Barbara Chain

Ed Friedman

The wicked Count Marzo has a plan to take over Eternia - by corrupting its youth with the addictive scent of a flower! He's begun the recruitment of his army of users with Jonno, Eternia's Boy of the Year and elder brother to Chad. Can He-Man convince Jonno and the rest of the impressionable school-age Eternians (and, consequently, his viewing audience) to just say no?

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

N/A

Jonno, Chad, Burbie, Count Marzo, Chimera, Eternian villagers and children, Uncle Montork (mentioned only), wolf-bats

Wind Raiders, various Eternian air ships, Marzo's air ship

Cringer, Adam, Orko, and Teela are gathered outside at the palace to greet two young boys arriving by Wind Raider (or "land shuttle," as Teela puts it): Chad and his big brother Jonno! (We all remember Chad and his pet fuzz-bee, Burbie, from that one time the Heroic Warriors helped the pair and Chad's grandfather Elden retrieve a chunk of eternium from the Sands of Time. We all remember that - right??) The heroes are surprised when Jonno just drops off Chad and flies away again - after all, Chad's big brother is here for a special ceremony where he will be awarded the title of "Boy of the Year." Chad promises that his bro will be back in time for the event. Then everyone enjoys a special moment when Burbie chases a terrified Cringer up into a tree - from where the poor kitty, who is afraid of heights, can't bring himself to descend.

We learn that Jonno's errand takes him to a deserted area where he meets with the evil Count Marzo and his hulking minion, Chimera. (We all remember Count Marzo from that time when he turned the heir of the dukedom of Abra into a young boy and took away all his memory. We all remember that - right???) There, Marzo rewards the boy with a black-petaled flower, after making him promise to bring all the children of Eternia to meet with the count. Jonno seems to be getting some kind of high off of sniffing that flower...

That evening, at a large open-air arena, the Boy of the Year ceremony begins, with King Randor up at a dais giving a boring speech about how kids are the future of Eternia or something. The audience of gathered students and parents are forced to listen - but where is Jonno? Approaching in his Wind Raider, weaving unsteadily through the sky, this flower-huffing boy of the year appears drunk and ready to make some poor decisions. He crashes the ship on the outskirts of the arena, then decides to take a "shortcut" inside by scaling the outer wall of the venue using a ladder. Teela and Chad, who have been looking for the missing kid, catch sight of him dangerously cavorting on the narrow top of the wall. He's going to fall! Adam, claiming he's going to go fetch something to help reach the boy, instead finds a quiet spot from which to transform into He-Man. As the burly hero, he helpfully flings Teela bodily through the air and up onto the lip of the arena, where she's able to pull Jonno to safety.

On a nearby hill, Marzo and his minion have been watching, and from their conversation we learn his evil plan: to use Jonno, the inspiring role model now addicted to the count's heady-smelling flora, as a recruiter for all the other children, who will be likewise forced into loyalty to Marzo with the help of his "Eternia flower." This druggie army will then be ready to make the count ruler over all Eternia! It's fool-proof!

The following morning, Teela is scolding the foolish Jonno for his dangerous stunt during the ceremony, while the sullen boy sits mum. She finally gives up and leaves, allowing Jonno to sneak to Man-at-Arms's lab and make a call to a buddy, setting up the rendezvous with Marzo in the meadows. Chad somehow knows that Jonno has infiltrated the lab (though we see no evidence of him having witnessed the visit), and they are arguing about Jonno's strange behavior in one of their rooms when Count Marzo busts in and kidnaps the brothers - leaving an agitated Burbie behind.

Meanwhile, Adam and Teela are both concerned about whatever is going on with Jonno, and meet in the courtyard to discuss. Adam shows Teela a strange flower he found in Jonno's crashed Wind Raider. Teela, who (like the prince) doesn't recognize the plant, is about to take a whiff, when Orko dashes in and plucks it away from her. The Trollan explains to his surprised friends that he knows the flower as the "black nightmare," a dangerous and addictive substance indigenous to Trolla, which his people expunged from the planet due to its negative side effects. He goes to contact his Uncle Montork back on Trolla, to see if he can learn more about the flower, while Adam and Teela head off to confront Jonno. They find his room empty except for a buzzing Burbie - a suspicious fact, since Chad and the fuzz-bee are seldom apart. Orko rejoins them with the news that the nightmare flower was known to be cultivated by the wicked Count Marzo - so now our heroes have identified the villain they're to face in this episode!

