Phil Harnage

Richard Trueblood

Young Stanlan and Orko accidentally break an ancient artifact and find a map hidden inside. With the help of the Sorceress, they get directions to a powerful book of spells. It would be really terrible if Skeletor were to get his hands on that book - too bad the villain has been listening in to all their conversations by means of a parroting Hollywag! Stanlan will need the help of He-Man to beat the villains to the book - and win back the trust of his skeptical boss, Melaktha!

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

Beast Man, Skeletor, Trap Jaw

Stanlan, Hollywag (Holly), Melaktha, two-headed snakes, wolf guardian

Basher, Wind Raider

Stanlan, the assistant of Eternia's official archaeologist, Melaktha, is a good boy. He's learned his lesson about disobeying his elder and being impulsive and impatient, and blundering into dangerous unearthed tombs, after that whole embarrassing "Shokoti" incident (see MU040 and MU041). This boy just wants to buckle down and play by the rules, finishing his chore of dusting Eternia's ancient artifacts in the tower vault before he knocks off for the day. Unluckily for him, while he's still in the middle of dusting, along comes Orko, who is eager to play and has a new magic trick to show off. Stanlan demurs, citing his duties, so Orko offers to finish the job with a magical shortcut. He takes control of Stanlan's duster, and - surprise, surprise - the magic gets out of hand. Before the duster can be subdued it has overzealously dusted a miniature wolf statue, knocking it off a plinth and shattering it to bits.

A horrified Stanlan predicts future tirades from his boss and eschews Orko's further offers of help. But there's a silver lining, since within the broken innards Orko finds a rolled piece of paper with a mysterious map printed on it. The map is in an unfamiliar language, so the pair bring it to Prince Adam. Our royal heir was perhaps not the best choice of interpreter, however; he's no linguist, and suggests they simply wait for Melaktha to come back and translate it. Stanlan is understandably anxious to avoid contact with his supervisor just now, however, and would rather show Melaktha some positive achievement to go along with the bits of priceless artifact he's broken; so Adam suggests they all hop in the Wind Raider (even Cringer, who has been lazing nearby) and take the map to the Sorceress.

On their flight, the heroes are spotted by Skeletor, who has been cruising the skies of Eternia with his minions Beast Man and Trap Jaw. On Beast Man's shoulder is a purple Hollywag, a duck-billed critter which shows its ability to perfectly mimic and parrot the voices of anyone it hears. Shrugging off the Hollywag's capers, the villains decide to pursue their heroic quarry and eventually find themselves at the gates of Castle Grayskull. Desperate to hear what's going on inside, Skeletor suggests a plan: Beast Man will send the Hollywag inside to spy on the heroes, and old Fur Face will be able to use his psychic link with the creature to listen in.

Inside the castle, the Sorceress has to hunt up a book to properly translate the writing on the map, giving the Hollywag (whose repeated calls of "Holly, holly!" give Stanlan the idea for its name) time to befriend the boy and perch on his shoulder, in perfect eavesdropping position. The Sorceress then announces the plot for the rest of the episode: the heroes will need to visit the Caves of the Wind, which will lead them to the Temple of the Wolf. Inside a statue there is a box, and in the box is the Ancients' Book of Spells, a valuable tome which they can't by any means allow to fall into the wrong hands. Good thing nobody evil was listening in to this whole story! As a plus, the Sorceress mentions a two-word password which will need to be recited to open the book's box - but no one spends any time repeating the words back to her, and the Sorceress doesn't make any attempt to repeat them or emphasize their importance. Oh well; it probably won't matter!

Back in the sky and on their way to the Caves of the Wind, Adam realizes there's someone on their tail - a Basher full of bad guys! With some fancy flying the prince manages to evade the stalkers. Skeletor can't possibly bother them anymore, since he has no idea where they were going - right? Right?! Speaking of knowing where the heroes are going: while Adam and friends were roaming around Eternia, Melaktha returned to the palace and found his statue broken. Teela helpfully informed the unhappy archaeologist that it was really Orko that did the deed, not Stanlan, and that the boy has gone off to Grayskull with the map he found. A crabby Melaktha lets Teela accompany him to the castle, where the Sorceress sends them off to the caves. At the caves, Teela and Melaktha are quickly netted (and I mean that literally - like a net gets thrown over them) by Skeletor and crew, who of course knew where good guys would be. Skeletor tells Melaktha that his knowledge is all due to Stanlan, who is a traitor; and a gullible and cynical Melaktha is entirely too ready to believe it.

