Angry He-Man

Season 1 episode "Lessons" is a terrific episode. In a story about Orko feeling bad for himself we are introduced to the Faceless One, He-Man battles Skeletor on the Drawbridge of Grayskull and many more aspects that make the episode memorable.

When Skeletor is threatening Orko at the Gates of Grayskull, He-Man grabs his arm and is very angry because as he says: "I don't like people threatening my friends!".

In that scene we get an extreme close-up of He-Man's face. Below you can see some of the differences in the view when comparing the tv-version [left] to the one found on DVD [right].

In the Cartoon Network-version on left, we have the aspect ratio of 4:3 with a bit of He-Man's teeth showing. After the original airing of the episode, before the show was imported to Europe, Mike Young Productions made alterations to the footage.
In this scene we see He-Man's face with more shadows around the eyes and nose (though lines missing around the nose). This DVD-version in widescreen gives us more view on the sides of He-Man's face. But at the same time omits the top and bottom portions, so we don't see He-Man's teeth anymore.

Part I or One?

In the past I've already noted how the quotation-marks were altered mid-way through season 1 of Mike Young Productions' He-Man series.

Those updated quotation-marks ended up in the Europe-releases and eventually on DVD.

But another change in the episode-titles was the way the studio handled two or three parter episodes.

"The Beginning" had in its initial US broadcast-run for Cartoon Network the episode-title with written numerials - Part One, Part Two, Part Three. While in the European version it was changed to I, II and III to the roman numerical system.

Though by end of season 1, with the "Council of Evil" episodes the studio had made the change for Roman numerical system, so the first three episodes of 2002 He-Man cartoon are unique.

Missing Havoc Staff

In the season 1 episode "Trust" we have a chance to witness bad guy having to work with a good guy as Stratos and Trap-Jaw are trying to locate Eternium-mineral in the Ice Mountains. It is also the only episode we see He-Man wearing his Ice Armor.

At the end of the episode there is an animation error with Skeletor's Havoc Staff with amusing results.

The Staff is computer-generated in the scene and in US broadcast-version at Cartoon Network, the Staff is completely missing as Skeletor lifts it up and shoots at the Kulataks. Thus allowing us to see "through" Skeletor.

When the episode was released on DVD, the animation was corrected to include the cgi-animation of the Havoc Staff. This would be one good occasion when it came to cgi-weapons... -But that is another post for another day.

Title Differences #1

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe pilot-movie "The Beginning" aired on August 16th, 2002 at Cartoon Network. The movie was later used as the first three parts of the animated series.

The movie-version has only been released to DVD as a store-exclusive (Target) when purchasing the BCI-produced Volume 1 of the DVD-set.

For some reason I'm fascinated with episode-titles and how they appear on screen. Was looking at the movie's title and noticed the quotation-marks...

With the US broadcast-version, the quotation-marks are more curvy and what I consider more natural-looking as they are mirrored around the text.

In the DVD-release however, the quotation-marks are narrow, straight quotes (also known as "dumb quotes" from what I've understood).

Why this small change, I don't know. The latter became the norm for the titles in the middle of season 1 with US-broadcast versions and apparently ended up on the DVD-releases.