Below are some details and explanations of what these categories are and how their data is presented. Click on the underlined categories above to be directed to pertinent notes.

Also discussed this page -


A Note on Sequence

Like some other television shows, the episodes of MOTU and POP were produced in an order that differed from when they were actually aired. I have chosen to number the episodes in the order they are placed on my DVD sets. This is, in a general way, consistent with the order they were produced, with a few odd exceptions, including the He-Man pilot (Diamond Ray of Disappearance), which for some reason was the fourth approved script. The "Episode Code" is taken from Wikipedia articles listing the episodes and can be considered to follow the production order.



A Note on Heroic and Evil Warriors, Rebels and Horde, and "Other" Characters

The characters listed in these categories are generally listed in their order of appearance in the episode. On some very rare occasions, I listed a character that was only mentioned in an episode; but the usual requirement is they be visible on the screen at some point. They do not need to speak.

Heroic and Evil Warriors, and Rebels and Evil Horde, are categories generally reserved for major repeating characters, especially but not limited to those sold as toys by Mattel at the time. Exceptions include Lizard Man, Fang Man, and Strongarm, who clearly belong among their confederates in the Heroic/Evil categories but did not have concurrent toys (and in some cases were only seen in one episode).

A Note on Character and Other Names

There are other sites like this online (though I like to think mine has a unique spin and dives deeper into lore, logic, and - hopefully - humor), and they have been very helpful resources, but I don't know how trustworthy they are when it comes to spelling the names of characters, creatures, and places from the show. In most cases I let the subtitle track on my DVD give me spellings which I hope are in some way "official," though I have learned the subtitle track is not always accurate. I am open to any suggestions for corrections, or a friendly recommendation for an official source.



A Note on Animation Loops

To save time and money (and the animators' wrists), many basic action sequences were reused again and again, and can easily be recognized. I'm sure that the good folks at Filmation had a lovely system for identifying these amongst each other; I've attempted to create my own naming system for those I've spotted, listed below. Though I've tried to be thorough, I didn't want to include a million of these, and there are no doubt other more basic sequences that could be added, such as running or walking cycles of various characters. There are many still drawings of characters that were used again and again for close dialogue shots, which I've omitted for brevity's sake.

The most obvious loops are the transformation sequences, which I have treated separately. Several of these in addition to the transformation sequence are in the show's opening; the opener instances go without saying and are not noted.

[Character] laughs, head back
[Character] runs at the viewer, bug-height
[Character] juggles his/her sword
[Character] punches the viewer
She-Ra spin kicks the viewer
[Character] smiles close-up, looking at the viewer
Sorceress spreads/unspreads her wings
[Character] picks up and throws a rock
[Character], hands on hips, laughs with his/her head thrown back
[Character] from above, runs to mid-screen and pauses, battle-ready
A look through widespread legs
[Character] runs away from the viewer
He-Man jumps on the back of Battle Cat
She-Ra mounts Swift Wind and flies off
[Character] swings sword overhand
Skeletor shakes his fists, front on from below
Skeletor shakes his fists, three-quarter view
Skeletor leans in close to the viewer
He-Man in battle stance on Battle Cat
[Character] rolls along the ground
He-Man spins [something] in a circle

Other repeated animations which I haven't bothered to track or log:

Battle Cat leaps off with He-Man on his back
[Character] gets up from reclining position
[Character] turns, crouching, and heads off in a new direction
[Character] climbs up a wall
Skeletor points his staff at the viewer
He-Man, front on from below, gestures forwards with his arm/sword



A Note on He-Man/She-Ra Tranformations

The number of transformations per episode only counts those within the body of the episode; in other words, the transformation always included in the episode opener goes without saying. I have noted where there are variations or additions in the transformation sequence within the episode.

The most common number of transformations is probably one (be it a "full" - in other words, the same sequence shown in the episode opening - or "partial"), but they can range between zero and three. I don't believe there are any episodes of either He-Man or She-Ra with four transformations.



A Note on Connected Episodes

When I created this category I wasn't sure what it would consist of, as there are a lot of ways to interconnect the episodes (based on character appearances, weapons used, vehicles driven, monsters recurring, and so on). As my input process progressed and matured, I decided this category should mainly deal with recurring plot elements/tropes. Below are some examples of the MOTU and POP linking themes from the database. See the advanced search screen for a full list.

