Story - D.C. Fontana and Richard Fontana & Teleplay - D.C. Fontana

Richard Trueblood

In a desperate bid to keep Orko from destroying his lab, Man-at-Arms distracts the Trollan with a long, involved, and not-altogether-pertinent tale of how Cringer was found by Prince Adam and eventually became Battle Cat.

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

N/A

courage-in-a-bottle monster, spine deer, sabre cat, trainee guardsmen, Elora (explorer/archaeologist), Melaktha, Eternian guards, jungle guides, the Gedge

glowing saucer ship

He's at it again! Orko, that is; we find the Trollan ensconced in Man-at-Arms's lab, fiddling with bubbling potions in flasks as Cringer sits nearby. Before any disaster has occurred, Man-at-Arms walks in to ask the unreliable magician just what he thinks he's doing. Adam and Teela appear as well, concerned (based on copious documented past evidence) that Orko's experiments will go horribly wrong. Orko protests, and claims he is working on a "capture beam" as a surprise gift for Teela. The guard captain is gratified, but Man-at-Arms and friends firmly request that Orko desist at once, for the safety of all concerned. Orko promises to obey but stays behind to "clean up" after everyone has left and starts right in on a different invention - this time, he plans to create a potion that will make Cringer as brave as his alter ego, Battle Cat. (To ensure the cooperation of his unenthused subject, Orko magically glues Cringer's paws to the floor!)

Instead of doing that, Orko's concoction comes to life as a sort of shrieking, phantom potion-tiger, looming over the Trollan. Man-at-Arms and Adam, having not gotten very far from the lab, overhear the commotion and return in time to force the abomination back into its flask. A justifiably exasperated Man-at-Arms decides he has to find some way to get through the reckless magician's thick skull and convince him he shouldn't play with unlabeled chemicals. Duncan settles on telling the Trollan a story about how young Prince Adam found Cringer, and how the tiger first became Battle Cat - a story that will take up the rest of the episode.

Duncan takes us back to Adam's childhood, when the boy took a solo camping trip out to the hills of Eternia to find and record the various wildlife of the region. The prince takes with him Duncan's latest invention to test, an "animal caller" which can imitate the sounds of many different animals. It comes in handy when, in a forest glade near Mount Tower, Adam hears a pitiful mewing in the bushes and sees a vicious sabre cat about to strike. The boy scares off the sabre cat by imitating a manticore on the animal caller. In the bushes he finds a poor injured tiger kitten - Cringer. Bringing the creature home, Adam begs Duncan for assistance in nursing it back to health. Thanks in no small part to the boy's love and attention, the tiger recovers, in the process forming an attachment as strong as any pandemic-purchased pet for its unprepared owner.

The young tiger develops a host of anxieties and an instinctive fear response that earns him his name - bestowed by a gaggle of young guardsman that a teenage Teela marches through the courtyard where Adam is studying. Adam is embarrassed by Cringer's antics, but the Sorceress's floating head appears to let the prince know that the tiger will play an important role in the boy's future. Time passes and Adam takes on the mantle of He-Man, but keeps his transformations secret from his pet, not wanting to imprint even more trauma on the creature.

At this point, both Orko and the viewers are really beginning to wonder what possible bearing Duncan's story can have on the importance of not rashly mixing random chemicals; but now he finally begins to come to the point. A grown Adam is invited on an archaeological expedition to analyze some ancient ruins found in the Tikon jungle, and gets permission for the needy Cringer to come with. Among the ancient buildings, Eternia's archaeologist Melaktha and his associate Elora discover curious inscriptions, which language expert Man-at-Arms is asked to translate. Adam and Teela find a vine-covered doorway with similar inscriptions and run to tell Duncan. The young pair are eager to peek behind the doors, but Man-at-Arms urges caution, suggesting they can make further investigations in full daylight, tomorrow. The curious youngsters decide to act against Duncan's advice and spend a few more minutes prodding at the crack in the door before giving it up for the night. Their unsupervised activities apparently facilitate the freeing of a giant monster - the Gedge, who is fully loosed the next day when diggers begin excavating.

