Four years after his first series left the air, He-Man returned in an all-new series, this time with former DIC co-founder Jean Chalopin fronting a French-Canadian production company that sold the New Adventures of He-Man to stations.
However, Chalopin and the folks at Mattel made one major miscalculation. They sent He-Man and his arch nemesis, Skeletor, off Eternia and to a distant planet, Primus, which was engaged in a war with a neighboring world. As it ended up, Skeletor was the only familiar player aside from He-Man himself, retained from the 1983-6 series. Big mistake. As a result, this series bombed, lasting just 1 season of weekly adventures.
Here's the open:
Mattel intended to introduce a completely new toy line, but with familiar friends and foes like Teela, Orko, Beastman, etc., missing from this series, the kids weren't exactly marching to Toys 'R' Us to buy the new figures. Plus, the redesign of He-Man & Skeletor didn't exactly help. Fortunately, Mike Young and his crew corrected that error in the 2002 remake.
Is it any wonder that no one's bothered to pull this series out of the Mattel vaults?
Rating: C-.
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