Story - Peter L. Dixon, Teleplay - Peter L. Dixon, Robby London

Gwen Wetzler

Beast Man, masquerading as a carnival showman, kidnaps Cringer! He-Man (with help from Teela) will have to dare monsters and dastardly traps within Snake Mountain to rescue his cat.

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

Beast Man (ringmaster), Skeletor, Evil-Lyn

various Eternian citizens, giant snake (unnamed), shadow beast, Pretty Kitty, the Human Electrode, Octo-Beast

various carnival-related vehicles, sky sled

A fun carnival has come to Eternia! Along with an interestingly diverse crowd of Eternians, Prince Adam, Orko, and Cringer look on as the show's parade rolls past, headed by a suspiciously hunchbacked ringmaster and including a slinky white panther-type creature that immediately attracts Cringer's interest. We quickly learn, however, that the showman is none other than Beast Man, enacting Skeletor's needlessly over-complicated plan to kidnap Cringer, drawing Prince Adam, who will draw He-Man. During a live show, Orko decides to imitate the Human Electrode, using a shaker of the Earth seasoning, pepper, as a fire retardant. When he discovers he has been misinformed about the seasoning's qualities, Orko disdainfully passes the shaker to Prince Adam. Remember this, friends! It will be surprisingly important later.

The next part of the show involves Beast Man's menagerie, and the first beast to be shown is the shadow beast, which the showman recklessly lets out to menace Teela. Fortunately she easily subdues the creature (again, keep this fact in mind, viewers!). Cringer then gets a special close-up meeting with Pretty Kitty, the large white cat that he was drooling over earlier. She makes him go wall-eyed with desire. Later that evening, the cat reappears at the walls of the palace, just beneath Adam's bedroom window, and Cringer is enticed to follow her back to her cage, where Beast Man easily imprisons both. He immediately breaks up the carnival and heads off to Snake Mountain with his hostage.

The following day at the hangar bay, Adam is calling for Cringer, who he learns from Duncan has missed breakfast. Orko comes in with a ransom note from Skeletor and Adam immediately changes to He-Man so he can head off to the rescue. Man-at-Arms recognizes the ploy as a trap, but He-Man don't care. Teela, hearing from Orko that "Prince Adam" is trying to rescue his cat, nabs a sky sled and follows in the interest of performing her sworn duty of protecting the royal scamp.

At Snake Mountain, we learn that the bad guys (including Evil-Lyn) have prepared a trap for He-Man: he will see Cringer high up in a delicately balanced glass case, walk forward and press a button on the floor, triggering a trap door which will drop him into the lair of the fearsome Octo-Beast! In the meantime, however, he first encounters the menagerie's shadow beast while he's scaling the outer walls of Snake Mountain. The beast seems to actually be giving He-Man a hard time; fortunately its girlfriend Teela shows up to make it release the hero. He-Man reaches Cringer, but because of the extra-thick glass of the cage, can't hear Cringer's warnings about the trap door. With no other choice, Cringer saves his friend by pushing his own cage off its perch. Fortunately He-Man catches the cage and frees Cringer. He then cruelly forces his pet to transform into Battle Cat so they can go mess with Skeletor.

Meanwhile, Teela goes wandering into Snake Mountain, setting off the alarm and getting herself caught by the Octo-Beast. The bad guys bind her with chains which, according to Evil-Lyn, even He-Man can't break, and then proceed to forget about her entirely, making no use of their incredibly valuable bargaining chip. He-Man, all unaware of this disturbing development, rides Battle Cat to the top of Snake Mountain and takes on all the bad guys in sequence. Beast Man, Evil-Lyn, and Skeletor all fall to his muscles. Beast Man and Evil-Lyn get imprisoned behind a sheet of glass or clear stone, and are left to bicker with each other. When He-Man shows up in Snake Mountain's throne room, Skeletor tries some impressive magic, including crushing stone walls and an encircling array of double-team mirror duplicates, while calling on He-Man to escort him to Castle Grayskull; but He-Man defeats his enemy through the power of... pepper. That's right! Orko's handy pepper shaker from the beginning of the episode (which He-Man was apparently keeping tucked in a shoulder strap) makes Skeletor sneeze and breaks the mirrors. Skeletor runs off, and He-Man chooses (rather nonsensically) not to pursue him, but instead pick up Teela. Even though he should have no idea where she is, he instantly locates her and easily breaks her unbreakable chains, then avoids any awkward explanations on the whereabouts of Prince Adam and Cringer by asking Teela to handle the imprisoned lackeys, Beast Man and Evil-Lyn.

End with a Joke: Back at the palace, Teela is explaining to Adam, Cringer, Duncan, and Orko what just happened at Snake Mountain. Adam returns the pepper shaker to Orko, explaining that He-Man was able to save the day with it. Orko, confident that its magic will have no effect on him, opens the shaker and is predictably overpowered, to everyone else's amusement.