The Sorceress (who is sitting around on her throne in Castle Grayskull with nothing better to do, probably having binged her way through all the good shows she can get on her Time Corridor window) senses the escape of the Gedge and transforms into Zoar so she can fly out and offer some advice to the heroes. They are having a rough time: even though Captain Teela, numerous palace guards, and Ram Man are present at the site, their combined efforts have no effect on the monster. Adam finds a quiet part of the jungle to transform into He-Man; but he doesn't realize that his clingy tiger has followed him until after he's changed. Seeking to allay the fears of his confused pet, He-Man instinctively points his sword at Cringer, and for the first time we experience that thing that always happens when he does that. He-Man is astounded at the alteration of his meek cat into a fearsome, armored tiger, but remembers the Sorceress's prophecy and decides to go with it. Zoar soon arrives to reassure him that "Battle Cat" is his partner and will help him in the coming fight against the Gedge.

Zoar coordinates a plan by speaking telepathically to both our blonde hero and Man-at-Arms: He-Man and Battle Cat will drive the creature (who is invincible and therefore immune to punching) back towards the doorway, while Duncan lines the portal with explosives. Once lured inside, the monster can be sealed away again with a well-timed, earth-shattering ka-boom. The plan goes well, except that He-Man and Battle Cat are still inside the cave when Duncan sets off the explosion! For a moment it seems Man-at-Arms has sealed his friend in with the Gedge, requiring some very awkward future conversations with the king and queen; but then the smoke clears and there is our hero, proudly sitting astride his new mount.

Back in Duncan's lab in the present day, our storyteller explicates the moral of his tale: Adam and Teela didn't listen to his warning about the ruins and got in trouble. Therefore, if Orko doesn't listen to his warning, the Trollan could be in for similar trouble. Whether Orko has actually learned anything from this long-winded ramble remains to be seen. You'll have to tune in next episode to find out, viewers! In the meantime, responding to Cringer's negative attitude towards his repeated enforced transformations beginning from that day, Adam proclaims that He-Man would be awfully lonely without his Battle Cat, and a touched Cringer replies, "Oh gosh, I-I guess I'm stuck with it."

End with a Joke: N/A, unless you consider Cringer's line about being "stuck with it" a joke.

• Man-at-Arms: Orko, you know your magic is not always reliable. / Orko (full-on delusional): That's not true.
• Orko: I was only trying to make Cringer a little braver - like when he's Battle Cat. / Cringer: I hate being Battle Cat.
• Young Teela: He's not even a real pet, Adam; he's just a Cringer. / Trainee guardsmen: Cringer, Cringer, Cringer!
• Sorceress: Adam, do not be impatient with your pet. / Young Adam: Well, he embarrasses me sometimes. / Sorceress: In spite of that, you will find he will be very important to you in the future. You may call him "Cringer," but he is not entirely what he seems to you right now.
• He-Man (to a newly transformed Battle Cat): Well, you're certainly not a cringer anymore.
• Man-at-Arms (of Battle Cat): Where did he come from? / He-Man (laughing): You'd be surprised; no, you'd really be surprised!
• Prince Adam: Without Battle Cat, He-Man would be a lonely fella. / Cringer: Oh gosh, I-I guess I'm stuck with it.

• Adam laughs, head back: A very slight head tilt and laugh are given at Cringer's taking fright
• Adam from above, runs to mid-screen and pauses, battle-ready: About to turn into He-Man
• He-Man runs at the viewer, bug-height: To get to Battle Cat; and again later, during his fight with the Gedge
• He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat: For the first time ever (by the show's internal chronology)! Also happens again later, with the animation flipped, during the Gedge battle
• He-Man in battle stance on Battle Cat: Facing the Gedge
• He-Man runs away from the viewer: Drawing the Gedge; and again later, for the same reason

One full
Variation - a very special transformation; this is the first time Cringer is changed into Battle Cat. After He-Man transforms, we see a terrified Cringer hiding in the bushes: "Adam!" he cries, and He-Man replies, "Easy, Cringer; it's me - Adam!" He then (seemingly instinctively) points the power sword at Cringer, and the rest of the animation proceeds as usual.

