- by Owen Morton
Yes, boys and girls, it’s time for another He-Man episode review! This time the episode in question is The Toymaker, the second on Seb’s video. I thought I’d better do this one now, because after June, he won’t be around and therefore neither will his video – and I’m quite possibly going to be very busy in June, what with important things like exams and all. Plus, of course, this particular episode was one of the more entertaining ones I’ve seen. My favourite types of He-Man episodes are the standard ones like A Trip to Morainia, where Skeletor comes up with some evil plot and He-Man has to foil it. This one is pretty much along those lines, though Skeletor takes something more of a backseat on occasion. Still, it’s quite good, so let’s get going.
The episode begins at Snake Mountain, where Skeletor is shouting at a man, telling him he shouldn’t have dared to come to Snake Mountain. Skeletor’s friend Whiplash is also present, standing behind the throne, though quite why he’s there, I don’t really know, because he doesn’t say anything. Maybe he had a line but it got cut, or something. Anyway, the man cowering in front of Skeletor’s throne says he’s sorry to intrude, but he thinks Skeletor might have use of his services, and introduces himself as the Toymaker. Now, if I’d been Skeletor, this is the point at which I’d have sent this obvious nutcase packing, probably to the deepest darkest dungeon Snake Mountain has to offer, but Skeletor is, of course, Skeletor, and thus not terribly intelligent himself. To his credit, he does say something along the lines of, “Now what would I do with toys?” but the Toymaker convinces him that with the use of his toys, he will be able to rule Eternia.
Even though Skeletor is as stupid as he has demonstrated on numerous occasions, he is (rightly) dubious of this assertion. He suggests that if this is the case, maybe the Toymaker would like to pass a little test. He produces his staff and uses it to show the Toymaker an image of Man-at-Arms, and explains that “this is Man-at-Arms. With his knowledge, I could unlock the secrets of Castle Grayskull!” or something very close to that. Now here, Skeletor is either seeking to misinform the Toymaker or is seriously misinformed himself, because Man-at-Arms is – as mentioned many times – completely useless, and I’m almost positive he knows nothing at all about Castle Grayskull. The only piece of knowledge he is entrusted with is that of He-Man’s secret identity, and I’m not even sure why he knows that. Anyway, Skeletor orders the Toymaker to capture Man-at-Arms, and then he’ll be accepted into Skeletor’s band of cronies.
We then cut to a scene wherein Man-at-Arms has just finished creating a machine. This scene is slightly reminiscent of the bit at the start of A Trip to Morainia, because this machine does not actually appear again after this bit, though it is different because in this case, the machine does provide a bit of drama and action. Man-at-Arms explains to Orko, Teela and Prince Adam that his machine – which is called something like the Amazing Melting Machine – is to be used to melt things. The examples given are to melt bits of landscape to extract valuable minerals (though surely the minerals would also be melted, I felt) and to melt ice to help people trapped in the Frozen Northlands (though surely a) people trapped in ice would be dead long before the Amazing Melting Machine could get there, and b) even if they weren’t, they’d be melted along with the ice). Orko complains that both of those things could be done just as well with his magic – and given the degree of success the Amazing Melting Machine is about to demonstrate, I’m inclined to agree – but Man-at-Arms says patronisingly that it’s better to trust to science than magic. (I was half expecting that to be the moral at the end of the episode, but given what happens next, they can’t really justify that.)
At this juncture, Skeletor sends his robot bird, Screech, to cause problems so that the Toymaker can get involved. Screech shows up at the test spot remarkably quickly, considering it’s had to fly from Snake Mountain, which one would presume is a safe distance away from where the goodies are messing about. Despite Screech’s presence, Man-at-Arms decides to go ahead with the test, and exclaims, “Right, let’s melt that hill.” This does not seem the most environmentally friendly idea. The Amazing Melting Machine gets into action, and – surprise, surprise – it immediately goes wrong. Man-at-Arms claims that this is because the noises Screech is making are interfering with the radio signals, but this sounds unlikely to me, and implies that it’s merely because Man-at-Arms has buggered up in the creation process. At any rate, the Amazing Melting Machine shoots a red laser beam at the hill and does indeed melt it, but it then starts shooting at lots of other things, including Teela, who luckily is capable of moving faster than laser beams, because otherwise she’d have been shot. Adam and Cringer disappear at this point, turn into He-Man and Battle-Cat (in fact, this is one of the few occasions they’ve done this in anything resembling private), and reappear.