• Cringer (talking about Pretty Kitty): I wonder what she's doing after the show...
• Beast Man (revealing himself and capturing Cringer): Welcome to the carnival! Heh heh heh...
• Teela (to Evil-Lyn): You witch! / Evil-Lyn: Why thank you. (Laughs)

• Teela, hands on hips, laughs with her head thrown back: At Orko having set himself on fire
• Skeletor leans in close to the viewer
• He-Man smiles close-up, looking at the viewer: Talking to Teela
• Skeletor shakes his fists, three-quarter view: Enraged over He-Man's escape from the Octo-Beast
• He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat
• Evil-Lyn, hands on hips, laughs with her head thrown back: In response to Teela's insult
• He-Man in battle stance on Battle Cat: Sword out
• Skeletor laughs, head back

One full, but divided (i.e., the initial transformation is missing the Battle Cat portion, which happens later when He-Man is reunited with Cringer)

Brought to you by He-Man
Today, He-Man wants to talk to us about courage. In contrast to any examples of courage that we actually saw in the episode, he defines it as being able to say "No" to your friends when they want you to do something stupid. He follows this up with a better definition: sticking to your principles, no matter what.

Beast Man in disguise: See MU002's "The Shaping Staff" for another episode like this.
On a note not directly related to this category: Do you like sideshows like the one Beast Man has here? Then try skipping ahead to S1's last episode, MU065!
Skeletor (or another villain) plots to capture Prince Adam

• The writer of this episode, Peter L. Dixon, also wrote for some old TV shows, including Adventures of Superman and Flipper, as well as some shows contemporary to He-Man, such as Knight Rider. He is also apparently an accomplished surfer and has written a book about it, among several other books.
• Though in MU013 Skeletor communicated to Beast Man as a floating head apparently through his own magical means, in this episode Beast Man talks to Skeletor's floating head using a device hidden in one of the carnival vehicles. These carnival vehicles, by the way, have an odd longevity, and we'll see them again in a background used in the much later MU116.
• Beast Man mentions explicitly that Cringer is a special animal on whom his animal-controlling powers have no effect.
• In the category of "things that come out of Orko," a gloved hand on an extendable accordion-like frame comes out of his hat to shake pepper around.
• Our second time encountering a shadow beast. The first time we saw these critters was in "Teela's Quest" (MU006), where they had a much higher-pitched, shrieking call, and seemed a more daunting foe. Here, Teela easily controls one, perhaps better than Beast Man ever could. Interestingly this episode shares several seemingly random characteristics with MU006.
• When Teela is attacked by the shadow beast, Duncan whips out his light saber, which we last saw (with a slightly different design on the haft) in MU004.
• The crowd watching Beast Man's show features some very interesting looking folks, including some with pointed ears and a wide variety of interesting hats and bald heads.
• Our second look at Adam's bedroom, the first being in MU002. In that episode Cringer had to be let into the room to sleep with Adam, but by now his place by Adam's bed seems to have become an established custom.
• Skeletor seems to have learned something since the last time Snake Mountain was infiltrated (MU009 - see my commentary on home invasion there!), because now his fortress boasts an intruder alarm, which goes off twice in the episode to herald the arrival of both He-Man and Teela. Unfortunately this lesson won't stick, as Snake Mountain's alarm, in varying forms, will appear and disappear seemingly at random over the course of the series.
• The scenes in the hangar bay, ending with Teela flying off on a sky sled to help Adam, are again reminiscent of "Teela's Quest" (MU006), though somewhat reversed in circumstances (and omitting the Wind Raider).
• Skeletor spies on the heroes (though very spottily) using his desktop dome.
• Octo-Beast's pit looks suspiciously similar to the Sarlacc Pit monster as seen in the original theatrical release of Return of the Jedi (1983).
• Evil-Lyn is shown with a small mace in the shape of a claw gripping a globe, something we haven't really seen her use before now. It's just like the one that came with her action figure, but stubbier. It comes in handy because He-Man uses it to bind her hands later in the episode. (Note in a later episode, MU046, this mace or wand is implied to be the source of her magic powers!)
• He-Man traps Beast Man and Evil-Lyn behind glass, but clearly informs the audience that he doesn't intend to leave them there, and later asks Teela to take care of them; they are going to face the Eternian justice system! This is one of the very few times where the bad guys actually face legal consequences for their wrongdoing, one of the previous ones being Beast Man's trip to the prison mines in MU003.
• He-Man uses his usual bolt-deflecting ability with Evil-Lyn, and also demonstrates a complete disregard for the wildly bouncing bolt of magic as he runs up to disarm her. Apparently he is an expert mathematician and is able to predict all the angles of the bolt's movement in advance!

