It's fantasy hero shenanigans in a scifi setting. It's probably fun for the writers to come up with stories in a world like that and it appeals to fans because it has elements from a lot of different popular genres (horror, romance, adventure, etc.).
It just refuses to recognize a distinction, and that's how it used to be. A Princess of Mars is one of the most influential early sci-fi works and the hero's soul flies to Mars on a moonbeam while his body remains preserved in a magical sleep on Earth.
If we're being honest, He-Man became popular in large part because it was riding on the very crest in a major change in action figures. Before He-Man, action figures were fairly standard in terms of "aiming for realism" anatomy, with little in the line of gimmicks.
The exaggerated super-muscular proportions of the He-Man figures were something VERY new, and it brought a lot more gimmicks to the party (hit this toy to cause "battle damage"! This toy has a working pincher claw! This one whips its tail!).
He-Man's popularity took an apocalyptic nosedive in no small part because other toys started appearing on the shelves that did similar things.
I've been watching the old cartoons, and it struck me as odd how sometimes the villains will get thrown in mud or muck. And that'll be it's own shot, the focus of it. Then I remembered there was an old toy with that exact function: just stick one of your toys in this pit of goo.
Might be one of the first of that kind, really. And rather than the usual "ah so this is where the fetish comes from," I'm pretty sure it's just appealing to kids' natural inclination to go hog wild and make a mess. Rather than actually engendering that appreciation itself.
I think a big part of it was that Sword and Sorcery stuff was just really popular in the early 80s. He-Man was just the safe cartoon version for kids. The barbarian man that punches wizards, robots, and snake men every week was cool.
Filmation show didn't have real competition. See [...] [...]
It was first out of the gate once Reagan gave the OK for cartoons that were basically long advertisements, and its toys were different from what had been on the market before. Once other franchises showed up MOTU got lapped over and over.
It was the very first one of the cartoon based action figure sets where the cartoon would feature some cool new guy or vehicle each week. It doesn't stand out as much now after TMNT, Transformers, Thundercats and all the smaller 80s shows like Bionic 6, Visionaries, Silverhawks, Jayce, etc came along afterward and made the wohle thing a standard common event.
Cheeseckake for boys and girls in the 80s
Action fantasy with monsters, classic Frazetta style. the women were sexy, feminine with an angel face, we're talking about a time when Lynda Carter was Wonder Woman, the boys were very happy in those days, nowadays at least the boys have the waifus from the animes because America no longer gives anything to the boys
Conan would piss and shit himself if he saw He-Man. Don't even with any non Howard bullshit Marvel pissed out. Conan isn't foolhardy the second this magic lightening man on a green tiger shows, by Crom, he's out.
Conan kills and gets mad b***hes.
He-Man does not kill.
Conan is a savage that does what's needed to win.
If He-Man is cheating with magical 'roids, Conan has no problem lying in wait until the magic wears off and decapitating the spoiled royal brat from behind.
Oh, if there was no money in it he wouldn't, obviously. I was working under the assumption that he'd have a reason.
If he needs to kill He-Man, he does.
If he doesn't need to kill He-Man, he doesn't.
But either way he doesn't run away "pissing himself" because a dude that doesn't kill occasionally uses magic to look strong and ride a tiger.
It combines three things 80's kids like: science fiction, sword and sorcery, and military. If made today it'd be about poop, gays/blacks, and something not scary but presented as scary.
>If it was made today
We've had Dreamworks' She-Ra, CGI He-Man, and Rev, you don't need to speculate on what the show would look like made today. No poop, and I'm not sure what "something not scary but presented as scary" means. Also a decent amount of sci-fi, sword & sorcery, and about as much military as the original.
the Barbarian came out but the film was for adults; He-Man was supposed to be a Conan toy line but Mattel freaked out when they saw the script and how violent it was and decided to make a kid friendly knock off instead, especially when a focus group of kids they showed character designs to liked the OC characters more than they did the Conan characters.
>>Toy line was the evolution of the toy revolution caused by the Kenner Star Wars line: affordable five inch figures alongside equally affordable vehicles the figures could ride/playsets kids could play with the figures inside of
was a huge hit/promotional tool for the toy line, as it came out just as Reagan killed laws passed by LBJ to ban toy companies from making cartoons based off of toy lines. The He-Man cartoon predated both GI Joe and Transformers giving him a head start.
Aye, but once they caught up it was left in the dust.
Only time MOTU managed to catch a real new audience (and even then it was one-one-billionth the size of the old one) was the Dreamworks She-Ra show.
Mattel should be willing to take some serious chances with any reboots in future, because By The Numbers isn't doing it for anyone.
