Harvey Brenner

Bill Reed

Thrill as our He-Man creative team desperately tries to prove to the TV-addicted children of the 80s that books are precious objects! The evil Batros sure thinks so, since he stole all the books in Eternia. Our heroes will have to track him down to solve this literary mystery - and unbeknownst to them, they'll be racing against Skeletor, who would also love to meet the batty book-lover! Oh, and it's also the birthday of a certain Eternian prince...

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

Batros, Skeletor, Beast Man, Trap Jaw, Tri-Klops, Mer-Man

Professor Smallen

Wind Raiders

Orko is trying to get Teela's assistance to locate a unicorn book which is the Trollan's birthday present for Prince Adam, and which seems to have vanished; but Teela has to leave to give the prince his gym lesson. Orko's problem stems from more than just forgetfulness, we quickly learn, as Professor Smallen convinces an at-first doubtful King Randor that the entire royal archive has been emptied of its tomes! It's a book-tastrophe! The King calls Adam and Man-at-Arms to hear this craziness, and almost comes to tears at the prospect of Eternia's priceless books having vanished. His son, seemingly indifferent to the issue, actually wanders off to turn into He-Man and get to the bottom of it. At the same time, Teela and Orko are also on the trail of the mystery, since the captain found a clue: a book dropped along Eternia's southern road.

At Castle Grayskull, He-Man gets answers from the Sorceress: the culprit is the evil Batros, who has left his usual haunts on the dark side of Eternia to make a power grasp. Batros knows that books have the power - of knowledge! Sorceress even knows where Batros is hiding out: the Temple of the Sun, located at the end of the South Road. He-Man hops onto his tiger and begins heading that way, unaware that his friends Teela and Orko have already stumbled upon the temple. The pair wander about for a while, finding no evidence of books, until Teela disconsolately leans against a brick wall and activates a secret passage to the literary hoard. They've found the books! Unfortunately, they've also found Batros, who bricks the heroes in.

All this time, Skeletor has been keeping track of events via his usual spying methods. He is intrigued by Batros's scheme and wants to horn in, so sends Beast Man and Trap Jaw out to fetch the potential ally. Seeing He-Man also on the way to the temple, the bony villain sends a magical whirlwind to slow the oaf down. It provides only a short distraction for our hero, but long enough for the Evil Warriors to reach the temple first. Batros doesn't appreciate the lackeys' forceful approach to recruitment, but it so happens that he wanted to team up with Skeletor anyway, so he happily leaves for Snake Mountain, driving Beast Man before him with a series of zaps from his hands. Trap Jaw, cornered by some snakes Batros shot at him, stays behind after the spell wears off to abuse Batros's prisoners; but instead, Orko and Teela turn the tables and leave the metallic minion tied up with the rope that is the remainder of Batros's snake-conjuring spell. Orko makes a quick return trip to retrieve the unicorn book which was his main motivation for searching the temple, and then they're gone.

He-Man arrives at the temple to find Trap Jaw having just managed to release himself. The surprised villain quickly flees at the sight of the blonde hero and his tiger. The books are there, ready to restore to their Eternian owners; but where is Batros? As our hero learns via wrist communicator from Man-at-Arms and co., the man-bat and Skeletor have made a deal and are headed for Grayskull, so He-Man has to drop what he's doing and go deal with that problem. When he shows up at the castle, our hero finds not only Skeletor and Batros, but three of Skeletor's usual dweebs, all ready to break in and gain control of the secrets of the universe. The odds seem against He-Man, but it's not even close; after a few deflected bolts, Skeletor gives up and teleports away, and Battle Cat single-handedly (pawedly?) scares off the cowardly lackeys. That leaves only Batros, who manages to pose the only real threat by almost dropping He-Man down Grayskull's bottomless moat. Our hero climbs out again, though, and manages to toss Batros all the way back to his home on the other side of the planet.

The day is saved, right? Not quite, because those darn books have disappeared again! Hearing of this addendum to the book mystery by wrist message from Duncan and Teela, He-Man immediately realizes where the books have been moved, and sneaks his way into Snake Mountain. The hero and his tiger are seemingly caught by an elastium net and a pit trap; but He-Man keeps a gloating Skeletor talking until he learns the location of the missing books, then easily breaks free of the trap, scaring off old Bonehead. It's finally time to take those books back!