Adam, Teela, Orko, and Cringer hop into a Wind Raider to fly around in hopes of locating the villain in question, and by some miracle they almost immediately do - though it turns out that Marzo may have had a hand in engineering the miracle. With some fancy flying, he tricks the heroes into landing and then traps them in place using a force field projected from his ship. The villain then flies off with his cargo of children. Adam tries to bust out of the force field with a wrist blaster, to no effect. The uncertainty of their predicament only serves to make Cringer hungry; to feed the carping tiger, Orko conjures a hot dog out of himself. His attempts to cook the wiener with a jet of magical flame turn the potential snack into a pile of ashes - but luckily the fire also shoots a hole in the force field! The heroes escape and continue their pursuit.

We find that Marzo has taken his kidnapped children out to the (strangely desert-like) meadows, where he hands Chad a flower to make the kid loopy - infuriating and horrifying Jonno, who never wanted his brother to be corrupted by the drug. Sensing that his prize boy is not as enthusiastic a recruiter as he once might have been, Marzo holds onto his speaker unit to announce himself to the fleet of arriving air ships, filled with the easily corruptible and malleable future of Eternia. But an angry Jonno grabs the mic and quickly tells the children to run off and fetch help (which request they immediately obey). A balked Marzo has his servant Chimera howl up some wolf-bats to terrorize the boys, just as those pesky good guys show up. While Teela and Orko run off to catch the villains, Adam and Cringer have a private moment to do their transformation, so that He-Man and Battle Cat can ride in to dispose of those wolf-bats. The children are safe! A fleeing Chimera and Count Marzo clumsily trip and fall over their own supplies of nightmare flowers, allowing Teela to tie them up. But just as Adam and Cringer mysteriously return from behind some rocks, directly after He-Man and Battle Cat's departure, Marzo uses a magic spell to teleport himself and his minion out of there.

The heroes need to find the count's base of operations and stop him for good, so they head to the person they know will give them the skinny: the Sorceress. She directs them via dimensional portal to the dangerous world of Eronia - which you'd think would be full of mistakes and typos, but is supposedly full of dangerous beasts and quicksand. Luckily the heroes see none of these things, thanks to the pinpoint accuracy of the Sorceress's portal, which sets them just outside Marzo's high-tech fortress. Alerted to their presence by a handy intruder alarm, Marzo puts up his "iron wall" defense system. His timing is amazingly bad, however, for the wall neatly separates Adam, Orko, and Cringer from Teela, allowing the prince to once again (for the third time this episode!) transform into his powerful alter ego. Apparently ditching Orko and Cringer entirely, He-Man and the incurious Teela (who doesn't seem at all concerned that she's lost track of the royal heir on an inhospitable and lethally dangerous planet) bust into Marzo's house. Chimera makes an enraged charge at the muscular male invader, but only manages to drive himself at full speed into a metallic wall, neatly achieving his own defeat. Marzo makes one failed attempt to zap He-Man with his magic, then runs for it. Teela is able to chase him on foot and take him down - down for the count! Get it?!

End with a Joke: Back at the palace courtyard, Teela happily recaps the ending battle for Jonno and Chad, letting them know that He-Man has destroyed the remaining flowers and tucked Marzo and Chimera away on a "prison planet." Jonno expresses his guilty shame for having acted so wrongly, and apologizes. Clearly this wayward child has learned his lesson - as Teela and a newly arrived Prince Adam remark. Adam declares his happiness that the ordeal is all over: "We could use a little peace and quiet." His pet Cringer concurs, but doesn't get his wish, as he is immediately pursued again by Burbie, to everyone's amusement - except his.

• Prince Adam (to his tiger, who has just leapt into a tree to escape Burbie): You can come down now, Cringer. / Cringer (mewing): I can't - you know I'm afraid of heights!
• Count Marzo (to Jonno): Now run along to your awards ceremonies. I'll be watching you - don't forget. I'll - always - be watching you.
• Count Marzo (describing the endgame of his evil plan): Then it will be "Bye-bye Randor" and I, Count Marzo, will be the king of Eternia. / Chimera: And I get to be like Man-at-Arms, right? (leans over to sniff flower Marzo is holding) / Count Marzo: One sniff of my Eternia flower, fool, and you'll be "Man-on-His-Face" - like that prize boy of the year! (cackles)
• Chimera (stammering unconvincingly): I-I-I think so-so-somebody's out there, a-all right and and I think I know w-wh-wh-whoooo.
• He-Man (making one of his all-time worst dad jokes, after Teela knocks over Count Marzo): Down for the count!

