Story - Antoni Zalewski & Teleplay - Antoni Zalewski, Larry DiTillio

Richard Trueblood

Gambling problem? Then you're just like the unfortunate Widget chief guard, Smudge, who loses a piece of coridite in a bet with slick con man Melbrag. Melbrag uses the coridite to power a laser that defeats He-Man! Not only that, but there's unstable coridite lying around that could send Eternia's new reactor into overload. Better tune in to see what happens...

Cringer, Prince Adam (He-Man), The Widgets (including Smudge), Teela, Man-at-Arms, Orko, King Randor

Spikor

Melbrag, timber bugs, Melbrag's guards

Wind Raider (Melbrag Custom Edition), Melbrag's spaceship, Land Shark

There's nothing like a brand-new power reactor to bring out the happy crowds. At least, that seems to be the case for the Widgets, who are gathered for a big fair as part of the opening ceremony for their new reactor. Prince Adam is there too, along with his tiger, Teela, Man-at-Arms, and Orko. They are drawn to one of the fairground amusements, a sort of shell game with floating balls run by one Melbrag, who invites them to guess the location of a gem he's hidden in one of the balls. Several guesses are made (giving Orko another opportunity to be the cause of splashing Duncan with water), but the correct ball is chosen by Smudge, a squat Widget with an overbite who is one of the guards of the coridite mine. Melbrag, who doesn't seem all that surprised at learning this information, sees that he has his little fish hooked, and leads Smudge on with further games that have greater and greater stakes. The other heroes run off at the sound of an alarm describing a collapsed mine shaft, but Smudge is persuaded to stay and keep betting.

In the mine, Man-at-Arms checks out the shoring timbers with a microscope and tells Teela that the shaft has been weakened by some timber bugs. Just as they're deciding they should really clear out of there, the ceiling collapses, sealing the pair in the tunnel. Even worse, an underground river breaks through the ground and begins flooding the chamber. Good thing Adam and Orko choose this moment to show up on the other side of the cave-in! Adam becomes He-Man and pulls out some rocks, then dives into the watery opening and swims his way to the offending hole. When he plugs up the river, the water subsides and his friends are saved. There's still a problem, though, as Man-at-Arms discovers: the coridite in the tunnel has been corrupted by exposure to selenium in the river water, making it unstable and potentially explosive. The heroes tell each other that they should certainly make sure no one uses this bad coridite; then they walk away, leaving it unattended.

Back at the fairgrounds, Smudge is unerringly selecting the correct ball, and is by now plucking out piles of gems. Melbrag claims that the only thing he has left to wager is his snazzy Wind Raider. Smudge (that poor sap) is quite amenable to another bet, but this time the carny proposes an upping of the ante, requesting that the Widget pay him in coridite should he lose. Smudge is very hesitant to wager any of the valuable rock, particularly since it doesn't belong to him. But Melbrag convinces his fish that even should the house win, he would only use the stuff for philanthropic purposes; and Smudge remembers that he has yet to lose a single game. Melbrag coaxes the Widget into a room in the reactor where coridite is stockpiled in a long chain of bins, and with the wager agreed upon, he immediately starts up his spinning balls right there - and at a much greater speed than previously seen. Unsurprisingly, Smudge guesses wrong, and Melbrag snags his loot - one fist-sized chunk of coridite. At Smudge's pleas that he will get in trouble for losing the rock, Melbrag suggests that the Widget simply replace it by plucking a new one from the closest mineshaft (which as we know is full of explosively unstable stuff).

Smudge is in the act of guiltily completing this very suggestion when He-Man sidles into the stockpile room. When the hero asks the shifty-eyed Widget what he's doing there, Smudge immediately crumples and admits that he wagered away a piece of his people's power fuel to Melbrag. He-Man decides that a guy like Melbrag is the definition of "the wrong hands" into which such a prize should not be put, so he shoos Smudge off and into a Wind Raider so they can track the con man down and retrieve the winnings. Using his coridite tracker (which somehow is not thrown off by the huge mine of the stuff they are flying right near), He-Man quickly locates Melbrag and his custom Wind Raider, parked in a glade by the carny's spaceship. When our hero tries reasoning with the fellow, Melbrag not only refuses to return the coridite; he decides He-Man is an even greater prize, and captures both the blonde wonder and Widget sidekick in an energy cage!

