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They always talk about that guy
that went into a bar
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and kicked everybody's ass.
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That's what they talk about.
"You should have seen this huge...
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You know, he had scars," and they'd go on.
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And I wanted that hero
mixed with the Galahad legend.
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But you have a hero
who has an intellect, a He-Man.
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You also have an alter ego for the hero,
who is Adam.
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Prince Adam raises the sword
and the planet shakes,
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sends all this energy up,
transforms him into He-Man.
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Without the sword,
he cannot achieve the power.
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The sword is a bridge.
It's like the Force.
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When He-Man says,
"I have the power,"
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it's saying to the kids, "You don't have
to do what you're told anymore.
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You can be your own person."
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The idea of being transformed
into your own inner true self
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is very attractive.
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We were in the business
of making things out of plastic, man,
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and all of the sudden, all the stuff
that we created became live.
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Well, let me take you back.
Let's go in the way-back machine.
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The way-back machine
starts in 1975, when...
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the world of male action figures changed.
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The Six Million Dollar Man was introduced.
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'Cause prior to that,
things like G.I. Joe and Big Jim
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were the sort of norm.
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Historically, male action figures
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only were licensed, only.
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They were either a license
from a cartoon or a film.
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Mattel had a number of really key brands
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and Barbie and Hot Wheels
were two of the best.
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But it was very product-oriented
rather than, say, brand-oriented.
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The marketing people would say,
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"We need these kinds of products,"
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and then we'd invent them.
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They'd say, "Yes, no, yes, no."
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You couldn't scratch your butt there
without a research project.
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Mattel would get a license
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and then try it,
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and then the film would open
and close in March.
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Then in December, they're sitting
there with a bunch of inventory.
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Up to that point,
there really had never been
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a successful movie that had become a toy.
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Someone at Mattel bought
the license for Clash of the Titans
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and so I started talking
with the movie people
44
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and getting all the art I could
and stuff, and...
45
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I got the product out there
three or four weeks before the movie.
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It was selling like crazy,
till the movie came out.
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The myths.
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The magic.
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The mystery.
50
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Who's buying these licenses?
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Who's deciding to buy
Clash of the Titans and Flash Gordon?
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Who's doing this?
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For Clash of the Titans,
we'd spend $500,000 for the license,
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$500,000 for the tooling
and getting it all together,
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a million dollars in inventory.
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Then you're sitting there going,
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"Now what?"
'Cause it opened and closed in March.
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We get a call from Lucas, they've
got this thing they wanted to show us.
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So the president says,
"When could you have product?"
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"We could get it tooled up and everything.
We could probably get product by March."
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The kids are gonna want this
for Christmas, right?
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What's the point?
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He says, "Pass."
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Bernie Loomis, who was at Kenner,
says, "Screw that,"
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and he ended up doing the figures
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with a piece of paper inside
that says, "We owe you a figure."
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I mean, talk about balls.
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Five-year-olds, what did you
get for Christmas? "A coupon."
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Now Ray is really upset
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'cause he's seen what happened
and we missed the opportunity.
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So we say, "What can we do?
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We can do, uh, cowboys and Indians.
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Let's do Westerns, is that popular?"
74
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Star Wars had already come out,
so that was space.
75
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Military was tried and true.
76
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I'd done a lot of reading in sci-fi
so I was a Frank Frazetta fan.
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The third one out was Barbarian.
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Space, army, and Barbarian.
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Then along comes Conan,
they said, "Hey, we got a movie."
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They wanted to sell us the license.
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My boss, a very nice guy,
Shel Platt,
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he said, "Can you do some stuff,
like Conan stuff?" I said, "Sure."
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We took the license
and we presented it to the trade.
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We modeled it, we made all the samples.
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We did all the packaging.
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Went through the expense work.
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Then Mattel, to their horror,
found that Conan
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was gonna be an R-rated film
with nudity and violence and stuff.
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And they're like, "We can't do
a toy line based on that."
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They came back
and claimed that we
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just took the license to bury it.
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And we didn't. We presented it.
I presented it myself.
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I presented it to Toys 'R' Us, to Walmart.
I presented it to every account.
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We also presented He-Man at the same time.
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Mark would sit in his office
and just sketch.
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He was really into comic books.
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One of the marketing people
was passing his office.
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He had done this thing.
It was the Torak, the original drawing.
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And this guy passed by
and said, "What's that?"
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He said, "Just something
I'm messing with."
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He said, "Let me present it."
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Then Roger
and the other prelim guys, they came around and they wanted
to show it to Ray Wagner.
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Roger Sweet
was a big part of this.
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He said, "All these male action figures
that Kenner was doing,
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and Big Jim for that matter,
they're all so wimpy"; he said,
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"Why don't we do a massive figure?"
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So he went to the product conference
with this figure,
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and they presented it to Ray.
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And Roger Sweet comes out
with three sculptures about so big.
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I think he took a Big Jim
and he used clay to buff it up.
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I think he had a tank
that was like a hat, with a gun.
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And another guy,
his whole head looked like a bullet.
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And the third guy had a face
and a bearskin cape.
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And he called this one Tank Head,
and he called this one Bullet Head,
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and he called this one He-Man.
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And we said, "He-Man."
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Here's the man, here's the hero.
Here's the template.
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You notice his feet are not straight ahead
like action figures were at that time.
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He has his weapon,
he's ready to whack you one.
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And this is more a comic book,
but done in 3-D.
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That's what's important about He-Man.
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That's how we took a nip
out of Kenner's business,
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'cause Kenner was killing us.
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And how we did it was by bringing
this kind of action to the figure.
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If you have a good guy, you measure
the good guy by the bad guy.
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And this is, this is Skeletor.
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I said, "He-Man's the hero,
he's the good guy, so he's He Man."
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So I said,
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"Well, we'll have other 'mans'."
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Sea-Man.
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Which we had to change.
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We had Man-At-Arms. Man on the front side.
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And the bad guys, I had D-Man, like demon.
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Became Skeletor later on.
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The girl that we had, we called it Wo-Man,
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and it became Teela.
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All the first names I came up with
were really dorky.
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Like Wo-Man? Come on.
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But I...
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It was keeping with my man theme.
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And also there was female members
of our brand group,
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and they would come in and say, "No."
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And once we got comic-book writers
working on it, they came up
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with better names; they're the ones
that came up with Mer-Man.
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I'm like, "Oh, Mer-man, thank you.
That's genius."
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Because I couldn't stick
with Sea-Man for long.
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Mark was very energized
about creating a new scale of product.
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Most of the figures were like this.
Now we have a much bulkier figure.
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But that's getting a visual shelf presence
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and a signature that you can stick to.
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Something that was just
a little more maneuverable
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with moving arms and legs
so they could strike power positions,
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and, you know, over-the-top muscles,
and nobody had done that yet.
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And, of course, we were all influenced
by Conan and Frank Frazetta
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and, you know, that whole genre.
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They never did a figure in 3-D
that would be correct proportions.
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They would try to do the figure
so they could take pieces of it
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and turn it into tooling directly
and not have to resculpt it.
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So Tony came up with the idea, he said,
"I'll sculpt the whole thing,
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one-to-one, as it should look,
with no articulation.
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And let's look at what that looks like
and put it next to the vehicles
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and when you do the castle,
put it next to the castle."
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In effect, he was talking about doing
a really nice 3-D study.
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By doing those, we could test them
at Child Test when they looked good.
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And that's where we saw
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little kids going, "You do this
because I tell you to do it!"
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You know, exactly the words
their mother would say.
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So, they wanted the power.
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So that's where the power theme came up.
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They want the power to do
whatever they want to do,
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without being told...
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by mom or dad or someone else.
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So we just said, "I have the power."
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When they took the figures out,
these kids went bats, they went crazy.
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"Oh, look, look, look!"
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I didn't realize what was going on.
These kids went nuts.
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And then the kids start trying
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to steal He-Man and Skeletor
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and Teela.
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Because Teela was sculpted like
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she was really a babe.
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Tony got carried away.
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And the little boys liked that.
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00:12:18,821 --> 00:12:22,158
Then, especially in dolls,
it's the...
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little stuff, you know.
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The little stuff actually gives
a lot of play value.
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So if you look at every one of the male
action figure lines we did in He-Man,
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they all have swords and axes
and stuff like that.
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We picked this up from
the girls' Barbie and all that stuff
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in terms of the value, so there's always
a little packet in the He-Man thing.
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Then I came up with
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a couple vehicles, which they were
good enough to let Ted help me,
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and Ted is a real industrial designer.
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He can work out the engineering
and everything as he goes.
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I was originally trained
before design school as an engineer,
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and in technical illustration.
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I'd do a sketch like this,
I'd discuss it with Mark,
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00:13:03,365 --> 00:13:07,036
and you see, he'd say,
"You know, like we need a cannon,"
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so I'd add the cannon here.
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And then it would evolve...
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00:13:11,832 --> 00:13:16,587
And you'll see here, this was
the final sketch that was presented.
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00:13:17,296 --> 00:13:20,257
This was one of the prelim things
of the Wind Raider,
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a different design.
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It was Mark's idea to have this futuristic
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00:13:25,054 --> 00:13:29,975
and yet something from yesteryear
that had technicality.
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00:13:30,059 --> 00:13:33,187
You know, with all the details
and mechanical things happening.
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00:13:34,855 --> 00:13:37,191
Oh, wait a minute,
we don't have a storyline,
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00:13:37,274 --> 00:13:40,528
we don't have a film,
so we need a diorama.
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00:13:40,611 --> 00:13:44,448
We need a setting,
so bango, it's Castle Grayskull.
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00:13:44,532 --> 00:13:45,741
Well, Castle Grayskull,
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00:13:45,824 --> 00:13:49,912
my favorite toy growing up was
the Guns of Navarone play set,
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00:13:49,995 --> 00:13:54,124
which was sort a half shell of a mountain
and had layers in the inside.
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00:13:54,208 --> 00:13:57,378
And I'm going, "Do Guns of Navarone
play set," you know?
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00:13:57,461 --> 00:13:59,672
I'd drawn
the castle from the beginning,
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'cause when you do the world,
you gotta show where his fort is.
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00:14:02,967 --> 00:14:06,595
So I gave it to a sculptor,
and it was like an architect did it.
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It was all straight.
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00:14:08,264 --> 00:14:11,100
I wanted it to be organic,
like it was coming to life.
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00:14:11,183 --> 00:14:14,979
And so they tried another sculptor,
then they tried another one,
220
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and about that time, I said,
"Forget it, just forget it,"
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00:14:17,982 --> 00:14:19,817
and I went back and took some clay
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00:14:19,900 --> 00:14:22,111
and sculpted Castle Grayskull myself.
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00:14:26,866 --> 00:14:29,785
And Mark Ellis comes in
and says, "This won't work."
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I said, "Why not?"
225
00:14:31,203 --> 00:14:34,707
He forgot how tall the action figures were
and the door on the Grayskull
226
00:14:34,790 --> 00:14:37,543
was like an inch shorter than He-Man;
said yeah,
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00:14:37,626 --> 00:14:39,295
"Mark, you gotta resculpt the door.
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00:14:39,378 --> 00:14:41,964
It needs to be big enough
to let He-Man go in."
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00:14:42,047 --> 00:14:44,967
And then other than that, he did it.
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00:14:45,050 --> 00:14:50,514
And Glenn Hastings, by the way, said,
"That's $20, $20 at retail.
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00:14:51,307 --> 00:14:52,474
No one's gonna buy that."
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00:14:53,642 --> 00:14:55,603
We couldn't do a bunch of blocks.
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00:14:55,686 --> 00:14:59,481
We had to make that part of the mold,
so we wanted the overspray
234
00:14:59,565 --> 00:15:02,902
to not only emphasize the drawbridge,
but to show that it was textured
235
00:15:02,985 --> 00:15:04,153
all the way.
236
00:15:04,236 --> 00:15:06,572
Manufacturing did everything
with paint mask.
237
00:15:06,655 --> 00:15:09,408
All the painting had to be the same,
and I went to the factory
238
00:15:09,491 --> 00:15:10,618
because that was my background.
239
00:15:10,701 --> 00:15:14,246
I said, "No, no, no, no, no.
Just give me a spray can."
240
00:15:14,330 --> 00:15:19,710
I said, it's like the guys painting
the fence outside with graffiti.
241
00:15:19,793 --> 00:15:22,087
Just line it up and go... spray up.
242
00:15:22,171 --> 00:15:25,466
And they said... Then I did
a different one, I went like this.
243
00:15:25,549 --> 00:15:27,343
Then I did one that went like this.
244
00:15:27,426 --> 00:15:29,637
I said, "Do Zorro if you want,
I don't care."
245
00:15:29,720 --> 00:15:31,680
And so every castle was different.
246
00:15:31,764 --> 00:15:35,392
They wouldn't let me do an interior 'cause
they didn't want the price to go up.
247
00:15:35,476 --> 00:15:38,729
So Rebecca did the labels
that glue on the interior.
248
00:15:38,812 --> 00:15:41,815
I did the artwork,
she turned them into labels,
249
00:15:41,899 --> 00:15:45,194
and that became the interior
of the castle. We have a character here,
the main character is He-Man.
250
00:15:51,617 --> 00:15:55,454
And this is way more Skeletor
than it is He-Man.
251
00:15:56,246 --> 00:16:00,751
Well, why don't we make it so it belongs
to whoever has the power of Grayskull?
252
00:16:00,834 --> 00:16:04,046
And that's where I think
the divided sword,
253
00:16:04,129 --> 00:16:06,840
and when you've got the two pieces,
you own the castle.
254
00:16:06,924 --> 00:16:09,760
It doesn't belong to Skeletor
and it doesn't belong to He-Man.
255
00:16:10,803 --> 00:16:14,431
We did it so the bad guy
had half and the good guy had half
256
00:16:14,515 --> 00:16:16,517
and you try to get them both together,
257
00:16:16,600 --> 00:16:19,728
and together you could open
the door on Castle Grayskull.
258
00:16:20,938 --> 00:16:23,774
It's the seat of power, OK?
259
00:16:23,857 --> 00:16:26,944
And you don't know if it's
a good place or a bad place.
260
00:16:27,027 --> 00:16:29,238
And it's kind of always in the background.
261
00:16:29,321 --> 00:16:32,533
It has that light side/dark side,
and that appeals to little boys.
262
00:16:32,616 --> 00:16:34,576
It's just one of those things, you know.
263
00:16:34,660 --> 00:16:37,454
They're looking to...
gotta be a little dangerous.
264
00:16:38,414 --> 00:16:42,084
He-Man sculpture was gonna
be the basic sculpture for every body.
265
00:16:42,167 --> 00:16:43,460
Except for Ram Man.
266
00:16:43,544 --> 00:16:45,754
Ram Man was a big, heavyset guy.
267
00:16:45,838 --> 00:16:49,091
Even the evil characters use
the same legs, the same arms,
268
00:16:49,174 --> 00:16:50,718
the same torso.
269
00:16:50,801 --> 00:16:52,928
We ran out of tooling dollars
270
00:16:53,012 --> 00:16:55,431
easily as we were developing this thing.
271
00:16:55,514 --> 00:16:59,351
So we're saying, "We need another vehicle
but we gotta find something for nothing."
272
00:16:59,977 --> 00:17:05,858
This cat was part of the Big Jim line.
273
00:17:05,941 --> 00:17:10,154
And all we did was paint it green
and then put the hood on it.
274
00:17:10,237 --> 00:17:11,947
So the tooling was this.
275
00:17:13,073 --> 00:17:15,367
They had the little
5½-inch He-Man guy
276
00:17:15,451 --> 00:17:18,245
all in wax sitting there,
and they put the tiger down.
277
00:17:18,328 --> 00:17:19,747
They said, "It's out of scale."
278
00:17:19,830 --> 00:17:23,459
I said, "I don't care if you paint it
green and give it orange stripes,
279
00:17:23,542 --> 00:17:25,335
we're gonna have the tiger 'cause
280
00:17:25,419 --> 00:17:27,337
it saved us a whole tooling bill."
281
00:17:27,421 --> 00:17:29,965
So they painted it green
and gave it orange stripes.
282
00:17:30,049 --> 00:17:31,592
They come back, "See?
283
00:17:31,675 --> 00:17:35,971
See?" I said, "Wow, that looks great."
And they go, "Oh, no."
284
00:17:36,722 --> 00:17:38,807
They said, "Well, it still won't work.
285
00:17:38,891 --> 00:17:42,269
It's as big as a horse, Paul, compared...
Look at He-Man."
286
00:17:42,352 --> 00:17:43,479
Put a saddle on it.
287
00:17:43,562 --> 00:17:46,982
And that's how we came up with
the Battle Cat that He-Man would ride.
288
00:17:47,066 --> 00:17:50,235
And it's not as romantic
as people would like it to be,
289
00:17:50,819 --> 00:17:53,238
but sometimes you back into these things.
290
00:17:58,118 --> 00:18:03,916
Beautiful fantasy and monsters
and dragons all mixed together.
291
00:18:03,999 --> 00:18:05,584
And... it's just great.