>isn't doing it for anyone
Revolution wasn't the runaway success that Mattel wanted, I'm sure, but it hit the top ten on Netflix in like 40 countries. And that's top ten overall, not for kids shows or animation or anything.
You are just making shit up. The Dreamworks woke She-Ra show was a huge god-damn flop and pretty much killed that end of the franchise with it's bullshit.
Big wholesome Christian boy gets swole, saves the day, teaches us a moral for use in everday life. Hangs out with, and beats up, weird ayys. Explores ancient ruins and strange worlds.
the Barbarian came out but the film was for adults; He-Man was supposed to be a Conan toy line but Mattel freaked out when they saw the script and how violent it was and decided to make a kid friendly knock off instead, especially when a focus group of kids they showed character designs to liked the OC characters more than they did the Conan characters.
>>Toy line was the evolution of the toy revolution caused by the Kenner Star Wars line: affordable five inch figures alongside equally affordable vehicles the figures could ride/playsets kids could play with the figures inside of
was a huge hit/promotional tool for the toy line, as it came out just as Reagan killed laws passed by LBJ to ban toy companies from making cartoons based off of toy lines. The He-Man cartoon predated both GI Joe and Transformers giving him a head start.
If we're being honest, He-Man became popular in large part because it was riding on the very crest in a major change in action figures. Before He-Man, action figures were fairly standard in terms of "aiming for realism" anatomy, with little in the line of gimmicks.
The exaggerated super-muscular proportions of the He-Man figures were something VERY new, and it brought a lot more gimmicks to the party (hit this toy to cause "battle damage"! This toy has a working pincher claw! This one whips its tail!).
He-Man's popularity took an apocalyptic nosedive in no small part because other toys started appearing on the shelves that did similar things.
It was first out of the gate once Reagan gave the OK for cartoons that were basically long advertisements, and its toys were different from what had been on the market before. Once other franchises showed up MOTU got lapped over and over.
Interesting theory, doesn’t change the fact that Filmation was popular. Popular enough they’re STILL making toys and cartoons! Truly a POWERFUL franchise 🙂
>was
There's an important word in your sentence, and it's not "interesting." It was ahead of the pack, then lost, what, 97% of sales in a single year and never recovered?
>STILL making
And selling to the original audience (now grown up and looking to buy toys from their childhood). Your argument was that it appeals to kids. It's not appealing to kids now. It appealed to a group of kids before they saw other options they preferred, and now that they're older some of them have enough cash to go "I want that old toy I never got."
2 months ago
Anonymous
Huh? Why are you so fixated on today’s kids, who we know don’t buy toys? It was popular, and it’s beloved enough to endure. These are facts.
Honestly anon you seem weirdly emotionally invested in painting a highly successful and iconic toyline in a negative light. Care to speak on why?
2 months ago
Anonymous
OP asked what made He-Man Popular
Incorrect answer:
Big wholesome Christian boy gets swole, saves the day, teaches us a moral for use in everday life. Hangs out with, and beats up, weird ayys. Explores ancient ruins and strange worlds.
Gonzo high fantasy for kids, it’s good clean fun.
>Big wholesome Christian boy gets swole, saves the day, teaches us a moral for use in everday life.
If that was the correct answer and kids wanted to see "a good Christian boy that teaches morals," then He-Man's reboots would have been popular too. And the initial popularity would have lasted longer.
Correct answer:
He came out at the right time
the Barbarian came out but the film was for adults; He-Man was supposed to be a Conan toy line but Mattel freaked out when they saw the script and how violent it was and decided to make a kid friendly knock off instead, especially when a focus group of kids they showed character designs to liked the OC characters more than they did the Conan characters.
>>Toy line was the evolution of the toy revolution caused by the Kenner Star Wars line: affordable five inch figures alongside equally affordable vehicles the figures could ride/playsets kids could play with the figures inside of
was a huge hit/promotional tool for the toy line, as it came out just as Reagan killed laws passed by LBJ to ban toy companies from making cartoons based off of toy lines. The He-Man cartoon predated both GI Joe and Transformers giving him a head start.
>He came out at the right time
the Barbarian came out but the film was for adults; He-Man was supposed to be a Conan toy line but Mattel freaked out when they saw the script and how violent it was and decided to make a kid friendly knock off instead, especially when a focus group of kids they showed character designs to liked the OC characters more than they did the Conan characters.
>>Toy line was the evolution of the toy revolution caused by the Kenner Star Wars line: affordable five inch figures alongside equally affordable vehicles the figures could ride/playsets kids could play with the figures inside of
was a huge hit/promotional tool for the toy line, as it came out just as Reagan killed laws passed by LBJ to ban toy companies from making cartoons based off of toy lines. The He-Man cartoon predated both GI Joe and Transformers giving him a head start.
