Larry DiTillio

Lou Kachivas

A mysterious evil force has risen by the fortress in the sands. He-Man and some chosen friends will have to venture into the Sands of Time to discover its source, battling spider robots, reptile men, and a threatening new villain named Masque. All is not as it seems, and Masque is the representative of some even darker power...

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

Trap Jaw, Masque (desert guide)

spider robots, fortress soldiers, Melaktha, Stanlan, reptile men, dinosaur-like mount, sand digger, sand monster

Wind Raider, Battle Ram, Melaktha's speeder, reptile men's grabber vehicle

Orko is trying to tempt a lazy Cringer into being part of his magic act, presumably by jumping through a hoop. The Trollan's promised bribe of a cake or fish reward from the king goes over too well, and Cringer accidentally knocks over his friend. Adam comes along and tries to mediate between the grumpy duo, but is interrupted by a psychic call from the Sorceress, who has need of the prince's alter ego - and his alter ego's cat. When He-Man and Battle Cat show up at Grayskull, the Sorceress informs them of the mysteriously brief appearance of a pyramidal tower in the desert, near the fortress in the sands, which they are to go and investigate. With Teela and Man-at-Arms unavailable, He-Man settles for Orko and Ram Man as companions.

This all-star team flies out to the fortress in the Wind Raider, and discovers the place is already under attack by a swarm of robot spiders! In the ensuing battle, the Raider crashes and He-Man, et al, must polish off the remainder of the enemies on foot. We learn that the spiders were built and controlled by Trap Jaw, watching remotely from a desert lair along with a mysterious and forbidding stranger named Masque. Masque is attacking the fortress because its inhabitants were investigating the pyramid, which (he says) houses his even more evil "mistress," who is going to awaken a "sleeping beast." Sounds whack.

Trap Jaw assures his evil confederate that there's no way He-Man can track them down (regardless of the fact that the lair seems to be sited a very short walk from the fortress and is not particularly well-hidden); however, back at the fortress, He-Man is busy doing just that. Having obtained a spider "control box" thanks to a fortress soldier, He-Man uses its "return" function to locate Trap Jaw's lair. He, Rammy, Orko, and Battle Cat attack, successfully subduing Trap Jaw (or "Trappy," as He-Man affectionately calls him as he's tying him up with a metal pipe); Masque, however, escapes, promising retribution.

To learn more about the mysterious building, Adam decides to visit the royal archaeologist, Melaktha. Melaktha hits the books and comes up with a likely old legend (about a House of Darkness and a sleeping beast) and a location in the Sands of Time. Melaktha's young assistant Stanlan wanders in, frightening an already upset Cringer, who is understandably disturbed about the spooky tomb they are headed to find. The whole team nonetheless sets off to their expedition's first destination, the city of Calish, where they intend to hire a guide to lead them into the desert. Little do they know that Masque has been spying on them (like all good He-Man villains do), and after scaring off or killing (I assume) all the other guides in town, he poses as a guide himself and gets hired.

Masque starts right in with his mischief making on the first night, disabling the heroes' vehicles and secretly conferring with a group of disreputable reptile men. The following day, just as Adam has managed to repair the damage to the vehicles, a giant sand digger attacks, necessitating the appearance of He-Man. (It's unclear whether the sand digger was summoned by Masque, but its arrival certainly works in his favor.) Having chased off the digger and reached the site of the tomb, but tired out from the day's adventures, the heroes curl up in their tent for the second night, only to be awakened by the attacking reptile men. Fortunately, that helpful He-Man shows up again to free his trapped friends. Together, the warriors defeat the reptile men; but He-Man has somehow become aware that the real mover behind the attack is that pesky Masque. Determined to take care of the miscreant, who has run off to summon up the pyramid, He-Man must first fight off a conjured giant sand monster. Just as Masque is promising even more magical conjurations, Orko dashes in and rips off the villain's eponymous face decoration. The dark power of the mask clouts Orko, and for a moment it seems our favorite court magician is toast! But He-Man cuts the mask in two with one well-aimed overhand throw of his power sword; Masque shrivels away, leaving behind his shattered face and an empty cloak, and a woozy Orko awakens.

Gathered by the now fully risen pyramid the next day, our heroes contemplate the broken mask. Orko has gone off to recuperate with the help of the Sorceress, but the rest of them plan to explore the evil tomb, because surely now that Masque has been defeated, the danger is over... right? Right?!

End with a Joke: N/A (Orko is still recovering from his exposure to dark magic, and is unavailable to provide the episode's concluding comedic bit)

• Orko (to Cringer): You're always tired; how much sleep do you need, anyway? / Cringer: Leave me alone and I'll find out.
• Trap Jaw: Who is this mistress of yours, anyway? / Masque: You shall know that when she has awakened the sleeping beast and spread darkness across Eternia.
• Masque: You shall be sorry for meddling in my plans, He-Man; you shall be very sorry.
• Cringer (to Stanlan): I'm not a kitty, I'm Cringer - and you scared me! / Stanlan: You... you talk? / Cringer: Doesn't everybody?
• Masque (to Orko): Little fool, the power of my demon mask shall be your doom!
• Melaktha: This Masque was certainly a strange creature. He seems to have been more of an evil shadow than a man.