Brought to you by Man-at-Arms, Cringer, and Orko
Man-at-Arms reminds us of today's stupid behavior from Orko: namely, playing with a bunch of random chemicals he found in Duncan's lab. If you have stuff like that in your house - especially, say, a bottle with a skull and crossbones printed on the label - don't be an Orko; leave it alone! As Man-at-Arms notes, "Just like Skeletor, it's bad news."

Main character flashbacks: And plenty of them!
Historians, archaeologists, and digging up old cities: For the archaeological find in the Tikon jungle, featured in the flashbacks
Dealing with Adam's secret and his connection to the power of Grayskull: Obliquely, it's true, but we do get insight into the timeline of Adam gaining his powers
Skeletor-less episodes in Season 2: Though he's mentioned in the PSA, he definitely doesn't appear in the story
Landmark Episode: For all of its insight into young Adam, Cringer, and the evolution of He-Man

• The character "Battle Cat," both in captions and according to Mattel's toy packaging, is spelled as two separate words. But for some reason, according to this episode's title, it is one word.
• D.C. Fontana, the main writer of this episode, will be very familiar to fans of the original Star Trek series. She was a story editor and sometime script writer on many classic episodes, including contributions to the highly regarded adaptation of Harlan Ellison's "City on the Edge of Forever." And here she is writing He-Man. The pinnacle of her career, I'm sure!
• Orko appears in the opening scene before a background that was introduced to us in MU047 as the palace's radio room, but which has since been subsumed as part of Duncan's general lab and workshop. Orko proves this rather definitively by using the place for running an experiment with lots of flasks and bubbling liquids.
• Orko's proposed gift for Teela, the "capture beam," is described in this way: "You fire it, and rays reach out to grab and hold a prisoner. It's like throwing a lariat!" Sounds a heck of a lot like the over-hyped lasso laser from MU013's "Like Father, Like Daughter." So Duncan already invented that - and Teela helped perfect it!
• Cringer reinforces for us the fact that he hates being Battle Cat, something he's mentioned or implied in several other episodes.
• Duncan's lesson to Orko gives us a chance to see a young Prince Adam, looking much the same as he did the last time we had a flashback like this, which was way back in MU018. Duncan's initial story is meant to take place at some point before the flashback in MU018, since as he says it occurred before Orko came to Eternia (which was the subject of the MU018 flashback). I infer as well that it happens some time after other Duncan flashbacks we've seen, such as his aiding of Zoar against Mer-Man and his target practice with a young Teela (both in MU006), and definitely his more reckless years as a student with his teacher Rohad (see MU064). My inference is based entirely on the presence of Duncan's mustache, which is here in this episode's flashbacks but missing in the others I've mentioned.
• The flying disc that Adam uses for transport into the hills of Eternia is an unusual vehicle, in that the entire thing is wrapped in a blinding glow the whole time it's in the air. I guess it makes night flying easy - unless the thing is in your rearview mirror!
• Young Adam makes use of the high-tech binoculars we've seen characters use in more modern times (as in MU089).
• We see that the young Adam was a nerdy wildlife enthusiast, sighting animals and recording the time and place he spots them.
• In a later flashback, we also get to see a young Teela, looking older than she did in her MU006 flashbacks, but just a bit younger than she did when she was off at college (AKA the "City of Wisdom") in the flashbacks from MU024's "Wizard of Stone Mountain" (though she is dressed the same as she was then). Demonstrating that she's not quite as mature as she would one day be, Teela joins with some boys in ribbing Adam's poor little pet cat.
