One
character that was noticeable in the toys never made it
into the cartoon.
In
the batch of episodes dated 1985 from season two of He-Man
and the Masters of the Universe we were introduced
to the next line of figures; Sy-Klone and Moss Man for the
good guys, with Spikor and Two Bad for the bad guys. Keen
followers of the toy line will note that one character did
not make the transition in that particular group. Stinkor!
It
is understandable why such a character cannot make the transition
from toy to screen. His power of smell is hard to work into
a storyline. Having said that, the mini comic that came
with Stinkor tackled the situation rather well, and gave
the character some credibility.
As
Robert Lamb now explains Filmation were not all that happy
with the character. "I remember Stinkor. I was part
of the writing staff when Arthur Nadel and crew took a field
trip to Hawthorne, California to Mattel headquarters. The
She-Ra toy line was introduced to us by women designers
who displayed how capes could be used as skirts on the dolls.
It was kind of a "Barbie Goes Barbarian"
thing. Then it was the guys' turn and we got our first look
at the Horde. The male designers introduced each character
with great excitement, relishing every nasty attribute they
could name. The only hitch came when Stinkor was introduced.
Arthur immediately vetoed a character that was basically
a walking fart joke. Only two skunk characters have worked
in cartoons to my knowledge; Pepe Le Pew and Flower from
Bambi.
Larry
and I thought of a dozen hilarious situations for Stinkor,
Hordak, and She-Ra. Things like;
Stinkor
enters the room and Hordak turns his arm into a giant match;
Stinkor
gives away the Horde's position in an ambush because of
his scent;
Stinkor
sprays a cloud of gas at the rebels and She-Ra turns her
sword into a giant fan and blows the stink back causing
the Horde to pass out; that sort of stuff.
There
was a character named Perfuma in She-Ra. She and
Stinkor would have made a fragrant combination. We even
thought of a thirty second moral ending about air pollution,
and one about the effects of different foods, like beans,
on digestion."
Having
read Robert's comments, maybe it is a good thing that Stinkor
never made it into the He-Man and She-Ra
series.