• Adam laughs, head back: Just one frozen cel from the loop is used early in the episode, as he is amused by the misfortunes of Cringer; and a small head tip is used later as the prince is amused by Orko's accidental method of escape from Marzo's force field
• He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat: Just after his second transformation, and again just before leaving to turn back into Adam
• A look through widespread legs: He-Man lands after snatching a pair of wolf-bats out of the air

Two partial (missing Cringer/Battle Cat sequence), One full

Brought to you by Teela
Since the episode itself clearly didn't do enough to hammer home today's message, Teela reminds us that we shouldn't use drugs. They could hurt us, or someone we love. "Some even die." But I've got a prescription for this flower, Teela!

Count Marzo episodes
Skeletor-less episodes in Season 2
Wayward child learns a valuable lesson: Jonno learns that drugs aren't cool.

• In my commentary for the previous episode (MU111), I naively postulated that those in charge of MOTU script approval were actually paying attention to, and trying to avoid, repeating plot ideas. Filmation then, with perverse irony, gives me this story as a follow-up: it's a patchwork Frankenstein's monster of cobbled-together recycled characters and storylines. Immediately we meet Chad and Burbie from MU042's "Double Edged Sword." In short order they are joined by the villain Count Marzo, last seen in MU058's "The Once and Future Duke." And the main points of today's plot, about a grown-up villain forcing a young innocent into addiction and poor choices by use of a drug that makes them act recklessly, are a complete rehash of MU010's "A Friend in Need."
• I knew that I was going to see Count Marzo again in the series, but was entirely unprepared for the reappearance of Chad, who we last saw with his Grandpa Elden, the Orc War veteran, in the memorable (and frankly much better) MU042. His pet fuzz-bee Burbie, whose accidental swallowing of a chunk of eternium caused so much apprehension in Chad's last episode, is here as well, to terrorize poor Cringer.
• We last saw the evil Count Marzo, as I said, in MU058's "The Once and Future Duke." As with Chad, the story does nothing to remind us of who this recurring character is - but in Marzo's case it's probably just as well. If anyone did remember Marzo's last story, they'd know that it ended with the count entirely mind-wiped, from having been doused in his own Well of Forgetfulness. We have to fill in the blanks as to what happened to the count in the meantime: were his memories restored, or did he just independently learn to be an evil mastermind again? This feels like a nature vs. nurture argument now...
• At Marzo's side is a large pink alien-looking fellow, who (based on a barely heard and poorly pronounced reference from Teela in the closing seconds of the episode, as well as information from Wiki Grayskull) we have to conclude is Chimera, the giant righthand man the count had in MU058. The only problem is, this "Chimera" looks absolutely nothing like the last one (who was gray and had an afro). If this is meant to be that same Chimera, it again shows the Filmation staff's confidence that their audience will have very little memory of the previous episode in which Marzo appeared (perhaps hoping the kiddies were in the splash zone of the Well of Forgetfulness).
• We get an interesting and entirely new look into Eternia's education system and related infrastructure in this episode. The awards ceremony for "Boy of the Year" and Randor's related speech give us a chance to see a free-standing, open-air arena, and a fleet of presumably flying vehicles parked outside of it (showing that the audience for this ceremony seem to be much more financially comfortable than the hut-dwelling raggedy villagers huddled outside the palace in MU081's "The Arena"). Recall that the dramatic performance of Man-E-Faces before a large audience at the end of MU043 was held in a theater that was inside the Eternos palace complex. We did see the royal couple at a reviewing stand for the jousting tournament at the beginning and ending of MU085, but that arena appears to have been a different - and larger - one than this.
• When Teela berates Jonno for his crazy behavior the day after the ceremony, Jonno is sitting on a bed in the palace. He clearly doesn't live in the palace, since we saw Chad and him arriving by Wind Raider at the beginning of the episode; so this must be a guest room he's been given while he's in town. This implies, by the way, that his "Boy of the Year" title must have a wider scope than just one school district; has he been declared the greatest boy on the entire planet of Eternia? If so, it makes the decision of the judging committee even more embarrassingly misguided.
