Important discussions at work

[meganbmoore]

In a discussion of 80s cartoons:

Tall Cynical Boy:  But what about She-Ra?  What was up with her?
Him What Was Hanging Out In Here:  Wasn't she He-Man's cousin or something?
Me:  She was his twin sister who was raised on a different planet or something and they didn't meet until they were adults.
Him What Was Hanging Out In Here:  What?  That's stupid.
Tall Cynical Boy:  Wait, you watched She-Ra?
Me:  You didn't have a lot there when you were a little girl in the 80s!
Tall Cynical Boy:  You had Jem and Rainbow Bright and Strawberry Shortcake.
Me:  Excuse me, did they have swords?  Were they off having adventures?  What did they do, anyway?

[Interlude:  I think they...frolicked?  And were everyone's BFFs?]

Tall Cynical Boy:  Yeah but...
Him What Was Hanging Out In Here:  But what was the point of She-Ra?
Me:  Action figures for little girls!  And, you know, all the other adventure shows were about boys.

*insert back and forth for a bit*

Tall Cynical Boy:  Hey, she's right.  Wikipedia  says she was He-Man's twin sister.
Me: Ha!
Him What Was Hanging Out In Here: Wikipedia isn't always right.
Me:  You just don't want to be wrong.
Him What Was Hanging Out In Here: I hate being wrong.  And what kind of stupid origin is that?
Me:  I didn't make it up!
Tall Cynical Boy:  It is kinda stupid though.

The rest was more of the same.

The Boys:  In the doghouse.  So to speak.
Me:  Fondly remembering being 8 and realizing OMG I CAN SWITCH THE HEADS ON MY SHE-RA  ACTION FICURES AND THAT IS SO COOL!!!

Comments

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

I liked She-Ra and I did actually have some alternatives! :)

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I had about 3 channels. I remember genuinely liking her at the time, though I have no idea if I would now.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

it's was fantasy/scifi with adventure, and a flying horse. What was there not to like?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Pretty much!

But apparently, girls aren't allowed to play in that playground.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Tall Cynical Boy can take his cynicism and shove it :p

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

He was actually equally hard on He-Man. But still...

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

Same here, on all counts!

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, She-Ra was stupid.

He-man? WAY STUPIDER. I mean, She-Ra had a ridiculous excuse of a plot, but at least various different things occasionally happened. He-Man was essentially the exact. same. episode. Over and over again.

I remember being rabidly obsessed with She-Ra in the 2nd grade. I used to love it when He-Man was on the show, so I watched a little of He-Man too. Then I realized He-Man sucked, and mysteriously never had special She-Ra cameos. I wondered why the lack of She-Ra in He-Man for the longest time; she might as well not have existed for He-Man only viewers.

...Then I grew up and realized that boys are conditioned to be stupid asshats think that girls in their shows are lame. Although I think that was/is much more a conception of marketing dimwits than actuality, since whenever we watched She-Ra in the classroom the boys were all glued to the TV.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I, honestly, usually didn't even realize that there was a He-Man show. There was this thing my brother liked where the main character ran around in his undwear with his buddies and the only girl around looked at them admiringly and sometimes said "Oh, He-Man..."

And I don't think it's so much that boys are conditioned to be that way as it is that we're taught that guys are fascinating and girls can't carry things on their own.

[ivy-chan.livejournal.com]

*nostalgically* As a child, I loved She-Ra. I wated to grow up to BE She-Ra. I had her action figure and a sword I took with me everywhere I went, swinging it against opponents and yelling: "BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL." Oh, She-Ra.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[keelieinblack.livejournal.com]

Honestly, in the category of 'bad origin stories for childhood characters', She-Ra hardly tops the list.

The heads of those action figures did come off awfully easy, didn't they? I had to wheedle my mother into buying a second Catra for me after the first one's head popped off and got lost somewhere--playing 'She-Ra vs. Headless Zombie Catra' got old after a while.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I don't remember the names, but I had around 10 of the things...

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

Just breaking hiatus silence to say that I luuuurved She-ra and had practically all the action figures. I used to watch He-man too now and again but yeah, it was never as entertaining as She-ra. I mean, come on! She-ra had stuff like totalitarian regimes & rebellions led by the former monarchy! Its main character used to be a commander of the bad guys! I mean, yeah, she was brainwashed under an eeeeevil spell but she was a bad guy who switched sides! The show even had a character who was a double agent.

So yeah, the origin story was lulzy but the overall myth-arc was far more interesting than He-man's, which as far as I can tell was "Kingdom beset by the monstrous forces of a talking skeleton."