The two captives are placed in a hastily and very poorly built log cage and left with Trap Jaw. The imprudent and safety-unconscious minder accidentally sets the cage on fire with his flame thrower arm. Seeing that Melaktha is (for some reason) afraid of being burned to death by fire, Trap Jaw kindly offers to put the fire out with his fire extinguisher arm. Clearly he's never used the thing before: its two main skills are creating a smoke screen which gives cover for the heroes to break out of their cage, and firing off with such force that it knocks its user over. Slamming against a cave wall, Trap Jaw fells himself with a shower of rocks and watches his captives run off, sadly predicting (I think very accurately) future punishments from his boss.

Meanwhile, our other party of heroes has been making its way through the labyrinthine cave system, unaware that Beast Man is relaying their path to Skeletor by means of Hollywag radio. (The villains also learn that Stanlan is keeping the map in his pocket.) On their journey, the heroes are attacked by some two-headed cave snakes, prompting a frightened Cringer to flee into a side cave and giving Adam all the excuse he needs to run off and make a transformation. The newly arrived He-Man and Battle Cat are able to tie knots in all those poor snakes; but while they're distracted doing this, the villains strike, causing a cave-in that splits Stanlan off from his friends and giving Skeletor the chance to nab the boy - and, more importantly, the map. The captured Stanlan learns from a boastful Beast Man that his friend Holly was in fact a spy the whole time! Now that the creature has done its work, however, the villains don't care about it and are ready to cut the annoying, parroty thing loose.

Using the map, Skeletor reaches his goal: the Temple of the Wolf. Trying to figure out how to get inside the wolf statue on its altar, our villain accidentally activates the guardian, which comes to very wolfy life and gets aggressive. A dismayed Beast Man discovers that his animal-controlling abilities (which, mind you, are the one thing that he brings to the table as a villainous lackey) don't do jack against the monster, and he makes a run for it. He-Man, who by this time has joined up with Melaktha and Teela and drilled his way through the rocky obstacle, finds poor Fur Face cornered by the canine protector, and takes advantage of the situation to force the location of the temple out of the terrified minion.

Skeletor is having his own problems. Stanlan noticed that the wolf statue left behind a fresh, steaming present on the altar after it came to life: it's the Ancients' Book of Spells, packaged inside a clear glass box. The boy can't remember the secret words to open the box - but fortunately the Hollywag, perched on his shoulder, can, and recites them in the voice of the Sorceress. (For the record, and in case you ever come across a book of spells in a box, the password is "nepo amasis." Just for the heck of it, I tried this in Google translate for Latin to English, and Google claims it means "beloved grandson." However, it can also be translated from Zulu, where it is said to mean "no misses." /shrug) Seeing that the treasure is ripe for the taking (and having evaded the wolf), Skeletor butts in to try to take it; but the vengeful Hollywag gets hold of it instead. Skeletor is just trying to zap the pesky, flapping thing out of the sky with his havoc staff when the rest of the heroes find their way to the temple.

He-Man sums up the situation and decides, as usual, that the best way to solve his problems is by throwing a big rock. He picks one up and hurls it at the cave ceiling, creating a hole through which Hollywag can fly, and (we hope) carry the precious book to Castle Grayskull. With Trap Jaw having handily defeated himself, and Beast Man shamed by the untameable wolf, Skeletor now finds himself alone amid a crowd of heroes. He prudently teleports himself out of there, vowing future shenanigans.

Back at Grayskull, the heroes gather to confirm that Holly really did get the book to the Sorceress, which it did. They also confirm that Holly was under the control of Beast Man while doing all that spying, so it's totally not to blame for all the betrayal - and neither is Stanlan. A rueful Melaktha admits he misjudged the boy. Asked what it would like to do next, Holly (who it turns out can speak in its own voice without using other people's words) announces its intention to stay with the heroes. The archaeologist and his assistant (along with the faithful Holly) return to the tower vault, where Orko finds them making up with each other and brings them a wrapped box. The apprehensive pair open the gift and are thrilled to find it contains the statue from the episode's beginning, now reassembled and whole!

End with a Joke: Though they are overjoyed at Orko's gift, neither Melaktha nor Stanlan are the least bit interested when the Trollan offers to help them dust, or tries to show them his latest magic trick. Orko then asks Holly if it would like to see the trick, to which the creature replies (with a phrase it's already used, and actually stole from Skeletor - though it doesn't use his voice to say it), "Do you take me for a dunce?" Everyone laughs - even a surprisingly tolerant Orko.

• Cringer: The Caves of the Wind - that sounds scary to me. / Adam: Everything sounds scary to you, Cringer. / Cringer: There's two things I'm not scared of: eating and sleeping.
• Beast Man: I'm not the king of beasts for nothing.
• Skeletor (to Stanlan, who just backed into him): Watch where you're going, young man - have you no manners?
• Skeletor (to Holly): I'll make Hollywag pie out of you! I'll turn you into a paperweight!
• Skeletor: There will be another time, He-Man. / He-Man: And we'll be ready for you.

