Same here. My loyalty was always to G.I. Joe, but He-Man wasn’t far behind.
You want to talk absurd, someone explain Bravestarr.
I loved it, and still watch it when I’m flipping through the channels; but you don’t get more strange than a talking horse with a shotgun who is the last of his race of talking horses.
And then let’s someone ride him.
My fanwank is that all the weird cybernetic people (Trapjaw, Man-E-Faces, Ram-Man, etc.) are former prisoners of Skeletor who underwent cruel medical experimentation in his bid to create an army of supersoldiers.
It came after my time for me, I was starting to “outgrow” cartoons by the time He-man came out, but all the younger kids were watching it. My era was Thundarr the Barbarian. I watched Thundarr and Princess Ariel and Ookla the Mok quite a bit and from what little I have seen of He-Man it seems like it blatantly ripped off Thundarr and not even for the better. Thundarr and the gang could kick the Masters of the Universe’s asses.
If you ever see a bunch of your Hmong friend’s little brothers running around and shouting the He-Man theme maniacally and with much, too much, glee and laughter, and it makes you wonder… just ask Siam Sam.
I think this might possibly be the worst series of experiments ever. The result is apparently the opposite and all they’re good for is cowering. I think I vaguely remember Trapjaw biting somebody’s sword or something but that was the limit of his offensive capabilities.
I remember every single episode involved one of these guys saying, “Run! It’s He-Man!”
That’s a little more rational than the times they actually try to fight He-Man one on one; you know, the strongest man in the universe?
And that is why there never was a beach episode, with Prince Adam getting a tan, He-Man’s cover would be gone.
The secret of Greyskull is that it’s a red herring.
We know that Eternia has access to super-high tech–the Queen was a starship pilot from Earth, the military has flying blaster-sleds, etc.
Yet the population still lives in small villages, all doing manual labor. Clearly there is an inequal distribution of wealth and technology.
Skeletor isn’t really a threat. King Randor beat back an invasion force from an interstellar empire when Adam was still a baby, he could crush Skull-face like a grape if he chose to.
So he sets Skeletor up as something to fear–when the villager that is still harvesting grain with a sickle sees the King fly overhead in his magnificent sky sled, he’s glad that the King is defending him rather than resentful at the class division.
But even though Skeletor is an idiot, the King is wise enough to be aware that sometimes even fools get lucky, so he makes sure Skeletor’s attentions are pointed towards an impressive-looking, but actually rather minor, target.
And on a completely different note, if you want to see and hear the most disturbing video using gay references in a He-Man universe setting, do a youtube search for CKY Skleletor vs Beastman.
But you may want to think about not doing it. It really is a “what has been seen cannot be unseen” moment.
Come to think of it, have you ever seen the bad guys fight? All I can remember is Teela and Co getting captured without a fight, then He-man coming to rescue them, the bad guys run away (again without a fight,) and He-man rescuing them.
88 posts and no-one mentions how, no matter where they are, when He-Man turns Cringer into Battle Cat, Cringer always runs under a table. Even when there is no table before or after the transformation scene.
But the thing I’ve been wondering for years is, why is it called “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” when all the action takes place in Eternia? They never even go out into space or other planets.
The Eternia universe is very very small. About the size of New Jersey.
And in the original show, the only impostor He-Man (don’t remember if they actually called him Faker) just looked exactly like He-Man, no blue skin.
For all the stuff about Adam being He-Man with a shirt on, the newer series actually fixed that, with more of a Billy Batson/Capt. Marvel thing going on, where Adam was a young skinny dude until he transformed.
Apparently, from the homo-erotic undertones of the series, Castle Greyskull’s secret is the extensive bondage dungeon the Sorceress runs in the basement.
A little late to the party, but this video is pretty relevant.
Possibly NSFW (Cartoon Violence)
The “Saturday Morning Watchmen” cartoon by the same creator is also pretty good.
Man, licenses, agendas…you guys get all the fancy stuff.
After Star Wars fizzled post-Return of the Jedi, He-Man really filled that niche for me as a five year old. A few months ago I actually bought the entire series on DVD–the animation is really cut-rate, the plots are obviously restricted by the toys available at the time and the anti-violence trends neuter any kind of action… but it’s still loads of fun. It’s like the worst '80s-influenced Edgar Rice Burroughs rip-off, with camp by the bucket-full.
And best of all, it’s got episodes written by JMS and Paul Dini.
Does that mean He-Man is from New Jersey?
I figure Grayskull used to belong to Skeletor, and the heros siezed it at some point in the past. Presumably in persuit of the same secrets.
What secrets? If we knew, they wouldn’t really be secret, now would they?
EDIT: Oh, and in regards to the Penny Arcade comic, I remember there was a Livejournal community for Wikipedia editors. Someone posted a link and suggested that the He-Man article be blocked to prevent vandalism. Another guy said “Now, there’s no reason to think we’re going to have a problem just because some online comic made a joke about it.”
About five minutes later, second guy again: “I was wrong. Locking the article.”
“This video is not available in your country.” 
Who exactly is the master of the universe? I know it’s been like twenty years, but I don’t recall that it was ever mentioned beyond the title. I’m sure I would have remembered if He-man had said, “I’m the god-king of the universe. Bow down, bitches. Because…I HAVE THE POWER!”
But no origin-story episode?
Darn strange.
It was He-Man and the Masters of the universe. So I guess all his friends were the masters of the universe. Ram-Man, Man-at-Arms, OrKo, etc…