He-Man decides to deal with the Amazing Melting Machine first, and chases after it, eventually jumping on it. He then ‘stops’ it by grabbing hold of one of the rockets powering the thing, and squeezing it. Logically, you would expect this to work and cause the thing to stop, given that one of its rockets is out of shape. This is actually not what happens – the Amazing Melting Machine continues on its merry way. What is really confusing, however, is that having done this, He-Man seems to think that the Amazing Melting Machine has, in fact, been stopped, because he now decides to attend to Screech. To do this, he says – referring to the Amazing Melting Machine – “Let’s angle this thing upwards”. He then yanks the broken rocket upwards, which causes the Amazing Melting Machine to fly upwards. Despite my own poor grasp of physics, I am relatively certain that angling a rocket upwards would make the machine fly downwards and crash into the ground. Fortunately for He-Man – less so for Screech – the Amazing Melting Machine does not obey the regular laws of physics, and flies upwards, shooting a laser beam at a raincloud. This produces a rainstorm, which makes Screech go away. I’m not going to argue with this demonstration of stupid science, because – since I don’t know exactly how the Amazing Melting Machine’s laser beams work – it is, I suppose, possible that shooting a cloud with one would make it rain. (I suspect the idea was that the cloud was melted, but since this was not explicitly stated, we’ll let them get away with it.)
The crisis averted (apparently, though to my way of thinking, the Amazing Melting Machine is probably still out of control), Orko smugly suggests that maybe his magic would have been better after all. Man-at-Arms does not take kindly to this suggestion, and – perhaps detecting that he’s about to beat the living daylights out of the court magician – Teela intervenes to suggest that Orko heads back to the Palace to tell the King and Queen how it all went wrong. Orko sulkily does so, and as he goes, he runs into the Toymaker. This was evidently all part of Skeletor’s plan, but I really want to know how he knew that Orko would be sent away by the others (unless he was just guessing, on the basis of Orko being really annoying). Anyway, the Toymaker flatters Orko by calling him one of the best wizards ever, then produces some magic toys – a teddy bear, a soldier and a diplodocus – which walk on their own, and these he gives to Orko. Orko says he shouldn’t take presents from strangers, at which point the Toymaker uses some rather dodgy logic to demonstrate that he’s not actually a stranger at all. He does this by introducing himself as “the Toymaker”, after which he claims that Orko knows him, so he can’t be a stranger. Orko seems to accept this, being rather dense (and, to be fair, if he didn’t, there wouldn’t be any more of an episode), and gratefully takes the toys. The Toymaker warns Orko not to tell anyone – even using that mindlessly clichéd line “Now remember, this’ll be our secret” – and then heads off.
Later, he shows them off to Man-at-Arms, Teela and Adam, back in Man-at-Arms’ laboratory, explaining only that a friend gave them to him. Adam suggests showing them to the King and Queen, which everyone thinks is a good idea, but Man-at-Arms says that they should leave it till the morning. Teela, Orko and Adam go off to bed, and Man-at-Arms stays to lock up the laboratory. While he’s doing this, the toys grow to a much larger size, and advance on him menacingly. The screen then fades to black, and I presume a commercial break would have taken place here. It’s all dreadfully exciting.
The next scene shows Adam, Orko and Teela the following morning, investigating the laboratory, which has clearly been the site of some form of struggle. It’s clearly been a very interesting struggle as well, given that a table has fallen on its side. The odd thing is, it’s one of those circular tables with one leg in the middle, but it looks like the leg isn’t actually on the ground, leaving the table to balance on its circular edge. Very odd, as I say. (Just thought you might like to know that I just looked out of the window and thought I saw a giant penguin.) Anyway, Teela finds Man-at-Arms’ keys and states that he never goes anywhere without them, so they deduce that he must have been kidnapped. Orko notes that his toys are missing, and the final clue is the toy-shaped holes in the door. I know this is a fairly standard device in cartoons, but I suspect that if I were to run at a door hard enough to knock a hole in it, the hole would not be in the shape of an outline of my body.
King Randor now enters the laboratory, and gives the impression of not knowing that Man-at-Arms is missing. It’s rather odd, therefore, that instead of asking, “Why is this place such a mess?”, he says, “What’s this about toys?” as if he can’t bear to have toys mentioned in his Palace. On questioning Orko, the goodies discover what’s happened, and Randor reveals that the Toymaker is not a nice fellow (this is presumably for the benefit of the most brain-dead viewers, those who haven’t yet figured this out for themselves). Orko says, “So it’s all my fault,” to which the logical answer would be, “Yes, Orko, it is, you stupid bastard,” but instead, Adam says, “Don’t blame yourself, Orko! The important thing is to get Man-at-Arms back. I’ll, uh, go and get help.”