• The boys (presumably prospective Eternian guardsmen) that Teela is leading around in one important flashback have some familiar faces: one of them is identical to MU049's Thad. Another marching boy is (initially, at least) a clone of Adam's annoying cousin Jeremy from MU021's "The Royal Cousin."
• We learn a very interesting fact: that the young Adam, presumably before he knew that he could turn into He-Man, was already speaking magically with the Sorceress. She appears as a floating head to hint to the boy that Cringer will play an important and unexpected role in Adam's future. The fact that she frightens the tiger indicates that her floating head is visible to both, and not an individual telepathic projection, as it sometimes seems to be.
• Another interesting fact: Cringer was not being turned into Battle Cat from the start of Adam's career as He-Man. In fact, he was not in on the secret of Adam's alter ego, though it seems Adam's beginnings as He-Man must have happened after he acquired the tiger. The series has shown a tendency towards using child labor in the past (look at irresponsible young guard Phillip from MU076), but I think even Eternians would balk at the idea of forcing a young boy to transform into a musclebound hero. (See my note in the commentary about how this situation seems to be at odds with the story told in the show opening.)
• Check it out, it's Melaktha! Eternia's royal archaeologist, seen in several previous episodes (including just the previous one, MU095), makes an appearance in a flashback. We have to kind of hope he wasn't yet the official head archaeologist of Eternia; otherwise, he gets cruelly passed over when Marlena suggests appointing Duncan as head of the jungle expedition (on the flimsy pretense of his being an ancient language expert)!
• The ruins found by the archaeologists are said to be "over 100 centuries old," which Randor estimates puts them at the dawn of Eternia's earliest history. Yeah, 10,000 years is a long time ago!
• We get a brief glimpse of Adam's bedroom as he packs for the expedition. We last saw his room in MU092.
• In Eternia's hangar bay, Melaktha is seen in the background consulting with a pair of rugged-looking fellows who I've decided to identify as "jungle guides," even though when we see them later they appear to be assistants hired to provide physical labor at the dig site. In the flashbacks Melaktha is paired with a young lady in a sort of space-age costume who appears to be subbing in for Stanlan as an assistant or partner; in the DVD captions she's identified as "Elora," so I've used that name for her.
• Speaking of Stanlan - Teela and Adam's fiddling with an intriguing ancient stone door after Man-at-Arms has told them it should wait until morning is incredibly reminiscent of Stanlan's own precocious fiddling with a sealed door in MU041's "House of Shokoti (Part 2)."
• Man-at-Arms identifies the inscriptions they find as being related to "Ancient Pelite," a runelike set of characters that we get to see him scroll through on some computer-type screens. Man-at-Arms's interest in ancient languages connects to his daughter's later interest in them, noted in MU047 and MU067.
• Zoar the falcon makes an appearance for the first time since MU079 (though of course, this is happening in Eternia's past).
• Teela tries out her wrist freeze ray on the Gedge, to no effect. We saw her try it on Negator, with just as little effect, in MU093. Later, Teela lines up the Eternian guards, saying of the Gedge, "Our combined freeze rays may hold it." So all the guards have wrist freeze rays as well!
• It's pretty unusual to have to wait over fifteen minutes into the runtime for He-Man to appear, as we have to do in this story. The payoff is worth it!
• This episode features Season 2's variant ending credits, with the flatter-colored Jawbridge on Castle Grayskull. They were last seen in MU094.
• Special trivia: when my daughter was a toddler we found a tiger toy that had a saddle and armor on it. Even though it was actually not the original MOTU Battle Cat toy, we called it that; but our daughter wasn't quite able to pronounce those words and ended up calling it "Bottle Cap." Thus the name of one of our current cats is Bottle Cap.