He-Man wasn't bad, but its success was mainly good timing and a lack of competition on the air and on the toy shelves.
[...]
Because it had been around for 5 years and kids were moving on to other stuff. They were interested in Ghostbusters and Robocop by then. He-Man was the big thing for the previous crop of kids in the early 80s.
This is hard to really grasp now since cartoons linger on forever, after Adventure Time stuck around for a decade, Teen Titans Go also for a decade, Gumball...but shows had a life of about 3-ish years and then people got bored with it and went on to other shit. Also the market was fricking saturated with shows and toylines back then. Every fall they came out with 8-9 new shows with toy sets, and maybe another 10 that were just cartoon series. That's a total opposite of today where a studio might debut 1-2 new series in a year. Old shit was buried under waves and waves of new stuff really fast.
>This is hard to really grasp now since cartoons linger on forever
The initial TMNT lasted from 1987 to 1996.
2 months ago
Anonymous
Possibly true but joyless points to jammer on about in a He-Man thread.
2 months ago
Anonymous
I suppose I'm a bit burnt out over the finger-pointing I see over the reboots not doing better. The fandom would be happier if it accepted how lucky the original series got and adjusted expectations accordingly.
2 months ago
Anonymous
The problem with all of the reboots is that they try and take shit WAY too seriously.
Ironically, Robot Chicken tends to be the only people to get He-Man right. Especially Skeletor, who is the right mix of menace and camp and the Filmation origin whereas all modern He-Man revivals want Skeletor to be a hideously disfigured incel half-breed uncle of He-Man.
2 months ago
Anonymous
Nah, everyone's gotten Skeletor right (except New Adventures). He was great in CGI, and great in Rev... even though some moronic corner of Cinemaphile keeps seething about that line that made people say he was an incel (and paradoxically seething about him having a longterm sexual relationship with Lynn that led to him thinking with his dick and fricking himself over).
2 months ago
Anonymous
I will not stand for this New Adventures Skeletor slander. Him and Slushhead make that show.
2 months ago
Anonymous
>I will not stand for this New Adventures Skeletor slander.
He had neat character dynamics with his new girlfriend Crita and with Flogg.
Again, bullshit lies as the CGI show outdid Revelations season one. It just had shit toys because Revelations did so much damage to the franchise that Mattel doubled down on nostalgia to salvage to sales.
MOTU was already relying on nostalgia bait before either show debuted. Blaming Revelation for a different iteration with a different target demographic for both its show and toys failing to gain steam is also desperate. The CGI show just didn't find a strong audience. It happens. It's tough to be a toy company these days, and MOTU never managed to stick around and feel contemporary the way Transformers has -- and even Transformers has sagged at various points.
>CGI show outdid Revelations season one
No, it didn't. CGI show never hit the top 10 shows. It got onto "top 10 kids shows" with season 1 and apparently never again (for the latter part I'm going by what anons watching closely on He-Man sites have told me).
I say this as a fan who dearly wished it did better. But it didn't outdo the Powerhouse Animation show.
The appeal of He-Man is the appeal of Hulk Hogan. Watching G1 MOTU cartoons is like if Vince McMahon hired cartoon writers to make his version of Conan the Barbarian and to add a bunch of toys to it.
That's the year when the toy sales cratered and they Mattel quietly ended the line. They've made various attempts to bring He-Man back starting with New Adventures, but none caught on.
Okay, but if it was as simple as "just mix Sci-Fi and Conan" it would've had peaks and lows in popularity. It's just had one real peak and all the reboots have gotten passing interest at best.
2 months ago
Anonymous
you have to make it entertaining
2 months ago
Anonymous
Alternatively the "Sci-Fi and Conan" mix by itself wasn't that much of a guarantee with kids and it was helped by a bunch of factors that are no longer around.
That's the year when the toy sales cratered and they Mattel quietly ended the line. They've made various attempts to bring He-Man back starting with New Adventures, but none caught on.
Because it had been around for 5 years and kids were moving on to other stuff. They were interested in Ghostbusters and Robocop by then. He-Man was the big thing for the previous crop of kids in the early 80s.
This is hard to really grasp now since cartoons linger on forever, after Adventure Time stuck around for a decade, Teen Titans Go also for a decade, Gumball...but shows had a life of about 3-ish years and then people got bored with it and went on to other shit. Also the market was fricking saturated with shows and toylines back then. Every fall they came out with 8-9 new shows with toy sets, and maybe another 10 that were just cartoon series. That's a total opposite of today where a studio might debut 1-2 new series in a year. Old shit was buried under waves and waves of new stuff really fast.
Gay body builder barbarian fighting a magic skeleton warrior, is absolute kino.
