Overview
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (often referred to simply as He-Man) is an American animated television series produced by Filmation based on Mattel's toy line Masters of the Universe. The show was one of the most popular animated shows of the 1980s.
It made its television debut in September 1983 and ran until 1985, consisting of two seasons of 65 episodes each. Towards the end of the show's original run, it spawned one feature length theatrical movie He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword, which served as the introduction for the show's spinoff literal sister series She-Ra: Princess of Power. Reruns continued to air in syndication until 1988, at which point USA Network bought the rights to the series. USA aired He-Man until September 1990. The success of the toy based show in syndication greatly influenced other animation houses to produce half hour "cartoon commercials", and considerably changed the syndicated cartoon market.
The franchise has been adapted many times in comic book and comic strip form, and a live-action film was produced in 1987. A rebooted series, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, renamed Masters of the Universe vs. The Snake Men during season 2, released on Toonami on August 16, 2002. Two continuation series were released in 2021 for Netflix: one is Masters of the Universe: Revelation for an adult audience and another is a family-oriented animated CGI revival, also titled He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.
Synopsis
The series takes place on Eternia, a planet of magic, myth and fantasy. Its lead character is Prince Adam, the young son of Eternia's rulers, King Randor and Queen Marlena. Whenever Prince Adam holds the Sword of Power aloft and proclaims "By the Power of Grayskull! I have the power!” he is endowed with "fabulous secret powers" and transformed into He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe. Together with his close allies, Battle Cat (who undergoes a similar transformation from being Adam's cowardly pet tiger Cringer), The Sorceress, Teela, Man-At-Arms and Orko, He-Man uses his powers to defend Eternia from the evil forces of Skeletor. Skeletor's main goal is to conquer the mysterious fortress of Castle Grayskull, from which He-Man draws his powers. If successful, Skeletor would have enough power to rule all of Eternia and possibly the entire universe.
Characters
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).