Interesting points: I have quite a few MOTU categories that track appearances of secondary characters; but having found that it's very easy to search those up manually, I stayed away from that in POP. Those episodes that don't fall into any categories are grouped under the catch-all "N/A" category. There are 10 such episodes in MOTU but only 5 in POP - perhaps suggesting that I got better at coming up with categories when I got to She-Ra (though the shorter episode total no doubt also plays a factor).

MOTU categories
Amnesiac He-Man
Appearance of cousins of Adam
Beast Man in disguise
Dealing with Adam's secret and his connection to the power of Grayskull
Everybody deserves a second chance
Evil power couple awakens
Evil-Lyn power punches the glass ceiling
Games and gladiators
He-Man robot duplicates
Historians, archaeologists, and digging up old cities
Main character flashbacks
Mer-Man's in charge!
Orko-specific lore
Skeletor (or another villain) plots to capture Prince Adam
Skeletor manages to get into Grayskull
Skeletor summons a monster
Skeletor-less episodes in Season 1/Season 2
Teela does something dangerous by herself
Use of a transformative device
Use of the Time Corridor (or other time travel methods)
Wayward child learns a valuable lesson

POP categories
Adora who? (Princess Adora does not appear in the episode, only She-Ra)
Bow regrets his actions
Changing hearts and minds (a person/persons is convinced to join/aid the rebellion, usually by She-Ra/Adora)
Glimmer learns a valuable lesson
Gotta get back in time (time travel plots!)
Honorable mention
Hordak betrayed!
Hordak-less episodes in Season 1/Season 2
Horde Prime appears in person
Kowl DOESN'T avoid capture
Love is in the air
Main character flashbacks (a trope common to both series)
MOTU crossover (includes characters from the MOTU series)
Neither Horde nor hair (much rarer than in MOTU, stories in which our main villains do not appear)
Shadow Weaver weaves a wicked web
Tell us a story (plots that are almost entirely flashbacks, told by characters in a bookended story)
Wayward child learns a valuable lesson (a trope common to both series)

Landmark Episodes

I decided it made sense to collect a "must-see" list of episodes for those looking to hit the highlights of the series. These episodes include important moments in the development of main/recurring characters; firsts or one-time appearances; important moments in Eternian or Etherian history; and what I consider to be the best stories. The most logical place to track this label seemed to be the Connected Episodes category, so that is where it is located. It's no surprise to me that I was unable to limit this list as well as I should have. If you go to the Search page and look up only He-Man's Landmark Episodes, you will find that the number currently totals to 32 - almost exactly 25% of the full number of MOTU episodes. Though She-Ra had fewer landmarks at 26, due to its lower overall episode count that makes an even higher percentage, at around 28% - and that's not counting the Honorable mention category of episodes I added onto POP! Obviously watching just these episodes would be a bit of an investment of time. Even now I find myself itching to add more episodes to the list.

Interesting bit of trivia: if you compare my MOTU Landmark Episodes to those without Skeletor, you will find almost zero accordance between them. It appears that I prefer Skeletor episodes!

Note: If the landmark list sounds too involved for your taste, check out my Top Ten Lists page, which while still overly complicated does include a simple top 10 ranking of episodes for both He-Man and She-Ra.



A Note on Firsts/Lore vs. Commentary

The "Firsts/Lore" section is meant to contain what it says in the name: firsts or unusual appearances of story elements or characters, and lore about Eternia/Etheria and the people living in it. It also is a repository for beyond-the-screen information such as voice actor and writing credits. "Commentary," by contrast, is meant to include my own subjective extrapolations on events in the episode, my opinions and ruminations, and continuity errors or animation errors I spotted.

However, I will admit that my opinions and subjectivity tend to leak into almost every category in the database, and in particular these two categories tend to bleed into one another. There are entries in each which feature elements that might logically belong better in the other. I tried to keep a semblance of organization but I apologize if things get blurry from time to time.



Other Potential Categories which can be found recurring in the series and the database, but have not been explicitly set off

This is a sort of summary of recurring events or tropes in the series, "sub-categories," if you will, which I've identified fairly consistently in my analyses. If you'd really like to find instances of these, I mention them in the Firsts/lore and/or Commentary sections. Searching in those sections using the bolded parts of the descriptions below should bring up many of the occurrences.