Magic, swords, cyborgs, dragons, ninjas, everything cool put in a blender
I think I'm one of like 3 unironic fans in all of Cinemaphile but I just really like the barbaric setting with technology remaining from what the very old material called "Scientists' War", it was quite post-apocalyptic, it hit both the sci-fi AND barbarian fantasy notes well.
I also loved the 2010s DC comics, that was peak MOTU, and I say this as a fan of the 83 cartoon and current toys. I like that He-Man isn't a dumb brute (a sad stereotype people think of, Conan himself wasn't a stupid brute either but somehow people think of him that way) and the fact He-Man has always a Spidey-esque cheesy insult to his enemies (whether it's because he's a teenager larping as an adult barbarian via magic, or just that way in the case of the VERY old minicomics) adds a lot of charm to him.
Skeletor of course is a strong reason for his popularity, that character as portrayed by Alan Openheimer did a lot of heavy lifting but both characters do have a duality, He-Man is necessary for Skeletor to bounce of and vice versa. I love these characters so much.
How's the new show? Honestly with the exception of the CGI cartoon, I'm not a fan of what was done with the franchise neither with Revelation nor the She-Ra lesbian cartoon.
I hear it’s good but I was soured enough by Revelation’s handling of things I haven’t checked it out. I’m putting my current hopes in the supposed new live action movie for the “Mattelverse.” Barbie was enough of a success for them they might put some real talent behind this.
>How's the new show?
Genuinely very good.
There's no point in retreading ground over Revelation Part One, but I'd argue Revelation Part Two was pretty good, and Revolution was where it became the show I wanted from the start.
>Conan himself wasn't a stupid brute either but somehow people think of him that way
I'm reading israeliteels of Gwahlur and there's a passage where Howard says that shut-in scholars would have their minds blown by Conan's linguistic knowledge and has Conan translate a 300 year old scroll.
Conan is really what homosexuals would nowadays call "genius bruisier", there is several instances both in the original Howard movies and other adaptations where Conan finds himself being quite philosophical about his world, his reality, his circumstances and the powers beyond he.
Like when he had the epiphany about The Riddle of Steel in the movie and other media that the true answer was the blade was only as powerful and as decisive as the man wielding it, and the blade alone or scheming manipulation alone were no good.
I'm reading through the stories in an omnibus collection and so far the only thing that Conan's ever described as not being superlative at is bribery and political scheming. Like, Grima Wormtongue style stuff. The sorts of things that the Shemitish people are really skilled at.
I guess it's maybe all of the Frazetta art, and that Conan in the movies doesn't talk much, if at all. A bare chested guy in a loincloth is visual shorthand for primitive, which is associated with low intelligence.
In the Frazetta artwork it makes sense, he's more often than not just fighting for his life. There is a pen-and-ink illustration drawn by John Buscema where he's just sitting down, pensative, that is the Conan I wish people also knew. that when he's not fighting or walking the world, he's alone with is thoughts, pondering deeply.
Man, Guts from Berserk in that regard really does feel like Conan's "spiritual successor" in fiction.
If you want to see something funny, go watch the scene early on in the movie right after Conan escapes slavery and before he meets up with his first buddy. Then go read the first scene from the very first chapter of Berserk.
Then consider how the movie is about a mentally traumatized, cynical muscle man slowly learning to trust people again, gaining a colorful cast of comrades with their own skills who help him on his journey through the world and quest for revenge.
Perfect storm of the toys being a lot of fun -- with a lot of crazy characters and vehicles and playsets -- and coming out at the right time to catch the barbarian craze without feeling like it was following a bandwagon. The show was ancillary.
Same thing happened with Ninja Turtles. They came out at a time where they were able to ride the wave of the ninja craze just as it was really taking off and then had this awesome toyline full of fun characters and vehicles and playsets.
There's also something to be said about the uniformity of the design of the toys. Most of the He-Man toys, despite being wildly different (I mean you have a Beast Man and then you have a guy with a giant fist and then you have a guy with a neck that becomes longer and a skeleton man and so on), all use very similar molds. Children love pattern recognition, especially patterns that are easy to pick up on. They love familiarity. They like being able to easily grasp the concept because the next thing is like the last thing but a little different. TMNT kind of has this since the turtles are similar design-wise but with different colored bandannas and weapons, but all the figures follow a somewhat similar design. Power Rangers did this really well, where the main good guys are all the same design-wise except with different colors. A young toddler can see there's a Red Ranger and a Blue Ranger and a Black Ranger and a Pink Ranger, and could probably guess there's a Green and Yellow Ranger as well. They'd probably guess other colors as well, like Brown Ranger and Orange Ranger and Purple Ranger, and I'm sure tons of kids drew these characters. The point is they're following along with the pattern and that means they're getting the basic concept which makes them more receptive to the show and more importantly the toys. There's definitely a ton of child psychology research on this locked behind corporate doors.
