Written by TAKE the CHALLENGE!
A fantastic group of He-Man and She-Ra fans have taken the challenge to watch all 130 Episodes of the 1983 Filmation Cartoon Series “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe“ for 130 days straight, one episode per day. They are the RE-WATCH-A-THON-ERS!
Be sure to check out the RE-WATCH-A-THON celebratory memento shirts and mugs (long sleeve shirts options are available too).
Today’s Episode is:
The Toy Maker
| PRODUCTION NUMBER | EPISODE TITLE | DIRECTOR | WRITERS | PREMIERE DATE | RE-WATCH-A-THON DATE |
|---|
| MU124 | “The Toy Maker” | Lou Kachivas | Karen Willson, Chris Weber | November 29 1984 | Mar 30 |
| Synopsis: When the Toy Maker offers his services to Skeletor, he is tasked to kidnap Man-At-Arms. In pursuit, the heroic warriors must cross the treacherous Valley of Echoes. | |||||
CLICK HERE to Watch on YOUTUBE (or watch it embedded below:)
OUR REVIEW:
While this episode starts out promising and the Valley of Echoes is a lofty idea that could have been something special (and worthy of being more delved into), the writing itself fails the narrative here... which lacks weight and cohesiveness. It is also odd that the toys of the Toy Maker are of Earthly designs. (4/10)
Comment, Review and Discuss below:
Tomorrow’s Episode is: “Bargain with Evil”
Even though the ToyMaker is a new and fairly interesting villain, this episode leans into too many story beats we’ve now seen many times, the worst of them being: Orko screws everything up yet again. Season 1 I get at times, but the back half off of the episodes Orko is a straight up liability to the point I think the heroes would be in significantly less danger if he wasn’t around.
Nice to see He-Man fight Screech, he never really interacted with him in prior appearances.
If this episode was made today I’m betting it would have a bunch of self-aware jokes about how the show and franchise in general is built off commercialism, like having He-Man and Skeletor toys be among the living toys and the characters keep saying how great they are in a not-so-subtle way, though I guess we’ve already have had enough stories about He-Man and Skeletor doubles.
meh episode
Unrelated note but as a life-long Toy Story fan, Filmation Hordak has always reminded me of Emperor Zurg.
3 stars. Entertaining episode. Toymaker has such an interesting design i wish they made a classics figure of him.