292
00:18:05,667 --> 00:18:09,922
For a little boy, when you are five or six
years old and you find this character
293
00:18:10,005 --> 00:18:14,593
with all, you know, in this world,
where imagination is beyond dream,
294
00:18:14,676 --> 00:18:16,011
it's just amazing.
295
00:18:18,847 --> 00:18:22,601
Back then, the way packaging worked is
we would create the names of the brands.
296
00:18:23,185 --> 00:18:26,230
the names of the toys,
the graphics that went with it,
297
00:18:26,313 --> 00:18:27,439
all the packaging.
298
00:18:27,523 --> 00:18:31,235
Everything about the retail presentation
would come out of the packaging group.
299
00:18:32,653 --> 00:18:35,989
I had designed a logo called
"The Lords of Power" first.
300
00:18:36,698 --> 00:18:39,993
And that was a name
that they seemed to favor.
301
00:18:40,077 --> 00:18:44,748
Our president, Glenn Hastings,
said, "No, you're not doing Power Lords."
302
00:18:45,332 --> 00:18:48,043
He thought that had
a religious connotation.
303
00:18:48,127 --> 00:18:53,340
Some executive high up said,
"Let's call it 'Masters of the Universe.'"
304
00:18:53,423 --> 00:18:57,219
And I said, "Let's go right
to the heart of this thing.
305
00:18:57,302 --> 00:19:00,639
There's a guy who paints
exactly like this line looks."
306
00:19:00,722 --> 00:19:02,933
Because Frank Frazetta was, at that time,
307
00:19:03,016 --> 00:19:05,477
kind of a new thing, and there were
posters all over.
308
00:19:05,561 --> 00:19:08,856
It'd probably be something
that's glazes and oil
309
00:19:08,939 --> 00:19:13,152
so it has this kind of luminescence,
do great things with light.
310
00:19:13,235 --> 00:19:15,070
And Rudy Obrebro came in.
311
00:19:15,154 --> 00:19:19,449
So he said, "Hey, I got this project.
Can you paint like Frazetta?"
312
00:19:19,533 --> 00:19:22,494
And I go, "Man, I can paint like anybody." I said, "Let's give it a try.
Do one as fast as you can."
313
00:19:25,622 --> 00:19:28,208
And he went and did a Battle Cat.
314
00:19:28,292 --> 00:19:32,171
I felt like I shouldn't
rip off Frazetta completely,
315
00:19:32,254 --> 00:19:35,883
'cause, you know, sheesh, man.
I don't wanna insult the man.
316
00:19:35,966 --> 00:19:38,177
I'm not that good.
317
00:19:38,260 --> 00:19:41,638
I mean, he just had such an emotional cue
318
00:19:42,264 --> 00:19:44,725
in his work, and we were
trying to get that, too.
319
00:19:44,808 --> 00:19:49,771
Not just big muscles and fur
and all that stuff, Barbarian stuff.
320
00:19:49,855 --> 00:19:54,484
It was the emotion
of the light in his paint.
321
00:19:54,568 --> 00:19:59,114
I remember I was five years old.
We were walking to a toy store.
322
00:19:59,907 --> 00:20:03,202
And on the top shelf,
there was the Castle Grayskull box.
323
00:20:03,285 --> 00:20:05,621
You're transported into this world,
324
00:20:05,704 --> 00:20:08,457
just by looking, the art is amazing.
325
00:20:08,540 --> 00:20:10,292
It's really capturing your attention.
326
00:20:10,375 --> 00:20:14,922
You just look at the box and you already
have a scenario to play with your figures.
327
00:20:15,005 --> 00:20:17,925
The development of the advertising
was going to be the key,
328
00:20:18,008 --> 00:20:22,012
because we didn't have a television show,
weren't even thinking about it.
329
00:20:22,095 --> 00:20:26,433
And I wanted to do a slice of life.
330
00:20:29,770 --> 00:20:31,605
Who's the big guy with the muscles?
331
00:20:31,688 --> 00:20:35,150
He's He-Man, the most powerful man
in the universe!
332
00:20:35,234 --> 00:20:36,860
Skeletor is his enemy!
333
00:20:38,737 --> 00:20:41,073
He-man, Skeletor
and Castle Grayskull.
334
00:20:41,156 --> 00:20:42,574
You have to put the castle together.
335
00:20:42,658 --> 00:20:44,451
You're doomed, He-Man.
336
00:20:44,534 --> 00:20:47,120
Oh, yeah? Watch this action, Dad!
337
00:20:50,332 --> 00:20:52,125
He-Man and Skeletor
sold separately.
338
00:20:52,209 --> 00:20:53,627
Castle Grayskull sold separately,
339
00:20:53,710 --> 00:20:56,213
from the Masters of the Universe
collection from Mattel.
340
00:20:57,047 --> 00:21:01,843
And we brought the major retailers
into Hawthorne
341
00:21:01,927 --> 00:21:03,553
and showed them the line.
342
00:21:03,637 --> 00:21:06,181
I remember it
being in a brand review
343
00:21:06,265 --> 00:21:08,308
or a sales meeting or something.
344
00:21:08,392 --> 00:21:10,602
Somebody said, "How are you
gonna tell the story?"
345
00:21:10,686 --> 00:21:14,940
So he said, "Well, what program
have you developed
346
00:21:15,524 --> 00:21:18,485
that's a tie-in with somebody else,
another company,
347
00:21:18,568 --> 00:21:20,570
that I know is gonna happen,
348
00:21:20,654 --> 00:21:23,949
that isn't just your advertising,
which I know you cut back on?
349
00:21:24,032 --> 00:21:27,494
-So what do you got?"
-And Mark spouts out,
350
00:21:27,577 --> 00:21:29,288
he says, "Oh, didn't we tell ya?
351
00:21:29,371 --> 00:21:32,165
We're gonna put a mini comic book
in with every toy."
352
00:21:41,842 --> 00:21:45,178
We had these original four
minicomics that came with the toys,
353
00:21:45,262 --> 00:21:46,805
that were written
354
00:21:46,888 --> 00:21:50,142
by Don Glut and drawn by Alfredo Alcala.
355
00:21:50,851 --> 00:21:53,937
And they're beautiful, but you could tell
when you look at them
356
00:21:54,021 --> 00:21:56,815
that the world had not been defined.
357
00:21:56,898 --> 00:22:02,195
It was very Barbarian,
it was very crude and dark.
358
00:22:02,279 --> 00:22:04,406
A lot of people say Frank Frazetta-esque.
359
00:22:04,489 --> 00:22:08,368
Up until then, I'd written the backstory,
and He-Man came out of the jungle,
360
00:22:08,452 --> 00:22:09,453
like Jungle Book.
361
00:22:09,536 --> 00:22:12,539
He was a little boy raised
in the jungle by apes.
362
00:22:12,622 --> 00:22:17,252
And they changed it to be more fantasy,
Eternia and stuff, which was way better.
363
00:22:18,253 --> 00:22:21,173
You can tell after that, they were
starting to create a voice,
364
00:22:21,256 --> 00:22:24,885
like define the world more,
get these character interactions down,
365
00:22:24,968 --> 00:22:27,888
rather than just "bad guy/good guy,
smash 'em up" kind of thing.
366
00:22:27,971 --> 00:22:30,557
Other writers in the minicomics
brought more stuff
367
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:33,351
and the tighter minicomics
that came out in '86, '87,
368
00:22:33,435 --> 00:22:35,937
that Tim Kilpin worked on
and Bruce Timm drew
369
00:22:36,021 --> 00:22:38,231
and Stan Sakai did lettered.
370
00:22:38,315 --> 00:22:40,901
These amazing talents
working on these minicomics.
371
00:22:41,943 --> 00:22:45,030
And so you had DC took over
producing the comics.
372
00:22:45,614 --> 00:22:49,034
I said, "I wanna buy ten pages
of advertising, full rate card."
373
00:22:49,117 --> 00:22:51,912
Well, nobody's done that
in the history of mankind.
374
00:22:51,995 --> 00:22:57,000
I said, "Oh, small little catch,
you need to develop a line on my figure."
375
00:22:57,084 --> 00:23:00,879
And so we ended up doing the deal
for a miniline,
376
00:23:00,962 --> 00:23:03,590
which came on in DC 47,
377
00:23:03,673 --> 00:23:05,509
and that was Superman versus He-Man.
378
00:23:08,178 --> 00:23:11,473
So what they did was they produced
a three-issue mini-series,
379
00:23:11,556 --> 00:23:15,018
a full-size, regular,
modern comic-size issues.
380
00:23:15,102 --> 00:23:19,481
And at the same time, they were producing
a series of minicomics
381
00:23:19,564 --> 00:23:22,359
that also had gone on to define
the world a little more.
382
00:23:22,442 --> 00:23:26,238
You know, you had the tale of Teela
and the "Power of Point Dread!"
383
00:23:26,321 --> 00:23:31,535
Now, the King and Queen in He-Man
was more well-spoken and articulate
384
00:23:31,618 --> 00:23:34,496
and you knew who the characters were
and what they did.
385
00:23:34,579 --> 00:23:39,126
And in the DC miniseries in particular,
that's when we really saw Prince Adam
386
00:23:39,209 --> 00:23:41,044
starting to come out and be defined.
387
00:23:41,128 --> 00:23:45,590
When I found out that they were gonna
have mini comic books behind the toys,
388
00:23:45,674 --> 00:23:46,591
it's like, oh, OK.
389
00:23:46,675 --> 00:23:49,845
I had to approach it differently
than working on regular comic books.
390
00:23:49,928 --> 00:23:52,347
I knew there are certain ways
you can tell a story,
391
00:23:52,430 --> 00:23:54,349
even if the book is about this big.
392
00:23:54,432 --> 00:23:57,185
Actually, you know, about this big.
393
00:23:57,269 --> 00:24:01,606
I just decided that I wanted to try
and expand the world of He-Man
394
00:24:01,690 --> 00:24:05,193
so people and the kids could see
that it was like
395
00:24:05,277 --> 00:24:10,157
an inclusive of all different races,
and so different people buying the toys
396
00:24:10,240 --> 00:24:12,784
could see themselves in the books.
397
00:24:12,868 --> 00:24:16,163
I got my first Masters toys
on my fourth birthday
398
00:24:16,246 --> 00:24:18,832
and it was just love at first sight.
399
00:24:18,915 --> 00:24:21,293
They were full of muscles,
they were colorful,
400
00:24:21,376 --> 00:24:24,796
and you instantly knew who the bad guy
was and who the good guy was.
401
00:24:24,880 --> 00:24:27,924
Like Star Wars, Darth Vader,
you know that's the bad guy.
402
00:24:31,219 --> 00:24:35,140
We've got an army of goodies and
baddies 'cause we wanna make more toys.
403
00:24:35,223 --> 00:24:37,559
That's where that comes up,
and you build on these
404
00:24:37,642 --> 00:24:40,770
and it becomes more colorful
and a kid becomes more invested in it.
405
00:24:40,854 --> 00:24:45,066
"I must buy that," and the adventures
become bigger and bigger until...
406
00:24:55,785 --> 00:24:58,997
My dad is the cornerstone
of Saturday morning cartoons.
407
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:00,957
He and Fred Silverman got them started
408
00:25:01,041 --> 00:25:03,919
in 1965, with the first program
409
00:25:04,002 --> 00:25:06,630
that was ever specifically bought
for Saturday morning,
410
00:25:06,713 --> 00:25:08,215
which was Superman,
411
00:25:08,298 --> 00:25:11,509
and it sort of changed the whole
dynamics of Saturday morning.
412
00:25:11,593 --> 00:25:14,095
In the sixties,
there was a regulation passed
413
00:25:16,765 --> 00:25:18,600
regulating children's advertising.
414
00:25:18,683 --> 00:25:21,603
They had a show called
Linus the Lionhearted.
415
00:25:21,686 --> 00:25:24,314
And then Linus was on boxes of Alpha-Bits.
416
00:25:24,397 --> 00:25:28,360
I get my strength from
new Post Heart of Oats.
417
00:25:28,443 --> 00:25:31,196
Reagan and the Supreme Court
handed over a reversal of decision
418
00:25:31,279 --> 00:25:35,283
in like '81; before that, a toy company
could not make a half-an-hour...
419
00:25:35,367 --> 00:25:37,619
what was essentially
a commercial for their toys,
420
00:25:37,702 --> 00:25:40,580
'cause it was considered a commercial,
and that changed in 1981.
421
00:25:40,664 --> 00:25:43,124
This all came about
roughly three years ago
422
00:25:43,208 --> 00:25:45,585
when the Federal Communications
Commission reversed itself
423
00:25:45,669 --> 00:25:48,838
on some policy guidelines
in children's programming.
424
00:25:48,922 --> 00:25:51,841
It said, in effect, the marketplace,
not the federal government, can best determine what is suitable
for youngsters to watch.
425
00:25:54,928 --> 00:25:58,181
In late 1982, Mattel approached
Filmation and said,
426
00:25:58,265 --> 00:26:01,351
"We've got this Castle Grayskull
that we'd like to advertise,"
427
00:26:01,434 --> 00:26:04,562
so Filmation are like,
"We'll animate this commercial for you."
428
00:26:04,646 --> 00:26:08,191
This toy comes with something that can
really open up a kid's imagination.
429
00:26:08,275 --> 00:26:09,901
Its own legend.
430
00:26:09,985 --> 00:26:12,529
- He-Man!
- Skeletor is his enemy!
431
00:26:12,612 --> 00:26:15,282
It's the Masters of the Universe
collection.
432
00:26:15,365 --> 00:26:17,951
And for my kids, the legend begins here,
433
00:26:18,034 --> 00:26:19,661
with Castle Grayskull.
434
00:26:20,412 --> 00:26:22,914
Gwen Wetzler, director
of the Flash Gordon cartoon,
435
00:26:22,998 --> 00:26:26,418
would later direct He-Man and She-Ra,
set up a team of ex-Disney animators.
436
00:26:26,501 --> 00:26:29,170
They sat down, they had
the action figures: He-Man,
437
00:26:29,254 --> 00:26:33,466
Beast Man, Man-At-Arms, Skeletor, Teela,
Mer-Man and Castle Grayskull.
438
00:26:33,550 --> 00:26:36,594
Maybe just probably knowing
just photos of the characters.
439
00:26:36,678 --> 00:26:40,557
I produced and directed the promo
that sold the series.
440
00:26:40,640 --> 00:26:43,143
And we did full animation.
441
00:26:43,226 --> 00:26:45,937
We had like two weeks to do it.
We were just flying.
442
00:26:46,021 --> 00:26:47,147
And it sold the show.
443
00:26:48,982 --> 00:26:52,736
Defeat He-Man's forces,
but leave him to me!
444
00:26:53,194 --> 00:26:55,030
Here I am, Skeletor!
445
00:26:56,948 --> 00:26:58,199
He-Man!
446
00:27:00,327 --> 00:27:02,078
Skeletor is getting away!
447
00:27:02,162 --> 00:27:04,497
But Castle Grayskull is safe with us!
448
00:27:04,581 --> 00:27:07,334
Nothing's safe
while Skeletor is out there.
449
00:27:09,085 --> 00:27:10,670
And so the legend continues
450
00:27:10,754 --> 00:27:13,006
in this Masters of the Universe
collection.
451
00:27:13,089 --> 00:27:15,300
And in the imagination of my kids.
452
00:27:15,383 --> 00:27:16,968
Look for it, it's new.
453
00:27:17,052 --> 00:27:18,219
From Mattel.
454
00:27:20,388 --> 00:27:24,309
And then my dad's like, "Wait a minute,
this could be a great show!"
455
00:27:24,392 --> 00:27:27,354
He was a major Conan Barbarian fan.
456
00:27:27,437 --> 00:27:30,231
- "We could do something with this!"
- I remember
457
00:27:30,315 --> 00:27:35,070
I was working on these different ideas
to kind of get something going there.
458
00:27:35,153 --> 00:27:39,032
Then I remember somebody
came into the office, he puts in a box,
459
00:27:39,115 --> 00:27:40,575
about like that, comes in.
460
00:27:40,658 --> 00:27:43,203
It was full of action figures
and vehicles from Mattel.
461
00:27:43,286 --> 00:27:45,580
He goes, "This is the next show
we're gonna do."
462
00:27:46,414 --> 00:27:49,918
My first week, I turned
to the storyboard artist next to me,
463
00:27:50,001 --> 00:27:53,380
a guy named Don Manuel, and I said,
"Don, the name of this show
464
00:27:53,463 --> 00:27:54,881
isn't really He-Man, right?
465
00:27:54,964 --> 00:27:56,341
That's like a temp title.
466
00:27:56,424 --> 00:28:00,178
The real name's gonna be
like Radnar or Karnak
467
00:28:00,261 --> 00:28:02,097
or Thorok!"
468
00:28:02,180 --> 00:28:04,265
And he goes, "No, it's really He-Man."
469
00:28:04,933 --> 00:28:07,811
When you first heard the name,
it was so macho
470
00:28:07,894 --> 00:28:09,521
and so male chauvinistic,
471
00:28:09,604 --> 00:28:12,732
said, "No, you could never,
that'll never work 'cause it's awful.
