Written by TAKE the CHALLENGE!
Not many He-Man fans can say they watched all 130 Episodes of the 1983 Filmation Cartoon Series “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe“, one episode per day for 130 days straight. Meet the challenge!
Today’s Episode is:
She-Demon of Phantos
| PRODUCTION NUMBER | EPISODE TITLE | DIRECTOR | WRITERS | PREMIERE DATE | RE-WATCH-A-THON DATE |
|---|
| MU5 | “She-Demon of Phantos” | Gwen Wetzler | Ron & Sam Schultz | September 15, 1983 | Dec 1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Synopsis: Queen Elmora of the planet Phantos, has fallen under the power of Skeletor. He-Man, along with his friends, must rescue her. Unfortunately, Queen Elmora has access to photanium, the strongest metal in the universe. | |||||
CLICK HERE to Watch on YOUTUBE (or watch it embedded below):
OUR THOUGHTS:
A decent worldbuilding episode that features the only appearance of Strongarm. While the episode begins strong, the spell cast on Elmora begins to wear out its welcome (and the plot) but the extremely ruthless Skeletor makes it worth the viewing. (6/10)
Comment, Review and Discuss below:
Tomorrow’s Episode is: “Teela’s Quest.”
Another great episode. I love the introduction of Strong Arm and Lizard Man and my favorite moment was when He-Man was locked up in in the photanium body cell and faked everyone out. Even Teela and Man-At-Arms were sad until He-Man broke out and said psyche, just kiddin! 😄 8 out of 10.
One of my favorites as a kid, we used to love to rent the VHS that had this one behind “Creatures from the Tar Swamp" (another classic). This is an overall fun episode, but one thing that I don’t like as an adult: For the most part I look past the stock animation, some of the edits between shots but the final fight between He-Man and Skeletor where Elmora thinks He-Man is Skeletor is so hard to follow.
The coffins were a fun (but spooky) part when I was a kid, it’s one of the few times you feel that He-Man might actually be in trouble when he gets locked in.
My favorite part of any episode is when the He-Man theme kicks in and it doesn’t get more epic than when He-Man breaks the chains to his theme song and saves the day 🙂
@battlecat327 The coffins scared me as a kid too. It was those eyes.
I like this episode. If a 6 means pretty good and better than average then I give it a 6.
Now my real reason for commenting. Did anyone else notice this? I think Elmora uses slave labor. I don’t think we can blame Skeletor because he just got there. Elmora’s whole infrastructure is run by slave labor and she even has torture coffins for when the slaves get out of line.
Strongarm is a weird looking character. It doesn’t look like it belongs in MOTU.
He-Man left the other slaves to suffer in the coffins and it still gets a 8 out of 10 from me. LOL
A-tier episode
I love episodes of cartoons with a diverse group of characters. Strongarm is cool and while he doesn’t do much, I find Lizard Man’s appearance adorable for some reason. I know both eventually got figures in Classics but is there any concept art available of an 80s Lizard Man toy of which I’m aware eventually became Whiplash?
Anyone sure there’s no evidence to support that a Strongarm toy was ever conceptualized at any point during the original toy line’s run?
I swear, it feels like He-Man and Mega Man are two iconic 80s franchises that made many, many characters whose names were “[BLANK] Man" that weren’t already trademarked by Marvel or DC.
Something that caught me a bit off guard was hearing that Phantos is a planet and not like an Eternian territory or something. I know this franchise is called Masters of the UNIVERSE but from what I’ve consumed as a newer fan, made me to believe that Eternia and Etheria are the only two real planets that are prominent and it’s very rare for the characters to go to other planets.
Plus Phantos visually feels like it blends too well with Eternia to the point where if you asked a casual fan if Phantos is part of Eternia or a planet, it would be a trick question unless they’ve seen this episode like a dozen times or the planet shows up in more episodes going forward (I’m guessing it does)
3 starts. Good episode that does the job. Some weird edits bring it down a nitch but the strongarm and lizard man bring it back up.
Nice point on the slave labor, lol