Episode 77: He-Man and The Terrible Era of Filmation!


He-Man

Orko!!! How did you get in here?! Don't tell anyone what you saw!

Well, it was coming sooner or later. We’ve delved into Filmation. On this episode, we talk mainly about He-Man and its spin-offs. Other topics include a very disorganized look back at the history of Filmation, Daffy Duck Meets The Groovy Ghoulies, the Faux Busters, Happily Ever After, the legacy of Lou Scheimer, and even a lost “gem” that Erika Scheimer didn’t want the world to know about.

Yes, it’s He-Man tonight, ladies and gentlemen. And helping us is Andy, a listener of the show and quite the He-Man buff himself. While we blast the (extremely) limited animation and overuse of rotoscoping, Andy brings in his knowledge about the toy franchise.

Topics covered:
How to pronounce Conan
“…but, Adam!”
Teela is fucking stupid!
Two men on a horse
Orko walked in on He-Man with his sword in his hand
Theatrical five-part episodes
Taking moral advice from a klepto
Skeletor’s faceturn
Princess Adora is hot
The New Adventures… not how I remembered ’em!
King Randor kicks ass in the ’02 series!

Also, be sure to check out Blanchard’s Powers Of Grayskull series for a more indepth, episode-by-episode coverage.

Well, this looks rather...erm... you know...

Boy, when Teela finds out about this...


Adora Transforms

Only 25 years to get an action figure

11 thoughts on “Episode 77: He-Man and The Terrible Era of Filmation!

  1. Oh boy, you’re finally going to rip into He-Man. Well its campy by today’s (yesterday’s?) standards,
    so I can’t blame you guys too much. I love watching it late at night on qubo. The camp, recycled animation, recycled frames, He-Man’s one-liners, and Skeletor makes me like it more now. I think its fun for the
    wrong and right reasons.
    I like She-Ra more of course. The villian’s hideout looks like an IG-88, hilarious and cool. She-Ra has a cape, multi-use sword, magical-girl transformation, and a mean roundhouse.(Roundhouse kicks to camera, so good -sorry I couldn’t resist). Looking forward to this one and the MLP: Friendship Is Magic. Tom Revor will be there right? Sorry to bug but I’m looking forward to it. You know I’m not the only one. Glimer and her mom are hot too, even with the cold eyes.

  2. Dear lord. I did not think that I could ever see Skeletor being even slightly in the light of being a good guy, but there it is… Wow, beware the power of Christmas.

  3. I was actually about to check your guys podcast out for the first time until I saw the title of this one…Not in the mood to get pissed off so I should probably avoid anything titled ‘The Terrible Era of Filmation’! WTF seriously? Pissed off just reading that title!!

  4. I leave critical remarks on other people’s podcasts, but I at least have the courtesy to listen to their podcasts before I post said criticism.

    I’m not going to approve comments left by people who admit up front that they refuse to listen to the show for its negative criticism, and yet feel entitled to leave negative criticism themselves. Screw you. Why should I even take you seriously?

    I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but Filmation was awful. Live with it.

    • And maybe you read my comment wrong but no where was I criticizing your podcast I simply said I can’t listen to this episode because based on the title I know it will piss me off – that is not criticism its simply saying that I will have to wait until a different episode to start listening. I will criticize you for making personal remarks about me for no reason though and telling me to screw myself. And just to be clear, you can state Filmation is awful all you want that still does not make it any more then just your opinion. Does the animated in filmation stand up to 90s or 00s standards of course not but its historical significance and impact cannot be overlooked.

      • *ping!* Hey, bozo. This has been publicly visible for about two months now.

        Here’s something completely stupid that you said.

        “Does the animated in filmation stand up to 90s or 00s standards of course not but its historical significance and impact cannot be overlooked.”

        This is why I have no respect for you as a critical thinker. You didn’t even listen to the episode, and yet you drew the conclusion that we somehow overlooked the historical significance of Filmation. Being significant and being a bad studio are not mutually exclusive ideas. If you actually LISTENED, you can see that I cared enough to talk about the history of the damn studio.

        Besides which, as significant as Filmation was, it’s also significant to say that the 60s and 70s produced some of the worst animation of all-time, and Filmation practically lead the charge. It’s the truth. What do you want, for us to talk about Filmation as though the Groovie Ghoulies and Quackula never exist? That’s called whitewashing.

        As significant as Filmation was, the vast majority of their cartoons are virtually unairable, outside of Fat Albert and He-Man. It’s forgettable crap, hence the title of this episode, The Terrible Era of Filmation. But of course, you didn’t want to listen to understand what we were getting at, which is why I’m having to rake you over the coals right now. You apparently want us to talk about only the good stuff and pretend like that’s enough to say that Filmation was a good studio.

        Again, if you’re going to criticize, listen first. And yes, you did criticize, so don’t give me any of your semantic bullshit. And when I refused to post your nonsense, you went and whined to Mike about it. I finally just decided to approve these posts just so everyone can see how stupid and uninformed your comments were. How they were not, in fact, “tongue-in-cheek”.

        I’ve had this conversation with you before. You don’t like it when I say something negative about something you like, and you’ll accuse me of being short-sighted and overlooking something’s significance. But it’s perfectly okay when YOU do it.

        And you know exactly what I’m talking about.

        “I will criticize you for making personal remarks about me for no reason”

        This mystifies me, really. I made no personal remarks about you in that first comment in any way. But if you want one, here goes: You’re a hypocrite.

  5. Good show, as usual. I’m in agreement with Trevor: He-Man is enjoyable on occasion, and I find She-Ra the more interesting show overall. Secret of the Sword was enjoyable enough for me, but that Christmas special is painful. It is so bad.

    The DVD releases from a few years ago are incredible. The transfers are so clear and the colors in the artwork really pop. Sadly, not enough animation looks this good on DVD. Often I watch the episodes and get caught up watching the backgrounds. After all, there’s it’s the same animation over and over anyway. 😉 The DVDs also have tons of special features. So if you are fan, try to pick them up if you can.

    Simply, He-Man and She-Ra had some great characters and interesting character designs, even if they weren’t used to great effect in the original series. But the 2003 He-Man series took those characters and developed them and created a continuity. I haven’t seen the entire 2003 run, but I am looking forward to watching it since I now have the DVDs.

  6. Oh yeah, after listening to this, I tracked down a stream of Robin and the Dreamweavers and extracted the vid for later… Dear sweet lord was that a trip. You really do have to see this, ya’ll. I have the opinion that it’s about Comedy Central level content and it’s quite goofy by my estimation. Real 90’s style adult cartoon work.

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