472
00:28:12,816 --> 00:28:14,776
Every little girl
is gonna turn that down."
473
00:28:14,859 --> 00:28:18,238
Because it was a syndicated show,
he said, "You know what?
474
00:28:18,321 --> 00:28:21,866
We need this to work for five days a week,
Monday through Friday.
475
00:28:21,950 --> 00:28:23,535
Kids coming home from school.
476
00:28:23,618 --> 00:28:26,663
There's got to be at least
13 original weeks.
477
00:28:27,247 --> 00:28:31,376
And that adds up to 65 half-hours.
478
00:28:31,459 --> 00:28:34,504
And that adds up to working year-round
479
00:28:34,587 --> 00:28:37,340
for all the animators
and all the people at Filmation."
480
00:28:43,930 --> 00:28:46,683
And the Masters of the Universe!
481
00:28:48,518 --> 00:28:50,478
I am Adam, Prince of Eternia
482
00:28:50,562 --> 00:28:53,732
and defender of the secrets
of Castle Grayskull.
483
00:28:53,815 --> 00:28:57,110
This is Cringer, my fearless friend.
484
00:28:57,610 --> 00:29:00,488
Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword
and said...
485
00:29:03,533 --> 00:29:06,536
By the power of Grayskull!
486
00:29:09,038 --> 00:29:12,709
I have the power!
487
00:29:23,887 --> 00:29:27,307
They had come out with a series
of minicomics,
488
00:29:27,390 --> 00:29:29,726
when they began to market the toys.
489
00:29:29,809 --> 00:29:33,646
And each of the comics unfortunately
had a different storyline.
490
00:29:34,355 --> 00:29:37,150
A different way of,
how did He-Man become He-Man.
491
00:29:37,233 --> 00:29:41,237
Create a bible for a show,
it contains all the rules of the show.
492
00:29:41,321 --> 00:29:44,240
The background of the characters.
Who was whose parents?
493
00:29:44,324 --> 00:29:47,535
What their powers are,
how they're related to each other.
494
00:29:47,619 --> 00:29:50,622
It's a telephone book
containing all the characters.
495
00:29:51,247 --> 00:29:54,542
The initial idea was to write
the bible for the TV series,
496
00:29:54,626 --> 00:29:58,087
which would also be used as a bible
for marketing the toy.
497
00:29:59,255 --> 00:30:01,216
They didn't have a concept.
498
00:30:01,299 --> 00:30:04,219
They had a bunch of characters designed, guys with muscles that are gonna
come ripping out of the forest
499
00:30:07,305 --> 00:30:08,848
and wreak havoc someplace.
500
00:30:09,974 --> 00:30:13,937
I told them we would be interested in
doing it if we had total creative control.
501
00:30:14,020 --> 00:30:17,774
So I began to create a story
and create a universe around it.
502
00:30:17,857 --> 00:30:21,110
And I came up with the idea
of the planet of Eternia.
503
00:30:21,194 --> 00:30:23,738
And there has to be some kind
of an arc to the story
504
00:30:23,822 --> 00:30:26,282
and an underpinning for the story,
505
00:30:26,366 --> 00:30:28,993
so that they understand
what the subtext is,
506
00:30:29,077 --> 00:30:30,912
even if they don't quite get it,
507
00:30:30,995 --> 00:30:34,207
because that's what's
going to drive viewers.
508
00:30:35,416 --> 00:30:39,629
I figured a way to write above their
level and at their level at the same time,
509
00:30:39,712 --> 00:30:44,926
which makes the stories kind of have
some lasting shelf value.
510
00:30:45,009 --> 00:30:48,304
I watched them, the first time as a goof,
just to see what it was.
511
00:30:48,388 --> 00:30:50,181
But then I saw
512
00:30:50,265 --> 00:30:54,060
that someone had really sat down
and worked out the mythos
513
00:30:54,143 --> 00:30:56,521
and the history and where
these characters came from.
514
00:30:56,604 --> 00:31:00,066
They had the rules worked out of how
the powers worked and didn't work.
515
00:31:00,149 --> 00:31:03,278
A lot of thought had gone into it
and that to me was appealing
516
00:31:03,361 --> 00:31:06,656
because science-fiction and fantasy,
it's not whatever you want to do.
517
00:31:06,739 --> 00:31:07,949
There have to be rules.
518
00:31:08,032 --> 00:31:11,077
In animation, you break down the shots,
two shot, closeup.
519
00:31:11,160 --> 00:31:13,079
You actually direct as you write.
520
00:31:13,162 --> 00:31:16,165
Which is how people think you write
screenplays and teleplays,
521
00:31:16,249 --> 00:31:18,418
but it's only how you write animation.
522
00:31:19,502 --> 00:31:23,172
These are two of the earliest
drawings ever done of He-Man,
523
00:31:23,256 --> 00:31:26,301
when we were trying to design
the character because he was a toy.
524
00:31:27,218 --> 00:31:29,512
This is the very beginning of the series.
525
00:31:33,308 --> 00:31:36,019
The script would be written
and then the storyboard people
526
00:31:36,102 --> 00:31:39,647
would basically visualize the script
and create just like little comics.
527
00:31:39,731 --> 00:31:41,691
Then it goes to a phase called layout.
528
00:31:42,609 --> 00:31:44,277
This is how we would work.
529
00:31:44,360 --> 00:31:46,237
We draw the character in blue pencil.
530
00:31:46,321 --> 00:31:49,449
That's something we do in animation,
use blue pencil extensively.
531
00:31:49,532 --> 00:31:53,912
And I would do this in layout,
show He-Man struggling against that vine.
532
00:31:53,995 --> 00:31:55,830
Then, pop.
533
00:31:55,914 --> 00:31:57,665
See that? He bursts free.
534
00:31:57,749 --> 00:32:01,419
And you don't see anything over here
because this was a held cel.
535
00:32:02,545 --> 00:32:05,798
Then it would go to the animator
and the track had already been recorded,
536
00:32:05,882 --> 00:32:07,383
and the track was called "Red."
537
00:32:07,467 --> 00:32:10,386
When you look at old movie film,
you see a strip of cellular
538
00:32:10,470 --> 00:32:12,472
with these little button squares.
539
00:32:12,555 --> 00:32:15,058
Well, each square is one photograph.
540
00:32:15,141 --> 00:32:20,271
A sheet like this, each one of these
little lines is one of those squares.
541
00:32:20,355 --> 00:32:21,981
This much here is one second.
542
00:32:24,817 --> 00:32:30,073
And I'd just be thinking action, I'd not
be worried about all the details yet.
543
00:32:31,199 --> 00:32:34,619
The other thing, heroes never have
spaces in the teeth.
544
00:32:34,702 --> 00:32:36,871
Heroes, this is always solid.
545
00:32:36,955 --> 00:32:39,832
Villains have spaces in the teeth.
I don't know why.
546
00:32:40,416 --> 00:32:42,752
So that would be like one key frame.
547
00:32:42,835 --> 00:32:45,672
And then you would do another one.
548
00:32:45,755 --> 00:32:50,635
So, see, key frames is one and nine,
and then this is the middle.
549
00:32:50,718 --> 00:32:54,806
It's called a breakdown drawing
because it defines the arc of motion.
550
00:32:54,889 --> 00:32:57,517
So this is your middle
between these two here.
551
00:33:04,023 --> 00:33:06,484
And one of the dirty secrets
that comes out now
552
00:33:06,567 --> 00:33:10,029
but Disney would never admit to
is they did a lot of rotoscoping.
553
00:33:10,113 --> 00:33:12,699
Rotoscope was an early form
of motion capture,
554
00:33:12,782 --> 00:33:15,410
where you filmed an actor,
in black or whatever.
555
00:33:15,493 --> 00:33:18,371
They made photostats of live action frames
556
00:33:18,454 --> 00:33:20,790
and the animator would draw
the character on top,
557
00:33:20,873 --> 00:33:23,710
so it's based on the movement
of the human being.
558
00:33:24,585 --> 00:33:28,297
They got a muscle guy, a woman,
some other characters,
559
00:33:28,381 --> 00:33:29,882
and dressed them up in costumes
560
00:33:29,966 --> 00:33:32,677
and shot black-and-white footage of it
for stock scenes.
561
00:33:32,760 --> 00:33:35,346
They were like, He-Man runs in, stops,
562
00:33:35,430 --> 00:33:38,683
looks around, runs off this way,
runs off that way.
563
00:33:39,434 --> 00:33:42,729
They were action scenes
more than dialogue scenes.
564
00:33:42,812 --> 00:33:45,523
He-Man had his sword and he does this.
He goes...
565
00:33:47,650 --> 00:33:49,485
You know, like that. Um...
566
00:33:49,569 --> 00:33:51,487
Stock 16 was the laugh.
567
00:33:51,571 --> 00:33:53,156
That's the one where he goes...
568
00:33:54,615 --> 00:33:57,869
There was a wonderful old
assistant animator named Jim Logan,
569
00:33:57,952 --> 00:34:02,957
who had worked for Fleischer
and Famous Studios
570
00:34:03,041 --> 00:34:04,459
when they were doing Popeyes,
571
00:34:04,542 --> 00:34:06,335
and he could never remember the names
572
00:34:06,419 --> 00:34:09,505
of the He-Man characters,
so he made up his own names.
573
00:34:09,589 --> 00:34:12,842
So he'd go with He-Man,
and Skeletor he would call Boneman,
574
00:34:12,925 --> 00:34:15,720
and Beast Man he called Dogman
and Mer-Man was Fishman.
575
00:34:15,803 --> 00:34:18,639
So I'd talk to him about a scene
and he goes,
576
00:34:18,723 --> 00:34:23,478
"Oh, I got this scene here of Boneman,
and Boneman is talking to Fishman,
577
00:34:23,561 --> 00:34:28,733
and Fishman and Boneman
get together with Dogman, and..."
578
00:34:28,816 --> 00:34:32,195
And I said, "Jim, that's a great show.
I wanna work on that show."
579
00:34:32,278 --> 00:34:35,364
Like, we should develop that.
I like it.
580
00:34:45,792 --> 00:34:47,794
Gwen Wetzler
was a good director,
581
00:34:47,877 --> 00:34:50,755
and part of it was she had
a really good eye for cinematics,
582
00:34:50,838 --> 00:34:52,757
and she really liked what she was doing.
583
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:54,217
It wasn't just a job.
584
00:34:54,300 --> 00:34:57,512
And part of that was her and part of it
was probably trying to prove
585
00:34:57,595 --> 00:35:00,848
that a woman should be a director,
because back then it was a boys' club.
586
00:35:00,932 --> 00:35:02,266
Lou was very progressive.
587
00:35:02,850 --> 00:35:05,478
The other directors and some
of the animators, the men,
588
00:35:05,561 --> 00:35:07,980
did not like the idea
of working with a woman.
589
00:35:08,064 --> 00:35:12,068
One of the directors threw his work
on my desk and refused to work with me.
590
00:35:12,151 --> 00:35:14,529
If you were a woman, even if you drew
like Michelangelo,
591
00:35:14,612 --> 00:35:16,906
they still would give you a minor role.
592
00:35:16,989 --> 00:35:19,450
And Gwen was one of those people
who went against that
593
00:35:19,534 --> 00:35:22,036
and fought for women
to have more important roles.
594
00:35:22,120 --> 00:35:25,456
So she was an animator, a story writer,
and a very good director.
595
00:35:25,540 --> 00:35:29,210
My dad was a very moral,
upstanding fellow.
596
00:35:29,293 --> 00:35:31,671
He did care about his audience.
597
00:35:31,754 --> 00:35:34,966
Even before the messages
and that whole thing
598
00:35:35,049 --> 00:35:36,676
sort of took center stage,
599
00:35:36,759 --> 00:35:39,679
he still made sure there wasn't
too much violence.
600
00:35:39,762 --> 00:35:41,430
It was action in the cartoons.
601
00:35:41,514 --> 00:35:44,142
When they announced they were
doing the show, Peggy Charren
602
00:35:44,225 --> 00:35:48,813
of Action for Children's Television was
up in arms, just because of the title.
603
00:35:48,896 --> 00:35:51,524
Peggy Charren has been
the American voice
604
00:35:51,607 --> 00:35:53,693
of the kids' TV wilderness
ever since she founded
605
00:35:53,776 --> 00:35:56,404
Action for Children's Television
back in 1968.
606
00:35:56,487 --> 00:35:58,823
But the group has had
few successes recently.
607
00:35:59,448 --> 00:36:02,952
For, if the 1970s belonged
to the watchdogs like Peggy Charren,
608
00:36:03,035 --> 00:36:06,747
the 1980s have belonged
to those American He-Men.
609
00:36:06,831 --> 00:36:09,792
We did 130 episodes of Skeletor losing.
610
00:36:09,876 --> 00:36:14,297
It got difficult to figure out how
to make him lose without killing him.
611
00:36:14,380 --> 00:36:16,632
Ah, you know... violence?
612
00:36:17,258 --> 00:36:19,552
There's more violence on the streets
than on television.
613
00:36:19,635 --> 00:36:22,930
There was a scene
in one of Michael's scripts
614
00:36:23,014 --> 00:36:29,020
where he had He-Man uprooting a tree,
and the editors wrote,
615
00:36:29,103 --> 00:36:31,939
"Please do not portray He-Man
uprooting a tree.
616
00:36:32,023 --> 00:36:34,567
Small children will be moved to emulate."
617
00:36:36,903 --> 00:36:39,530
I mean, you couldn't have
a character look cross
618
00:36:39,947 --> 00:36:42,241
at another character,
like grimace at them.
619
00:36:42,325 --> 00:36:45,745
That was considered "a violent act,"
and you could have no violent act.
620
00:36:45,828 --> 00:36:48,915
So here comes this guy named He-Man
and he looks like Conan
621
00:36:48,998 --> 00:36:52,543
and Conan is violent, everybody thinks
it's gonna be really violent.
622
00:36:53,044 --> 00:36:56,005
They brought in,
as they had been doing since the '70s,
623
00:36:56,088 --> 00:36:59,926
the educational consultant who made sure
everything was pro-social and...
624
00:37:00,009 --> 00:37:02,887
And they had the tags at the end,
which I never wrote one.
625
00:37:02,970 --> 00:37:06,682
That's a staff writer, it might have been
Arthur Nadel or Paul Dini
626
00:37:06,766 --> 00:37:09,310
or one of the guys on staff
who cooked up those,
627
00:37:09,393 --> 00:37:12,146
"Today, Adam learned a valuable lesson
about not being a dork."
628
00:37:12,230 --> 00:37:15,733
You would do a story about monsters
fighting each other
629
00:37:15,816 --> 00:37:18,945
and having at the end, "Look both ways
before crossing the street."
630
00:37:19,028 --> 00:37:20,529
Come on!
631
00:37:20,613 --> 00:37:23,824
Uh... It was just a sop to the consultants
632
00:37:23,908 --> 00:37:26,744
because He-Man at that time
was being pilloried
633
00:37:26,827 --> 00:37:29,789
for being one of the most violent shows,
though it was not.
634
00:37:29,872 --> 00:37:32,166
Because as you saw
on today's episode,
635
00:37:32,250 --> 00:37:36,504
no matter how big the problem,
one person, or one living creature,
636
00:37:36,587 --> 00:37:39,131
can make a big difference.
See ya next time.
637
00:37:40,174 --> 00:37:43,344
This right here is
the first original character
638
00:37:43,427 --> 00:37:46,514
that was ever designed for the series.
639
00:37:46,597 --> 00:37:49,517
This is a guy called Lizard Man,
and he appeared in an episode
640
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:51,560
called "She-Demon of Phantos."
641
00:37:52,186 --> 00:37:55,231
Well, we better think of something fast!
642
00:37:55,314 --> 00:37:56,983
They know we're here now.
643
00:37:57,483 --> 00:38:00,069
My dad's favorite character,
644
00:38:00,152 --> 00:38:02,238
right there, is Orko.
645
00:38:02,321 --> 00:38:05,741
And absolutely
was one of the best characters
646
00:38:05,825 --> 00:38:07,743
and his beloved, and I really think
647
00:38:08,536 --> 00:38:09,996
says the most about him.
648
00:38:10,079 --> 00:38:12,290
He really was kind of Orko in his own way.
649
00:38:12,373 --> 00:38:15,751
If there's one thing better
than being a great magician,
650
00:38:16,168 --> 00:38:19,130
it's being alive and having
great friends like you.
651
00:38:19,213 --> 00:38:21,173
And I'm gonna make the most of it.
652
00:38:23,134 --> 00:38:24,844
OK, that's Skeletor.
653
00:38:24,927 --> 00:38:27,346
That's probably the first
production design drawing
654
00:38:27,430 --> 00:38:29,348
ever done of Skeletor right there.
655
00:38:31,767 --> 00:38:35,771
Skeletor, he's one of the most
interesting villains to this day,
656
00:38:35,855 --> 00:38:39,191
'cause in the first few episodes
of He-Man, he's a dark villain.
657
00:38:39,275 --> 00:38:43,029
There's no humor or anything;
then halfway through the first season, they realize, "Hang on, if we play
Skeletor for laughs, this is quite good."