Once Eternia's books are restored, our heroes can happily celebrate - not only the return of their printed knowledge and power, but the birthday of their own Prince Adam! Our pink hero gets a cake party in the library, where he is thrilled to receive a unicorn book from the royal magician.

End with a Joke: How about a hug? A happy Adam is embraced by his best buddy Orko at his self-proclaimed "best birthday" ever.

• Teela (encouraging Adam to climb a rope): If I can do it, you can do it! / Prince Adam: But you're as nimble as a cat! / Cringer: N-n-n-ot all cats are nimble; y-y-you'd never catch me trying that!
• Randor: This is a terrible loss. Those books contain all the lore and knowledge of our people. / Man-at-Arms: And all the great scientific discoveries and inventions. / Adam: And the wonderful stories. / Randor (covering his face, about to break down and weep in front of everyone): How will we live without the great books?
• Batros (laughing) : How terribly clever of me to take the books. When the people of Eternia find out, they will force the King to step down, and they will name me - brilliant Batros - the emperor of all Eternia.
• Beast Man: If Batros is so smart, how come he stole the books instead of the gold and the jewels? / Skeletor: Because, unlike you, Batros has a brain. What he has taken is more precious than gold or jewels.
• He-Man (probably not intended romantically, but who knows?): Let's go, Battle Cat; we have a date with Batros!
• Skeletor (to Batros): You have a brain that could warm my heart - if I had a heart.
• He-Man: Maybe you need fresh batteries for your lasers, Batros.
• He-Man: Batros had an idea that the books would give him power. And you'd steal anything for power; even Batros's idea.

• A look through widespread legs: Teela lands from having leapt off the climbing rope
• He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat: Just after transforming - the animation is abruptly paused in mid-career to insert a line of dialogue from He-Man; and again later, after stopping a whirlwind; and yet again, in front of Grayskull
• He-Man picks up and throws a rock: Just the throwing part, as he tosses a rock at some water to splash it onto a sandy whirlwind
• He-Man in battle stance on Battle Cat: When he shows up to face the villains at Grayskull
• A look through widespread legs: He-Man leaps and lands during his fight at Grayskull
• He-Man juggles his sword: Again, during the battle before Grayskull
• He-Man smiles close-up, looking at the viewer: Conveying his suspicions to Battle Cat in Snake Mountain
• Skeletor runs away from the viewer: Fleeing an escaped He-Man
• Teela laughs, head back: At Orko's hijinks in the PSA

One full
Variation - just before his transformation, we get a cut-in shot of Cringer standing in the courtyard, saying "There goes my cat nap!"

Brought to you by Teela and Orko
Orko is very excited that all the books are back in the royal library, as Teela notes. "You know," she remarks, "when you open a book, you're really opening a door to a wonderful world of entertainment and information." If any of the kids watching this could hear over the sounds of their own derisive laughter, they would know that at this point Orko lists all the subjects he's learning about in his own stack of books - but it's mostly body-building, since carrying all the books builds his body. Teela finds this throwing-her-head-back amusing.