But ultimately the short answer is because the toys were cool.
>Why is He-Man popular?
Do you mean nowadays or is that in general?
For the former, its memes.
In general, it was a manly cartoon back then and people are feeling nostalgic now.
He-Man hasn't been popular since 1987.
its mostly Skeletor thats popular nowadays.
He-Man's appeal in the 80s was that he was a kid friendly Conan the Barberian and is manly as hell, a role model for kids
>its mostly Skeletor thats popular nowadays.
Seriously, Adam/He-Man is just not that interesting. People like the funny hammy evil Skeleton.
It's fantasy hero shenanigans in a scifi setting. It's probably fun for the writers to come up with stories in a world like that and it appeals to fans because it has elements from a lot of different popular genres (horror, romance, adventure, etc.).
It blends fantasy and sci-fi together fairly well. There's a lot of fun side characters and cool designs both on He-man's team and Skeletor's team.
It just refuses to recognize a distinction, and that's how it used to be. A Princess of Mars is one of the most influential early sci-fi works and the hero's soul flies to Mars on a moonbeam while his body remains preserved in a magical sleep on Earth.
>He-Man
>popular
It's true but he shouldn't say it.
If we're being honest, He-Man became popular in large part because it was riding on the very crest in a major change in action figures. Before He-Man, action figures were fairly standard in terms of "aiming for realism" anatomy, with little in the line of gimmicks.
The exaggerated super-muscular proportions of the He-Man figures were something VERY new, and it brought a lot more gimmicks to the party (hit this toy to cause "battle damage"! This toy has a working pincher claw! This one whips its tail!).
He-Man's popularity took an apocalyptic nosedive in no small part because other toys started appearing on the shelves that did similar things.
I've been watching the old cartoons, and it struck me as odd how sometimes the villains will get thrown in mud or muck. And that'll be it's own shot, the focus of it. Then I remembered there was an old toy with that exact function: just stick one of your toys in this pit of goo.
Might be one of the first of that kind, really. And rather than the usual "ah so this is where the fetish comes from," I'm pretty sure it's just appealing to kids' natural inclination to go hog wild and make a mess. Rather than actually engendering that appreciation itself.
I think a big part of it was that Sword and Sorcery stuff was just really popular in the early 80s. He-Man was just the safe cartoon version for kids. The barbarian man that punches wizards, robots, and snake men every week was cool.
It was the very first one of the cartoon based action figure sets where the cartoon would feature some cool new guy or vehicle each week. It doesn't stand out as much now after TMNT, Transformers, Thundercats and all the smaller 80s shows like Bionic 6, Visionaries, Silverhawks, Jayce, etc came along afterward and made the wohle thing a standard common event.
Cheeseckake for boys and girls in the 80s
Action fantasy with monsters, classic Frazetta style. the women were sexy, feminine with an angel face, we're talking about a time when Lynda Carter was Wonder Woman, the boys were very happy in those days, nowadays at least the boys have the waifus from the animes because America no longer gives anything to the boys
He was popular in the 80s,now he only has meme popularity
Sword and sorcery conan the barbarian fantasy is cooler then basic ass tolkien KO isekai anime slop
Also it has a cool skeleton man as the big bad
>conan the barbarian
Don't insult Conan by comparing him to this.
This. If anything in animation is similar to Conan its Primal and Tarzan.
Conan would piss and shit himself if he saw He-Man. Don't even with any non Howard bullshit Marvel pissed out. Conan isn't foolhardy the second this magic lightening man on a green tiger shows, by Crom, he's out.
Conan kills and gets mad b***hes.
He-Man does not kill.
Conan is a savage that does what's needed to win.
If He-Man is cheating with magical 'roids, Conan has no problem lying in wait until the magic wears off and decapitating the spoiled royal brat from behind.
There's no money in that moron. Conan isn't going to care about flexing on He-Man like you'd want him to.
Oh, if there was no money in it he wouldn't, obviously. I was working under the assumption that he'd have a reason.
If he needs to kill He-Man, he does.
If he doesn't need to kill He-Man, he doesn't.
But either way he doesn't run away "pissing himself" because a dude that doesn't kill occasionally uses magic to look strong and ride a tiger.
They should both kiss eachother
>Why is Kevin Shit-Man popular?
>What's the appeal?
Surprised that nobody joked that OP is Kevin Smith looking for how to write the character.
Tired joke is tired.
It combines three things 80's kids like: science fiction, sword and sorcery, and military. If made today it'd be about poop, gays/blacks, and something not scary but presented as scary.
