Rowby Goren

Lou Kachivas

The easily swayed and insular citizens of Ruxtown have to learn an important lesson about not letting rumors get out of hand, when Prince Adam and Teela arrive to get to the bottom of the horrifying mystery that is: the Tingler!

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

N/A

Emma, The Tingler (Herman), Squire Wilkins, his donkey, other Ruxtown citizens (including Jed Hansen and Miller Perkins)

Wind Raider

It's a lovely, sunny day in a bucolic village nestled at the foot of a giant, icy mountain. A young woman has come to a water well to draw a bucket of crisp, refreshing water. But wait! What's that hulking shadow in the bushes? The maiden turns, her eyes widening in shock and horror. It couldn't be - but it is! THE TINGLER!! She runs for it, almost immediately colliding with Squire Wilkins and his donkey. The woman - look. We don't learn her name until the last few seconds of the episode, but I don't think it makes any difference to the story to reveal it to you now, and this plot summary is going to be very awkward to write if I have to just keep calling her "the woman." Her name is Emma. So! Emma relates her horrifying encounter to the squire. The pair - and the donkey - run back to town, screaming.

Cut to the palace of Eternos, where King Randor has called in Prince Adam and Teela to relay the report from Squire Wilkins. The beautiful village we saw is named Ruxtown, and it's populated by a small, isolated collection of suggestible folk who have long told tales of a scary "Tingler" who dwells nearby. Operating on the assumption that there is no smoke without fire, Randor instructs his son and his guard captain to go and investigate the claims. He doesn't specifically request that Orko and Cringer join the Tingler search, but they come along anyway, hopping in the back seat of the Wind Raider. Before even dropping in to introduce themselves to the villagers, the crew fly past Ruxtown's closest landmark, Mount Fear. It's in all the guide books as "Eternia's Most Dangerous Mountain," and is purported to be home to the Tingler, who allegedly lurks in one or more of its many caves.

Adam and co. get lucky right off, as they spot a silhouetted figure running around the slopes of the mountain and land nearby to pursue it. Though we see the mysterious creature sneaking about and standing on some nearby cliffs, our heroes discover nothing - except a monumental avalanche! Teela has already split away to search one last cave, and so is conveniently out of sight of the prince, giving him the opportunity to transform himself and his pet unobserved. While Orko and Teela take shelter in a nearby cave (incidentally catching a brief glimpse of a figure who is likely their quarry), He-Man and Battle Cat rush to the rescue, tossing a bunch of giant boulders in the oncoming path of the deadly snow. Having prevented calamity, He-Man departs, assuring a doe-eyed Teela that she will find Adam and Cringer back at the Wind Raider.

Finally arriving at the village proper, Adam and Teela find the villagers just as paranoid and gullible as predicted. The folk tell conflicting and contradictory tales of the appearance of the Tingler, but no one seems to have actually gotten a good look at the creature. One excited man interrupts the village council to claim he's seen the Tingler holed up in the local windmill; but when a clamoring mob gathers at the mill's door, they find only a very confused Miller Perkins inside.

Orko, who is thirsting for a look at the Tingler, thinks he has the perfect plan to catch a glimpse of the beast, as he's sure it will return to the well where Emma recently saw it. He dupes a poor Cringer into accompanying him by convincing the tiger that the monster is very unlikely to revisit the site of its last sighting. They hide in the tall grasses nearby to keep watch; but when the Tingler actually does seem to be approaching, a panicked Cringer dashes out and, in his agitation, takes a nasty fall off a cliff. Immobilized by an injured leg, the prince's pet can only look on petrified as the Tingler comes right up to him. The legendary monster proves to be a giant, long-haired and hulking but entirely humanoid. He wordlessly hefts a protesting Cringer onto his shoulder and walks off with him. Orko, clearly not fancying his chances in a one-on-one battle but determined to discover where the Tingler is taking his friend, follows close behind.