658
00:38:47,491 --> 00:38:49,160
-OK, rolling?
-Rolling.
659
00:38:49,243 --> 00:38:52,204
The laugh came because
villainous laughs are usually
660
00:38:52,288 --> 00:38:54,957
" heh-heh-heh," or sneering, you know?
661
00:38:55,541 --> 00:38:57,418
But I gave it a comedic laugh.
662
00:38:59,920 --> 00:39:02,006
I chose to talk to myself.
663
00:39:02,715 --> 00:39:06,177
The reason being,
I wanted to keep the flow.
664
00:39:06,260 --> 00:39:10,056
So, if I said it one way,
I wanted the answer to come.
665
00:39:10,139 --> 00:39:12,808
So I would do,
let's say Skeletor and Mer-Man,
666
00:39:12,892 --> 00:39:14,518
and be like...
667
00:39:14,602 --> 00:39:17,438
Mer-Man, get out of my face.
Don't tell me what to do.
668
00:39:17,521 --> 00:39:19,148
I was very fortunate because
669
00:39:19,231 --> 00:39:21,859
I got to direct the second season
of He-Man.
670
00:39:21,942 --> 00:39:24,236
So I got to work with all those actors.
671
00:39:24,695 --> 00:39:27,573
And John Erwin, He-Man.
672
00:39:27,656 --> 00:39:29,825
Really, really lovely, lovely man.
673
00:39:29,909 --> 00:39:31,827
He did his work, he was prepared.
674
00:39:31,911 --> 00:39:37,958
He got his lines, he really cared,
and then he sort of disappeared.
675
00:39:38,042 --> 00:39:39,752
For two years, I've tried.
676
00:39:39,835 --> 00:39:42,797
I said, "If you came out,
the line would be around the block."
677
00:39:43,422 --> 00:39:45,800
Between... He just won't...
678
00:39:45,883 --> 00:39:47,218
He thinks about it like,
679
00:39:47,301 --> 00:39:49,428
"Oh, no, you know I'm not He-Man."
680
00:39:49,512 --> 00:39:51,305
I said, "No shit.
681
00:39:51,389 --> 00:39:53,724
And I'm not Skeletor. So what?"
682
00:39:53,808 --> 00:39:56,018
The enigma about John Erwin
683
00:39:56,102 --> 00:39:59,897
is he's just an incredibly shy guy.
684
00:39:59,980 --> 00:40:05,027
You know, put him behind a microphone,
you know, off-camera, he works great.
685
00:40:07,488 --> 00:40:09,573
We had a premiere...
686
00:40:10,658 --> 00:40:14,662
at the Chinese Theater
on Hollywood Boulevard.
687
00:40:14,745 --> 00:40:17,915
At eleven o'clock in the morning,
or some outrageous time.
688
00:40:17,998 --> 00:40:20,751
Black tie, blocked off two blocks.
689
00:40:20,835 --> 00:40:23,045
Had the He-Man hot-air balloon.
690
00:40:23,129 --> 00:40:26,757
Sci-fi vehicles that we rented
from prop lots and stuff,
691
00:40:26,841 --> 00:40:28,217
and the premiere was great.
692
00:40:28,300 --> 00:40:30,636
I bussed in kids
from all over L.A. County,
693
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:33,597
and we used all the theaters,
not just one.
694
00:40:33,681 --> 00:40:38,269
And Lou strung together three episodes
to make like a 90-minute movie.
695
00:40:38,352 --> 00:40:41,355
And the kids loved it, they loved it.
696
00:40:41,856 --> 00:40:47,486
And we're just going, "Never would have
thought of this in a billion years."
697
00:40:47,570 --> 00:40:50,906
Uh... that was pretty spectacular.
698
00:40:52,783 --> 00:40:56,495
We were in the business
of making things out of plastic, man.
699
00:40:56,579 --> 00:41:01,167
It was just another thing we're making;
all of the sudden, the stuff became live.
700
00:41:01,250 --> 00:41:03,627
The world they created
and the characters
701
00:41:03,711 --> 00:41:05,796
and the color and the adventure,
702
00:41:05,880 --> 00:41:09,008
it went from plain just, "Oh, take that,"
baddie-goodie.
703
00:41:09,091 --> 00:41:12,386
Then you're creating...
I've still got cassette tapes I recorded.
704
00:41:12,470 --> 00:41:15,681
I recorded myself singing
a soundtrack to it.
705
00:41:17,516 --> 00:41:19,351
I played that on a separate recorder
706
00:41:19,435 --> 00:41:21,937
while playing with the figures,
so I made a soundtrack.
707
00:41:22,021 --> 00:41:24,815
By the power of Grayskull!
708
00:41:29,195 --> 00:41:32,907
I have the power!
709
00:41:32,990 --> 00:41:35,826
Let's go, Duncan. I've got a city to save.
710
00:41:37,495 --> 00:41:41,790
So there was something in that show
that was more than just the moment.
711
00:41:42,291 --> 00:41:46,086
There was more to the character
than that, but...
712
00:41:46,170 --> 00:41:50,049
what was timely was hitting at exactly
the moment to break open a new market as it transformed television and created
an opportunity for all kinds of shows.
713
00:41:54,094 --> 00:41:57,473
I think Lou Scheimer doesn't get
enough credit
714
00:41:57,556 --> 00:41:59,183
for what he did for He-Man. 'Cause I think the brand
715
00:42:01,644 --> 00:42:03,729
was Mattel, and I think they're fine.
716
00:42:03,812 --> 00:42:08,692
But Filmation's cartoon came along
and gave it an injection of life,
717
00:42:08,776 --> 00:42:11,028
that suddenly your kids are like,
"My goodness!"
718
00:42:11,111 --> 00:42:13,447
And "I have the power"
became a catchphrase.
719
00:42:19,161 --> 00:42:20,663
The impact was huge.
720
00:42:20,746 --> 00:42:25,417
Uh, all the kids were raising the sword,
and, "By the power of Grayskull!"
721
00:42:25,876 --> 00:42:28,128
I have the power!
722
00:42:31,006 --> 00:42:33,592
When you have a very successful,
723
00:42:33,676 --> 00:42:39,139
uh... brand, of course, they're gonna
spread with these kind of items.
724
00:42:39,223 --> 00:42:44,687
And there's tons and tons
of macho collectibles available,
725
00:42:44,770 --> 00:42:49,900
or were available back in the day,
so it's a little bit of everything.
726
00:42:49,984 --> 00:42:54,280
So the impact, I think it left a huge mark
727
00:42:54,363 --> 00:42:57,992
in the toy and the cartoon world
728
00:42:58,075 --> 00:43:01,412
and especially for the people
of this generation.
729
00:43:06,875 --> 00:43:11,547
We had the television business
after us to do more stuff.
730
00:43:11,630 --> 00:43:18,137
So, here, let's take our success
with the He-Man television show
731
00:43:18,220 --> 00:43:21,599
and do a girls' version television show,
732
00:43:21,682 --> 00:43:23,434
'cause we can sell it.
733
00:43:32,860 --> 00:43:36,864
We just decided, if we're gonna do
a female fashion action doll,
734
00:43:36,947 --> 00:43:41,410
she might as well ride on the coattails
of the popularity and the awareness
735
00:43:41,493 --> 00:43:44,038
of this huge iconic brand called He-Man.
736
00:43:45,205 --> 00:43:46,832
These are character designs.
737
00:43:46,915 --> 00:43:51,378
They wanted a feminine lead for He-Man,
so I did a couple of these.
738
00:43:51,462 --> 00:43:54,131
They eventually took this off
and spun it off
739
00:43:54,214 --> 00:43:56,133
onto the She-Ra thing.
740
00:43:56,216 --> 00:43:59,678
It was given to Justine Dantzer, I think.
741
00:44:01,055 --> 00:44:03,432
It was just a feminine lead for He-Man.
742
00:44:05,100 --> 00:44:07,728
I was doing freelance for
a lot of people at this time,
743
00:44:07,811 --> 00:44:11,231
but I wanted a change,
and I went to work at Kenner Prelim,
744
00:44:11,315 --> 00:44:15,319
working on Strawberry Shortcake,
working on Glamour Gals,
745
00:44:15,402 --> 00:44:17,863
established lines that they had
when I came in.
746
00:44:18,364 --> 00:44:22,660
But I also created a superpower
small doll girl.
747
00:44:22,743 --> 00:44:24,244
Didn't know what to call her.
748
00:44:24,328 --> 00:44:27,247
I called her Nova, I called her Andromeda.
749
00:44:27,331 --> 00:44:31,960
So we came up with the concept
of a female fashion action doll,
750
00:44:32,044 --> 00:44:35,047
which would compete with Barbie.
751
00:44:35,130 --> 00:44:39,343
But not really expecting it to stay
in the marketplace long-term.
752
00:44:39,426 --> 00:44:43,013
I'm sure it's surprising to everybody
that we'd produce a doll line to feed
753
00:44:43,097 --> 00:44:44,390
the main brand, Barbie.
754
00:44:47,476 --> 00:44:50,562
When Mattel interviewed me, they said,
755
00:44:50,646 --> 00:44:54,108
"We notice that Teela
is selling well in Masters.
756
00:44:54,191 --> 00:44:56,276
We're thinking about doing
757
00:44:56,360 --> 00:44:59,029
a small doll line like this.
We want you to do it."
758
00:44:59,905 --> 00:45:03,325
One of the biggest
challenges is, what are we gonna call her?
759
00:45:03,409 --> 00:45:06,787
She had so many different names.
We tested Leela.
760
00:45:06,870 --> 00:45:10,958
Then we looked at the name Shela,
'cause we wanted a female,
761
00:45:11,041 --> 00:45:13,210
some kind of pronoun in there, you know.
762
00:45:13,293 --> 00:45:16,713
We looked at Hera, and people thought,
that's gonna sound like "hair-a"
763
00:45:16,797 --> 00:45:18,632
in a commercial, so we can't use that.
764
00:45:20,300 --> 00:45:24,513
She was not named She-Ra.
There was no name, no nothing.
765
00:45:24,596 --> 00:45:27,808
So, when those drawings went through,
766
00:45:27,891 --> 00:45:31,770
got all the approvals
and the commitment for more money,
767
00:45:31,854 --> 00:45:33,647
they came to me and they said,
768
00:45:33,730 --> 00:45:35,190
"Now do what you want.
769
00:45:35,274 --> 00:45:39,153
We trust what you've done.
Now do more, do what you want.
770
00:45:39,236 --> 00:45:41,488
And she doesn't have to look
like Teela anymore."
771
00:45:41,572 --> 00:45:44,533
So, I said, "Wait a minute,
maybe I got something good going.
772
00:45:44,616 --> 00:45:46,493
He's he, so she's she."
773
00:45:47,077 --> 00:45:48,120
So that'll work.
774
00:45:48,203 --> 00:45:51,165
And Ra is a god, Egyptian word for God.
775
00:45:51,248 --> 00:45:54,918
You know, He-Man is like a gigantic god,
you know.
776
00:45:55,002 --> 00:45:56,462
Big, big muscles.
777
00:45:57,045 --> 00:45:59,590
So we created She-Ra,
778
00:45:59,673 --> 00:46:02,551
or "Princess Adora," who, uh...
779
00:46:02,634 --> 00:46:04,803
was He-Man's twin sister.
780
00:46:05,471 --> 00:46:06,763
Surprise!
781
00:46:06,847 --> 00:46:09,516
Look what I found
in the forest.
782
00:46:12,895 --> 00:46:15,355
There was more
to She-Ra being
783
00:46:15,439 --> 00:46:16,648
just a female version.
784
00:46:16,732 --> 00:46:18,734
One of the important things was
785
00:46:18,817 --> 00:46:23,655
to respect and show what is female.
786
00:46:23,739 --> 00:46:26,241
It wasn't just aping He-Man.
787
00:46:26,325 --> 00:46:30,662
We gave her different powers that were
more reflective of female sides.
788
00:46:30,746 --> 00:46:34,416
I don't wanna get into saying,
"Oh, well, these are boys' traits
789
00:46:34,500 --> 00:46:37,794
and those are girls' traits,"
and we didn't wanna pigeonhole.
790
00:46:37,878 --> 00:46:44,259
But we wanted to showcase what is
more inherently a girl kind of thing.
791
00:46:45,302 --> 00:46:48,055
She should present a feeling of strength,
792
00:46:48,138 --> 00:46:52,684
not a feeling of high-heeled,
"can't hardly move" slimness.
793
00:46:52,768 --> 00:46:56,688
And that became a point of discussion
in several meetings.
794
00:46:56,772 --> 00:46:59,066
And even exclamation
where the men would say,
795
00:46:59,149 --> 00:47:02,861
"Oh, my God, look at those legs,"
when I would show drawings.
796
00:47:04,196 --> 00:47:08,492
There were times when I was
very, very disgusted
797
00:47:09,326 --> 00:47:13,413
hearing about men's opinions
about women's bodies, ad infinitum.
798
00:47:13,497 --> 00:47:16,917
So making her a little more fuller lipped
and more open eyes,
799
00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:20,546
giving her stronger facial features,
and it was hard to get to that.
800
00:47:22,464 --> 00:47:25,467
We would do tear sheets of different
actresses and models,
801
00:47:25,551 --> 00:47:28,220
and give those to the sculptors
and say, "Let's go this way."
802
00:47:28,303 --> 00:47:30,556
Couldn't look like a fashion model
or runway model.
803
00:47:30,639 --> 00:47:32,474
She had to look strong in the face.
804
00:47:32,558 --> 00:47:35,936
Said she was powerful,
that she had the capacity
805
00:47:36,019 --> 00:47:37,437
to take care of herself.
806
00:47:40,065 --> 00:47:44,570
I don't know how well
most men know most women
807
00:47:44,653 --> 00:47:49,575
I know that there are some men
who find women rather mysterious.
808
00:47:49,658 --> 00:47:55,831
Many male fantasy writers, they know
they should have a woman in the story,
809
00:47:55,914 --> 00:47:59,960
but they're not quite sure how
she interacts with the others.
810
00:48:00,043 --> 00:48:05,048
And sometimes I have the feeling
that their knowledge
811
00:48:05,132 --> 00:48:08,427
of how to write a woman character
comes from reading
812
00:48:08,510 --> 00:48:12,014
other male fantasy writers
or watching movies.
813
00:48:13,682 --> 00:48:16,518
The problem
that we ran into was that,
814
00:48:16,602 --> 00:48:22,274
in the aftermath of the public approbation
against the violence of He-Man,
815
00:48:22,357 --> 00:48:25,944
the consultants really
came after us hard on She-Ra,
816
00:48:26,028 --> 00:48:27,821
to the point where they said,
817
00:48:27,904 --> 00:48:29,906
"A female character
should not be fighting.
818
00:48:29,990 --> 00:48:32,743
Female characters should not
be using a sword."
819
00:48:32,826 --> 00:48:35,037
The male characters,
they could use swords,
820
00:48:35,120 --> 00:48:37,748
they could fire things, hit people,
but She-Ra,
821
00:48:37,831 --> 00:48:41,126
rather than punching someone,
she would do a ballet-style kick,
822
00:48:41,209 --> 00:48:45,172
and almost by accident hit somebody,
and she never could use a sword
823
00:48:45,255 --> 00:48:48,050
to hurt someone,
and it was all latent misogyny
824
00:48:48,133 --> 00:48:49,259
and sexism,
825
00:48:49,343 --> 00:48:52,846
that we cannot have a female character
acting in a strong fashion.
826
00:48:53,263 --> 00:48:56,308
Which really bristled me and Larry a lot.
827
00:48:56,391 --> 00:48:59,311
'Cause we had been charged
with developing the show,
828
00:48:59,394 --> 00:49:02,189
and the two of us wrote
the bible for She-Ra,
829
00:49:02,272 --> 00:49:06,735
created the characters, and we wanted this
to be a really strong female character.
830
00:49:06,818 --> 00:49:12,032
And we feel hobbled by the toy company
and by the psychologists.
831
00:49:16,703 --> 00:49:19,581
When She-Ra came on,
it was exciting because the artwork
832
00:49:19,665 --> 00:49:21,124
had picked up in quality.
833
00:49:21,208 --> 00:49:23,251
Towards the end of He-Man,
834
00:49:23,335 --> 00:49:26,380
we were getting really good animators
and really good assistants.
835
00:49:26,463 --> 00:49:29,091
The background crew was great.
836
00:49:29,174 --> 00:49:32,302
And we were getting good board artists,
and so it was exciting,
837
00:49:32,386 --> 00:49:36,014
because, hey, this is looking far better
than you ever would have thought
838
00:49:36,098 --> 00:49:37,766
anything like this would look.
839
00:49:39,434 --> 00:49:41,561
I'm looking for Loo-Kee.
840
00:49:41,645 --> 00:49:45,232
He's hiding.
You know, Loo-Kee's hiding again.
841
00:49:45,315 --> 00:49:48,652
I mean, I was stuck hiding Loo-Kee
in the She-Ra shows.
842
00:49:48,735 --> 00:49:51,113
That was my job,
on top of everything else.
843
00:49:51,196 --> 00:49:55,492
I really hated that little guy after that.