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think I had every action figure myself. But yeah, why was He-Man running around, chasing Skeletor, while She-Ra was doing all the warring and kingdom running?

[magicnoire.livejournal.com]

I think the only episode of He-man I even vaguely remember was the one in which He-man's girl sidekick, Teela, and Skeletor's girl sidekick, Evil-lyn (I think? I know her name was something cheesy like that), were trapped somewhere together and had to work together to escape. Or something. But I remember watching it and thinking it was really interesting. I mean, aside from the fact that it was an episode focused on the girls (the only girls on the show, pretty much other than the Sorceress and He-man's astronaut mom who became queen!), it dealt with people from opposing sides having to work together and wow, isn't that a kinda neat story premise for a cartoon?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

*shudder*

Yeah, I think her name was Evil-lin.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

She-Ra was way smarter than He-Man, which probably didn't hurt.

[kakkobean.livejournal.com]

Heh. The doghouse.

I didn't actually have She-Ra as a kid...I watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And Beast Wars. And Samurai Pizza Cats. And 'Princess Gwenevere and the Jewel Riders", but that show was on CRACK"

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I watched Ninja Turtles too. I don't think we got Beast Wars. But the other! What was it?

[kakkobean.livejournal.com]

It was a girl power show, where the girls rode around on horses, wore pretty armor, and occasionally kicked ass while sparkling prettily in the sunlight. They were apprentices of Merlin, and fought for stability in the Kingdom because the Magic of the Kingdom was running wild.

One of my favorite episodes involved the Travel Trees (rings of trees in which one could stand and teleport to other areas of the kingdom) basically acting high. They were singing "I can't dance because I'm a tree!!!" XDDD

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

That...that sounds so beautiful. In the manga crack way.

[kakkobean.livejournal.com]

It really was 8D

The stones that they were gathering were basically representations of the magic of the kingdom--and when they were set loose (because of Gwenevere's evil aunt Kale), the magic in the Kingdom said "woohoo, I'm just going to go crackpot now". One of the stones caused mass hallucinations XDDDDD

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

You're a little bit younger, then-- TMNT was about five-eight years ahead of She-Ra and He-Man, IIRC.

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

Tall Cynical Boy: Wait, you watched She-Ra?
Me: You didn't have a lot there when you were a little girl in the 80s!
Tall Cynical Boy: You had Jem and Rainbow Bright and Strawberry Shortcake.
Me: Excuse me, did they have swords? Were they off having adventures?

Teeheeheeheehee... classic comeback. Go you.

[amewarashi.livejournal.com]

I remember watching She-Ra religiously, yet... I can't for my life remember anything solid about the show besides the magical-girl-with-sword transformation, the fact the villain looked (un)intentionally funny, and the silly game where you had to find an annoying mascot hidden in the background (I suspect I expected more time looking for the critter than paying attention to the plot. I was in for the ass-kicking!)

I did, however, have the complete action figure collection except for the Palace (why yes, I'm still bitter, I had to send my figures to the Barbie camping tent). I couldn't recognize half of the girls from the show nor know which ones were friends or foes (except the catwoman and the one who changed faces), so I just made their own canon up. I was, however, pissed with the horse since it was too large for the figures, and the winged unicorn costume kept falling off. In the end I just sent her to be My Little Ponies' matriarch instead.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

He-Man looks unintentionally funny, too.

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

IIRC Rainbow Brite didn't have a sword, but she did have a ray-gun. She-ra was a smidge after my time, but my little sister was a big fan, and had the action figures. The whole "commander of evil regime's army changes sides" deal was pretty awesome.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Did her ray-gun shoot love beams or lasers?

[bzoppa.livejournal.com]

omg, I must have watched The Secret of the Sword about 20 times when I was little. (Was there a tv show? I never watched it, I only had the movie.)

Once, iheartschnickle was over during middle school or high school, and we wanted to watch The Sword in the Stone but picked Secret from my mom's print-out database of what she had. It was animated and we thought that was it. I hadn't seen the movie in years, and we were older than the demographic, but it was too much fun. We watched it a couple more times after that.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

*nods*

Yup. TV series. Naturally, I'm not sure I ever saw the movie, unless they aired it on TV.

[bzoppa.livejournal.com]

I suspect it was a re-release of probably the pilot ep and a couple others. The storyline wasn't linear throughout. I think that's what fascinated us so much :D

*after actual checking*

From the trivia: The movie was made out of the 5 episodes which were later added into the "She-ra" show. Its purpose was to introduce She-Ra' character for the new show that would accompany He-man as a sister show.

[animeshon.livejournal.com]

lol - that's right girls with swords are awesome :D