• He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat: Just after transforming, and again after chasing off the sand digger
• He-Man in battle stance on Battle Cat: Upon emerging from his tent
• He-Man rolls along the ground: To avoid the snapping bite of the reptile men's battle mount
• He-Man punches the viewer: Attacking the sand monster
• He-Man from above, runs to mid-screen and pauses, battle-ready: Coming at Masque

One full
Variation - Cringer transforms into Battle Cat while hidden in a pile of sand

Brought to you by Ram Man
Ram Man takes a rare center-stage role to tell us that ramming things with his head is actually not fun at all; in fact, it's painful and even quite dangerous, and you should never try it. Geez, Ram Man, your life must be pretty crappy.

Historians, archaeologists, and digging up old cities
Skeletor-less episodes in Season 1

• This is the first episode of a two-parter, but don't get used to this kind of thing! "House of Shokoti" is the only two-episode story in the entire series.
• Once again Cringer indicates his almost maniacal preference for fish. In MU034 (also a Larry DiTillio-penned episode), Adam got Cringer to come with him to the ambassador visit by telling him it was a "fish fry;" Cringer was so excited that the pair ended up tumbled on the floor of the throne room. In this episode when Orko mentions the mere possibility of the king rewarding him with a fish, Cringer charges indiscriminately, to similar results.
• Unusually, when Adam gets a request for "He-Man and Batlle Cat" from the Sorceress, he transforms off-screen, without the animation sequence. Indeed, there could have been three complete transformation sequences in this episode, but we only get to see one - an indicator of how much content has been packed into this two-part story!
• Sorceress's window, on which she shows He-Man an artist's rendering of the mysterious building in the sand, seems wider than her usual all-purpose viewing window/mirror/Time Corridor, and doesn't have the slightly fancier corners we've seen previously.
• We learn that "Man-at-Arms and Teela are after some space pirates," which sounds like a great idea for an episode! (Don't worry, He-Man will get around to battling space pirates in MU090.) We are left wondering whether this involves travel in space, which we haven't seen yet on the show (unless you count Marlena's flashback in MU006). He-Man and co. have gone to other planets, but usually by use of portals.
• He-Man pointedly states that the spiders attacking the fortress are "not real," so we know it's OK to murder them. He also is immediately aware that they were built by Trap Jaw - either he's encountered these critters before in some unfilmed episode, or he can recognize Trap Jaw's robot-building style! (Admittedly, we learned in MU013 that Trap Jaw's specialty is building lots of robots.)
• Masque is another of those very toyetic Filmation characters that never made it to toyhood - not, that is, until the 2016 MOTU Classics line! His face-concealing mask and dark, revealing armor make me think of Lord Humongous from Mad Max 2. Since the movie was released in 1981, it's possible this was a real inspiration!
• Orko has a chance to shine and show off some actually useful magic when he turns Trap Jaw's laser arm into a gag gun that shoots a "Bang!" flag and then backfires. He also later bags an entire squad of reptile men in a levitating tent.
• This episode introduces us to Melaktha, Eternia's royal archaeologist, and one of the first brown-skinned characters that isn't evil (see the Targans in MU031). Melaktha is a cool character and he will show up several more times in Season 2 (the next time being MU066)!
• We get another look at the map of Eternia to which we were introduced in DiTillio's last episode, MU034. This time, instead of heading north to colder climes in search of dragons, the heroes will head east to the Sands of Time.
• When introduced to the heroes, Stanlan claims that he has never heard of the court magician, Orko. I find this hard to believe and almost wonder whether Stanlan is messing with our little Trollan friend. Either that or Melaktha has his little assistant working so hard that he doesn't have time to raise his head from his books - given that he seems to work at the royal library, you'd think he'd have at least some idea of who lives in the palace!
• Cringer the full-size tiger performs an incredibly impressive feat of contortion by somehow fitting himself behind a shelf of books.
• Stanlan is amazed to find that Cringer can talk - another measure of how ignorant the boy is of the royal family and their associates, but also another indication that Cringer's ability is not a common one for Eternian animals. We've seen Cringer and Battle Cat meet other animals and communicate with them, but those other animals (I'm thinking of Pretty Kitty in MU015, or the unnamed big cat in MU019, or the Ro mother in MU038) have not been capable of human speech. By the way, we will find Adam using the same cheeky response that Cringer gives in this episode to a surprised comment about the tiger's ability to speak ("doesn't everyone?"), in the opening act of the She-Ra movie Secret of the Sword.
• I guess when you think about it, it's natural enough to imagine that Orko would sleep without his hat. But given that in MU020 we learn that Trollans only reveal their faces to those they love (presumably in a romantic sense, given the context), it seems shocking to find Orko's hat hung up on a special rack in the tent when the heroes are sleeping in the desert. Orko is uncovered in public! In a later scene, when Orko is awakened, he covers the top of his head with his pillow and we just see the normal shadowed face and glowing eyes. Shucks...
• Masque allies himself with a tribe of desert-dwelling reptile men. We have already met a group of reptile men, who served the Keeper of the Flame in MU026. This episode's bunch, surprisingly, exhibit a markedly different character design; unlike the first bunch, these guys actually wear underwear, which is a great relief.
• Ram Man proves that he's not just a one-trick pony who only rams things, by helpfully serving as a jack to lift the land speeder. Adam proves that he's not just a flighty princeling by apparently being able to repair the speeder!
• It occurs to me that I could add another sub-category to this database, along the lines of "He-Man does a poor job covering his secret identity." When he appears in the desert to save Melaktha and Stanlan from the sand digger, he remarks that he thought he should keep an eye on them, so he was hanging around nearby. "I have to go now," he says, and disappears to make way for the reappearance of Prince Adam. Fair enough; but what was He-Man doing creeping in Adam's tent when the reptile men attacked?!
• Things that come out of Orko: having awakened after He-Man smashed Masque's mask, Orko whacks the side of his head, dislodging several collections of gears, nuts, and bolts.