MOTU Sub-Categories
A few other general observations on repeated themes in the show: He-Man likes to throw bad guys in mud; people often stress to He-Man that the things he's fighting aren't alive, thus giving him carte blanche to crush them to a pulp; Eternian insults tend towards the general form of "[noun] face"; many of the Heroic Warriors wink at the screen at some point during the series run; there are many cases of villains taking heroic hostages, but few instances of the villains actually taking any advantage of their prisoners through threatening their lives or safety; Skeletor may spy on the heroes a whole lot, but he somehow never manages to be doing it when Adam transforms into He-Man; the term "Eternians" should logically refer to any inhabitant of the planet Eternia, but more often seems to refer only to citizens of the capital city of Eternos; the extent of King Randor's kingdom is treated inconsistently, sometimes implied to cover the entire planet but sometimes suggested as only a chunk, with other regions of the planet ruled by other kings.

POP Sub-Categories
A few other general observations: The treatment of Horde soldiers, who are ostensibly "robots," is inconsistent and often has the troopers betraying very human characteristics. Many expressions, organisms, objects, and names eerily exist on both Eternia and Etheria, even though they are in different dimensions. Though the Great Rebellion's job is supposed to be freeing Etheria from the evil forces of Hordak, we often find the rebels lazing around and reacting to the Horde's attacks rather than actively fighting for their freedom. Glimmer, billed as the leader of the rebels in her first appearance, is very quickly sidelined and demoted in favor of putting the barely present Adora in charge - I call foul! Spirit/Swift Wind is a very good horsey but often finds himself ditched in various locations while the bipedal humanoids go do their thing. The Horde has a lot of tanks. A lot of tanks. They also do an absolutely terrible and very inconsistent job of naming their vehicles, a subject I address at some length in the commentary for 67038 ("Zoo Story").



Notes on MOTU Season 1

Season 1 began airing in September of 1983, at which point the first two waves of Mattel toys had already been produced, including 14 humanoid characters, 4 creatures, and 4 vehicles. They were all fair game for including in the series. There are also cases of the show including a toy character while the toy was still in development and not yet released in stores (Jitsu in MU009 and Clawful in MU053).

Even so, the creativity and general demands of the daily show meant that some characters were created for which no toys existed. Orko and Prince Adam, for instance, were around from the very first episode, but did not have figures produced until Wave 3 in 1984. In the case of some monster-of-the-week characters, such as Batros, Strongarm, Lizard Man, and Fang Man, even though they seem ripe for mass production from plastic molds, corresponding toys were never produced (or not until much later, to satisfy the desires of middle-aged collectors).

Basically - and I don't know how true this is of similar IPs, but - I think what the episodes show is a surprising lack of communication between the toy company and the animation studio. A lot of the Filmation characters could have been adapted into very marketable toys, and a lot of the Mattel toys could have been more accurately presented on screen (see for instance the very inaccurate animated Attak Trak which I detail in my rundown of MU001, or the disconnect between cartoon Clawful and action figure Clawful, or the fact that the show never took advantage of the toys' bifurcated power sword concept). Even the toys that were made to capitalize off of the animated creations don't match up - see for instance the Snake Mountain playset. Admittedly it would be a challenge to match the scale of the cartoon fortress, but why is there a giant purple plastic face that looks nothing like a snake?

I approached my development of this database with a preconceived notion, developed from earlier viewings of the episodes and my own memories from childhood (and perhaps skewed by He-Man's precis of the show given in every opening sequence), that Season 1 was a very Skeletor-heavy set of episodes, and that it was only in Season 2 that desperate writers began straying farther from the basic "Skeletor try bad thing, He-Man stop" dynamic. My more careful viewing in order to write this material revealed this was not the case at all. In the entirety of Season 1, 31 of the 65 episodes (about 48%) do not feature Skeletor at all. Even the episodes that feature Skeletor sometimes have him taking a backseat to the action of the plot, perhaps appearing in a couple of scenes to give his blessing on some evil deed and then never showing up again. (In fact, having now fully analyzed Season 2, I find he appears in MORE episodes there than he did in the first season!)

One last curious note: He-Man of course hails from the days of analog television, when a hair might get trapped in the film as it was being exposed; but it's odd that in many and many of the cels of animation in the first half of Season 1, we can clearly see the same curl of a hair in the bottom left corner of the screen. Oh, the stories that hair could tell...



Notes on MOTU Season 2

Season 2 features many additional toys and vehicles developed by Mattel while the first season aired. We get to see new heroes and villains riding new, sometimes absurd-looking conveyances.