The Tingler carries Cringer back to a crystalline cave in the mountain; but when Orko dashes in to confront the creature, he finds that the giant is, after all, just trying to help. The Tingler is also perfectly capable of speech, and professes his good intentions. He bandages Cringer's leg and explains that he's become a sort of enforced hermit, due to the fear and dislike that his size engenders in other humans. The Tingler feels much more at home with the animals of the forest and mountains. He didn't cause the avalanche that endangered everyone, and was instead standing nearby to warn them of it. Relieved, Orko announces his intention to return to the village and explain everything to Adam and Teela; but Cringer is still uncertain about the whole situation and doesn't want his friend to leave him. The Tingler kindly tells them that he will go instead.

It turns out that our giant friend has chosen the worst possible moment for a diplomatic mission. Riled by the arrival of the prince, the recent sightings, and the dangerous avalanche, the Ruxtowners have formed a classic pitchforks-and-torches throng and are out to dispose of their local legend once and for all. They are out tromping through the woods, mistaking mud puddles for giant footprints. When the Tingler shows his face, the angry horde gives chase, clearly with no friendly intent. The Tingler makes a beeline back to his home in the mountains. The giant having chosen a route too steep and difficult for the townspeople to follow, they opt for a "shortcut" in the form of a rickety mountain bridge. The weight of their many feet proves too much for the rotted supports of the spanning structure, and a concerned Adam and Teela arrive just in time to witness the bridge collapsing into a perilous gorge. The Ruxtowners are trapped on the far side, and the cliff is crumbling! Teela wanders off (at a strangely leisurely pace) to fetch He-Man, happily giving Adam the privacy he needs to once again raise his power sword. He-Man then gets right to work carving a new stone bridge out of the mountainside. With the He-bridge in place, everyone is able to cross to safety - everyone, that is, except Emma, who hesitated too long and is now stuck on a single fragile projection of rock. It's too far for our blonde hero to reach! Who can save her?

The Tingler, that's who. The giant arrives on a cliff just above the woman and reaches out his hand. Emma has been among the fiercest enemies of the monster, driven to angry reactions by her fear and the ever-burgeoning rumors of the creature. She's very uncertain about accepting assistance from the object of her superstitions - but she has little other choice. Emma ultimately reaches out her own hand and is plucked from the crumbling platform just in time. Everyone is saved! Hurrah!

Back at the village, it's celebration time. As the collected Ruxtowners laud their new friend in the balloon-filled main square, Emma regrets her disproportionate reactions to the unfounded rumors, bashfully thanks the Tingler for saving her, and asks if he doesn't get lonely up there on the mountain. A red-cheeked Tingler allows that he sometimes does, and Emma offers to cook him a nice warm meal. Gratefully accepting, the Tingler lifts the woman up bodily and cradles her in his arms so they can go back to Emma's house right away.

End with a Joke: As the Tingler carries his new... friend off for their private meal together, the pair exchange names and we learn that our giant's real name is Herman. "Oh," Emma sighs, "what a beee-yootiful name!"

• Orko: Cringer - what's the matter? Don't you want to catch the Tingler? / Cringer: The only thing I'm going to catch in this place is a c-c-c-cold! (sneezes)
• Prince Adam: This is a job for He-Man and Battle Cat. / Cringer: B-b-b-battle Cat? Just saying the name makes me nervous!
• Emma: I saw the Tingler at the water well. He was huge! Eight feet tall and he had a tail. / Teela (disbelieving): But in your report, all you saw were his eyes. / Emma: Oh; yeah, well, but I could tell from his eyes the way the rest of him looked. His eyes were horrid - and he had three of them.
• Prince Adam (to the riled-up townspeople): But don't you see, that's one of the bad things about rumors: rumors get worse and worse until people start believing they're true.
• Cringer (to the Tingler): D-d-d-don't eat me, I'm junk food!
• He-Man (remarking on the Tingler's dramatic rescue): Now that's a real hero. / Teela: Takes one to know one, He-Man.
• He-Man: Well, I guess you all found out that gossip can be pretty dangerous.
• Emma: Don't you get lonely up there in that cold cave of yours? / The Tingler: Uuuuh, sometimes. / Emma: You know what you need? A nice warm meal. / The Tingler (picking her up): Oh-ho, that would be nice.