• Why exactly is there a "fortress in the sands"? Just what are they protecting in the middle of the desert?
• The uniforms worn by the fortress soldiers manning the laser cannons in the initial attack are completely different from that of the soldier who brings He-Man the control box from the spider. It's historically reasonable for different ranks of soldiers to have widely varying outfits, and you have to hand it to the animators for going to the trouble to use two different character designs when one would have sufficed! (In that same vein, see my earlier note about reptile men.)
• All credit to Skeletor and his frequent escapes, but none of his methods have anything on Masque's very cool magical disappearance, where he shimmers and then compresses in a sort of viscous fashion into a black mass that erupts in flame and smoke.
• Trap Jaw's "lair" is a cave on the outside, but on the inside is absolutely filled to the brim with technology and machines, and its walls are bristling with greebles. It makes for a fun interior for the fight!
• Cringer is totally channeling Scooby-Doo in the scene where he learns about the "spooky tomb" that might have g-g-g-ghosts and m-m-m-monsters.
• The scene in the royal library is a great Cringer sequence. I particularly enjoy the exchange where Adam finds himself feeling for Stanlan, whom Melaktha notes cannot follow orders. "The king used to say the same thing about me when I was a boy," Adam remarks. "He still says it," Cringer shoots back; then giggles at his own zinger.
• Melaktha's very cool land speeder, which the heroes use to venture into the desert, is like a slightly sexier version of the one Luke Skywalker tooled around in on Tatooine. We will see this speeder used again, by the royal couple, in the much later MU122.
• Masque easily wins the heroes' trust as a fake desert guide. He subsequently has them at his mercy, asleep in their tent, and could easily murder them all in their beds. Instead, he goes outside and snips one wire under the hood of the speeder (and presumably also sabotages the Battle Ram). I'm not mad, Masque; I'm just disappointed.
• The sand digger is a giant turtle which is highly reminiscent of the kaiju Gamera, a Japanese movie monster lesser-known but in the same vein as Godzilla. Another great (though perhaps not entirely original) character design in this episode full of fun character designs!
• There are a couple of scenes in a row where the good guys have a conversation and then the camera pans over to the desert guide just long enough to show him narrowing his eyes as a clear reminder that he's evil. Thanks, Lou Kachivas (director of this episode)!
• I suppose we can imagine He-Man leaping to the conclusion that Masque must be behind the attack of the reptile men. Thanks to dramatic irony, the audience is well aware of the fact; but when you think about it, our heroes have been given very little evidence to lead them to this deduction. They haven't seen the villain since he smoked his way out of Trap Jaw's lair.
• The sand monster that Masque conjures is, of necessity, blue, because it's nighttime and the background desertscape has been painted blue. But the color is unconvincing and strange on the monster, making it distinctly smurf-like.
• He-Man never seems to actually defeat the sand monster. He's unable to punch it into submission, and it collapses quite effectively on top of him; He-Man then apparently digs in the sand and comes up underneath Masque, knocking him over. We have to assume that this broke Masque's concentration and undid the spell, since the villain then threatens He-Man with a new "army of demons" to replace the sand monster.
• It's very exciting to see the episode end with a "TO BE CONTINUED" message, something we'll never see again in the series. One does wonder why it happened this once, since it never happened again. The simplest answer is that DiTillio's story was just too involved to fit into one episode, but the series brain trust (particularly Filmation exec Lou Scheimer) felt it was a good enough story to justify the double-shot. If that's the reason, I certainly agree with them! This first part is an action-packed episode with cool new bad guys, a dizzying array of supporting characters, and a mysterious evil buried in the desert - what's not to love?