Why do I gotta put him in the show now?
844
00:49:55,575 --> 00:49:56,910
Loo-Kee was my favorite.
845
00:49:56,993 --> 00:50:00,247
He was, even to this day, Loo-Kee is...
846
00:50:01,039 --> 00:50:04,126
I would say my favorite character
that I ever designed.
847
00:50:04,209 --> 00:50:06,503
This is Hordak from development artwork,
848
00:50:06,586 --> 00:50:10,215
where we're first coming up with
the design for the character for She-Ra.
849
00:50:10,298 --> 00:50:12,676
And this is Kowl and that's Bow.
850
00:50:12,759 --> 00:50:13,969
My version of it.
851
00:50:14,052 --> 00:50:16,722
Kowl originally did not have wings
coming out of his ear.
852
00:50:16,805 --> 00:50:19,307
He was an owl with butterfly wings.
Here we go.
853
00:50:19,391 --> 00:50:20,308
There he is.
854
00:50:20,892 --> 00:50:23,395
There's Loo-Kee. There's Loo-Kee.
855
00:50:24,730 --> 00:50:25,814
That's him.
856
00:50:26,231 --> 00:50:28,233
That's the original rotation of Loo-Kee.
857
00:50:28,316 --> 00:50:30,527
Hey, it's me again, Loo-Kee!
858
00:50:30,610 --> 00:50:32,738
Did you find where I was hiding today?
859
00:50:32,821 --> 00:50:36,908
If not, try again! Can you see me?
Here I am!
860
00:50:36,992 --> 00:50:41,329
There was a scene where this Sweet Bee,
she had some kind of French accent,
861
00:50:41,413 --> 00:50:43,081
is telling He-Man how great he is,
862
00:50:43,165 --> 00:50:46,793
and this wasn't in the script,
I staged Frosta in back here,
863
00:50:46,877 --> 00:50:48,170
and she's going...
864
00:50:48,253 --> 00:50:50,839
You know, and that was totally me
putting that in.
865
00:50:50,922 --> 00:50:54,634
So, I don't wanna say it's subversive,
because it's a kids cartoon,
866
00:50:54,718 --> 00:50:57,971
nothing's subversive particularly,
but it was that kind of thing, like,
867
00:50:58,054 --> 00:51:00,348
how can I really push this a bit?
868
00:51:01,183 --> 00:51:03,727
Her stronger episodes were,
869
00:51:03,810 --> 00:51:07,689
stronger than the He-Man's, an episode
where the Horde are burning books.
870
00:51:07,773 --> 00:51:11,193
One day you will thank the Horde
for ridding you of these lies.
871
00:51:11,276 --> 00:51:13,111
Burn the books!
872
00:51:16,239 --> 00:51:18,950
It was very like,
oh, that's pretty serious. That's the days
of the Third Reich kind of thing.
873
00:51:21,828 --> 00:51:24,289
Or like "The Price of Freedom"
where the baddies win.
874
00:51:24,372 --> 00:51:27,709
The camaraderie of the She-Ra universe
was about fighting a war,
875
00:51:27,793 --> 00:51:30,295
which brings you together,
creates friendships,
876
00:51:30,378 --> 00:51:32,923
a more varied kind of bunch of characters,
877
00:51:33,006 --> 00:51:37,093
versus the He-Man story,
which is more of a family operation. It was a king, it was a queen, a prince,
and they dealt with those sort of stories,
878
00:51:41,348 --> 00:51:43,308
while he dealt with
the occasional bad guy,
879
00:51:43,391 --> 00:51:46,853
versus, "We're all in this together
to fight this guy."
880
00:51:48,146 --> 00:51:50,023
The boys liked it, too.
881
00:51:50,106 --> 00:51:53,860
You know, that was...
I was surprised by that.
882
00:51:53,944 --> 00:51:55,278
They enjoyed it.
883
00:51:55,362 --> 00:51:56,571
I think they learned to...
884
00:51:57,864 --> 00:52:01,451
I think with She-Ra we learned to bring
men and women closer together
885
00:52:01,535 --> 00:52:04,496
in what they liked about fantasy worlds.
886
00:52:06,081 --> 00:52:07,958
I am She-Ra!
887
00:52:08,041 --> 00:52:10,126
I think I loved the She-Ra show
888
00:52:10,210 --> 00:52:13,255
more than the He-Man show;
I found the stories more sophisticated.
889
00:52:13,338 --> 00:52:15,298
I even stole my sister's She-Ra.
890
00:52:15,382 --> 00:52:18,385
She got two She-Ras for her birthday,
two years later.
891
00:52:18,468 --> 00:52:21,805
So since she had two of them,
"Well, I'll just take that one."
892
00:52:21,888 --> 00:52:24,140
Once he threatened Eternia.
893
00:52:24,224 --> 00:52:27,102
Now Hordak and the Horde menace Etheria
894
00:52:27,185 --> 00:52:28,937
and She-Ra must stop them!
895
00:52:29,020 --> 00:52:32,315
Joining She-Ra in her heroic struggles
are Swift Wind,
896
00:52:32,399 --> 00:52:34,860
Bow, Glimmer, Queen Angella,
897
00:52:34,943 --> 00:52:36,820
Madame Razz and Broom.
898
00:52:37,279 --> 00:52:39,990
And even He-Man will lend
his awesome strength
899
00:52:40,073 --> 00:52:42,742
when the Horde threatens Etheria's rebels.
900
00:52:42,826 --> 00:52:46,788
Team up with He-Man,
weekdays at 3:00, and She-Ra at 3:30,
901
00:52:46,872 --> 00:52:50,375
beginning Monday on Channel 13's
Power Hour!
902
00:53:02,596 --> 00:53:04,180
Everybody was saying,
903
00:53:04,264 --> 00:53:06,016
"We need more product,
we need more product.
904
00:53:06,099 --> 00:53:08,518
We need more of this exciting product."
905
00:53:08,602 --> 00:53:11,313
And I started seeing stuff
that I didn't agree with.
906
00:53:12,230 --> 00:53:15,650
We introduced it to the trade,
and as soon as the trade loves it
907
00:53:15,734 --> 00:53:20,113
and they start buying space, we gotta dump
a bunch of products in that space.
908
00:53:20,196 --> 00:53:25,619
So we were frantically designing vehicles
and accessories for He-Man and his crew.
909
00:53:26,995 --> 00:53:30,332
Between '82 and '87,
910
00:53:30,415 --> 00:53:37,047
He-Man represented roughly 95%
of all the growth in the toy division.
911
00:53:37,130 --> 00:53:40,884
It was phenomenal,
and through the '86, '87 period,
912
00:53:40,967 --> 00:53:42,344
it was bigger than Barbie.
913
00:53:43,929 --> 00:53:47,641
I kept doing my best
through Man-E-Faces, Ram Man.
914
00:53:47,724 --> 00:53:53,313
That's when I started realizing
the company was dumbing it down.
915
00:53:53,396 --> 00:53:56,942
and they were making it silly,
and He-Man was never meant to be silly.
916
00:53:57,025 --> 00:54:00,695
Everyone thought, "This is ridiculous.
It's never gonna be a hit,"
917
00:54:00,779 --> 00:54:05,158
because it was so different as a toy line,
so no one paid any attention,
918
00:54:05,241 --> 00:54:06,618
but once it was a success,
919
00:54:06,701 --> 00:54:10,163
everyone came in
and started giving their input.
920
00:54:10,246 --> 00:54:13,792
And I finally said,
"You know what? I don't need this."
921
00:54:13,875 --> 00:54:17,462
I can't watch them turn this into
922
00:54:17,545 --> 00:54:19,339
another Barbie product, and...
923
00:54:21,466 --> 00:54:24,928
And I left to go to another company
and they did.
924
00:54:26,972 --> 00:54:30,767
Those are big shoes to fill; when I
was told about filling in for Mark Taylor,
925
00:54:30,850 --> 00:54:32,936
I said, "What?"
926
00:54:33,019 --> 00:54:38,066
But, uh, yeah, I didn't transition
into Mark's shoes right away.
927
00:54:38,149 --> 00:54:42,112
I think when I got there he had just left
to go to Playmates to do Turtles.
928
00:54:42,195 --> 00:54:43,655
They did a Hot Wheels car
929
00:54:43,738 --> 00:54:48,326
with a spring-loaded side panel,
and when you crashed it,
930
00:54:48,410 --> 00:54:50,745
it flipped over and it looks
like it's wrecked.
931
00:54:51,371 --> 00:54:52,831
I said, "We can do that."
932
00:54:52,914 --> 00:54:55,375
So we stole that
and put it in He-Man's chest.
933
00:54:55,458 --> 00:54:59,462
So when you hit his chest,
Skeletor and He-Man,
934
00:54:59,546 --> 00:55:01,214
you would get battle damage.
935
00:55:01,297 --> 00:55:03,967
I think that's why we call it
Battle Damage He-Man
936
00:55:04,050 --> 00:55:05,593
and Battle Damage Skeletor.
937
00:55:05,677 --> 00:55:08,388
That was the very first one
I remember working on.
938
00:55:08,471 --> 00:55:11,641
Then I did a bunch of what we used
to call back then "refreshes."
939
00:55:13,059 --> 00:55:18,648
Moss Man was basically Beast Man's sculpt,
flocked again with green.
940
00:55:18,732 --> 00:55:22,652
They injected what was supposed to be,
came from our chem lab,
941
00:55:22,736 --> 00:55:26,197
that was supposed to smell like moss;
it didn't really smell like moss.
942
00:55:26,281 --> 00:55:29,701
It smelled more like a Christmas tree,
but I guess it was green
943
00:55:30,201 --> 00:55:34,080
and it smelled woodsy,
so that's what we ended up with.
944
00:55:35,248 --> 00:55:36,624
Stinkor was Mer-Man
945
00:55:36,708 --> 00:55:40,336
painted black and white
with a stripe down him and had a scent.
946
00:55:40,420 --> 00:55:43,965
It was supposed to be unpleasant,
but it didn't really smell bad.
947
00:55:44,049 --> 00:55:48,595
Man-At-Arms cannot escape
the evil smell of Stinkor!
948
00:55:48,678 --> 00:55:50,680
Now, He-Man!
949
00:55:50,764 --> 00:55:53,641
Smell your own stink, Stinkor! Yarrr!
950
00:55:54,350 --> 00:55:55,935
Stinkor,
with real smell, is new
951
00:55:56,019 --> 00:55:57,520
from the Masters of the Universe
collection.
952
00:55:57,604 --> 00:56:00,565
Other action figures each sold separately.
From Mattel.
953
00:56:01,900 --> 00:56:05,737
We would do many sketches
of the same thing, trying to perfect it.
954
00:56:05,820 --> 00:56:07,405
There's tons of stuff here.
955
00:56:08,573 --> 00:56:11,117
Then they wanted water
to come out of the snout.
956
00:56:11,201 --> 00:56:12,994
They're pushing the head up and down.
957
00:56:13,078 --> 00:56:16,623
Then I kind of thought that that was
kind of cumbersome to a kid, right?
958
00:56:16,706 --> 00:56:20,001
So what I did is I said, well,
rather than doing it
959
00:56:20,085 --> 00:56:24,172
in a little aerosol pumpy thing,
let's have a little button on the back.
960
00:56:24,756 --> 00:56:28,551
So if you open up Snout Spout,
there's a little reservoir on the inside,
961
00:56:28,635 --> 00:56:30,970
and I had to make sure
that thing wouldn't leak.
962
00:56:31,054 --> 00:56:34,891
I had to figure out how to fill it,
so an engineer would come up
963
00:56:34,974 --> 00:56:37,936
with the guts, right, all very mechanical.
964
00:56:39,562 --> 00:56:40,522
Figures sold separately.
965
00:56:42,899 --> 00:56:45,318
Snout Spout, heroic hose nose!
966
00:56:47,070 --> 00:56:48,863
What hurts a lot of brands
967
00:56:48,947 --> 00:56:52,450
is going way up, maybe too high,
968
00:56:52,534 --> 00:56:54,911
leaving a lot of product
sitting on the shelves,
969
00:56:54,994 --> 00:56:56,830
and then getting less support.
970
00:56:56,913 --> 00:57:00,583
I mean, that's the cycle
of even the hit brands.
971
00:57:00,667 --> 00:57:05,797
It grew so quickly and we made
so many figures and accessories and toys
972
00:57:05,880 --> 00:57:07,632
that we kind of killed it.
973
00:57:07,715 --> 00:57:12,804
The people running He-Man believed
the reason they were having a down year
974
00:57:12,887 --> 00:57:17,642
is because She-Ra made it seem like
He-Man was becoming more wimpy,
975
00:57:18,393 --> 00:57:23,273
because it was a female character
in a male action television series.
976
00:57:23,356 --> 00:57:26,776
We also short-shipped all the retailers
977
00:57:27,277 --> 00:57:29,696
because we couldn't make
He-Man fast enough.
978
00:57:29,779 --> 00:57:34,033
So, when Toys 'R' Us ordered a hundred,
we shipped them 70.
979
00:57:34,117 --> 00:57:37,745
There was a forecast
of the number that we had to hit
980
00:57:37,829 --> 00:57:39,497
at the end of whatever year.
981
00:57:39,581 --> 00:57:42,250
It was by the time
we introduced the dinosaurs.
982
00:57:42,333 --> 00:57:44,878
And a high-level executive
983
00:57:44,961 --> 00:57:48,965
decided to ship He-Man:
"Let's ship the He-Man characters,
984
00:57:49,048 --> 00:57:50,425
'cause we got open orders."
985
00:57:50,508 --> 00:57:54,596
Shipped it in December, went on the books,
still didn't make our numbers.
986
00:57:54,679 --> 00:57:58,266
Goes on the retail shelf in January
when sales suck anyway.
987
00:57:58,349 --> 00:58:02,228
And it's all the old characters
we already sold 150,000 through.
988
00:58:02,312 --> 00:58:05,023
So I had to put together a plan to go out,
989
00:58:05,106 --> 00:58:08,318
take those characters off the shelf
and replace them with new characters.
990
00:58:11,446 --> 00:58:15,408
We were approached by a number of studios
who wanted to do something,
991
00:58:15,492 --> 00:58:18,703
who felt that maybe
we needed something new,
992
00:58:18,786 --> 00:58:21,164
some impetus to push us further.
993
00:58:21,247 --> 00:58:25,168
'Cause we came out in '82,
'87 we're starting to slow down.
994
00:58:33,676 --> 00:58:38,264
The trick to getting this film
done is, you have to start in Eternia,
995
00:58:38,348 --> 00:58:42,852
but you need a segue to get back to Earth
in the first five minutes.
996
00:58:43,478 --> 00:58:46,523
One of the questions
that gets asked a lot is why characters
997
00:58:46,606 --> 00:58:49,442
like Orko and Battle Cat
didn't appear in the film.
998
00:58:49,526 --> 00:58:53,279
And it would have been incredibly
expensive to do those characters
999
00:58:53,363 --> 00:58:55,281
because they didn't have digital effects.
1000
00:58:57,992 --> 00:59:02,080
And the one actor that director
Gary Goddard didn't cast for the film
1001
00:59:02,163 --> 00:59:04,666
was actually the star of the film,
Dolph Lundgren.
1002
00:59:04,749 --> 00:59:09,254
Dolph had just come off of
the hit movie Rocky IV.
1003
00:59:09,337 --> 00:59:12,298
And prior to that, he was in
the James Bond film
1004
00:59:12,382 --> 00:59:16,469
A View to a Kill, and so this was
his third film as an actor
1005
00:59:16,553 --> 00:59:19,806
and really it was his first big break
as an action star.
1006
00:59:23,935 --> 00:59:26,729
Even though I was very new at it,
things happen quickly,
1007
00:59:26,813 --> 00:59:30,817
and I got a role in the Rocky picture,
and then next thing up, I was gonna be
1008
00:59:30,900 --> 00:59:32,735
this toy.
1009
00:59:32,819 --> 00:59:37,865
Now it's a big deal to play a toy
or play a superhero and...
1010
00:59:37,949 --> 00:59:41,452
the cartoon character, but in those days,
it was kind of suspicious
1011
00:59:41,536 --> 00:59:44,706
and kind of potentially damaging
to your career.
1012
00:59:45,415 --> 00:59:48,042
So I wasn't sure about it,
but I ended up saying yes.
1013
00:59:48,626 --> 00:59:50,545
When they first started work,
1014
00:59:50,628 --> 00:59:54,048
there was actually a production designer
doing the designs for Gary,
1015
00:59:54,132 --> 00:59:55,842
but things didn't really work out.
1016
00:59:55,925 --> 00:59:57,468
He wasn't a big fan
1017
00:59:57,552 --> 00:59:59,846
of that kind of science-fiction
fantasy genre,
1018
00:59:59,929 --> 01:00:02,974
and so the two just weren't
really seeing eye to eye.
1019
01:00:03,057 --> 01:00:05,727
Uh, fortunately for Gary,
William Stout had been hired
1020
01:00:05,810 --> 01:00:07,895
to do the storyboards for the film,
1021
01:00:07,979 --> 01:00:12,358
and both of them are big comic book fans,
big fans of Kirby.