• He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat: The loop is played in reverse to show He-Man pausing to speak and then dismounting, as he prepares to stop an avalanche

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

Brought to you by Teela and Orko
Teela, standing in the royal courtyard with Orko at her side, tells us that humans tend to exaggerate; as an example, we return to Ruxtown, where Squire Wilkins and Jed Hansen are busy recounting He-Man's daring bridge-building, with an ever-inflating number for the length of the bridge. Back to Teela, who connects exaggeration to the spreading of rumors. Orko chimes in, sensibly advising us to use our common sense and not believe everything we hear. Drinking bleach will not cure COVID, vaccines don't give you autism, Earth isn't hollow, and nobody had any elections stolen from them.

Skeletor-less episodes in Season 2

• Teela identifies this episode's location of Ruxtown as "one of our colonies in the north country."
• Even though Adam states that the story of the Tingler is "only a rumor," and rumors in specific are a central part of today's theme, I still think we can classify this in our sub-category of "only a legend."
• Randor sends his son and Teela out on the mission to investigate the Tingler. Really, Randor? I thought Teela's duty was "to remain at [her] post and protect the palace" (see MU118). Hmph.
• Ruxtown lies just in the shadow of Mount Fear, which Adam dubs "the most dangerous mountain in all of Eternia." Typical MOTU superlatives! Surely there are more dangerous mountains...The worst thing that seems to happen on Mount Fear is an avalanche which injures no one.
• Many of the townspeople of Ruxtown seem to like wearing hats that look like inverted vases. You'd think this would be a situation in which the animators would heavily recycle character designs from earlier episodes; but I didn't recognize anyone among the villagers.
• This isn't the first time Prince Adam has (with little success) attempted to convince a bunch of villagers to stop acting stupid. He also had to rally the townspeople of an unnamed village in Eternia to fight back against space pirates in MU090's "One for All."
• Speaking of recycling... the animators may have given us some fresh faces with the Ruxtowners, but the Tingler himself is just a slightly adjusted version of the giant Cambro from MU065's "The Heart of a Giant." (Cambro had creepier, pupilless eyes, but was otherwise identical to the Tingler.) In fact, this story could almost function as a prequel/origin story for Cambro, who tells Orko a very similar tale to the Tingler's about being shunned by his fellow men for his imposing size. Both characters have also evolved into great friends of forest creatures, from their long time spent away from humans in nature. We are forced to endure watching Orko once again having to relearn the same lesson he learned in MU065, about not judging a scary giant by the way he looks. Orko's lesson could have been learned much quicker if the Tingler had simply explained himself by talking to the Trollan - something he inexplicably fails to do at their first meeting, even though we eventually learn that he's perfectly capable of human speech. (By the way, the same thing happened with Cambro, who remained mute until he had to stop Orko from annihilating himself on some electrified prison bars.) One difference between the two giants is that Cambro was quite a bit more intelligent, having earned an engineering degree; the Tingler has an only rudimentary command of English and sounds quite a bit like Mel Blanc doing a big dumb Looney Tunes character.
• The Tingler's cave has a crystalline background very similar to the center of Eternia, reached by He-Man and Skeletor in their title "Search" for the Starseed in MU036.
• The animation of the rickety mountain bridge's ropes snapping is very likely reused from the bridge collapse in MU101's "Not So Blind."
• In the final celebration scene, we do catch sight of some reused character designs; on the far right behind a bashful Tingler are Yarrow from MU070's "Fisto's Forest" and a familiar pig-tailed girl who I'm sure I've seen somewhere before...
• This episode continues the proud Filmation MOTU tradition of waiting until the last possible moment to let us know the names of the secondary characters. The flighty woman who's been present throughout the story finally tells us that her name is Emma, and we learn that the Tingler is actually Herman. To be fair, in this case the exchanging of names makes for an intentional and cute little ending to the story, rather than a seeming oversight.
• The PSA is somewhat unusual in that, rather than replaying clips from today's episode as examples of the lesson we should learn, it gives us some new content of the villagers exchanging fish stories about the bridge rescue. It's a humorous addition that I enjoyed.
• Oddly enough, given its similarities to MU065, this episode was not written by that episode's writers (Robby London and David Wise). This script is the fourth given us by Rowby Goren, former Laugh-In writer and future writer of various famous children's cartoons (see MU067 lore for more details). As I've already suggested, he gave us MU067's memorable "The Energy Beast" and the entertaining but somewhat clumsily plotted MU080's "The Shadow of Skeletor," but was also responsible for the infamously embarrassing MU100's "The Greatest Show on Eternia."
• According to Wiki Grayskull, we have visited Ruxtown before, in MU109's "Orko's New Friend." I must shamefully admit that I didn't spot this myself, but on looking back, I confirmed that at least the background paintings for Ruxtown were used first in that episode, during the short scene when He-Man is temptingly showing off his great strength in small villages to lure out the Slavemaster. No one names the village Ruxtown in MU109, though, so it may just be a case of recycling. The animators were not content with just recycling the backgrounds, either: contrary to my belief (stated elsewhere in this entry) that the Ruxtowners were mostly new designs, in a couple brief shots in MU109 you can spot both Squire Wilkins and the excitable fellow who pointed people to the windmill in this episode.
• We continue in the solid trend of the variant ending credits with the flat-painted Jawbridge.