• Jonno calls his mass army of friends to "the meadows," an Eternian location we haven't heard of before.
• Orko identifies Jonno's flower as the same type of plant that used to exist back on Trolla, where it was called the "black nightmare." We in fact learn that the so-called "Eternia flower" is not native to Eternia at all - making us wonder why it was called that.
• Though we don't actually see him on screen in the episode, I've decided to list Orko's Uncle Montork among the characters, since Orko has a conversation with his Trollan relative that's important to the story. Montork was last mentioned in MU106, and last seen in MU077. We again see that communication between Trolla and Eternia has become much easier than it was when Orko first returned to his home planet in MU020. Apparently video calls can be made now!
• The lesson behind this episode again reminds me, as MU010's drug-based lesson did, of the era's heightened focus on drug abuse, especially among children. This was First Lady Nancy Reagan's pet project. The year 1984 was right in the midst of her "Just Say No" campaign, and just one year after the founding of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program - an attempt by law enforcement agencies to teach children not to be peer pressured or tricked into taking illegal drugs. So, in other words, this episode is like one long DARE promotional video.
• Marzo's air ship has an interesting design, almost as if someone took a TIE fighter and tacked half of another ship onto the front. It's okay... but it makes me miss the Marzomobile of MU058.
• Things that come out of Orko: an uncooked hot dog on a bun. Blech!
• This episode's version of Chimera shows off his ability to howl and summon wolf-bats, the pesky creatures we've seen before in MU003 and MU093. In MU058, the very different-looking Chimera's main ability was teleportation - something this version doesn't seem capable of (though see his next appearance, in MU122).
• He-Man does some very fast spinning to fling away the wolf-bats, similar to occasions where he's become a human whirlwind (MU080), or drilled his way underground (MU097). He must be very good at spotting his turns!
• Some poor work with the secret identity: after doing away with those wolf-bats, He-Man bids his friends farewell and rides away behind some rocks, and then Prince Adam and Cringer come back out from between those same rocks, where Teela immediately spots them. Any suppositions or conclusions that come to mind, Teela? No? Later, Adam is conveniently separated from Teela by an iron wall, and immediately takes the opportunity to transform again. After knocking down the wall, He-Man makes no attempt to explain where the prince got to, and Teela doesn't ask. (Oddly, Orko and Cringer, who were also trapped on the other side of the wall, are never seen again on the planet after the wall comes up.)
• As we might recall from Count Marzo's preceding appearance in the series, he is a magician. His only real use of magic in this episode is when he zaps himself and his lackey away from the heroes by yelling a magic word: "Gabrok!" Later, he makes one attempt to magically zap He-Man, then gives up and makes a run for it.
• Per the Sorceress (who makes a late and brief appearance in the episode to provide this important information), Marzo is apparently living on the planet Eronia now, instead of in a castle in the Eternian neighborhood of Abra (as he was in his last episode). His new living quarters are strange and give the appearance of a highly technological greenhouse. Rather than force the heroes to fly a spaceship there, the Sorceress provides a handy dimensional portal as transport.
• Oddly, this episode is totally missing Man-at-Arms. I guess Duncan was at a technology conference somewhere. How could he miss the Boy of the Year ceremony?!
• Teela, providing some quick wrap-up exposition at the episode's conclusion, makes an offhand comment that Count Marzo and Chimera have been sent to "a prison planet." Oh, is that where you put bad guys now? We've seen Skeletor's minions imprisoned in the palace's own cells (for instance, Beast Man got a cushy tower cell in MU080), and we've also had multiple references to a prison mine (in the beginning of the similarly plotted MU010, for example, that's where Jarvan the Sorcerer escapes from), but a prison planet is new. MU010 suggested the mines were on a different planet, so it's possible Teela is talking about the same thing.
• Yet another ending credits sequence featuring the variant background with the flat-painted Jawbridge.