• In a case of severe micromanaging (combined with the more common category of "Beast Man gets no respect"), Skeletor feels it necessary to remind Beast Man that he can talk to animals.
• A curious part of Beast Man's show is "the Human Electrode," whom Prince Adam identifies as "that guy who can create electricity with his hands" - so he appears to already be familiar to the heroes. One wonders whether he is in on the evil plot or whether Beast Man hired him in disguise to flesh out the fake show. He doesn't appear after his one scene near the beginning of the episode, so one suspects the latter. He's amazingly cool about Orko just stealing the stage from him during his performance.
• One wonders where Orko heard that pepper could put out fires. The most obvious person - the only Earthling we know to be present on Eternia - is Queen Marlena. Is she screwing with him?!
• When Teela is stroking the shadow beast's face, her bracer is the wrong color: gold instead of white.
• Beast Man starts introducing the most dangerous animal in his menagerie while standing in front of the absolutely gigantic snake; but he's not talking about the snake at all, and we never get to see what it does. He's talking about Pretty Kitty. Perhaps her danger lies in her seductive powers!
• It's fairly disturbing to watch Cringer pant and get all het up over Pretty Kitty; but remember that the main viewing audience was probably also familiar with Warner Brothers cartoons where skunks become infatuated with striped cats.
• This is a great Cringer episode and features two instances of our friend displaying an uncharacteristic amount of courage. The second, and more explicit, instance (since He-Man calls it out to us) is when Cringer puts himself in danger to keep He-Man from triggering the trap in Snake Mountain. It truly does show heroism, since Cringer does it to save his friend. The first instance is when he leaps from the window of Adam's bedroom; the reason for this act of courage is one of the oldest and most time-worn reasons for male heterosexual bravado: to put it crudely and succinctly, Cringer is chasing a piece of tail.
• Very disappointing that all we get to see of the Octo-Beast is one curly tentacle; usually the animators don't hold back at showing crazy monsters, given the least prompting.
• In the interest of keeping his secret identity secret, He-Man rather callously chooses to let Teela hang around outside of Snake Mountain "in case Adam shows up." The secondary reason is to keep an eye on the shadow beast. However, for no reason that we ever learn, Teela later decides to ditch the shadow beast and wander into Snake Mountain so she can trigger the trap door. Wha? (This is just one of the many illogical plot points in this episode.)
• In a case of very poor use of Skeletor's incredible spying technology, no one is watching while Teela rescues He-Man from the clutches of the shadow beast, and Evil-Lyn is completely surprised at how He-Man manages to still be scaling Snake Mountain a few seconds later. Maybe Skeletor should hire a full-time guy to just sit and watch the heroes on his desk dome! It would reveal some fairly important data... (In fact, Skeletor attempts something of the sort in MU042, when he has his lackeys chained to the dome and forced to spy as a form of punishment.)
• Poor Beast Man gets scolded by both Skeletor and Evil-Lyn in this episode, when none of the trouble is really his fault! He actually did his one job of catching Cringer admirably. He even does a fine job of having the Octo-Beast transport Teela to a different part of Snake Mountain.
• In the scene where He-Man fights Beast Man, he is clearly spinning the poor guy around by his own whip; but all we see is He-Man flicking his sword around. It's a clever way of showing what's happening without having to animate a character spinning in a circle through the air.
• In the scene where Beast Man and Evil-Lyn are bickering, clearly not enough bickering dialogue was recorded, as Evil-Lyn ends up telling Beast Man that "this is all your fault" twice.
• Possible continuity error: when He-Man meets Skeletor in his throne room, the hero says "You said you wanted to talk;" however we were given no scene in which Skeletor says this.
• It's completely mystifying why the bad guys allow He-Man to beat them up one by one, and Skeletor uses all kinds of other tricks to try to force He-Man to take him to Castle Grayskull, all without ever mentioning that they have the captain of the Eternian guard tied up and at their mercy in another part of the fortress. At any time, Skeletor could have just said, "I have Teela prisoner, so do what I want," and it's hard to see what He-Man could have done except obey. I guess it was more fun to make mirror duplicates! (A solo Trap Jaw will make a similar mistake in MU047; and, in fact, this failure to leverage hostages will become a recurring trait of the villains.)
• Can you really sneeze if your head is just a skull?
• As noted earlier, and as already seen, this episode raises a lot of logical questions. We wonder why no use was made by the villains of their valuable hostage; we then wonder why, after He-Man went to all the trouble of infiltrating the throne room of Snake Mountain (even though he'd already rescued his cat, which was the main reason why he was there), he fails to pursue the disarmed and peppery Skeletor. Still reeling from this inconsistency, we are then left wondering just how Teela managed to transport Beast Man and Evil-Lyn to an Eternian jail. Can she lift the huge sheet of glass He-Man stuck them behind? (To be clear, I still thoroughly enjoy this episode and loved watching it.)