• Somehow or other I've gotten myself into a head space where Orko's unabated naughty antics, such as his playing with Man-at-Arms's powders after he's been sternly and definitively told not to, continue to infuriate me. But this is Orko's function in the series now - to misbehave and not listen to his Eternian "elders," just like a child might do (even though he is patently not a child) - so I should really just suck it up and deal with it.
• Animation error: In the initial shot of the marching boys, there are three kids: the Thad clone, a brown-skinned boy, and the Jeremy clone. In the subsequent bullying scene, we see Thad and the brown-skinned boy, but Jeremy's clone (who was brown-haired and wearing a blue shirt and black vest) has been replaced by a blonde-haired boy in white.
• This episode's plotline neatly undermines my theory that this season has seen the relegating of Cringer/Battle Cat to a little-used role in the series. Obviously he's center stage here; but I think an analysis of the rest of the season will support a larger trend of the tiger being pushed into the background.
• I often like to play myself off as a world-hardened cynic, with my crabby comments and dark jibes; but at heart I'm an old softy - something I had to admit to myself while watching this episode. The lightest mewing from injured Cringer in the bushes broke me, and Adam's loyalty and love for the creature had my eyes getting damp. I know, I know...
• Unless Duncan's assertion about his story happening before Orko showed up on the scene is meant only to cover the earlier flashbacks in the episode (where Cringer was just a kitten), and not the flashbacks with the archaeological dig, the chronology here doesn't make any sense. In MU018 Orko very clearly appears in Eternia while Adam is still a young boy and Cringer is still small enough to be carried in Adam's arms. By the time of the dig and the appearance of the Gedge, Adam is a grown man and Cringer is full-sized - much later than when Adam first met Orko.
• He-Man's assurance to a frightened Cringer that he is, in fact, Adam, contradicts my cherished theory of He-Man and Adam being different people. Either that, or (rationalization incoming) He-Man is just pretending to try to reassure the poor tiger. Besides, at the end of the episode we get some dialogue supporting my theory, when Adam tells Cringer that "He-Man" would be lonely without Battle Cat.
• The Sorceress, sending psychic signals to suggest a battle strategy to both He-Man and Duncan while she is in the form of Zoar, plays a more direct part in events than usual. This lends a cool cooperative feel to the final battle - even Ram Man gets a chance to finish Duncan's sentence about trapping the Gedge.
• Note that when the Sorceress is talking to He-Man, she states right out, of the Gedge: "You cannot harm it or defeat it." That's a tough monster! She also requires of He-Man that he "be clever," a tall order for our hero but something he has occasionally managed in the past (for instance, he memorably conned Skeletor into diving through the wrong portal in Castle Grayskull at the end of MU075's "To Save Skeletor").
• Sorceress describes Battle Cat as He-Man's "partner," which is frankly not an accurate description of their relationship. If you ride on somebody's back and tell them which way to go, they're not your partner. It's also, as I've said in other episodes lately and have already mentioned in this commentary section, not an assertion the show itself has been supporting lately. In Season 1 Battle Cat appeared in about 75% of the 65 episodes. In Season 2, Battle Cat will appear in less than 60%. Even when he has shown up in the episodes thus far, it's usually just to roar during his transformation sequence and then maybe stand next to He-Man during an action scene.
• Fontana's script puts some intelligent phrases and mature wording into our heroes' mouths, particularly during the battle scene, when Teela and Man-at-Arms coolly and confidently direct others in defensive strategy.
• We know that Battle Cat can talk, so it's curious that we never hear him do so in the flashback story. Perhaps He-Man, knowing that Cringer can talk, would just assume that Battle Cat can as well; but it would have been interesting to see He-Man's reaction to first hearing Battle Cat's gruff tones.
• It's worth noting that this story of the beginnings of Battle Cat seemingly contradicts He-Man's story in the opening of every episode of this series. Recall that Adam/He-Man states: "Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said: 'By the power of Grayskull - I have the power!' Cringer became the mighty Battle Cat, and I became: He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe! [punches audience]" The implication is that the very first time he held aloft the power sword, Cringer was already there.
• The thematic link between Man-at-Arms's origin story for Battle Cat and Orko's creation of a potion monster is a skimpy one at best. According to Duncan, we are to take from his story the lesson that Adam and Teela should have listened to his warning about messing with the dig site (in the same way that Orko should have listened to his warning about not playing with potions and powders). But Adam and Teela hardly did anything to the door in the ruins, were careful to tell Duncan about it afterwards, and Adam was concerned when the digging began, showing the pair to be much less heedless and more rule-abiding than the Trollan reprobate. And all of Duncan's introductory matter about Adam finding Cringer and rearing the tiger, entertaining and crucial though it was to us fans and viewers, was hardly necessary or relevant to Orko's edification.
• Chronology problems aside, this is a great episode with some fun and rewarding lore and character development. I wish we could look forward to more great episodes like this from D.C. Fontana, but unfortunately this is her only writing credit for the series.