Melbrag then conveniently wanders off to contact Skeletor and arrange the sale of his rock and hostage, giving He-Man time to escape from the prison (which he does by means of his power sword). The hero creeps up on his would-be jailer in mid-negotiation with Spikor, who He-Man peremptorily punches over the horizon and out of the episode. Melbrag flees to his ship, where it turns out he has souped up a laser gun with some of the stolen coridite: the beam hits He-Man full on, sapping him of all his strength. Melbrag has his pair of burly guards wrap the hero in chains, then sets his men to watch the hostages while he holes himself away in his spaceship - to try another call to Skeletor.

This time, since He-Man is being watched, he can't exactly try any overt escape attempts. He has a conversation with Smudge in which he discovers that the Widget replaced Melbrag's chosen rock with some of the bad coridite, and realizes they must urgently return to the reactor to prevent a very explosive opening ceremony. He-Man gets an idea, and whispers a request to Smudge to create a diversion. The Widget obliges, leading the two guards a merry chase around the surrounding woods, and doing a surprisingly good job of messing with them. While this is happening, our hero finally manages to struggle out of his chains and get a hold of his power sword. A recitation of his favorite magical mantra does his body a world of good, and it's a fully re-energized He-Man who catches up with Smudge and scares off the two guards. Melbrag spies his problematic prisoner returning to the spaceship and again tries the coridite ray on him; but this time He-Man is ready, and deflects the beam back on the gun, destroying it.

A defeated Melbrag hurriedly flees with his men, but He-Man has no time to pursue them since he has to get back to the reactor. Indeed, we find that an impatient King Randor has decided not to wait any longer for his dilatory son to show up, and goes on with the ceremony. By the time He-Man's Wind Raider lands nearby, the king has already turned on the reactor! It quickly begins to vibrate, adding support to He-Man's warning that things are about to get nasty, and the heroes work to evacuate the crowds while He-Man calls on all of his renewed strength. Straining and grunting, the blonde oaf lifts the entire gigantic reactor over his head and flings it out into space, amazing his father and saving everyone present - though they'll need to start working on reactor 2.0 if they expect to get any electricity anytime soon.

End with a Joke: How about a couple? The melting-down reactor that He-Man has thrown into space makes a loop over Eternia which just happens to coincide with the arc of Melbrag's spaceship as the con man heads off-planet, cursing his bad luck dealing with He-Man but feeling fortunate he has gotten away unharmed. "You wouldn't want to bet on that, would you?" asks one of his guards, having spotted the glowing unstable reactor through the windshield. The trio jump into the single, cramped escape pod and are seen twirling uncomfortably through the void in the wake of the reactor's explosion. Back on the surface, a sleepy Cringer finally wakes up from a lengthy nap under a tree, and asks the surrounding assembled heroes and Widgets if he missed anything exciting. "Not a thing, Cringer; no, not a thing," says He-Man. And they all laughed...

• Spikor: I am called Spikor, greatest of Evil Warriors, servant to Skeletor.
• Melbrag: ...And I have something else Skeletor might wish to buy: namely, He-Man. / Spikor: He-Man! You think Spikor is a fool? A puny man like you could never capture He-Man. / He-Man: Well, he did try.
• Melbrag: Hey, you've caused me a lot of trouble He-Man. But that's over! Soon, you'll be in the hands of Skeletor, and I will be a rich man. / Smudge: Melbrag, you're a really bad person. / Melbrag: I am, aren't I? (laughs)
• Randor: By the Ancients! He-Man has sent the entire reactor into space! / ... Teela (who could be expected to have somewhat mixed feelings about the event): Oh wonderful, He-Man! That's great!
• Melbrag: Blast that He-Man! He ruined my whole deal. But at least we got away safely. / Melbrag's guard: Uh, you wouldn't want to bet on that, would you, Melbrag?