1022
01:00:12,442 --> 01:00:15,695
And then William ended up
taking over from there.
1023
01:00:16,195 --> 01:00:18,406
So, under my domain
as production designer,
1024
01:00:18,489 --> 01:00:20,658
I'm in charge of all the special effects,
1025
01:00:20,742 --> 01:00:24,329
costumes, set dressing,
set decoration, uh...
1026
01:00:25,496 --> 01:00:26,956
If it's on the screen, that's...
1027
01:00:28,124 --> 01:00:30,918
someone working under me
has done that for me.
1028
01:00:32,128 --> 01:00:35,298
I hired Jean to do some work
on Masters of the Universe.
1029
01:00:35,381 --> 01:00:39,677
First thing I threw at him, I said, "Jean,
He-Man: what would you do with him?"
1030
01:00:40,386 --> 01:00:43,139
He came back with this pen sketch
and I cleaned it up
1031
01:00:43,222 --> 01:00:45,516
and did a color version of it.
1032
01:00:45,600 --> 01:00:47,769
Mattel saw it and flipped out,
they hated it.
1033
01:00:47,852 --> 01:00:50,146
They said, "There's blood on the sword!"
1034
01:00:50,229 --> 01:00:53,524
And then they say,
"He-Man can't kill anybody!"
1035
01:00:54,233 --> 01:00:55,485
You know? OK.
1036
01:00:55,568 --> 01:01:00,865
And they said, "That's not his costume!
We've never seen that stuff before."
1037
01:01:00,948 --> 01:01:04,577
Exactly. It doesn't look like the toy.
We don't want it to look like that.
1038
01:01:04,661 --> 01:01:09,165
-"He's gotta look like the toy."
-I said, "No, he really doesn't."
1039
01:01:09,248 --> 01:01:12,669
I said, "We can do our version of it.
It'll still be He-Man,
1040
01:01:12,752 --> 01:01:14,629
but he just won't look goofy."
1041
01:01:14,712 --> 01:01:17,674
I was a young man,
I was in the gym a lot,
1042
01:01:17,757 --> 01:01:20,718
and I really had a great physical body
at that time.
1043
01:01:20,802 --> 01:01:25,098
It didn't last, but I did, and I was
in fabulous shape, so I
1044
01:01:25,181 --> 01:01:28,142
had them design a costume
so you could see the pecs
1045
01:01:28,226 --> 01:01:30,478
and the legs and all of that,
1046
01:01:30,561 --> 01:01:33,064
and I wanted that,
and in a lot of the cartoons,
1047
01:01:33,147 --> 01:01:36,734
Skeletor is as undressed,
and Gary and I had
1048
01:01:36,818 --> 01:01:41,656
long conversations about,
he didn't want me to look sexy.
1049
01:01:41,739 --> 01:01:45,535
He wanted me to look dominant
and powerful and...
1050
01:01:45,618 --> 01:01:48,204
So I gave up showing my body off.
1051
01:01:50,039 --> 01:01:53,501
Here's a He-Man I just hated.
This was the gold He-Man.
1052
01:01:54,293 --> 01:01:56,587
There's another gold He-Man.
1053
01:01:56,671 --> 01:01:58,256
I can't remember why
1054
01:01:58,339 --> 01:02:00,425
he was gold momentarily, but...
1055
01:02:00,508 --> 01:02:02,927
Oh, here was the final He-Man.
1056
01:02:04,345 --> 01:02:06,055
Which was my least favorite.
1057
01:02:08,641 --> 01:02:10,309
One issue that Mattel had
1058
01:02:10,393 --> 01:02:12,145
with the original script for the film
1059
01:02:12,228 --> 01:02:14,105
was the fact that He-Man killed.
1060
01:02:14,188 --> 01:02:16,524
Skeletor had a lot of demon-like creatures
1061
01:02:16,607 --> 01:02:19,444
and He-Man was striking them down
with his sword,
1062
01:02:19,527 --> 01:02:23,114
and they're like, "No, no, no.
He-Man can't do that, He-Man can't kill."
1063
01:02:23,197 --> 01:02:25,658
So the director said,
"Well, this is an action film.
1064
01:02:25,742 --> 01:02:28,578
There's gotta be action on screen,
a little bit of violence."
1065
01:02:28,661 --> 01:02:30,371
And they said, "Nope, he can't kill."
1066
01:02:30,955 --> 01:02:33,332
Our movie, we were playing to little kids,
1067
01:02:33,416 --> 01:02:38,713
so, once you kill somebody
with an eight-foot sword,
1068
01:02:38,796 --> 01:02:41,966
I mean, it's not a nice picture, you know.
1069
01:02:42,049 --> 01:02:45,803
And you want to show some of that
but we couldn't show much of it
1070
01:02:45,887 --> 01:02:49,807
so I think that was something
that I knew was gonna perhaps
1071
01:02:49,891 --> 01:02:53,603
be a bit of, you know,
a weakness in the picture.
1072
01:02:54,687 --> 01:02:58,316
That was one of the first
transformative roles I took on.
1073
01:02:58,399 --> 01:03:01,861
I was in my 40s and relatively
still a leading man.
1074
01:03:02,528 --> 01:03:07,074
And, uh, I so loved being disguised.
1075
01:03:07,492 --> 01:03:10,244
The studio said, "Why are we
gonna spend this much
1076
01:03:10,328 --> 01:03:13,706
on a famous actor when he's just
gonna be wearing a skull mask
1077
01:03:13,790 --> 01:03:15,291
in all of his scenes?
1078
01:03:15,374 --> 01:03:18,669
We can hire a body builder
and just put a skull mask on."
1079
01:03:18,753 --> 01:03:21,047
And Gary said, "No, it has to be Frank.
1080
01:03:21,130 --> 01:03:24,300
I need an actor who will be
believable behind the mask."
1081
01:03:24,383 --> 01:03:29,931
Then Gary and I began
a wonderful collaboration
1082
01:03:30,014 --> 01:03:31,933
on Skeletor's words.
1083
01:03:32,016 --> 01:03:34,185
It became very important to me
1084
01:03:35,019 --> 01:03:39,065
that I not say silly, foolish things,
1085
01:03:39,148 --> 01:03:43,945
that I find inspiration
in some of the great writers.
1086
01:03:44,028 --> 01:03:47,865
So we went to Joseph Campbell,
The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
1087
01:03:47,949 --> 01:03:52,203
That's where the line, "Tell me about
the loneliness of good, He-Man.
1088
01:03:52,286 --> 01:03:54,580
Is it equal to the loneliness of evil?"
1089
01:03:54,664 --> 01:04:00,628
Most of those, and then I had a tendency
in this character to improvise,
1090
01:04:00,711 --> 01:04:04,799
so my minute minion came to me
when I was sitting on that big throne.
1091
01:04:04,882 --> 01:04:09,011
I saw the movie finished
with Langella's dialogue,
1092
01:04:09,095 --> 01:04:10,930
and he's a great actor, right?
1093
01:04:11,889 --> 01:04:14,100
And even though his mouth
1094
01:04:14,183 --> 01:04:17,520
was tied up with prosthetics...
1095
01:04:18,688 --> 01:04:21,691
you still got a great performance
out of him.
1096
01:04:23,734 --> 01:04:26,696
The Alpha and the Omega.
1097
01:04:27,446 --> 01:04:29,615
Death and rebirth.
1098
01:04:30,032 --> 01:04:33,411
And as you die,
1099
01:04:33,494 --> 01:04:39,000
so will I be reborn!
1100
01:04:39,083 --> 01:04:44,755
How do you design a bony face that's also
flexible enough to show expression
1101
01:04:45,548 --> 01:04:49,343
and doesn't inhibit the actor
from speaking as well?
1102
01:04:49,927 --> 01:04:54,640
And so I went through a number of designs
before I got one that I liked
1103
01:04:54,724 --> 01:04:56,392
and that worked with Langella.
1104
01:04:56,976 --> 01:05:00,771
I think this was drawn over a photograph
of Frank Langella.
1105
01:05:01,522 --> 01:05:05,276
That was days, weeks,
finding Skeletor.
1106
01:05:05,359 --> 01:05:07,486
I mean, the amount of stuff
1107
01:05:07,570 --> 01:05:09,989
we put on my face over and over again.
1108
01:05:10,072 --> 01:05:14,160
We must have had 20 different
kinds of prosthetics
1109
01:05:14,243 --> 01:05:17,038
till we found how much to do
and how much not to do.
1110
01:05:17,121 --> 01:05:22,376
I was looking for the skeleton
that we had to pay homage to
1111
01:05:22,460 --> 01:05:26,047
and my eyes being there,
because they're so important.
1112
01:05:26,130 --> 01:05:29,926
This particular kind of villain,
they all want to conquer the world.
1113
01:05:30,009 --> 01:05:33,554
They all want to be, you know,
as Skeletor does that thing
1114
01:05:33,638 --> 01:05:36,223
about, "Now I am Master of the Universe."
1115
01:05:36,307 --> 01:05:37,558
Uh...
1116
01:05:37,642 --> 01:05:41,312
I really worked hard to try to find
an original...
1117
01:05:41,979 --> 01:05:47,276
way to be that sort of cliché, which is,
"I want to rule the world,
1118
01:05:47,360 --> 01:05:50,196
and you, you big hunk of He-Man,
1119
01:05:50,279 --> 01:05:51,489
I'm going to get you."
1120
01:05:55,743 --> 01:05:57,662
During the Masters era,
1121
01:05:57,745 --> 01:06:01,958
which was photochemical,
we had no digital capability
1122
01:06:02,041 --> 01:06:04,502
other than motion control for the camera.
1123
01:06:04,585 --> 01:06:09,674
And so each operation that are involved
in this line of steps
1124
01:06:09,757 --> 01:06:12,426
that you have to go through to get
to the final thing
1125
01:06:12,510 --> 01:06:14,512
involves art.
1126
01:06:16,138 --> 01:06:20,351
They're gonna move on it, and then
we're gonna come to this figure here
1127
01:06:20,434 --> 01:06:24,313
and the Masters of the Universe
was gonna come in from above.
1128
01:06:24,397 --> 01:06:28,317
When this gets done, it's not like storyboarding,
it's a little different. They actually shoot the
actual... the drawing, the painting that I do.
1129
01:06:32,905 --> 01:06:35,157
Your best matte painter is...
1130
01:06:35,241 --> 01:06:39,537
is much more of an impressionist
than a photorealist.
1131
01:06:39,620 --> 01:06:43,124
Keeping in mind that matte paintings
is a temporal situation,
1132
01:06:43,207 --> 01:06:45,751
you're only gonna be able
to see it for three seconds.
1133
01:06:46,669 --> 01:06:49,880
...and the capture of Grayskull
is evermost in their minds.
1134
01:06:49,964 --> 01:06:54,301
For, to those that control Grayskull
will come the power.
1135
01:06:54,385 --> 01:06:59,015
This is a pen-and-ink version
of Castle Grayskull.
1136
01:06:59,098 --> 01:07:01,892
And you can see the mixture
of classic architecture,
1137
01:07:01,976 --> 01:07:04,437
but with also high-tech elements as well.
1138
01:07:04,520 --> 01:07:06,522
Here's a different version
of Castle Grayskull.
1139
01:07:06,605 --> 01:07:09,525
What I like about this is,
I like the flickering lights
1140
01:07:09,608 --> 01:07:12,319
but also the mistiness,
so this is sort of rising up
1141
01:07:12,403 --> 01:07:13,779
but also disappearing.
1142
01:07:14,780 --> 01:07:17,366
Then here's another Grayskull pass.
1143
01:07:18,367 --> 01:07:22,204
Originally we had all the major characters
of Masters of the Universe in the film,
1144
01:07:22,288 --> 01:07:26,542
including She-Ra, and She-Ra
eventually got cut from the film,
1145
01:07:26,625 --> 01:07:28,627
even though I'd designed everything.
1146
01:07:28,711 --> 01:07:32,256
William Stout had storyboarded
a couple of scenes of She-Ra
1147
01:07:32,339 --> 01:07:35,051
where's she inside
the Grayskull Throne Room,
1148
01:07:35,134 --> 01:07:38,095
fighting off Skeletor's troops
and whatnot with He-Man.
1149
01:07:38,179 --> 01:07:40,556
Her toy line had just come out
and they thought,
1150
01:07:40,639 --> 01:07:43,392
"We should have a female character
that the girls will like."
1151
01:07:43,976 --> 01:07:48,481
But they already had a strong female
character in the film, and that was Teela.
1152
01:07:50,858 --> 01:07:55,571
So this is all the bad guys
shown for height comparison.
1153
01:07:57,364 --> 01:08:01,577
Mattel had a little over 50, 60
Masters of the Universe characters,
1154
01:08:01,660 --> 01:08:03,621
and basically wanted them all in the film.
1155
01:08:03,704 --> 01:08:07,917
So what he told them was, "Why don't we
take some of the most popular characters
1156
01:08:08,000 --> 01:08:11,295
from the toy line and the cartoon,
like He-Man, Man-at-Arms, Teela,
1157
01:08:11,378 --> 01:08:15,174
Evil-Lyn, Skeletor, and Beast Man,
and then create a few new characters
1158
01:08:15,257 --> 01:08:16,842
that we could make new toys of?"
1159
01:08:16,926 --> 01:08:19,762
Well, right away, Mattel loved that
because, hey,
1160
01:08:19,845 --> 01:08:24,350
"If we can make new toys to sell,
then you're doing our job for us."
1161
01:08:27,186 --> 01:08:28,979
We're talking mid-eighties,
1162
01:08:29,063 --> 01:08:30,523
and there was very little CGI.
1163
01:08:30,606 --> 01:08:34,318
Basically all the makeup was Latex pieces
that were glued on,
1164
01:08:34,401 --> 01:08:37,613
and the guy who played Beast Man
would faint like every other day
1165
01:08:37,696 --> 01:08:39,281
'cause of heat stroke, you know,
1166
01:08:39,365 --> 01:08:42,409
so they'd have to pull him out
of the costume, he's this big guy.
1167
01:08:42,493 --> 01:08:46,247
Some of the other people had
all of those Latex things glued to them
1168
01:08:46,330 --> 01:08:48,249
for three or four hours before work.
1169
01:08:50,501 --> 01:08:54,255
This is the very first pass
I took at the Beast Man.
1170
01:08:55,214 --> 01:08:58,717
Slightly influenced by sort of
apish and wolfish kind of things.
1171
01:08:58,801 --> 01:09:02,555
And then here's definitely
the wolf influence, wolf influence here.
1172
01:09:02,638 --> 01:09:06,225
Again, here is, I put a patch over his eye
and then replaced a quarter of his brain
with a high-tech equivalent.
1173
01:09:11,480 --> 01:09:15,234
Here's a really early pass on Saurod.
1174
01:09:16,068 --> 01:09:18,320
Did a lot of different versions of Saurod.
1175
01:09:19,655 --> 01:09:23,534
A later pass at Saurod, and he's starting
to look a little more human.
1176
01:09:24,160 --> 01:09:28,289
Another Saurod take; this is starting
to get closer to what we built.
1177
01:09:28,372 --> 01:09:30,791
These are all proposed Saurod helmets.
1178
01:09:30,875 --> 01:09:33,127
He's like the most interesting
of the villains.
1179
01:09:33,210 --> 01:09:34,753
Why did we kill him first?
1180
01:09:34,837 --> 01:09:36,839
We should have killed Karg first,
1181
01:09:36,922 --> 01:09:39,258
so we could keep him around,
he's so fun to watch.
1182
01:09:41,552 --> 01:09:44,638
I was playing Blade and Walter Scott
was stunt coordinator.
1183
01:09:45,347 --> 01:09:49,268
Walter called me in and he basically said,
"You train Dolph,
1184
01:09:49,351 --> 01:09:50,644
you know more about swords."
1185
01:09:50,728 --> 01:09:54,440
We trained for about a month,
and Dolph very quickly saw
1186
01:09:54,523 --> 01:09:58,194
that I was there
to help him look great, and...
1187
01:09:58,277 --> 01:10:03,199
Boy, thank goodness Dolph was as strong
and physically capable as he is,
1188
01:10:03,282 --> 01:10:07,620
he's a tremendous athlete,
because he had... the sword was not easy.
1189
01:10:08,829 --> 01:10:10,539
Dolph's sword, which was easily
1190
01:10:11,457 --> 01:10:15,002
two fingers wider and probably
this much longer.
1191
01:10:15,586 --> 01:10:21,175
So this sword is from the '87 movie.
It says "screen use version."
1192
01:10:21,884 --> 01:10:27,223
Dolph was the guy to carry that sword,
definitely, because it's very heavy.
1193
01:10:28,349 --> 01:10:30,809
I went and rewatched
Captain Blood and Seahawk
1194
01:10:30,893 --> 01:10:33,062
'cause we're gonna
have lots of sword fighting.
1195
01:10:33,145 --> 01:10:34,897
I pulled out all kinds of stuff.