>If it was made today
We've had Dreamworks' She-Ra, CGI He-Man, and Rev, you don't need to speculate on what the show would look like made today. No poop, and I'm not sure what "something not scary but presented as scary" means. Also a decent amount of sci-fi, sword & sorcery, and about as much military as the original.
He came out at the right time
the Barbarian came out but the film was for adults; He-Man was supposed to be a Conan toy line but Mattel freaked out when they saw the script and how violent it was and decided to make a kid friendly knock off instead, especially when a focus group of kids they showed character designs to liked the OC characters more than they did the Conan characters.
>>Toy line was the evolution of the toy revolution caused by the Kenner Star Wars line: affordable five inch figures alongside equally affordable vehicles the figures could ride/playsets kids could play with the figures inside of
was a huge hit/promotional tool for the toy line, as it came out just as Reagan killed laws passed by LBJ to ban toy companies from making cartoons based off of toy lines. The He-Man cartoon predated both GI Joe and Transformers giving him a head start.
Aye, but once they caught up it was left in the dust.
Only time MOTU managed to catch a real new audience (and even then it was one-one-billionth the size of the old one) was the Dreamworks She-Ra show.
Mattel should be willing to take some serious chances with any reboots in future, because By The Numbers isn't doing it for anyone.
>isn't doing it for anyone
Revolution wasn't the runaway success that Mattel wanted, I'm sure, but it hit the top ten on Netflix in like 40 countries. And that's top ten overall, not for kids shows or animation or anything.
You are just making shit up. The Dreamworks woke She-Ra show was a huge god-damn flop and pretty much killed that end of the franchise with it's bullshit.
Big wholesome Christian boy gets swole, saves the day, teaches us a moral for use in everday life. Hangs out with, and beats up, weird ayys. Explores ancient ruins and strange worlds.
Gonzo high fantasy for kids, it’s good clean fun.
Kids don't want that.
Source: The CGI show bombed.
The Filmation show didn’t. Skill difference, I guess.
Filmation show didn't have real competition. See
It was first out of the gate once Reagan gave the OK for cartoons that were basically long advertisements, and its toys were different from what had been on the market before. Once other franchises showed up MOTU got lapped over and over.
Interesting theory, doesn’t change the fact that Filmation was popular. Popular enough they’re STILL making toys and cartoons! Truly a POWERFUL franchise 🙂
>was
There's an important word in your sentence, and it's not "interesting." It was ahead of the pack, then lost, what, 97% of sales in a single year and never recovered?
>STILL making
And selling to the original audience (now grown up and looking to buy toys from their childhood). Your argument was that it appeals to kids. It's not appealing to kids now. It appealed to a group of kids before they saw other options they preferred, and now that they're older some of them have enough cash to go "I want that old toy I never got."
Huh? Why are you so fixated on today’s kids, who we know don’t buy toys? It was popular, and it’s beloved enough to endure. These are facts.
Honestly anon you seem weirdly emotionally invested in painting a highly successful and iconic toyline in a negative light. Care to speak on why?
OP asked what made He-Man Popular
Incorrect answer:
>Big wholesome Christian boy gets swole, saves the day, teaches us a moral for use in everday life.
If that was the correct answer and kids wanted to see "a good Christian boy that teaches morals," then He-Man's reboots would have been popular too. And the initial popularity would have lasted longer.
Correct answer:
>He came out at the right time
the Barbarian came out but the film was for adults; He-Man was supposed to be a Conan toy line but Mattel freaked out when they saw the script and how violent it was and decided to make a kid friendly knock off instead, especially when a focus group of kids they showed character designs to liked the OC characters more than they did the Conan characters.
>>Toy line was the evolution of the toy revolution caused by the Kenner Star Wars line: affordable five inch figures alongside equally affordable vehicles the figures could ride/playsets kids could play with the figures inside of
was a huge hit/promotional tool for the toy line, as it came out just as Reagan killed laws passed by LBJ to ban toy companies from making cartoons based off of toy lines. The He-Man cartoon predated both GI Joe and Transformers giving him a head start.
He-Man wasn't bad, but its success was mainly good timing and a lack of competition on the air and on the toy shelves.
>This is hard to really grasp now since cartoons linger on forever
The initial TMNT lasted from 1987 to 1996.
Possibly true but joyless points to jammer on about in a He-Man thread.
I suppose I'm a bit burnt out over the finger-pointing I see over the reboots not doing better. The fandom would be happier if it accepted how lucky the original series got and adjusted expectations accordingly.
The problem with all of the reboots is that they try and take shit WAY too seriously.
Ironically, Robot Chicken tends to be the only people to get He-Man right. Especially Skeletor, who is the right mix of menace and camp and the Filmation origin whereas all modern He-Man revivals want Skeletor to be a hideously disfigured incel half-breed uncle of He-Man.