• He-Man juggles his sword: Trying to get out of Melbrag's energy cage; and later, as he prepares to deflect the coridite ray

One partial (missing Cringer/Battle Cat sequence)
Variation - the transformation also does not show the very beginning of the sequence, with Adam unsheathing his sword and holding it aloft - opting instead for a shot of a fearful Orko getting quickly out of the way.
(See lore section for another possible candidate in the "transformation" line)

Brought to you by Prince Adam and Orko
The lesson of this episode? Respecting other people's property. You see kids, gambling is fine; go nuts at the craps tables. Just don't gamble with other people's valuables. Orko, providing a quick final object lesson, sweeps in to nab a diamond off a pedestal next to the lecturing prince, and it explodes in his face. The Trollan is forced to agree with Adam that messing around with other people's stuff can have bad consequences.

Appearance of the Widgets
Skeletor-less episodes in Season 2

• The Widgets return for an amazing sixth appearance in the series! This time their numbers are grown with the addition of the hapless Smudge, chief guard at the coridite reactor. Interestingly, though, we don't spend any time with the usual suspects from other Widget episodes (Squinch, Lara, Kando, or the more recently added Biro).
• Though we don't hear from any of them aside from Smudge, there seem to be more Widgets than usual all around in this episode, judging by the background crowds at the opening carnival and ending ceremony; and their coridite mine seems like a much bigger business than it was in previous episodes. Compare MU012 and MU091, where the entire supply of coridite seemed to be one chunk of rock on a pedestal in an otherwise bare cave. Here, there is so much mining going on that they had to number their shafts - and piles and piles of coridite lying around in bins inside the reactor.
• Eternia's "timber bugs," seen gnawing on the mine shaft supports, seem to be the planet's version of termites. Man-at-Arms also teaches us that "selenium," some kind of mineral in the river water, can make coridite unstable.
• To block up an underground flood, He-Man does a flashy no-look pass with a giant boulder, his eyes tightly shut the whole time. We've seen this animation before, and recently, too (MU106). The animation is used again at the end of the episode - but that time, He-Man peeks.
• We discover that Melbrag has his own custom-detailed Wind Raider, with some blue highlights and a strange glass extension built on top of the hood mechanism. We only get a few brief looks at the vehicle, beginning when Smudge greedily eyes it. Webstor also appeared to have a custom Wind Raider in MU066, of which we got an even briefer glimpse - his had legs.
• Two animated Mattel toy debuts happen at once in this episode! Spikor comes riding in on Land Shark - both the Evil Warrior action figure and the vehicle were offered as part of 1985's Wave 4, so their appearance here potentially predates their physical appearance on toystore shelves. Both the animated warrior and his vehicle seem fairly faithful to their toy versions - except that Spikor is missing the one trident hand of his action figure. Maybe that factory accident that results in the prosthetic limb has yet to occur!
• Spikor has a very stilted and off-key way of speaking, suggesting that he was a robot or android.
• It's a debut, but it's not much of one; Spikor gets just a few lines in before He-Man unceremoniously shoots both him and his flashy new vehicle off the screen and out of the episode with one well-placed punch. Product placement achieved - now get out!
• For the third time in a short span of episodes, He-Man is greatly weakened and taken out of action. This time it's because of a coridite-powered laser. We saw Kothos the wizard achieve this by means of a very unfashionable hat, in MU102's "Revenge Is Never Sweet;" and swamp water did for our hero in MU099's "Hunt for He-Man." (Note, MU099 was also written by this episode's writer, Antoni Zalewski.) Back in MU092, He-Man's debilitation from an Evil-Lyn-devised trap was once again (indirectly) due to the unwise actions of a Widget.
• Adam only transforms into He-Man once in this episode; but there's another almost-transformation sequence in the late stages of the story, when the weakened He-Man "re-energizes" himself by grabbing his power sword and reciting his magic words. He's surrounded by glowing energy and part of the typical animation sequence is used.
• In a panning shot of a great crowd of Widgets, shown near the end of the episode, we can catch a glimpse of Lara and Squinch. They have no lines, however.
• "This is going to take everything I've got," He-Man groans through gritted teeth, as he lifts the entire power reactor and tosses it into space. Yeah - it's just like that time when he had to throw the entire Castle Grayskull back through a dimensional portal, in MU030's "The Taking of Grayskull." In that episode, the Sorceress had to grant him every bit of her power so he could pull off the feat. (Makes me really regret having to bring up that other time when He-Man performed what would by any measure be a much more impressive feat, by moving the ENTIRE MOON OUT OF ORBIT, at the end of another Widgets episode, MU091.)
• Melbrag's escape pod looks a lot like the one C-3PO and R2-D2 used to get down to Tatooine in Episode IV.
• This is another S2 episode that features Cringer but not Battle Cat. The tiger is pushed to the side, a common trend this season; but in an amusing way, since he sleeps through the entire emergency at the ending.
• Another episode featuring the variant ending credits, just like the preceding three (MU106, MU105, MU104).