1196
01:10:34,980 --> 01:10:38,275
They had the opportunity to go
over things, under things, behind things,
1197
01:10:38,359 --> 01:10:41,362
around things; it made for
a much more interesting fight
1198
01:10:41,445 --> 01:10:43,822
than if they were fighting
on a floor with each other.
1199
01:10:44,865 --> 01:10:49,036
I think the schedule and budget started
collapsing towards the end of the shoot,
1200
01:10:49,119 --> 01:10:53,582
and suddenly this intricate fight
with Skeletor had to be simplified
1201
01:10:53,666 --> 01:10:57,002
into like 20% of what it was originally.
1202
01:10:59,880 --> 01:11:04,593
I got on the set, prepared
to shoot an intricate, terrific battle,
1203
01:11:04,677 --> 01:11:06,136
and they pulled the plug.
1204
01:11:06,845 --> 01:11:09,223
It's very dangerous,
the last few days of a movie.
1205
01:11:09,306 --> 01:11:11,267
You have to watch yourself because
1206
01:11:11,350 --> 01:11:15,104
there were so many compromises
in that film, so many that were made.
1207
01:11:15,187 --> 01:11:19,108
We were also filming in 110°
1208
01:11:19,191 --> 01:11:21,151
on a set that had no air conditioning.
1209
01:11:22,319 --> 01:11:25,364
And when he told me that,
which another actor might have said,
1210
01:11:25,447 --> 01:11:27,908
"Oh, great, I don't have to fight,
I can go home.
1211
01:11:27,992 --> 01:11:29,743
I won't have to sweat through this,"
1212
01:11:29,827 --> 01:11:35,457
but I had worked out so many things
about how exciting that fight could be,
1213
01:11:35,541 --> 01:11:38,168
and it was truncated down to a few hours.
1214
01:11:38,252 --> 01:11:40,004
-...from my memory forever!
-Enough talk!
1215
01:11:40,087 --> 01:11:44,925
Yes! Let this be our final battle!
1216
01:11:45,009 --> 01:11:48,554
He liked what I was doing; he said,
"I'm gonna have you double Skeletor."
1217
01:11:49,138 --> 01:11:52,766
So I had the power staff
and he had his He-Man sword.
1218
01:11:52,850 --> 01:11:53,892
So I put together
1219
01:11:53,976 --> 01:11:57,229
some things that allow
big movement with the staff.
1220
01:11:57,313 --> 01:12:01,525
Right before we shot, they went,
"No, this is after the transformation."
1221
01:12:01,608 --> 01:12:06,113
Thank you so much
for giving me elk antlers
1222
01:12:06,196 --> 01:12:08,032
and the New York skyline.
1223
01:12:08,115 --> 01:12:10,784
It was made worse by the fact that, uh...
1224
01:12:10,868 --> 01:12:13,912
in what I was in,
I couldn't see anything below this,
1225
01:12:13,996 --> 01:12:15,748
so my peripheral vision was terrible.
1226
01:12:15,831 --> 01:12:19,752
And then they were using a smoke
that coated the whole floor
1227
01:12:19,835 --> 01:12:23,881
with this thin film of oil,
so it was slippery as all get out.
1228
01:12:23,964 --> 01:12:27,217
I couldn't really see, you know,
and Dolph's coming at me
1229
01:12:27,301 --> 01:12:30,095
with Buick Slayer,
and I'm going, "Oh, boy."
1230
01:12:30,179 --> 01:12:33,349
I remember, I was
in Cannes, 1986, I was there
1231
01:12:33,432 --> 01:12:35,893
with Menahem Golan, and he was in there
1232
01:12:35,976 --> 01:12:38,270
and he was announcing
Masters of the Universe.
1233
01:12:38,937 --> 01:12:42,066
"Yes! He will be as big as Stallone!
1234
01:12:42,149 --> 01:12:43,734
Bigger than Stallone!"
1235
01:12:43,817 --> 01:12:45,694
I was kind of embarrassed,
1236
01:12:45,778 --> 01:12:48,697
but the Cannon people,
of course, were interesting,
1237
01:12:48,781 --> 01:12:52,868
and Gary was fighting a battle there
to try to save the picture.
1238
01:12:52,951 --> 01:12:56,914
I guess Gary, you know,
not only managed to direct the picture,
1239
01:12:56,997 --> 01:12:59,249
not only managed to get the picture made,
1240
01:12:59,333 --> 01:13:02,544
but he also managed to keep
any of that anxiety,
1241
01:13:02,628 --> 01:13:06,048
you know, from the cast, so it didn't get
in the way of the performances.
1242
01:13:06,131 --> 01:13:10,469
He carried that on his shoulders,
and I tip my hat to him for that.
1243
01:13:10,552 --> 01:13:14,056
Goddard created
this really cool universe, and...
1244
01:13:14,139 --> 01:13:16,058
there's something about the picture,
1245
01:13:16,141 --> 01:13:19,978
when I see it, occasionally,
you know, I catch it, that it is charming.
1246
01:13:20,062 --> 01:13:23,190
It has like a charm to it
because it is in camera.
1247
01:13:23,273 --> 01:13:27,653
Everything is kind of in camera
and the props are real
1248
01:13:27,736 --> 01:13:30,864
and... it's not as slick
as some of the movies now,
1249
01:13:30,948 --> 01:13:33,992
and it gives it a certain charm, I think.
1250
01:13:34,076 --> 01:13:39,039
It's one of my favorite roles, remains so,
and always will be so for the...
1251
01:13:39,123 --> 01:13:41,583
sheer bravura of it.
1252
01:13:41,667 --> 01:13:43,377
I like bravura acting.
1253
01:13:43,460 --> 01:13:46,046
The older I get,
I get simpler and simpler.
1254
01:13:46,130 --> 01:13:48,507
But remember, this is 30 years ago.
1255
01:13:48,590 --> 01:13:54,179
I loved the role because I felt
as long as I stayed tasteful
1256
01:13:54,263 --> 01:13:58,392
within his majesty and size,
I could go to the Moon with him,
1257
01:13:58,475 --> 01:14:01,186
and I tried to go to the Moon
with him all the time.
1258
01:14:01,270 --> 01:14:04,565
Each day, I found myself
more and more liberated
1259
01:14:04,648 --> 01:14:06,108
to do that sort of thing.
1260
01:14:06,191 --> 01:14:09,903
That version, I would say, skewed closer
1261
01:14:09,987 --> 01:14:13,782
also to a sense of Dark Crystal
1262
01:14:13,866 --> 01:14:17,244
or Labyrinth or all this spirit
in the way that it was scary.
1263
01:14:17,327 --> 01:14:21,081
Now, there were choices made in 1987
that I feel are choices born of 1987,
1264
01:14:21,165 --> 01:14:25,169
but, uh, he was reaching for something.
1265
01:14:25,252 --> 01:14:29,673
I mean, and I think there's something
to be said for movies that do reach.
1266
01:14:29,756 --> 01:14:32,885
Of course, there was some
disappointment with the way the film
1267
01:14:32,968 --> 01:14:35,679
was, perhaps, finished,
and some of the results,
1268
01:14:35,762 --> 01:14:38,307
the box office and so forth,
but, you know, Masters
1269
01:14:38,390 --> 01:14:41,935
is just one of those classic movies
that I will never forget.
1270
01:14:42,019 --> 01:14:44,730
And actually I showed it to my kids
when they were small.
1271
01:14:44,813 --> 01:14:48,108
The only picture they could see
that I was in was Masters, you know, where there wasn't
blood flying everywhere.
1272
01:14:51,570 --> 01:14:53,655
My son Alexander was...
1273
01:14:54,281 --> 01:14:55,365
a He-Man freak.
1274
01:14:55,449 --> 01:14:57,159
He wasn't interested in Skeletor,
1275
01:14:57,242 --> 01:14:59,286
but he would run around the house
1276
01:14:59,369 --> 01:15:01,330
in his pajamas with a little belt
1277
01:15:01,413 --> 01:15:02,414
and a little sword
1278
01:15:02,498 --> 01:15:04,666
and say, "I have the power!" all the time.
1279
01:15:04,750 --> 01:15:07,169
So when Gary Goddard asked me to do it,
1280
01:15:07,252 --> 01:15:08,837
I could not say no.
1281
01:15:08,921 --> 01:15:11,423
I literally had not read it or...
1282
01:15:11,507 --> 01:15:13,634
I hadn't met Gary yet, but I thought
1283
01:15:13,717 --> 01:15:15,761
this will be something for my son,
1284
01:15:15,844 --> 01:15:18,764
who eventually saw it
at a private screening
1285
01:15:18,847 --> 01:15:20,182
and slept through it.
1286
01:15:21,308 --> 01:15:24,686
You kind of think it will go
on forever, but it never does. If it sits on the peg too long,
it gets dusty, it's over.
1287
01:15:28,232 --> 01:15:30,192
They don't care what you've done.
1288
01:15:30,275 --> 01:15:32,819
Somebody else comes along,
and that's competition.
1289
01:15:32,903 --> 01:15:36,657
And then there's another idea,
and another guy comes in.
1290
01:15:36,740 --> 01:15:40,035
Meanwhile you've sold too many
Castle Grayskulls in.
1291
01:15:40,118 --> 01:15:42,871
The executives did the same,
made the same mistake.
1292
01:15:42,955 --> 01:15:46,208
Why? Because we survived last year.
1293
01:15:47,000 --> 01:15:48,502
Let's do it again this year.
1294
01:15:49,002 --> 01:15:52,130
Shot ourselves in the foot,
and no recovery.
1295
01:15:52,714 --> 01:15:57,970
It was pretty sad because
it could have gone on forever.
1296
01:16:06,812 --> 01:16:10,190
For a while, it's like
the toy line of He-Man has ended as well.
1297
01:16:10,274 --> 01:16:13,026
They're the wasteland,
what's happening next, then Mattel
1298
01:16:13,110 --> 01:16:15,195
are like, "We're gonna
do He-Man in space!"
1299
01:16:15,279 --> 01:16:16,655
They pitch a bunch of ideas.
1300
01:16:16,738 --> 01:16:18,699
We tried to do every iteration
1301
01:16:18,782 --> 01:16:20,576
of He-Man you could possibly think of.
1302
01:16:20,659 --> 01:16:24,913
We went from He-Man as G.I. Joe...
1303
01:16:25,372 --> 01:16:28,500
He-Man wrestler, He-Man playing baseball.
1304
01:16:28,584 --> 01:16:30,043
You wouldn't believe me.
1305
01:16:30,127 --> 01:16:34,089
There must have been ten iterations of,
"What could He-Man be doing?"
1306
01:16:35,507 --> 01:16:38,719
It didn't work; it goes against
everything He-Man stands for.
1307
01:16:38,802 --> 01:16:40,971
It's like .
"I've come to make peace."
1308
01:16:41,054 --> 01:16:43,015
Whoa there. Slow down.
1309
01:16:43,724 --> 01:16:46,893
I think we ended up, either through
market research or something,
1310
01:16:46,977 --> 01:16:49,021
He-Man went to outer space.
1311
01:16:49,771 --> 01:16:54,026
-Hence, New Adventures, right?
- I think it was too soon.
1312
01:16:54,109 --> 01:16:58,196
The toy business is ever evolving,
and I think you needed to wait
1313
01:16:58,280 --> 01:17:01,325
until some of the toy buyers
had forgotten what happened.
1314
01:17:02,951 --> 01:17:05,078
He was like, "Let's send
everything overseas,
1315
01:17:05,162 --> 01:17:07,039
as little here as possible."
1316
01:17:07,956 --> 01:17:11,293
And because they were using
a lot of Japanese artists
1317
01:17:11,376 --> 01:17:15,255
and Korean artists, it has more
of an anime kind of like feel to it.
1318
01:17:15,339 --> 01:17:20,677
I have the power!
1319
01:17:22,721 --> 01:17:26,475
I remember Jill, she took a trip
1320
01:17:26,558 --> 01:17:27,809
to Asente in Japan.
1321
01:17:27,893 --> 01:17:31,480
They were a very well known
design outfit at the time.
1322
01:17:31,563 --> 01:17:37,361
And what they did was they showed her
a lot of cool mechanisms.
1323
01:17:38,070 --> 01:17:41,114
Skeletor is waging war
on all the power in the universe!
1324
01:17:42,949 --> 01:17:44,785
Now it's your turn!
1325
01:17:44,868 --> 01:17:48,413
Give it up, Skeletor, I've got He-Man,
the most powerful man...
1326
01:17:48,497 --> 01:17:50,832
And then Jill wants them
a smaller scale
1327
01:17:50,916 --> 01:17:53,335
to make it different from the first line.
1328
01:17:53,418 --> 01:17:57,089
I said, "Some of these are going
to be nearly impossible to build."
1329
01:17:57,172 --> 01:17:59,508
-All right, you hear the ratchet.
1330
01:17:59,591 --> 01:18:01,760
The ratchet means
you're gonna overwind it.
1331
01:18:01,843 --> 01:18:03,970
These always had trouble standing.
1332
01:18:04,054 --> 01:18:07,516
So this one you spun around
with a little latch on the back of it,
1333
01:18:07,599 --> 01:18:11,645
so it's all spring-loaded
and then you... rrrr!
1334
01:18:11,728 --> 01:18:13,063
This was very simple.
1335
01:18:13,146 --> 01:18:15,857
I loved the simple ones 'cause
the other ones were harder.
1336
01:18:15,941 --> 01:18:17,484
This one you just spun around.
1337
01:18:17,567 --> 01:18:20,904
You could grab stuff or grab
another figure and spin it around.
1338
01:18:21,613 --> 01:18:24,449
Some people are like,
"The toys are thin and flimsy.
1339
01:18:24,533 --> 01:18:27,703
It doesn't really look like He-Man,"
so by the third year, I think,
1340
01:18:27,786 --> 01:18:29,955
of that toy line,
they'd make He-Man big again
1341
01:18:30,038 --> 01:18:31,707
with his crazy amount of muscles.
1342
01:18:34,251 --> 01:18:37,713
He-Man had been out of the limelight
for a very, very long time,
1343
01:18:37,796 --> 01:18:42,718
almost ten years at that point,
and I had talked on and off
1344
01:18:42,801 --> 01:18:45,637
with Mattel for a few years,
tried to talk to people,
1345
01:18:45,721 --> 01:18:49,891
hadn't had a lot of success,
and then they reached out to me in 2001
1346
01:18:49,975 --> 01:18:51,768
because I owned He-Man.org.
1347
01:18:52,477 --> 01:18:56,565
And we started talking about He-Man,
and I was like, "Why are you asking?"
1348
01:18:56,648 --> 01:18:59,484
They're like, "We're doing
this commemorative toy line."
1349
01:18:59,568 --> 01:19:05,699
In 2001, Mattel premiered
their new-looking, modern He-Man toy line,
1350
01:19:05,782 --> 01:19:08,243
which takes all the elements
of the original figures
1351
01:19:08,326 --> 01:19:12,080
and makes them cool and slightly '90s,
but in the early noughties.
1352
01:19:12,164 --> 01:19:15,333
He's got crazy sharp hair,
big chunky swords and weapons,
1353
01:19:15,417 --> 01:19:17,252
and more realistic bodies.
1354
01:19:17,335 --> 01:19:19,045
So the Four Horsemen
1355
01:19:19,129 --> 01:19:22,007
is an independent toy sculpting studio
out of New Jersey.
1356
01:19:22,090 --> 01:19:25,469
Before them, action figures
were always very minimal.
1357
01:19:25,552 --> 01:19:27,429
Minimal detail, minimal paint.
1358
01:19:27,512 --> 01:19:29,765
Ship it out and get it in the kids' hands.
1359
01:19:29,848 --> 01:19:32,184
And they brought that detail,
1360
01:19:32,267 --> 01:19:36,772
and it was the first time sort of a major
toy line from a big company had that
1361
01:19:36,855 --> 01:19:38,899
in the 200X line for Masters.
1362
01:19:38,982 --> 01:19:42,110
When we left the company
that we were working with previously
1363
01:19:42,194 --> 01:19:45,280
and started our own company,
our first idea was,
1364
01:19:45,363 --> 01:19:48,658
we want to redesign or revamp He-Man
and the Masters of the Universe.
1365
01:19:48,742 --> 01:19:51,703
And we approached Mattel with that idea,
and they were like,
1366
01:19:51,787 --> 01:19:54,456
"We were thinking exactly the same thing,
let's do this,"
1367
01:19:54,539 --> 01:19:56,917
and it just kind of serendipitously
came to be.
1368
01:19:57,000 --> 01:19:58,752
One of the things that we found
1369
01:19:58,835 --> 01:20:02,172
that was a very unifying element
on the designs
1370
01:20:02,255 --> 01:20:04,633
was keeping the color consistent.
1371
01:20:04,716 --> 01:20:08,929
And not just the colors, but the way that
the colors were patterned on the figure.
1372
01:20:09,012 --> 01:20:12,349
Our storyline was that He-Man and Skeletor
1373
01:20:12,432 --> 01:20:16,937
had battled and Skeletor had gotten
control of the Power Sword,
1374
01:20:17,020 --> 01:20:21,942
so now He-Man and Man-at-Arms
and Sorceress were this band of renegades
1375
01:20:22,025 --> 01:20:24,861
that were trying to wrest the power
back from Skeletor
1376
01:20:24,945 --> 01:20:27,072
and get the power
of Castle Grayskull back.