N/A

• The opening scene shows us the computer room from MU068's "Day of the Machines," with the gadget in the back which (as I noted in my entry for that episode) looks like an old-timey radio.
• Teela is trying to show Adam how to climb a rope for his gym lesson; a rope which is attached to the same tower we've seen used several times in the series, most recently in MU068.
• Hey look! It's Professor Smallen again! We first met him out in the desert for MU047's "Keeper of the Ancient Ruins." He seems to have gotten sensitive about his old age, because in this episode he has dyed his previously gray hair brown.
• In this episode we see Duncan and Adam endangering Adam's secret identity. "Time for He-Man," he mutters to the Prince in the throne room, and an emotional Randor peremptorily asks him to "Speak up!" Duncan stammers uncomfortably that he thinks they should find He-Man. Then Adam lamely departs, claiming that he has "something important to do." More important than the lost books your dad was just crying over, eh? Oh, Adam... SMH
• We had incontrovertible proof in MU047 that the kingdom owns multiple Wind Raiders, but I'm not sure we've ever seen two of them on the screen at the same time, as we do in this episode when Teela and Orko prepare to hop into one of them and take the South Road.
• Batros's hideout temple is actually the Temple of the Sun from MU050. It really is that exact temple, and not just the animators reusing a building design - the Sorceress calls it that by name! This does make you wonder why Nepthu, the villain from MU050, spent so long wandering the desert, starving and parched, trying to find the place - it seems very easy to locate! We'll be locating it again in MU093's "Trouble's Middle Name."
• The first - and only - Filmation appearance of Batros. He's another of those villains that represent a major failure on the part of Mattel to capitalize off the great Filmation character designs. Though Batros would eventually get an action figure in the MOTU Classics line (2013), he was never produced for any of the original waves of toys.
• Good old Skeletor is back after a one-episode absence, doing some good old spying on his desktop dome.
• Skeletor spots He-Man on the dome getting into Castle Grayskull; but the blonde hunk is clearly not using the formula we've seen on other occasions to lower the Jawbridge. In episodes where he has done this (usually those written by Robby London, most recently MU042), He-Man must lift his power sword and command the door to open. On the dome we see He-Man's sword is safely sheathed.
• The Sorceress shows He-Man a nice visual aid on her giant all-purpose screen - which, in this episode, is oddly missing the usual clawed frame around the edges.
• When He-Man hears from the Sorceress that he will have to face Batros, he says: "But I thought he only stayed on the dark side of Eternia?" An interesting fact, and also interesting to note that everyone apparently already knew about Batros, even though we (the audience) have never met him before. By the way, we've heard tell of the "dark side of Eternia" before; according to Adam, it was where the evil Shokoti from MU040 and MU041's two-part "House of Shokoti" originated.
• Unlike in MU050, when Nepthu had to find a secret trap-door-operating button and He-Man gave up and smashed his way in, Teela and Orko have no trouble entering the Temple of the Sun.
• Note that Batros's chest logo gives us an early, unintended look at the symbol of the Evil Horde - which hadn't actually been invented yet. For more hints of the Horde, see next episode, MU073!
• He-Man again uses his super breath, as he did just the previous episode (MU071), and this time twice! First it's to escape from Skeletor's magically conjured whirlwind; later, it's to blow out the fire Skeletor leaves behind when he vanishes away. It's probably not an accident that this is also the day when Prince Adam uses his own breath - to blow out his birthday candles. The added irony is that as Adam he can't quite blow them all out in one breath!
• Batros, we learn, has the ability to zap rays out of his hand which produce ghostly looking snakes - snakes that sometimes turn out to be very useful ropes. A strange ability! Not sure they built that into the action figure...
• He-Man speaks to Man-at-Arms by means of a wrist communicator. We've seen him use similar tech before, but in this case its power seems more magical in nature, since He-Man's gold bracer glows in a pulsing rhythm while he uses it. (We later see Man-at-Arms's matching wrist communicator glowing in just the same way.)
• An impressively large villain count in this episode! For the ending battle, five of the Evil Warriors show up outside of Grayskull (though Tri-Klops and Mer-Man have no dialogue).
• Batros hangs in there longer than Skeletor, and manages to make He-Man fall into the bottomless pit around Grayskull! Which, as he mentions, is bottomless. We've heard this pointed out before, most recently when Skeletor fell into it at the end of MU043.
• We are introduced to a new tough material on Eternia: elastium. "It's not only one of the hardest substances in the universe," boasts Skeletor (seemingly practicing his Shark Tank pitch), "but it also stretches!"
• Basing it off the air date, Adam's birthday is September 25. However, based on later comments by Queen Marlena in the He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special, Adam and Adora's birthday was much closer to Earth's Christmas time. Wiki Grayskull claims you can count 19 candles on his birthday cake, setting his age before this point to a barely-legal 18; but I don't think it's all that clear how many candles there are (I tried a couple of times and only came up with 18), and I'm not sure the animators drew them with any intention. Adam certainly looks to me like someone in their early 20s rather than their teens. In fact, having put together a few hints dropped over several other episodes (the summoning period of Bakkull in MU006 tied to the fact that Teela was a baby during his previous summoning, and the fact that Teela and Adam are the same age, as revealed by the queen in MU058), it seems fairly certain that Adam is turning at least 20 in this episode.
• Interesting that Eternians seem to follow the same custom of having candles on the birthday cake, and that it is bad luck not to blow them all out; perhaps this is the Earthling Marlena's influence on Eternian culture...

