What
are your views about the character He-Man? Skeletor?
He-Man
was pretty bland. A nice guy, but not a particularly complex
or interesting hero. Skeletor was a pretty good, generic
villain, though.
Do
you have any fond memories of the show?
The
money! No, not even the money. The pay was pretty poor.
I only did that show because I was broke and nothing else
was going on at the time. And the truth is, I have very
FEW memories of the show, period. It was fairly dull to
write for. You couldn't do much because A) There was a HUGE
outcry against the show from the start, even before a single
script had been written; people like Peggy Charren (ACT)
were convinced He-Man was just a violent, mindless,
toy commercial, so they made it into such a mild show that
Smurfs was violent by comparison! And B), there
was so little animation involved that you couldn't do anything
visually, no action, etc.
Did
you work on the She-Ra series? If so, what are
your views about her?
Didn't
write for it. By the time they did She-Ra I had
moved on to better things.
Did
you create any of the characters used in the cartoon?
Nope.
What
were some of the problems that were encountered while working
on He-Man?
See
second question.
Do
you think He-Man was Satanic in any way?
Hard
to say. It's true that we did sacrifice virgins and drink
goat's blood as part of an unholy ritual before commencing
each script, and, as I'm sure you know, Cringer's growls
were in fact the phrase, "Bow down to the Prince of
Darkness" recorded backward, but no, I don't think
there was anything inherently Satanic in the show itself.
I'm only kidding! Truthfully, He-Man was one of
the cleanest, most pro-social shows I have ever worked on.
Do
you still write for cartoons or any other TV show?
Yes.
Do
you feel that The New adventures of He-Man did
a good job in keeping the characters and plot the same?
I
never watched it, but I did read the pilot script. When
I got to the point where Skeletor forced He-Man to do his
bidding by threatening a puppy, I felt we were in a whole
new area of weirdness!
Finally,
how would you respond to someone when they say that He-Man
was nothing more than a "toy commercial"?
Obviously
I don't agree. We writers had NO contact with Mattel on
the show. We were just trying to tell good stories with
the characters we were given. And each episode made a point
of teaching important life-lessons and giving the viewers
examples of good values, so I'd say it was much more than
a toy commercial. Hope this answers all your questions.