• Skeletor laughs, head back: At the prospect of the "warm welcome" they'll be giving the heroes; and again later, enjoying the fact that he's undermined Melaktha's faith in Stanlan
• Teela from above, runs to mid-screen and pauses, battle-ready: Escaping from her prison cell
• Adam runs at the viewer, bug-height: Coming to help Cringer

One full

Brought to you by Teela and Holly
Teela reveals that the person who had to learn today's lesson was actually the grown-up in the room, Melaktha. He had to learn not to jump to conclusions about his young charge, Stanlan. Holly flaps over to Teela's shoulder and, when prompted, repeats the lesson: "Don't jump to conclusions! Don't jump to conclusions!" Okay, you can shut up now, Holly. Teela points out that we can now accurately claim that "a little bird" told us this advice.

Historians, archaeologists, and digging up old cities: Since it features the royal Eternian archaeologist, and there is some ancient stuff underground, I think we are pretty safe with this category.

• It's the surprise return of Stanlan, the young archaeologist's assistant we met in MOTU's only two-parter story, "House of Shokoti" (MU040 and MU041). Also present is Stanlan's boss and father figure, good old Melaktha! We saw Melaktha not only in the "Shokoti" storyline, but also in MU066.
• Stanlan is seen first in the treasure room of the palace, a place we visited in MU066's "The Cat and the Spider." The boy appears to be dusting a meat grinder.
• The statue that gets broken by the enchanted duster (thanks a lot, Orko) is similar to the Grimalkin statue from MU066.
• We are introduced to the Hollywag, a duck-faced, purple little winged critter and (initially, at least) pet of Beast Man. It has a real knack for mimicry, sort of like a sentient parrot, or Bumblebee in the live action Transformers movies. Lucky it's so cute - like Bumblebee, it's very irritating!
• The concept of the "Ancients' Book of Spells" again calls to mind the oft-mentioned "Ancients" or "Elders" of Eternia, who've played a part in the lore of several episodes (MU081, MU073, MU067, MU011) and are usually brought up when there's some really spicy knowledge or magic to be found.
• I'm also reminded of MU062's "Golden Disks of Knowledge," in which we were informed that Skeletor had stolen a lot of magical knowledge (with the help of his pawn, Zanthor) which was being stored on laser discs, or something. I suppose, given that He-Man and Zanthor stole those disks back, Skeletor is particularly hungry for other sources of secret knowledge.
• During the air chase, Skeletor instructs his pilot Trap Jaw to "zap their retro tram," apparently referring to an important part of the Wind Raider.
• Things that come out of Orko: a kite, when what he asked for was a light (another case, as in MU083 and MU084, of his magical commands somehow being misheard). Orko himself was flown as a kite by Adam in the opening of MU032. Eventually, Orko makes himself understood by whatever thing is listening to him, and a flaming torch emerges from the hinged opening in his head, at the end of a third, sleeved hand.
• Beast Man's slack, wide-eyed stare as he spies on the heroes through Holly is reminiscent of Mer-Man's glassy resting expression from other episodes. Love it!
• Trap Jaw's customizable arm sports a flamethrower attachment in this episode - one of the more dangerous things he's had on his body! At first, it seems sensible of him to have also brought along a fire extinguisher attachment - but it turns out he definitely hasn't field-tested the thing, leading to some embarrassing moments for our villain.
• He-Man turns himself into a human rock drill to make it through the cave-in Skeletor created. And he's not even dizzy afterwards! You'd think he'd at least need to shake some dust out of his hair, but no - apparently He-Man only musses his hair when involved in sky sled crashes (see MU016). We've seen He-Man do some drilling before (MU076), and we'll see him do it again quite a few times more (MU097, MU108, MU130).
• Skeletor escapes at the end of the story with a flash of teleportation, again (as he has done in other episodes) failing to provide an out for his minions, Beast Man and Trap Jaw. We assume Trap Jaw is still lying under a pile of rocks, though he may eventually shake himself off and make the long walk home; but Beast Man is seen slinking away while the heroes are not looking.
• It's worth noting that Skeletor's ploy of having a bird-like creature spy on the heroes as they visit Grayskull has been used before: in MU067's "The Energy Beast," where instead of using a Hollywag, he had a raven spy to whom he recited a rhyming spell.

