 TOYS |  | THE PRINCESS DIARIES | | She-Ra and her lady friends proved that fighting the forces of evil wasn't always a man's job! | | | By Ben Leach | | Posted 05/30/08 | |  | |  For years boys had action figures and girls had dolls and the two were never allowed to meet...until She-Ra came along! A spin-off from He-Man and the MAsters of the Universe, the Princess of Power brought boys and girls together to defeat the forces of evil with toys, and now ToyFare takes you inside the Crystal Castle for a look at this classic 1980s heroine, as well as her friends and foes!
THE E-RA OF SHE-RA
In the 1980s, the world of action figures was ready for a woman’s touch
When the Masters of the Universe became a hit toy line and cartoon in the 1980s, Mattel was really only tapping into half of the potential market for a kid-related property: boys. So, in an attempt to capture the girls’ market, the idea of a female version of He-Man was developed, with her own Mistresses of the Universe to fight with and against.
Soon, in a special extended episode of He-Man, Prince Adam met his twin sister Adora, who was kidnapped from Eternia as a baby. When the two meet, she’s serving Hordak, leader of the evil Horde, on the planet Etheria, but once she discovers her true identity, Adora receives the Sword of Protection, which transforms her into She-Ra, a being of incredible powers much like He-Man (only without the Y chromosome). | |  In her spin-off cartoon series, She-Ra: Princess of Power, She-Ra and the Great Rebellion fought against Hordak and his Horde, and He-Man would occasionally drop by to hit on her friends. She-Ra’s allies included Mermista the mermaid, the flower-loving Perfuma, Sweet Bee the bee-woman and other assorted ladies who seem to frequent the sexy costumes aisle of their local costume shop. Like most ’80s cartoons, She-Ra was meant to promote a toy line, and there were a wide variety of figures, accessories, playsets and gift packs to collect. While the figures had all the detail and action of their more boy-oriented counterparts, they also incorporated more doll-like attributes like comb-able hair, glitter and bubbles.
And if you ever wondered why Hordak and his Horde appeared in He-Man’s toy line and not She-Ra’s, that’s because the Horde were originally He-Man villains! Catra was the only foe planned for the first series of She-Ra toys, so Hordak and company were brought onto the show to play the heavies, and their muscular action figures were kept right where they were, in the boys’ aisle alongside Skeletor and Beast Man. The less-macho Bow and his flying horse Arrow? Girls’ aisle all the way.
Even without Hordak, She-Ra still had plenty going for her—at least, until the line was cancelled in 1987. The last series of figures, which included several new outfits as well as Netossa, Spinnerella and the perpetually hiding Loo-Kee, was not as widely available, and as a result those figures are among some of the rarest in the line. Try finding Loo-Kee now, you bastards!
| |  SISTER ACT
Legendary cartoon writer Larry Ditillio worked with Mattel to create He-Man’s
spectacular sibling
TOYFARE: So how did the concept of She-Ra come about?
DITILLIO: We had just done two seasons of He-Man, 65 episodes in a year. It’s still a big work load even by today’s standards. The ratings on He-Man were slipping a bit and Mattel was looking to get another franchise while it was still hot. So Mattel said, “Why don’t we have He-Man have a sister?” We had never written the series with the intention of him having a sister, so I had to create a backstory that would work.
Did you come up with the name, as well?
The original name was He-Ra. We said, “He-Ra, great name.” Everybody knows Hera is the wife of Zeus and a goddess. But apparently, someone had copyrighted the rights to the name. I was fooling around, and I had just read a book on Egyptian mythology, and I kind of still liked He-Ra, but I liked the term Ra, which was a goddess. So then I thought of She-Ra. It was softer sounding than He-Ra. I put that in and that was that. | |  How did you set She-Ra apart from He-Man?
I had to basically set up a world, because we weren’t going to work on Eternia because that would almost mean doing He-Man for another season. I learned a lot on He-Man and I learned a lot about doing a series, particularly a fantasy series. My problem was that He-Man was never proactive. He was a reactor, he was never an initiator. That worked for He-Man, but I didn’t want to do that. I wanted them to be in a position where they could come up with plots and villains would have to react to them. It was also the time shortly after Star Wars came out, and there was that idea of them fighting for freedom à la the rebellion. And they could make plans rather than react to plans.
Hordak was a great villain—where did he come from?
He was going to be the next big villain for He-Man to take on, but instead he was put on She-Ra, which worked very well for my concept of the show. Etheria was a natural world that was in a sense more primitive than Eternia was and the She-Ra crowd was on the side of nature and magic and life. On the other side, Hordak used a lot of technology in his evil plots. That to me held it together.
Do you have a particular favorite episode of She-Ra?
The ones that I enjoyed the most were the first ones—not as a movie, but as a mini-series. That I liked a lot, you had a lot of people to introduce and get things going. Writing that was like the longest thing I had to write to date. There was also “Huntara,” a straightforward She-Ra versus Huntara episode, which started out as my favorite script. I liked that one a lot. I actually think that most of my She-Ra episodes hold up a lot better than most of my He-Man episodes. I had a very definite idea about She-Ra, and it plays out in almost every episode I wrote.
Click here for She-Ra Asides! | | | | | |
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