1377
01:20:29,908 --> 01:20:33,078
And while that was going on,
we had this very active fan base,
1378
01:20:33,161 --> 01:20:35,330
which was the biggest fan base around,
1379
01:20:35,413 --> 01:20:38,875
and it was really kind of carrying
the torch for He-Man.
1380
01:20:38,959 --> 01:20:40,919
I get a phone call from Mattel.
1381
01:20:41,002 --> 01:20:44,631
"Guess what, we're gonna reactivate He-Man
for the 20th anniversary.
1382
01:20:44,714 --> 01:20:46,758
Would you like to help us do it?"
1383
01:20:46,842 --> 01:20:49,052
By the power of Grayskull!
1384
01:20:50,303 --> 01:20:54,808
I have the power!
1385
01:20:56,059 --> 01:20:57,978
The Masters of the Universe!
1386
01:21:00,230 --> 01:21:04,818
And it gave me an opportunity to create
a new version of the show,
1387
01:21:04,901 --> 01:21:07,362
which actually went back
to my old vision of it,
1388
01:21:07,445 --> 01:21:09,281
which was never really played out.
1389
01:21:09,364 --> 01:21:11,700
You think there's
great thinking behind it.
1390
01:21:11,783 --> 01:21:14,202
I met the guy who wrote
some of these original books.
1391
01:21:14,286 --> 01:21:15,579
I said, "Why Grayskull?"
1392
01:21:15,662 --> 01:21:18,540
He said, "I had a deadline the next day,
the toy's coming out,
1393
01:21:18,623 --> 01:21:21,585
and my wife's maiden name was Gray,
so I go with 'Grayskull,'
1394
01:21:21,668 --> 01:21:25,130
and I thought a skull was cool";
that's as much thought as went into it.
1395
01:21:25,213 --> 01:21:29,134
Then when the cartoon went out in '83,
they had to justify some of those choices,
1396
01:21:29,217 --> 01:21:32,762
but they didn't have the luxury we had
of looking back and cherry picking
1397
01:21:32,846 --> 01:21:34,890
and making a chronology.
1398
01:21:34,973 --> 01:21:38,476
And again, some of it, we didn't get to,
but we knew it, and again,
1399
01:21:38,560 --> 01:21:41,354
if you're writing, everything
is feeling like this is real,
1400
01:21:41,438 --> 01:21:44,900
making it real for you and then hopefully
for the actors and the audience.
1401
01:21:46,401 --> 01:21:49,279
And the brand manager,
who I'd been contacting,
1402
01:21:49,362 --> 01:21:51,531
one of the many people I'd been contacting
1403
01:21:51,615 --> 01:21:54,451
and trying to do a comic,
came to me and said,
1404
01:21:54,534 --> 01:21:57,871
"We're doing this packet.
Would you like to help produce it?"
1405
01:21:57,954 --> 01:22:00,749
And I didn't hesitate
because I thought that was my dream,
1406
01:22:00,832 --> 01:22:04,419
my only opportunity to work on it,
but there was also
1407
01:22:04,502 --> 01:22:08,548
a really, really passionate fan
that had done his own comic,
1408
01:22:08,632 --> 01:22:11,885
I think for a school project,
if I remember, called "Homecoming."
1409
01:22:11,968 --> 01:22:15,096
He said, "Do you want to be the lead
penciler on this project?"
1410
01:22:15,180 --> 01:22:16,681
I said, "Yeah, of course."
1411
01:22:16,765 --> 01:22:20,518
I had no idea what I was doing,
but I say, "Well, let's try."
1412
01:22:21,394 --> 01:22:25,106
And we did the comic
for two years and a half.
1413
01:22:25,190 --> 01:22:28,443
And you had this team that was,
for the most part,
1414
01:22:28,526 --> 01:22:29,736
fans working on it.
1415
01:22:29,819 --> 01:22:34,449
The only caveat that I had to agree to
is like, "OK, you can do this,
1416
01:22:34,532 --> 01:22:38,286
but you need to have covers
with big name artists on it,"
1417
01:22:38,370 --> 01:22:40,038
but they were variant covers.
1418
01:22:40,121 --> 01:22:43,291
So I was still able to have the fans
working on the main cover,
1419
01:22:43,375 --> 01:22:45,710
but then I have a variant
with really big names.
1420
01:22:45,794 --> 01:22:48,505
And we were able to get people like
Boris Vallejo on there.
1421
01:22:48,588 --> 01:22:49,965
We had to make it
1422
01:22:50,048 --> 01:22:52,425
fit the esthetic of what was
going on with the reboot,
1423
01:22:52,509 --> 01:22:56,596
which did have a little bit of
anime influence into it,
1424
01:22:56,680 --> 01:22:59,140
and I get where they were going
because at the time,
1425
01:22:59,224 --> 01:23:02,560
there was a number of anime franchises
that were really hot.
1426
01:23:02,644 --> 01:23:06,147
So they wanted to key in on what kids
were into, and that makes complete sense.
1427
01:23:06,231 --> 01:23:09,943
The name is Skeletor!
1428
01:23:10,026 --> 01:23:14,906
I was given voice refs with
Alan Oppenheimer's original Skeletor
1429
01:23:14,990 --> 01:23:17,158
and they definitely wanted to keep
1430
01:23:17,242 --> 01:23:18,576
the continuity.
1431
01:23:18,660 --> 01:23:22,330
So many years,
so many failures.
1432
01:23:22,414 --> 01:23:26,167
-But at last, I have the key to success!
1433
01:23:26,251 --> 01:23:28,503
We hadn't met He-Man, Cam Clarke.
I remember...
1434
01:23:28,586 --> 01:23:30,714
-That's curious, too,.
-Yeah, we were like,
1435
01:23:30,797 --> 01:23:33,258
"We can't wait to see
the 'I have the power,'"
1436
01:23:33,341 --> 01:23:35,677
and the whole cast
was hopped up to meet him.
1437
01:23:35,760 --> 01:23:37,387
Are you ready, Prince Adam?
1438
01:23:39,180 --> 01:23:40,724
As I'll ever be.
1439
01:23:40,807 --> 01:23:43,476
They said, "We need a 17-year-old,"
or whatever it was,
1440
01:23:43,560 --> 01:23:45,395
"and an adult superhero."
1441
01:23:45,478 --> 01:23:48,273
And I went, "I got this in the bag,
this is great."
1442
01:23:48,356 --> 01:23:49,649
I get to use my...
1443
01:23:49,733 --> 01:23:55,238
my light, youthful, thinner
end of my vocal cords...
1444
01:23:55,989 --> 01:23:59,034
as well as a deeper, darker place.
1445
01:23:59,117 --> 01:24:01,494
So this is Castle Grayskull?
1446
01:24:02,162 --> 01:24:03,705
Could use a coat of paint.
1447
01:24:03,788 --> 01:24:07,876
The Canadian way, most of the time,
is always standing at your mic,
1448
01:24:07,959 --> 01:24:11,212
and the U.S. technique was sitting,
so we were like, "What's going on?"
1449
01:24:11,296 --> 01:24:14,591
All of the sudden, Cam sits down
and starts doing his stuff.
1450
01:24:14,674 --> 01:24:16,092
I sit down.
1451
01:24:17,594 --> 01:24:19,596
I'm not gonna stand up.
1452
01:24:20,221 --> 01:24:21,556
Gssh, gssh!
1453
01:24:21,639 --> 01:24:25,101
Then I heard his teenage voice,
which I really liked a lot, you know?
1454
01:24:25,185 --> 01:24:27,479
-Um...
-A great Adam. He did a great Adam.
1455
01:24:27,562 --> 01:24:29,314
Then the transition.
I have...
1456
01:24:29,397 --> 01:24:31,232
I was like, "Dude, you got it!"
1457
01:24:31,316 --> 01:24:33,401
By the power of Grayskull,
1458
01:24:33,485 --> 01:24:36,946
I have the power!
1459
01:24:38,406 --> 01:24:41,367
-He could do that with his eyes closed.
-Guys need another take?
1460
01:24:44,329 --> 01:24:48,458
We have this franchise that was
a billion-dollar engine in the '80s.
1461
01:24:50,668 --> 01:24:53,004
And then all of the sudden, it went down.
1462
01:24:53,088 --> 01:24:56,174
It was on ice for a long time
and they came back really strong
1463
01:24:56,257 --> 01:24:58,384
with this incredible reboot
they put a lot behind,
1464
01:24:58,468 --> 01:25:00,178
and that didn't do too well.
1465
01:25:00,261 --> 01:25:01,763
So, I understand.
1466
01:25:01,846 --> 01:25:04,516
You know, as a fan, you're like,
"Don't stop now."
1467
01:25:05,100 --> 01:25:08,103
We were waiting and waiting and waiting
and didn't really realize
1468
01:25:08,186 --> 01:25:11,272
that was it, it was gonna be
the end at that point.
1469
01:25:11,356 --> 01:25:14,025
I was expecting a bit more longevity.
1470
01:25:15,735 --> 01:25:18,613
So He-Man was once again
a dead property to Mattel.
1471
01:25:18,696 --> 01:25:22,909
It had been tried, it didn't work with
the collectors, didn't work with the kids.
1472
01:25:22,992 --> 01:25:27,789
I'm an adult collector and I spend
$100 to $200 a month on action figures.
1473
01:25:27,872 --> 01:25:31,543
And I say, essentially, I'm not
buying anything from Mattel.
1474
01:25:33,461 --> 01:25:36,464
We started working on
a pitch for Mattel
1475
01:25:36,548 --> 01:25:41,052
for a new way to get the line back out,
and so that was Classics.
1476
01:25:41,136 --> 01:25:42,762
That's when Scott Neitlich came in.
1477
01:25:42,846 --> 01:25:46,808
Completely serendipitously,
the Horsemen created
1478
01:25:46,891 --> 01:25:49,477
the prototype for what became
the He-Man Classics figure.
1479
01:25:49,561 --> 01:25:51,104
No one asked them to.
1480
01:25:51,187 --> 01:25:54,566
No one was talking to them,
they didn't know what I was doing.
1481
01:25:54,649 --> 01:25:56,401
We were working in our own bubbles.
1482
01:25:56,484 --> 01:26:00,113
We made a presentation to Mattel
and showed them this new style He-Man
1483
01:26:00,697 --> 01:26:01,990
that we came up with,
1484
01:26:02,073 --> 01:26:06,077
and it was very much like the old
classic style He-Man of the '80s.
1485
01:26:06,161 --> 01:26:11,708
With 2002, it was all original designs
and a complete fresh look
1486
01:26:11,791 --> 01:26:15,670
at the characters,
whereas Classics, it's all about
1487
01:26:15,753 --> 01:26:19,340
direct nostalgia,
so that scratches a very different itch
1488
01:26:19,424 --> 01:26:21,217
than the 2002 line did.
1489
01:26:22,385 --> 01:26:26,431
The big, beefy He-Man,
the bulky proportions and everything,
1490
01:26:26,514 --> 01:26:30,685
but the articulation and everything
was much better than the originals.
1491
01:26:31,644 --> 01:26:33,605
And we presented to the guys at Mattel,
1492
01:26:33,688 --> 01:26:35,815
and they were like, "I don't know, maybe."
1493
01:26:35,899 --> 01:26:39,027
But one guy there, Dave Voss, he was like,
"No, you know what?
1494
01:26:39,110 --> 01:26:42,322
Let's put it out on the shelf
here at ComicCon,
1495
01:26:42,405 --> 01:26:45,909
not say anything, and let's see
what the fans say about it."
1496
01:26:47,702 --> 01:26:51,998
I think somebody said we were
at 250 figures for that line,
1497
01:26:52,081 --> 01:26:55,835
so we've got a castle, we've got beasts,
we've got vehicles.
1498
01:26:55,919 --> 01:26:58,880
So it's really, I think,
maybe one of the longest-running
1499
01:26:58,963 --> 01:27:01,883
and largest toy lines
out there at this point.
1500
01:27:05,386 --> 01:27:09,182
Some people will look
at properties, and these properties
1501
01:27:09,265 --> 01:27:13,561
will be defined by, say, a book
that was created by one author.
1502
01:27:13,645 --> 01:27:18,233
But what they're not thinking about is
that the works they see on the screen
1503
01:27:18,316 --> 01:27:20,944
are further developed by artists
and creators,
1504
01:27:21,027 --> 01:27:23,696
but with He-Man and She-Ra,
there was never a book.
1505
01:27:23,780 --> 01:27:27,742
This was something that was cooked up
by an entire company of people.
1506
01:27:27,825 --> 01:27:31,329
People like Roger Sweet
who created the name He-Man.
1507
01:27:31,412 --> 01:27:34,582
Mark Taylor, who came up with some
of the original designs for He-Man,
1508
01:27:34,666 --> 01:27:38,002
the original B-sheets that we know
as the core characters.
1509
01:27:38,086 --> 01:27:40,880
Ted Mayer, who came up
with these amazing vehicles
1510
01:27:40,964 --> 01:27:45,885
that put together sorcery and science
and like old-school tech.
1511
01:27:45,969 --> 01:27:49,514
Mark Ellis and Paul Cleveland
who sold us the story,
1512
01:27:49,597 --> 01:27:52,558
who put it together, who gave it a voice,
who gave it names.
1513
01:27:52,642 --> 01:27:55,103
The people that worked
at Filmation that created
1514
01:27:55,186 --> 01:27:57,939
relationships between these characters
and defined them
1515
01:27:58,022 --> 01:27:59,357
as what people know today.
1516
01:27:59,440 --> 01:28:02,735
The creation that we have
for He-Man and She-Ra exists
1517
01:28:02,819 --> 01:28:05,780
because so many amazing people
contributed their strengths to it.
1518
01:28:06,781 --> 01:28:09,701
The key to discovering
the impact of He-Man
1519
01:28:10,285 --> 01:28:13,413
is remembering to put it into context.
1520
01:28:13,496 --> 01:28:19,836
The idea of being transformed
into you own inner true self with power,
1521
01:28:19,919 --> 01:28:22,714
with agency over yourself and your life,
1522
01:28:22,797 --> 01:28:24,007
is very attractive.
1523
01:28:24,090 --> 01:28:26,259
If you're a child,
you feel weak,
1524
01:28:26,342 --> 01:28:28,803
an 8-year-old, 9-year-old, or 10-year-old.
1525
01:28:28,886 --> 01:28:30,972
I can be something bigger,
1526
01:28:31,055 --> 01:28:33,850
and I can not only defeat someone
with my muscle,
1527
01:28:33,933 --> 01:28:36,978
but I can defeat somebody
with my wisdom and my wit,
1528
01:28:37,061 --> 01:28:38,771
which is what He-Man was all about.
1529
01:28:39,397 --> 01:28:43,234
That was the goal that I was trying
to achieve in the whole series.
1530
01:28:43,318 --> 01:28:46,070
"By the power of Grayskull,
I have the power."
1531
01:28:46,154 --> 01:28:48,448
That was the moment, because any kid,
1532
01:28:48,531 --> 01:28:51,659
no matter who you are,
could instantly become He-Man.
1533
01:28:52,785 --> 01:28:55,455
I remember all the kids
being so into He-Man,
1534
01:28:55,538 --> 01:28:59,542
and I think that built up, even like
the days before the Internet, it was like
1535
01:28:59,625 --> 01:29:04,213
a weird small little community of kids
that religiously watched the cartoon
1536
01:29:04,297 --> 01:29:05,965
and played with the figures.
1537
01:29:06,841 --> 01:29:08,760
Humans have a hunger for heroes.
1538
01:29:09,385 --> 01:29:15,475
It's a way... it's an idealized way of...
1539
01:29:15,558 --> 01:29:18,144
of dealing with the real world. We need something new
to come along for kids
1540
01:29:21,689 --> 01:29:25,902
while we can still have the things that
we love done in a niche style for us
1541
01:29:25,985 --> 01:29:27,862
old aging people that still love it.
1542
01:29:27,945 --> 01:29:32,825
There's no reason to give up what you love
for something new; they can all coexist.
1543
01:29:32,909 --> 01:29:36,454
'Cause if we don't, unfortunately,
He-Man and She-Ra are gonna die,
1544
01:29:36,537 --> 01:29:40,708
they're gonna go away, and there's
something really sad about that
1545
01:29:40,792 --> 01:29:44,212
because I think we,
as fans my age growing up,
1546
01:29:44,295 --> 01:29:46,464
realize that there's something
special about it.
1547
01:29:46,547 --> 01:29:49,926
Maybe it's nostalgia, maybe we're
looking at it with rose-colored glasses,
1548
01:29:50,009 --> 01:29:52,428
maybe we're being selfish,
but there's things in here
1549
01:29:52,512 --> 01:29:57,433
that help define who we are,
and I think we know that these elements,
1550
01:29:57,517 --> 01:30:01,312
if they carry over to something new,
might help define a new generation
1551
01:30:01,395 --> 01:30:04,649
and connect with them
at a meaningful level that it did with us.