This season also introduces one of the very few variations in the opening/closing sequences. It's a weird one: occasionally the background image of Castle Grayskull used in the ending credits is painted slightly differently, with the lowered Jawbridge shown in the flat colors of animated foreground characters and objects, rather than the more detailed and three-dimensional colors of background paintings.

In Season 2 the writers also had the luxury of returning to many secondary characters and storylines already introduced in the first season, their recurrences now in no danger of appearing out of order with their S1 counterparts. We meet again people/entities such as Zagraz, the Starchild, Kothos, the Widgets, Negator, and Granamyr.

I noted some shifting trends with the main characters in Season 2. One involves Orko, who in Season 1 was a bumbling magician who often erred, but largely as a form of comic relief. In this season he is utilized much more as an object lesson and substitute wayward child, who needs to learn lessons and behaves immaturely - a characteristic confusingly at odds with other ostensibly mature qualities he's displayed (for instance, the fact that he has a full-time job at the palace, and a betrothed). The other involves Battle Cat, whom the writers seem to have decided was largely uninteresting and too challenging to incorporate into plots. Instead, they focus much more on Cringer, whose Scooby-Doo-ish fear provided more amusement and possibility. Looking at the numbers, we will find Battle Cat appearing in 37 episodes of S2 (only 57% - a paltry figure considering he's meant to be He-Man's righthand pet and mount), while Cringer appears in 50. In Season 1 the numbers were 49 and 52, respectively.

My DVD set liner notes, written by James Eatock (a well-known figure in the MOTU community and the author of a complete guide to the He-Man and She-Ra animated adventures), claim a clear shift in Season 2 plots away from the magic and fantasy emphasized in Season 1, and towards science and technology. I can't say that this struck me particularly; as far as I saw, magic continues to be a part of the show until its end. But I'm willing to believe this could be true, so have mentioned it here.





Notes on POP Season 1

To draw in a further female audience to their sword-and-sorcery-and-sci-fi world, Filmation and Mattel created the spin-off series She-Ra, Princess of Power. The show was co-created by talented MOTU writers Larry DiTillio and J. Michael Straczynski, who perceived of an alternate dimension to Eternia, Etheria, subdued by a conquering force known as the Evil Horde. To explain the connection to He-Man and to introduce all the new people and places, an introductory story titled The Secret of the Sword was produced, which was eventually re-edited into the first five episodes of She-Ra's first season.

In Etheria, Prince Adam's twin sister Princess Adora leads the Great Rebellion against the Horde, which is led by Hordak. To a certain extent, the plot turns on its head the situation in Eternia, where the rebellious force was the bad guys, and the installed rulers were the good guys; but in practice the show followed a very similar structure to its inspiration, with characters who could almost all be clearly linked with a corresponding MOTU version. The show openings follow the same outline, the incidental music and animation style match, there is still a morally unassailable PSA to conclude each episode, and MOTU characters even make occasional visits to Etheria.

Certain MOTU hallmarks, though they exist in POP, are given less weight. For instance, Adora's secret identity tends to be in far less danger than Adam's, with very few of her friends questioning her mysterious absences. The people who know Adora's secret don't gain much by that knowledge, which is very rarely mentioned or used. She-Ra's magical mentor, Light Hope, is much less important than He-Man's Sorceress, and though mentioned in the opening monologue does not appear in a story until nearly a third of the first season has elapsed. Though Adora bills herself as the "defender of the Crystal Castle," she almost never visits there, and since its location - indeed, its very existence - is a closely guarded secret, she never has to defend it from anyone. The closest corollary to He-Man's Castle Grayskull ends up being Castle Bright Moon - actually the home to Queen Angella, not Light Hope.

The POP PSA duties, which in MOTU were handled by a rotating cast of characters, are almost entirely given to Loo-Kee, the creature who is hidden in one scene of almost every episode - a cute and unique addition to the series. The general quality of character animation is a step above that seen in MOTU, and the storylines introduce a slightly greater depth of maturity and emotion. Being geared more towards girls, Adora and crew also tend to dabble more in romance than Adam or He-Man ever did.

Some other observations about the general trends of the series I already mentioned above, but will reiterate in brief here: the Great Rebellion proves a much more reactive and passive fighting force than its name might suggest, only rarely taking the fight to the Horde and preferring instead to respond to Horde attacks. Adora quickly and quietly takes over Glimmer's place as head of the rebellion, even though the blonde ex-force captain is seemingly never around when any real fighting is happening. Unlike in MOTU, where the writers would often stray farther afield than Skeletor and his minions to find their daily villains, on Etheria the enemy is almost always the Horde, and Hordak appears in a greater percentage of POP episodes than Skeletor did in MOTU. Because of the cartoon series advantage in maintaining a status quo, though She-Ra recruits many to the rebellion over the course of the season, the balance of power doesn't really change, the Horde remain largely in charge of the planet, and there is very little in the way of character development.