Nah, everyone's gotten Skeletor right (except New Adventures). He was great in CGI, and great in Rev... even though some moronic corner of Cinemaphile keeps seething about that line that made people say he was an incel (and paradoxically seething about him having a longterm sexual relationship with Lynn that led to him thinking with his dick and fricking himself over).
I will not stand for this New Adventures Skeletor slander. Him and Slushhead make that show.
>I will not stand for this New Adventures Skeletor slander.
He had neat character dynamics with his new girlfriend Crita and with Flogg.
Again, bullshit lies as the CGI show outdid Revelations season one. It just had shit toys because Revelations did so much damage to the franchise that Mattel doubled down on nostalgia to salvage to sales.
MOTU was already relying on nostalgia bait before either show debuted. Blaming Revelation for a different iteration with a different target demographic for both its show and toys failing to gain steam is also desperate. The CGI show just didn't find a strong audience. It happens. It's tough to be a toy company these days, and MOTU never managed to stick around and feel contemporary the way Transformers has -- and even Transformers has sagged at various points.
>CGI show outdid Revelations season one
No, it didn't. CGI show never hit the top 10 shows. It got onto "top 10 kids shows" with season 1 and apparently never again (for the latter part I'm going by what anons watching closely on He-Man sites have told me).
I say this as a fan who dearly wished it did better. But it didn't outdo the Powerhouse Animation show.
Kids don't watch Netflix.
He-s a big guy.
The appeal of He-Man is the appeal of Hulk Hogan. Watching G1 MOTU cartoons is like if Vince McMahon hired cartoon writers to make his version of Conan the Barbarian and to add a bunch of toys to it.
>Why is Sci-Fi Conan for kids liked
Gee I wonder
If it's that simple why was it never liked after 1987?
>why was it never liked after 1987?
lol?
what are you talking about
That's the year when the toy sales cratered and they Mattel quietly ended the line. They've made various attempts to bring He-Man back starting with New Adventures, but none caught on.
I never stated it became popular again
Besides, using toys as a measure when toy sales in general are falling is not a good measure
Okay, but if it was as simple as "just mix Sci-Fi and Conan" it would've had peaks and lows in popularity. It's just had one real peak and all the reboots have gotten passing interest at best.
you have to make it entertaining
Alternatively the "Sci-Fi and Conan" mix by itself wasn't that much of a guarantee with kids and it was helped by a bunch of factors that are no longer around.
Because it had been around for 5 years and kids were moving on to other stuff. They were interested in Ghostbusters and Robocop by then. He-Man was the big thing for the previous crop of kids in the early 80s.
This is hard to really grasp now since cartoons linger on forever, after Adventure Time stuck around for a decade, Teen Titans Go also for a decade, Gumball...but shows had a life of about 3-ish years and then people got bored with it and went on to other shit. Also the market was fricking saturated with shows and toylines back then. Every fall they came out with 8-9 new shows with toy sets, and maybe another 10 that were just cartoon series. That's a total opposite of today where a studio might debut 1-2 new series in a year. Old shit was buried under waves and waves of new stuff really fast.
Sword and sorcery for kids. Now that the genre is basically dead it’s main popularity comes from shitposts
I always loved the music, sound design and art
the animation may have been a bit jank but the art itself was great
Gay body builder barbarian fighting a magic skeleton warrior, is absolute kino.
Magic, swords, cyborgs, dragons, ninjas, everything cool put in a blender
He's THE 80s toy commercial show. TMNT had more going for it then that but He-Man mostly lived through the toys and the show promoting those toys.
Nah, that's Transformers
And that is still very successful
>TMNT had more going for it then
Which is why it was successful in the longterm and He-Man wasn't.
Tanned blond handsome half-nude muscle hunk.
He's really popular with guys over 45.
It was one of the only handful of cartoons on american tv for a certain generation
>2024
>Gay He-Man jokes
moron
I think I'm one of like 3 unironic fans in all of Cinemaphile but I just really like the barbaric setting with technology remaining from what the very old material called "Scientists' War", it was quite post-apocalyptic, it hit both the sci-fi AND barbarian fantasy notes well.
I also loved the 2010s DC comics, that was peak MOTU, and I say this as a fan of the 83 cartoon and current toys. I like that He-Man isn't a dumb brute (a sad stereotype people think of, Conan himself wasn't a stupid brute either but somehow people think of him that way) and the fact He-Man has always a Spidey-esque cheesy insult to his enemies (whether it's because he's a teenager larping as an adult barbarian via magic, or just that way in the case of the VERY old minicomics) adds a lot of charm to him.
