletor manages to get into Grayskull

• Orko freakily interacts with his own reflection.
• This episode includes the classic "everyone pretends to not remember your birthday" story.
• The first appearance of Chef Alan, the guy in charge of food at the royal palace. Though he's a fairly obscure character, we can also find Chef Alan in slackcircus's "Fabulous Secret Powers" music video (see my lore notes in MU029 for more information). It seems like we'd be seeing a lot more of Alan, since kings and queens gotta eat like everyone else; but this is the only episode of the series with a confirmed Chef Alan appearance. For a potential split-second cameo, go all the way to MU129. We must assume that Alan played an important off-screen role in palace life, since he is used as a disguise by Skeletor in the Secret of the Sword movie!
• Nice to know that, whether he's Cringer or Battle Cat, our favorite great cat would still like to eat cake!
• The Battle Ram's top cannon demolishes a giant boulder so thoroughly that it just completely vanishes. Good thing Orko didn't accidentally fall into one of those and go on a weapons-firing rampage!
• He-Man repeats his tornado trick from "Evilseed" (MU025), except this time it's to capture a whirlwind and shoot it off into space! What a guy.
• We see an Eternian salute from one of the guards: he holds one hand vertically in front of the middle of his face, fingers straight up and thumb tucked in.
• Duncan suggests the events in Basilia were "a side effect" of the Grayskull disappearance; which leads to some interesting implications about what might happen in Eternia if Grayskull were gone for an extended period!
• Man-at-Arms makes reference to the "Council of Evil," which is either a previously unheard-of entity comprising really evil guys, or just the regular roundup of Skeletor and his minion shmoes. We will hear of the Council of Evil again, in a much, much later episode (MU125), though it's unclear whether it's meant to be the same body.
• Though in other episodes the Sorceress has been able to project her floating head to everyone, in this episode she only manages to send herself to He-Man. I suppose it's the magical strain of being stuck in another dimension!
• The reptilian, tentacled creatures with which He-Man and Teela struggle in the void dimension have heads (and limbs) reminiscent of the lava beast in MU007, except that they're green instead of red.
• When Skeletor is boasting to the heroes in Grayskull, he crows, "You're in my dimension now!" and I'm just wondering how literally we're meant to take that. Is the story that this is actually where Skeletor came from before he arrived in Eternia?
• When He-Man gets under the castle we see that it actually appears to have a rib cage down there, which is sweet.
• In order to do one of his most impressive feats of strength (lift and toss the entire Castle Grayskull), He-Man has bestowed upon him by the Sorceress the full power of Grayskull and all of its secrets. This could be a one-time thing!
• The animation of He-Man swinging and throwing a grappling hook is beginning to look like it could be added to my list of animation loops; we saw him do this same thing in MU023 and MU028. It will in fact become a common loop in the series.
• We get another view of Orko's bedroom, last seen in MU018.

• The random citizens of Basilia who are almost crushed by a falling boulder are dressed like they were in the middle of their Jane Fonda workout video when the whirlwind hit. Ahh, the 80s...
• It's very unclear just how intentional the problems in Basilia were, and how directly related to what happens to Grayskull. If you want to assume that Skeletor is an evil mastermind, you could deduce that he intentionally started the troubles to distract the heroes and give him a chance to transport the castle. But that is never explicitly stated. Duncan's theory seems to be that Basilia got wrecked because Grayskull vanished.
• We already know that, without his power sword, Adam cannot transform into He-Man. What this episode makes us wonder is: if He-Man doesn't have his power sword, can he still change back to Adam? That part of the transformation has yet to be shown. The show will dive into this issue in MU056.
• Remember the scene in this episode where He-Man is helping Duncan explain, in a very technical way, how Skeletor managed to suck Grayskull through a white hole into another dimension. Think back on this when we get to the much later episode (MU055) where the Sorceress has to explain photosynthesis to He-Man.
• For a split second as He-Man enters the frame to rescue Teela from falling off a platform, the scabbard on the back of his armor is a much lighter gray, before becoming the correct, darker shade of the rest of his armor.
• We get a cool shot of the Sorceress's ghostly head superimposed on the skull facade of Grayskull - sort of the reverse of Skeletor's head being there in the show opener.
• Like I said, there is a lot of explaining about white holes; but I'm still just a tad unclear on how, exactly, Skeletor managed to so successfully capture Grayskull in this episode, without the Sorceress even being able to call He-Man for help, and her being entirely helpless to stop him. Also - if the white hole sucked Grayskull in, why didn't it swallow anything else in the vicinity? And why is it going to eventually vanish? Skeletor's plan, according to the Sorceress, is to hold them in the "mirror" dimension until he learns the secrets of Grayskull. According to Skeletor, regardless of what he learns, when the white hole goes away, they will all be trapped there. OK. Then what was he going to do? Sign a lucrative book deal to tell all about it? How was he going to make use of his knowledge and get out of the dimension?
• In the scene where Skeletor is trapped by Sorceress's mirror beam, his right hand is weirdly twisted, as if it's been put on wrong.
• This episode's writer, Janis Diamond, previously brought us MU013, "Like Father, Like Daughter," featuring assembly line serpentoids and a belabored plot line with a lasso shooter. Logic problems aside, I like this story better. It's pretty awesome to watch He-Man throw an entire castle and then ride it back home! (It's ironic that in MU013, when He-Man learns he is to face an entire army gathered by Skeletor, he grabs only one other person to help him. In this episode, when "strange things" are happening in Basilia, the entire guard force of Eternia, He-Man, Battle Cat, Teela, and Ram Man come running.)
• There's an intriguing flavor of mystery to this episode that I enjoy. Even though it's pretty clear from early on that Skeletor is behind everything, we have to wait a long time before we finally see him and find out what he's been doing. Also, there's the strange glowing ball that follows He-Man around, finally revealing itself - in a very satisfying way - as the power sword.
• Continuity error (if you want to look at it that way): He-Man basically tows himself back to his home dimension by trailing along behind Grayskull on the rope of his grappling hook. However, when the castle lands, he neatly materializes in the open Jawbridge.
• During Skeletor's (rather disappointingly straightforward) escape by sky sled, he leaves his havoc staff behind on the ground inside Grayskull! Another sign of his seeming mental instability - see my next comment.
• There are moments in this episode where Alan Oppenheimer's voicework takes Skeletor to new places - as if his sanity has been strained almost to the snapping point. When the Sorceress binds him, he laughs with an extra tinge of hysteria; and he makes some babbling types of groans once he flies out of Grayskull on his (very convenient) sky sled. His final speech before flying off sounds desperate and shaky. Clearly this was a hard loss for our bony friend.