• I think it's beautiful that Orko gives Prince Adam a book about unicorns for his birthday - especially since we were given concrete proof in just the previous episode (MU071) that Adam does, in fact, read! As we discover at the end of the episode, the unicorn book is exactly what Adam wanted. Orko is clearly better at coming up with gifts for the princeling than he is at coming up with anniversary gifts for the royal couple (see MU071)!
• King Randor very insultingly suggests that Professor Smallen is mistaken - and senile - when the professor tells him that all the books in the royal archive have vanished. If I were Smallen, I'd be pissed at this absurd supposition! After all, you'd have to be mighty senile to miss an entire library. Instead of taking offense, the professor admits that he sometimes forgets where he puts his glasses, and even whether he's had lunch or not. Is he pushing for early retirement, or does he just have tenure?
• I don't understand why this episode literally leaves us hanging on the issue of Adam's rope climb gym lesson. The Prince begins his ascent, Cringer covers his eyes - and then the camera drifts away to the throne room. The next time we see Adam, he's safely on the ground again, having been summoned by Randor. So what happened?!
• Batros's plan for his conquest of Eternia sounds pretty shaky. Randor will get deposed because he lost ... books? I think that would be the first time that's happened in the political history of the universe. And just why does Batros think he's the only other qualified person to rule the planet? Is it his nocturnal proclivities, or his ability to sleep upside-down?
• Teela and Orko definitely seem like they're about to get into a Wind Raider to find the lost books, but in their next scene together they are wandering on foot through the desert. So what happened?! It's Adam's rope climb all over again.
• Beast Man gets no respect from anyone: "You'd better take Trap Jaw with you," Skeletor advises our luckless friend. "You might get lost by yourself, Fur Bag." Later, the bag of fur gets repeatedly zapped in the butt by Batros, on the way back to Snake Mountain, where he then endures multiple further tongue lashings from his bony boss.
• Skeletor just didn't seem to want it today. He brings his braintrust Batros with a considered plan for infiltrating Grayskull, and a party of three other minions. The castle is defended by only He-Man and Battle Cat. Yet after only a few seconds of battle, Skeletor announces, "I think it's time for me to leave and take care of another matter," and finger zaps himself out of there. What the heck, Skeletor! He's stayed in the game longer when he faced even tougher odds - consider way back in the pilot episode, MU004, when his guys faced off against He-Man and an army of other heroes. Later, when He-Man chases the books back to Snake Mountain, Skeletor is quickly convinced to flee again, this time from his own home (and not for the first time! See for instance MU009).
• Folks, it's home invasion time once again. He-Man and Battle Cat penetrate Snake Mountain to track down those pesky books. We do not see or hear any alarm system, as we've seen used in previous episodes (recently in MU066), but our heroes are quickly trapped by both a net and a trap door. "Well, He-Man, did you think you could just walk into Snake Mountain?" scoffs Skeletor. Well, yes, he did - and with good reason! You might as well make a copy of the keys for him at this point, Bonehead.
• "Let's get the books and go home," says He-Man to Battle Cat. Okay.... and just how were you planning on doing that? You can carry, what - four at a time? (I'm picturing one in each of his hands, one in his mouth, and one in Battle Cat's mouth.) That's a lot of trips! The associated question is, of course: how did Batros manage to steal them all out from under everyone's noses in the first place? Bat magic, I suppose (not to mention what would have been another fairly substantial case of home invasion!).
• Randor claims that the books belong "to the people of Eternia." Oh yeah, Randor? Then why do you keep them all in your house?
• I liked the cute final scene, where Orko nails Adam's gift and then sweeps by for an assist on the birthday candle extinguishing. For once Orko puts out a fire instead of starting one!
• This story, with its many characters, various locations, and multiple twists and turns, is downright labyrinthine for a He-Man plot. It was written by Harvey Brenner, in his first of two MOTU scripts - I bet the next one (MU091) will be simpler!