The action then cuts to a scene of Teela and Orko examining some tracks, which they clearly believe will lead them to Man-at-Arms. Ram-Man shows up at this point, claiming Adam sent him, and there is a really quite noticeable lack of enthusiasm displayed at his arrival. Everyone is much more pleased when, seconds later, He-Man and Battle-Cat appear, as if from nowhere. It’s amazing how they always seem to know when there’s trouble that they need to help with. It is now revealed that the tracks lead through the Valley of Echoes, which was mentioned earlier as a really rather dangerous place, since there are fake voices in there which can deceive people.
In Snake Mountain, Skeletor is pacing back and forth, waiting for the Toymaker to appear. He does in fairly short order, bringing with him Man-at-Arms. On seeing Man-at-Arms, Skeletor performs a particularly interesting manoeuvre in which he starts laughing manically while waving his hands in a silly way, and then starts spouting off about how good he is, and Man-at-Arms answers defiantly but pointlessly. Skeletor then double-crosses the Toymaker, and learns the secret to controlling the toys himself. He then sends the toys off to capture He-Man, which convinces me that this whole bit with Man-at-Arms was a thoroughly pointless exercise, since now he’s got him, Skeletor doesn’t seem remotely interested in asking him any questions about the secrets of Castle Grayskull. I must, however, wonder why he didn’t ask the Toymaker to capture He-Man in the first place, given that – if capturing He-Man is his long-term object – it’s not going to matter in the long run whether he gets Man-at-Arms first or not.
Anyway, He-Man and co are having fun in the Valley of Echoes, all getting confused by various voices coming at them. He-Man is confronted by a large Skeletor who proclaims that, “Eternia is doomed, doomed, doomed!” to which He-Man responds, “Nooooo!” I don’t usually comment on the voice acting of the main characters in He-Man – they’re generally actually done rather well – but this piece of dialogue was really poorly done. Fortunately, Orko magics up some earmuffs, and the group get through the Valley without further incident. They are then confronted by the toys …
The bear and soldier are dealt with by He-Man, who creates a trap using a rope and a tree (the tree is used because “it’s flexible enough to use without damaging it”, which is very environmentally friendly, a far cry from the beginning of the episode, when He-Man was willing to stand around in Adam’s guise and let Man-at-Arms melt a hill). The diplodocus, however, proves slightly trickier, but Orko figures out that the Toymaker’s magic must be less strong than his own, because his magic is for the forces of good. This is very dubious logic, but anyway, it seems to work, and Orko manages to work out how to control the toys.
The next scene amused me no end. It was one of those true classic He-Man moments. In Snake Mountain, Skeletor is pacing about again, still spouting off to Man-at-Arms about how he’s going to rule Eternia. The toys then enter, and Skeletor laughs triumphantly. Then he notices that the toys do not actually have He-Man with them, and says, innocently, “Where’s He-Man?” This is He-Man’s cue to knock down the adjacent wall and announce, “Here I am, Skeletor!” Skeletor, presumably rather pissed off at this turn of events, orders Beast-Man and Trapjaw, “Get him!” They actually make moves to do so, but are intercepted by the diplodocus, which sits on them. They call out to Skeletor for help, but he says, “Actually, I’m more interested in saving myself!” (I’m not sure, actually, he might say, “I’m more interested in saving my own skin!”, which would be interesting, given that he doesn’t have skin) and then disappears. Sheer genius! He-Man then states, regarding the Toymaker, Beast-Man and Trapjaw, “I’m sure the authorities would like a word with you.” This is puzzling. Okay, I’d be willing to bet the Toymaker never appears again, so maybe King Randor puts him in jail, but Beast-Man and Trapjaw? I’m sure they must have been in another episode after this one. So presumably the authorities had a word with them and then let them go again, which strikes me as, well, frankly stupid.
The moral segment is noteworthy only for one thing. King Randor explains that you shouldn’t take presents from strangers, and should always tell your parents if this happens. All well and good. Then Orko pops up and adds that you shouldn’t keep secrets from He-Man. Fair enough. If He-Man ever asks me anything, I’ll give him a straight answer. Then Randor says, “That’s right, Orko, you shouldn’t keep secrets from your friends. Till next time!” The problem is, he says this so quickly that there is very little punctuation, thus leaving us with the impression that he actually says, “That’s right, Orko, you shouldn’t keep secrets from your friends till next time!” thus implying that after you watch another He-Man episode, you’ll be free to keep secrets from your friends again.
Anyway, I’m bored now, and there’s not much more to say, other than to ask what the hell the point in the Amazing Melting Machine was.