Here, There, Skeletors Everywhere

Man-At-Arms shows off his newest invention to Prince Adam and Orko: a duplicating machine that can copy anything, though every copy comes out at half the size of the original. Whiplash spies on the demonstration from the bushes and reports back to Skeletor, who ambushes the Wind Raider on its way home, forces it down in the swamp, and steals the machine while He-Man and the others are distracted freeing it.

At the Royal Palace, King Randor and Queen Marlena are hosting Jova and her bear-people, whose village depends on a scarce, invisibility-granting ration called the Bam-Bite to gather food without being caught by predators. Their supply is nearly gone. Man-At-Arms offers his duplicator as a fix, but before he can test it, Skeletor uses the stolen machine to duplicate himself into an army of identical Skeletoids and seizes the palace, trapping the royal family and their guests inside.

He-Man, Battle Cat, Man-At-Arms and Mekaneck fight through the Skeletoids, and Jova gives up her family's very last Bam-Bite so He-Man and Battle Cat can slip out of the palace invisible, with Sy-Klone's spinning head clearing the duplicates chasing them off long enough for the group to regroup and head for Snake Mountain. There, Skeletor reveals he has been hoarding the bear-people's Bam-Bite supply all along, in revenge for Jova once refusing to help him steal the diamond of Lock Meade.

Skeletor gathers his duplicates to witness his final assault on Eternia, but the Skeletoids immediately start fighting over which of them should actually rule once he wins. He-Man uses the distraction to reach and destroy the duplicating machine, which makes every Skeletoid vanish at once. Back at the palace, Man-At-Arms and He-Man agree the machine was too dangerous to keep, and Orko tries one last duplicating spell on a pile of real Bam-Bite candy, with the same halved-size result as always.

Man-At-Arms: "Today, we discovered that getting what you want isn't always a good thing. When we like something, particularly something sweet, it's easy to want more and more. But nearly every time, if you have too much of something, no matter how much you want it, you'll find that it disagrees with you. So next time you see some candy, remember: you can have too much of a good thing." Orko: "Except me, of course. Right, Man-At-Arms?" Man-At-Arms: "We'll... talk about it later. See you next time!"

John Erwin as He-Man/Prince Adam and Whiplash

Alan Oppenheimer as Skeletor, Man-At-Arms, Battle Cat/Cringer and the Skeletoids

Linda Gary as Queen Marlena and Jeeta

Lou Scheimer (credited as Erik Gunden) as Orko, King Randor, Attak Trak, Mekaneck, Moss Man, Sy-Klone and Jova

Erika Scheimer as Jade

Orko, trying his own duplicating spell: "Single, double magic desserts, turn this berry into more yummy desserts." (It fails, same as every other time he tries it.)

The three Skeletors, the instant Skeletor promises them a share of the throne: "You're the ruler of Eternia? No, I wanna be the ruler!" "No, it is I who should rule. I have done more than you." "I am the most evil, I deserve all of Eternia!"

Man-At-Arms, once the duplicating machine is destroyed: "A duplicating machine is far too dangerous to have around." He-Man: "I agree."

Can a machine that only ever makes things smaller still end up making everything worse? "Here, There, Skeletors Everywhere" bets on yes, and it spends the full twenty-two minutes proving the point twice over, once as a dessert joke and once as an invasion.

Man-At-Arms opens the episode testing a duplicating machine on a rango berry, and the gag is immediate: it works, but every copy comes out half the size of the original. Orko tries his own version of the same trick with a magic spell a few minutes later and gets the identical result, a running bit that pays off again at the very end when he tries it a third time on real candy and fails the same way all over again. The machine's one flaw, that duplication always costs you something, is the episode's whole argument, stated as a punchline before anyone has said it out loud.

Whiplash spies on the test from the bushes, and Skeletor wastes no time stealing the machine once Man-At-Arms leaves it unattended. What he does with it is where the episode finds its actual subject, named plainly about a third of the way in, once Skeletor has made his first Skeletoid: a duplicating machine does for greed what it already did for dessert, it just means you end up with more people wanting the same thing. Skeletor builds himself an army to take the Royal Palace, and the script does not let him enjoy it for long. The moment he promises each of his copies a share of the throne, the three Skeletors start arguing over who actually deserves to rule, and none of them can let it go even while He-Man is still standing in the room. It is the cleanest idea in the episode: a villain who could never share a piece of candy was never going to be able to share a kingdom either, and multiplying him only multiplies the one flaw he already had.

The episode's best scene belongs to the bear-people of Jova's village, who are quietly carrying the real stakes throughout. Their invisibility ration, the Bam-Bite, is running out, and Man-At-Arms' broken machine looks like their last hope of making more before they starve. When Jova hands over her family's very last piece so He-Man and Battle Cat can slip invisible out of the captured palace, the episode spends real weight on the cost of that gift, not just the convenience of the power. It lands harder once Skeletor reveals, almost as an aside, that he has been hoarding the village's Bam-Bite supply himself, punishing Jova's people for refusing to help him steal a diamond. The sweet-tooth plot and the survival plot turn out to be the same plot. It is the sharpest piece of construction this episode manages.

Where it is thinnest is the rescue mechanics in the middle stretch. The Attak Trak goes down, gets freed, gets jammed by Skeletor's ray gun, and goes down again inside of about four minutes, and none of those detours change anything about where the story is headed. Sy-Klone arrives to cover the retreat from Snake Mountain with barely an introduction, useful in the moment but weightless afterward. [1] The episode also never quite earns the specific number of Skeletoids it builds toward; a smaller, uglier squabble among three duplicates would have made the same point without needing a marching army behind them.

Man-At-Arms gets the last word, and for once the on-screen moral matches what actually happened rather than feeling bolted on: a duplicating machine is too dangerous to keep around, because wanting more of a good thing is the same impulse that turns Skeletor's own candy dish into a weapon against people who had none to spare. Orko's final spell fails one more time right on cue, and the episode ends admitting its own joke was the argument all along.

[1] Sy-Klone's head-spinning power clears the Skeletoids chasing the party away from the invisible escape, but the episode gives him no scene establishing who he is or why he is suddenly part of the rescue team.

Written by heman.org desk

1. Behind the scenes: the script was approved July 10, 1984, with a final revision dated August 30, 1984. Jova, Jeeta and Jade were designed by character artists Lew Ott and Pat Wong, meant to resemble pandas (hence the dark markings around their eyes), though the finished models were given all-brown coloring instead. Moss Man's animation model, based on Mattel's toy prototype, was designed by Gerald Forton and Herbert Hazelton.
2. Continuity: the footage of Man-At-Arms arguing with Orko, arms folded, was previously used in "Diamond Ray of Disappearance." The shot of Skeletor's shocked expression was first used in "Colossor Awakes." Skeletor's grudge against Jova's people, withholding their Bam-Bite supply, is tied to an earlier, unseen refusal by Jova to help him steal the diamond of Lock Meade.
3. Animation errors and goofs: when the heroic warriors look down at Skeletor through a hole in the palace floor, the top of Mekaneck's helmet is colored silver instead of red. During his brief appearance, Two-Bad is shown mirrored, facing the wrong way. When the Skeletoids argue with each other outside the Royal Palace, the background layers on the left of frame are overlaid in the wrong order, leaving the palace entrance's stonework showing through as transparent line art against the sky. (Per Wiki Grayskull's episode notes; not independently confirmed against the frames pulled for this guide's screencap set.)