In terms of being a merchandising tool for the toys: unlike MOTU, which only started running after the toys had had a chance to take off (not to mention generate some very confusing and contradictory introductory lore), POP began airing at almost the same time as the release of the first wave of Mattel toys. Certain good guy figures from Wave 1 were given strangely short shrift on screen (Angella appeared in only 11 of the 65 episodes, Castaspella only 7, Frosta 6, and Double Trouble - a big fat zero). Some figures from the eventual second wave of toys, to be released in 1986, were given previews in the 1985 season, but only in one or two episodes (Flutterina, Mermista, Peekablue, Perfuma). As with MOTU, other side characters that never made it to contemporary toyhood were invented for the screen: Madame Razz, the Twiggets, Captain Sea Hawk, Hunga the Harpy, Dylamug, False Face, Vultak - and so on, and so on. And as with MOTU, some of the animated versions didn't match up so well with their toys - consider the mustacheless plastic Bow, or his horse, whose toy version had a different coloring - and wings. The Fright Zone playset, like that of Snake Mountain, bears no resemblance to its animated form.

In general the series showed itself in many ways superior in quality and depth to MOTU, though perhaps lacking some of its goofy, well-meaning but not-always-logical charm. Some of the best writers from MOTU - Larry DiTillio, J. Michael Straczynski, and Bob Forward - carried over to POP, and provided the majority of this season's best stories.





Notes on POP Season 2

By She-Ra's second season, which began airing in the fall of 1986 (shortly after the airing of the very special crossover holiday special), the Mattel toys for both MOTU and POP had reached their bloated height, and were poised to suffer a catastrophic fall in sales and popularity. Either in prediction of this, in parallel, as a consequence, or through sheer coincidence, the cartoon's return season was greatly limited in scope and length. The previous season's format, which had a set of 65 episodes airing every weekday in the fall, changed to a much shorter set of 28 episodes, airing only on Saturdays and stretching into the fall of 1987 (according to the air dates listed in Wikipedia).

The series had also lost two of its best writers and its co-creators in Larry DiTillio and J. Michael Straczynski, who would contribute no scripts to the second season. The onus of great writing was borne almost entirely by Bob Forward, who provided the few bright lights in what was otherwise a largely lackluster set of stories (though J. Larry Carroll came in at the end of the season to lift up a few episodes, notably the season finale). In addition, the animation seemed to suffer from an abundance of errors in coloring, backgrounds, and continuity. Dialogue was sometimes given to the wrong character, and full fight sequences or situations were reused liberally. All of these errors and shortcuts had occurred in Filmation episodes before, but seemed to come in greater number now. Whatever the cause for these multiple factors, they added up to a very disappointing second season for our Etherian heroes - though there are still jewels to be found among the dross.

Perhaps due to its creators sensing a waning popularity in their main character, as the season progressed plots tended to lean more on MOTU crossovers, pulling He-Man into Etheria again and again. As for the toys, in addition to old regulars, this season brought us appearances of some previously unseen Wave 2 characters and vehicles (Entrapta, Sweet Bee, Clawdeen, the Sea Harp), as well as the new characters from the greatly abbreviated third wave (Netossa, Spinnerella). This gave the series the advantage over MOTU, whose cartoon ended too soon to include many of the toys added to its lineup in 1986-1987. (In fact, POP even presented in animated form some of those toys which would technically be classified under the MOTU line, such as Multi-Bot, Rattlor, Tung Lashor, Stonedar, Rokkon, Snout Spout, Mantisaur, and even the Slime Pit playset. Technically, all but the last of these debuted in the first POP season, not this one; I'm just happening to mention this now.)

The series was not picked up for a third season, and by 1988 the toys had also essentially died, with a too-soon hard sci-fi reboot attempt, The New Adventures of He-Man, coming in 1989. By this time the 11-year-old me had lost interest in He-Man and his continuing adventures, so I have little memory and no nostalgia connected with that show or its toys. It remains to be seen whether I'll be crazy enough to try to catalogue that part of He-Man's history on this site...