• I do really like the character of Melaktha in the abstract, because he's a nerd and a historian and because he's good at his job, and I appreciate and try to emulate all those qualities. But as a father figure and supervisor, he just comes off as a frightful nag. He spends a lot of time being annoyingly critical of Stanlan and believing the boy has betrayed him, leaving little time for doing cool nerdy things. Alan Oppenheimer consistently voices the character in a whiny, insecure, old-man tone that also does nothing to endear him to us. We'll see the archaeologist filling a similarly judgy and whiny role in MU127.
• Animation error: In the scene where Beast Man gets angry at his Hollywag, his eyebrows momentarily flicker to the wrong color (blue, the color of his eye bags).
• Animation error: While our heroes are flying in the Wind Raider after having visited the Sorceress, Cringer is missing his eyebrows. There's also a short sequence in the Basher during which a flying Trap Jaw loses his eyebrows.
• There are several instances in the episode, outside of Holly's parroting, of sound bytes from characters being recycled. One is when Beast Man uses the same growl twice in quick succession to quiet his Hollywag. Another is when Cringer's "Yoowww!" is played twice in a row to fill in the lengthy animation of him being spooked by Holly's appearance. Later, Melaktha's sensible admission that he is "afraid of fire" is played twice.
• During the air chase between the Wind Raider and the Basher, both sides pointedly mention the wearing of seatbelts, no doubt as a safety lesson for the viewing audience. But He-Man characters in vehicles have never really looked like they're wearing seatbelts, and they don't look like it in this scene, either (for Orko it seems it would be physically impossible). The generous viewer can assume everyone has very discreet lap belts on, which always stay just out of sight.
• Also during the air chase, Stanlan sounds as if he's calling his new pet "Golly" instead of "Holly." At the moment when he does, the creature's neck has been drawn abnormally long - perhaps a stance the Hollywag assumes when it feels threatened!
• Melaktha is maybe not having the best day in this episode. He's already crabby about his broken statue and his troublesome assistant, who's run off without him; then he gets to Grayskull and hears about the Ancients' Book of Spells. "I must study it," he says eagerly, maybe hoping that some good research and a well-regarded published paper can come out of all this; but the Sorceress immediately quashes the idea, saying the book needs to be protected from Skeletor in Grayskull. A clearly annoyed Melaktha, head turned away, mutters, "Right..." (And all of this happens before he's nearly burned alive!)
• The sequence in which the various groups of characters meet each other makes little sense. After the air chase, Adam seems to have shaken loose from the tailing villains; but in a subsequent scene, we see Skeletor (who of course is already somewhat informed as to the heroes' destination) saying, "When they get here, we'll have a little surprise for them." The implication is that the villains are already in place at the cave, and will ambush Adam and company when they arrive. Instead, Skeletor and crew first catch Teela and Melaktha, who were the last people to show up. Huh?
• As prisons go, the one Melaktha and Teela are put into is... pretty crappy. It has a laughably huge hole in one side, granting an easy escape. True, the heroes are also draped in a net, but I have to admit to never having understood the utility of this so-called weapon: what's to stop the captain and the archaeologist from just taking the thing off? The only real obstacle to their escape is the watching Trap Jaw, who magnanimously incapacitates himself.
• I suppose we're to believe that Cringer, frightened by the two-headed snakes they encounter in the Caves of the Winds, runs off into a separate room by himself, which is what makes it safe for Adam to follow and transform them both. But they're still only one room away from Stanlan, who saw Cringer and Adam go in and Battle Cat and He-Man come out. What other conclusion is he likely to draw about a certain person's poorly concealed secret identity?
• Beast Man gets no respect from anyone: This episode starts out looking like a good one for old Fur Face, since he brings along the Hollywag that gives the villains their edge in tracking down the spell book. But then the poor fellow encounters the wolf in the Temple of the Wolf, on which he's unable to use his one talent for controlling animals. A cornered and terrified Beast Man is then forced to answer He-Man's questions. And then it turns out that Holly has switched sides, so I guess they weren't very good friends in the first place!
• Continuity error: Of a kind; or at least a plot problem. Orko claims that he's memorized the map, allowing He-Man and friends to locate Beast Man even after Stanlan has been snatched away; but then it appears that the heroes require directions from Beast Man in order to locate the temple. Hmm - did Orko's memory fail him? Actually that's a pretty plausible explanation.
• He-Man throws a big rock at the ceiling, but keeps his eyes tightly shut the entire time. That just seems weird, right? (Odd as it is, we'll see the animators making use of this loop again in later episodes.)
• Though I could wish that my boy Melaktha came out of it looking better, this was a fun story with some good ancient legends and amusing villain content. I made an earlier assertion that Holly the Hollywag was irritating, but it does have its endearing side and was a cool little character design.