He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special

It's probably not an exaggeration when I say that practically every kid in my generation (or least in my class) watched He-Man and She-Ra religiously after school, and owned almost every action figure.  The best thing about He-Man action figures was that you could pulls off the limbs and easily put them back on again, hence when you had battles you could make them as graphic as you wanted.  Or, you could swap the arms and legs of He-Man with that of another Masters of the Universe action figure; the possibilities were endless.

No words can describe just how excited my six year-old self was when it was announced that there was going to be a He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special. I thought I might had died and gone to heaven. A He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special?! Surely, this would be the Christmas Special to end all Christmas Specials. No offense Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer or Charlie Brown, but there's no way you could hope to compete with the sheer juggernaut that was He-Man. As far as I was concerned, they might as well stop making Christmas Specials altogether, because nothing could possibly top the sight of He-Man and She-Ra kicking ass, while lecturing about the joys of Christmas. After what seemed like an agonizingly long wait (three weeks), the day of deliverance had finally arrived. My sister and I sat in front of the television and were absolutely AMAZED by what we were witnessing. Not only did we get to see our favorite characters kicking serious butt, but we were introduced to new action figures....er I mean characters......the Manchines and the  Monstroids. Oh, joy!

My generation has a tendency to be overly nostalgic about everything that was the 80s, He-Man included. During the 90s, I remember constantly bemoaning the fact that the afternoon cartoons just weren't as good as the ones in the 80s. As much as the stations tried, they could never replace He-Man; it was a huge part of my childhood. Unfortunately for me and most He-Man fans, DVD came along and essentially destroyed our warm and fuzzy memories of the show. I bought the first season of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and couldn't wait to relive some of my childhood memories, only to discover to my absolute horror that it was completely unwatchable. The first few minutes offered up a couple of giggles, but by the time I was midway through the first episode I was on the verge of jumping out the window; it was that painful. However, before I hastily ended my life, I thought to myself, "Maybe it's just the first episode that's bad. After all, it's mostly exposition, hence the rather slow pace. Surely, the other episodes will be better." No such luck! The thing about He-Man and the Masters of the Universe is that it becomes tiresome really fast; due to the fact that each episode recycles the same bits of animation over and over. Often you would be shown the "Adam into He-Man" transformation not once, but twice an episode. Realizing there's no way I could possibly make it through five episodes of He-Man and Masters of the Universe, let alone an entire season, I promptly sold my DVD.

He-Man and She-Ra: A Christmas Special is the ultimate endurance test; if you can survive it, then you can make through just about anything. Not only do we have endure the usual He-Man and She-Ra antics, but we have deal with Miguel and Alisha, two annoying earth children accidentally transported to Eternia.
"How do these annoying brats get stuck on Eternia?" you ask. Well, you see Adam and Man at Arms are working on a shuttle called the Sky Spy, which they plan to use to spy on Skeletor. However, Orko, odious comic relief and amateur wizard, sneaks aboard the Sky Spy, plays around with the controls and accidentally causes it to blast off. After nearly getting captured by Skeletor and his incompetent henchmen, Orko tries to force the Sky Spy to land by casting a magic spell, however instead of landing on Eternia, it lands on Earth. Uh-oh! Orko arrives just in the nick of time to save Miguel and Alisha from an avalanche; it seems the two kids got lost in the woods while trying to find the right Christmas Tree for their family. They take shelter in the downed Sky Spy and the kids proceed to tell Orko all about Christmas.

Meanwhile, back on Eternia, Man at Arms and Adam deduce that Orko must have been aboard the Sky Spy when it took off. Thankfully (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), Man At Arms has invented a Transport Beam that can bring Orko back. After encountering a few road blacks (She-Ra needs to retrieve a crystal to power the Transport Beam and encounters the Monstroids in the process) Man at Arms activates the Transport Beam and brings back Orko and *GASP* the children as well.  Alisha whines that she might miss Christmas, but the Queen of Eternia assures her that she and Miguel can celebrate on Eternia, and once Man at Arms fixes the Transport Beam they can go back home. Yippee!  However, the presence of Miguel and Alisha worries the Emperor...er I mean Horde Prime, who fears that the Christmas Spirit they have brought to Eternia might undermine his power. He then sends his underlings Skeletor and Hordak to kidnap the children before it is too late. Skeletor and Hordak argue for a few seconds as to who will get to the children first and win Horde Prime's approval, finally Horde Prime has had enough of their bickering and orders them on their way.  We are then treated to an extremely painful Christmas song composed by Bow, a lackey of She-Ra. This is a staple in almost every Christmas special; the characters drop what their doing and sing a Christmas song. This little number,"Christmas in Eternia," never caught on with the public, much to Bow's chagrin.

This thankfully comes to an abrupt end as the kids and Orko are kidnapped by Hordak via tractor beam. Bow proves to be rather useless and is frozen solid with a blast from Hordac's freeze ray. OH NO! After another set of contrivances (another encounter with the Monstroids, the appearance of the Manchines) the kids and a Manchine puppy named Relay are spirited away by Skeletor. However, Hordak shoots down Skeletor's sky scooter and they are forced to continue their journey on foot, across some treacherous snow mountains.  However, as the journey goes on Skeletor finds himself doing extremely uncharacteristic things, namely acts of kindness. Skeletor then says to Miguel, "Tell me more about this...this Christmas!" We are then treated to one of the great exchanges in Christmas Special history:

In the end, Skeletor, like the Grinch before him, grows a heart and saves the children from the vile clutches of Horde Prime. The annoying moppets are returned to Earth and everyone is happy. Oh, and Adam tries to fool his sister Adora (She-Ra's alter ego) in thinking he is Santa Claus, but no such luck.

As bad as this special is, and boy is it BAD, I still enjoy the Skeletor scenes; they are essentially the heart of the Christmas Special. It's rather amusing how Skeletor keeps insisting that he is EVIL, but then proceeds to do a kind act after making this bold statement. Skeletor was always the most interesting character on He-Man and the Masters of Universe, largely because he never came across as being evil, but rather a curmudgeonly old man in need of a serious hug. The Christmas Special proves this theory; as soon as Skeletor encounters the annoying human brats and that irritatingly cute Manchine dog, he's incapable of doing any wrong. They melt his icy heart with their warm Christmas Spirit.

The He-Man and She-Ra relationship kind of disturbs me. It's great to love one's sibling, but they really love one another. I mean REALLY LOVE ONE ANOTHER! Every time the two of them would team up, we would have moments like this:

YIKES!