• Animation error/continuity error: The very first line of dialogue in the episode is an error, since Teela claims that she sees "Jonno's land shuttle coming," but the children arrive in a Wind Raider. Dude. The writers and animators didn't talk to each other much, I guess!
• Cringer is here and right away asserting his dislike of almost any new or different situation: children, he says, are "too rough." When asked to be nice to the children, Cringer grumbles that it "won't be easy." Adam should perhaps consider some anti-anxiety medication for his cat.
• In the first instance in the episode of Eternian adults displaying poor judgment with regard to the younger generation, we see that young Jonno, who must at the most be the equivalent of an Earth high-schooler in age, is allowed to fly a Wind Raider with no adult in the vehicle. What kind of sky-based traffic rules have we ever seen on the planet, that would keep other Wind Raider drivers safe from inexperienced teen drivers like Jonno?
• All in all, it's a bit unclear why the writers chose to bring back the character of Chad, since the story doesn't require that we remember anything about the boy as he was written in his previous appearance, does nothing to remind us who he is, and now saddles him with an older brother (Jonno) who seemed entirely nonexistent in MU042. Perhaps the writers got tired of inventing rhyming clones for Chad (see Thad of MU049, or the identical-looking boy Fisto dubs "Lad" in the opening of MU070), and decided they would just straight up use him again.
• During his speech to the gathered Eternian parents and students, King Randor's crown looks absurdly oversized and strange.
• When we see Jonno at the controls of the Wind Raider, both at the episode's opening and when he's high on Eternia flower and about to crash near the ceremony, he is seated on the vehicle's right side (like a British motorist). But after he's crashed, we see him dazedly sitting on the left side. Perhaps the rough landing tossed him to the other side of the ship? Either that or the negative was flipped!
• The second instance of poor adult judgment in Eternia: Jonno, who is clearly a drug addict, has been voted Boy of the Year. There is no question that, when he is under the influence of the Eternia flower, there are some obvious indications in his behavior, which can be seen by anyone with eyes. Did the judging committee for the award somehow fail to notice this? Is Jonno just the son of a rich Eternian baron who greased all the right palms?
• Continuity errors: When Marzo first talks with Jonno, he requests that the boy round up all his friends to be introduced to the count "tonight;" in other words, the same night as the ceremony. However, the meeting definitely doesn't occur until the following day at the earliest. Similarly, after Teela rescues Jonno from falling at the ceremony, the animation clearly shows a dissolve from evening into morning. But when Jonno sneaks into Duncan's lab to use the tele-beam, the boy he speaks to comments on the stunt Jonno pulled "today." Um, no, man; that was last night. Again we seem to see evidence that the animators and writers didn't get their story straight here.
• I'm no evil mastermind, so perhaps I'm being a bit presumptuous here; but I question the validity of Marzo's amazing scheme to take over Eternia. He seems to believe that corrupting the planet's youth will give him a loyal and dependable conquering army - but his very first recruit, Jonno, immediately demonstrates a major flaw in this plan when he foolishly crashes his air car and then almost kills himself in a display worthy of the annals of the Darwin Awards. Perhaps drug addicts aren't the best bunch of folks to make up a planet-ruling army, eh Marzo?
• You have to hand it to Orko's people for having discovered that there is an addictive drug on their planet (the "black nightmare") and then, instead of developing a gaggle of twitchy, desperate addicts or an illegal market for selling and smuggling it, the Trollans entirely wiped it out of existence. Can you imagine this on Earth? A fully successful and totally concluded "War on Drugs"? Is this Nancy Reagan's dream come true?
• Continuity error: In a shot that should show Prince Adam as one of the passengers in the Wind Raider pursuing Count Marzo's ship, we instead catch a glimpse of He-Man riding shotgun. The immediate follow-up shot correctly shows Adam there instead. Imagine Teela's reaction if she'd looked to her left!
• Cringer seems legitimately disappointed to not get any food out of Orko's conjuring while the heroes are inside the force field. But honestly, buddy - did you really want to eat Orko's hot dog? There is almost no question that thing is food poisoning wrapped in a bun.
• Speaking of Cringer: even though this episode features both the cowardly tiger and his brave alter ego, I think it provides more evidence for my "pet" theory that the feline characters are being sidelined in this season. Cringer definitely contributes to the story here and has some fun and funny scenes; but Battle Cat is only grudgingly used, seemingly out of logistical necessity (since Cringer is right next to Adam the second time he transforms into He-Man). Though He-Man rides Battle Cat into battle, the cat provides nothing else to the story and doesn't help at all in the fight against the wolf-bats. Later, when Adam transforms for a record third time with Cringer definitely in the area, the animators pointedly refuse to show us the cat anymore until after the final battle has ended.
• At Marzo's base on Eronia, we find that he has an intruder alert system in place - something Skeletor only manages in Snake Mountain on a very irregular basis. In fact, Marzo's alarm is amusingly specific. The first time it goes off, when the heroes are still some distance away, its 8-bit Atari-style graphics display a normal-sized humanoid silhouette. However, once He-Man has broken into the base, it displays a much more muscular body, with fully defined pecs and everything!
• As I've already had cause to mention elsewhere in the lore and commentary sections, this is a very redundant episode, since it is composed of recycled characters and plots, and it's also obviously and forcefully "lesson-heavy," a quality I abhor in MOTU stories (and really any story). We've further seen several examples of continuity and animation errors detailed above. Finally, the episode gives itself away as being short on runtime by including three He-Man transformation sequences - a sure sign of a poorly plotted episode. So, not one of my favorites! Still, it had some good Cringer moments, and I enjoyed the scene where Orko's overcooked hot dog unintentionally rescues the heroes from the force field. The clumsy depiction of a high Jonno and goofy Chad were fun, and even though I don't know why Count Marzo was used here, it's always nice to see a recurring villain.