• King Randor states, "The people of Ruxtown are good, hardworking people, but they're a little naive; they believe in superstitions and such." Just say what you're really thinking, Randy: they're a bunch of dumb hicks.
• The establishing background painting showing us Mount Fear with Ruxtown nestled at its base is a very pretty one.
• This episode seems unusually focused on male/female attraction. In the first instance, He-Man stops the avalanche and then tells Teela that he has to leave, adding: "I'll be around if you need me." "Oh!" cries Teela, "What a guy!" This is definitely more swooning than we're used to getting from our captain of the guard!
• I feel like Orko and Cringer give off a sort of Scrappy/Scooby-Doo dynamic in this episode, except that Orko - who isn't a complete moron - hasn't somehow been deluded into thinking that Cringer is a courageous monster-killer. Still, Orko is anxious to get a look at the Tingler and inveigles his "pal" into dangerous situations to accomplish his dream.
• Animation error: For almost the entire time he's in the Tingler's cave, Cringer is drawn without eyebrows, or with his eyebrows incorrectly colored the same orange as his stripes.
• Adam gets lucky hiding his secret identity for his second transformation, since Teela ironically wanders away from him (with a casual speed very unsuited to the emergency) to go looking for He-Man. Though she asked He-Man where Adam was after being saved from the avalanche, in this instance she doesn't seem curious about the prince's whereabouts in the midst of the exciting rescue.
• As sometimes happens, there's a goof in the second, abbreviated He-Man transformation, since before being cut off it shows the slightest split-second of He-Man beginning to point his power sword at an absent Cringer.
• We watch He-Man slicing a bunch of tiny bits of rock off the cliffside; after a convenient cut away for some exposition from the townspeople, we look back at He-Man to find that he's somehow managed to fashion these pebbles into one amazingly huge and very solid slab of rock. How...? Oh right, right: the Power of Grayskull. (rolls eyes)
• The second instance of romance in the episode (if we pass over the squire's donkey's suggestive but sadly unrequited nudging of Cringer) is when Emma comes on very strong with the Tingler, prompting him to pick her up and carry her off on his shoulder. They are apparently going to have a "nice warm meal" together in private. Yikes - I hope Miss Emma's got some strong hips! (Take note: That's probably the skeeviest thing I'll say on this site.)
• Because of its many similarities to the tale of Cambro the giant, this episode at times felt disappointingly unoriginal. But the townspeople and their foibles were amusing, and we got some fresh character designs to go with them. Rowby has done worse! (I'm looking at you, Crackers the Clown.)