Skeletor of course is a strong reason for his popularity, that character as portrayed by Alan Openheimer did a lot of heavy lifting but both characters do have a duality, He-Man is necessary for Skeletor to bounce of and vice versa. I love these characters so much.
Nah man I’m right there with you. He’s my most wanted for whenever they bring back Multiversus.
How's the new show? Honestly with the exception of the CGI cartoon, I'm not a fan of what was done with the franchise neither with Revelation nor the She-Ra lesbian cartoon.
I hear it’s good but I was soured enough by Revelation’s handling of things I haven’t checked it out. I’m putting my current hopes in the supposed new live action movie for the “Mattelverse.” Barbie was enough of a success for them they might put some real talent behind this.
>How's the new show?
Genuinely very good.
There's no point in retreading ground over Revelation Part One, but I'd argue Revelation Part Two was pretty good, and Revolution was where it became the show I wanted from the start.
>Conan himself wasn't a stupid brute either but somehow people think of him that way
I'm reading israeliteels of Gwahlur and there's a passage where Howard says that shut-in scholars would have their minds blown by Conan's linguistic knowledge and has Conan translate a 300 year old scroll.
Conan is really what homosexuals would nowadays call "genius bruisier", there is several instances both in the original Howard movies and other adaptations where Conan finds himself being quite philosophical about his world, his reality, his circumstances and the powers beyond he.
Like when he had the epiphany about The Riddle of Steel in the movie and other media that the true answer was the blade was only as powerful and as decisive as the man wielding it, and the blade alone or scheming manipulation alone were no good.
I'm reading through the stories in an omnibus collection and so far the only thing that Conan's ever described as not being superlative at is bribery and political scheming. Like, Grima Wormtongue style stuff. The sorts of things that the Shemitish people are really skilled at.
I guess it's maybe all of the Frazetta art, and that Conan in the movies doesn't talk much, if at all. A bare chested guy in a loincloth is visual shorthand for primitive, which is associated with low intelligence.
In the Frazetta artwork it makes sense, he's more often than not just fighting for his life. There is a pen-and-ink illustration drawn by John Buscema where he's just sitting down, pensative, that is the Conan I wish people also knew. that when he's not fighting or walking the world, he's alone with is thoughts, pondering deeply.
Man, Guts from Berserk in that regard really does feel like Conan's "spiritual successor" in fiction.
If you want to see something funny, go watch the scene early on in the movie right after Conan escapes slavery and before he meets up with his first buddy. Then go read the first scene from the very first chapter of Berserk.
Then consider how the movie is about a mentally traumatized, cynical muscle man slowly learning to trust people again, gaining a colorful cast of comrades with their own skills who help him on his journey through the world and quest for revenge.
>Conan finds himself being quite philosophical about his world, his reality, his circumstances and the powers beyond he.
What is best in life?
Most people's knowledge of Conan is strictly from the movie and thinking he's a moron because Arnold has an accent and sounds dumb
Perfect storm of the toys being a lot of fun -- with a lot of crazy characters and vehicles and playsets -- and coming out at the right time to catch the barbarian craze without feeling like it was following a bandwagon. The show was ancillary.
Same thing happened with Ninja Turtles. They came out at a time where they were able to ride the wave of the ninja craze just as it was really taking off and then had this awesome toyline full of fun characters and vehicles and playsets.
There's also something to be said about the uniformity of the design of the toys. Most of the He-Man toys, despite being wildly different (I mean you have a Beast Man and then you have a guy with a giant fist and then you have a guy with a neck that becomes longer and a skeleton man and so on), all use very similar molds. Children love pattern recognition, especially patterns that are easy to pick up on. They love familiarity. They like being able to easily grasp the concept because the next thing is like the last thing but a little different. TMNT kind of has this since the turtles are similar design-wise but with different colored bandannas and weapons, but all the figures follow a somewhat similar design. Power Rangers did this really well, where the main good guys are all the same design-wise except with different colors. A young toddler can see there's a Red Ranger and a Blue Ranger and a Black Ranger and a Pink Ranger, and could probably guess there's a Green and Yellow Ranger as well. They'd probably guess other colors as well, like Brown Ranger and Orange Ranger and Purple Ranger, and I'm sure tons of kids drew these characters. The point is they're following along with the pattern and that means they're getting the basic concept which makes them more receptive to the show and more importantly the toys. There's definitely a ton of child psychology research on this locked behind corporate doors.
But ultimately the short answer is because the toys were cool.
>Why is He-Man popular?
Do you mean nowadays or is that in general?
For the former, its memes.
In general, it was a manly cartoon back then and people are feeling nostalgic now.
how to make he-man popular in 2024
God i wanna bury my dick into catras cervix and make her a mother
Goku, you need to calm down. We can't be using the dragon balls just to bring her back every time your urges take over.
Was He a Man?