• The beginning of this episode, with its carnival air and whimsical music, gave me PTSD flashbacks to MU100's "The Greatest Show on Eternia;" but no, Crackers the Clown's circus has not returned for revenge.
• I'm not sure I understand the physics behind how He-Man blocking off one hole where water is getting in suddenly causes all the water that's already there to immediately drain away. But as scholars of He-Man will have realized by now, our hero is a true master when it comes to hydraulic engineering (AKA redirecting water); so we'll just have to take his muscles' word for it.
• Continuity error? Melbrag's table, which he was using outside at the fair, suddenly appears inside the stockpile room when he starts his spinning balls again for Smudge. Maybe it's a magic table?
• Was gambling really a rampant problem among elementary-school-age children in the 80s, that the writers of MOTU felt obliged to write a morality play about the subject? Seems like they're shooting at the wrong demographic here! I don't recall losing my lunch money on shell games when I was a lad. To be fair, though, based on the PSA, it seems the lesson of this episode wasn't actually about the sin of gambling, but the sin of coveting/misusing your neighbor's property.
• As soon as He-Man hears that Melbrag has a piece of coridite, he's determined to track the huckster down and get it back. If you trusted this guy so little, why did you let him run a carnival game at the Widgets' celebration, hmmmmMMMM?
• The timing of Melbrag's two communications with Skeletor is inconsistent and suspect. The first call results in Spikor showing up on his Land Shark almost instantly (a commercial break in the original airing likely helped space this out more). But after He-Man is captured a second time and Melbrag retreats inside his vessel to make another call, he seems to be gone much longer, and no representatives from Snake Mountain ever appear. Maybe old Bonehead decided Melbrag's deal wasn't worth a second attempt!
• There's something to be said for looking on the bright side, but I found it unsettling just how unremittingly overjoyed everyone was when He-Man threw their brand-new power reactor into space. Not even one weary line from Man-at-Arms, like: "Well, I guess I'd better start on Reactor Number Two; SIGH!" It's okay; they can take the cost out of Smudge's paycheck.
• Note that when He-Man smashes Melbrag's ship-mounted ray gun, he also shatters the glass on the bubble cockpit atop the ship. Yet later we see Melbrag and his men flying the seemingly air-tight vessel through space. Did they seal off a bulkhead between the top turret and the rest of the ship? Or maybe just slap some duct tape over the gap in the glass?
• Unless Melbrag has a radio to call for help, or some means of directing that dinky little escape pod of his, things don't look so good for our pointy-eared con man and his two guards. You can bet that if they have to resort to eating each other, one of the guards is going first!
• This episode isn't about to win any awards, but it had its fun moments, and Melbrag's sly salesman is a relatively fresh character type for MOTU to explore (though he shares some devious qualities with "The Gamesman" of MU069 - also a Zalewski script). I could wish that Smudge's screeching voice didn't grate so; it made me pine for the more familiar and less irritating Squinch. Still, I can see why the writers might want to pull the focus away from old Squinchy, who was fast becoming the only developed Widget.