Return of the Gryphon

A mystical orb left by a powerful Gryphon is stolen from the village by Beastman and Trap Jaw where it is guarded, and winds up in the hands of a naive page boy at the Royal Palace. Chaos soon ensues as the Gryphon comes after the orb. Man-at-Arms tell viewers that accepting responsibility can instantly turn a boy to a man.

Man-At-Arms:' "There was a really wonderful moment in today's adventure story." Orko:' "Bet I can guess what it was! It was when He-Man brought the water out of the lake!" Man-At-Arms:' "No, that wasn't it." Orko:' "Well then, it must've been when He-Man lifted the whole top of the mountain!" Man-At-Arms:' "That was incredible, but that wasn't it, either." Orko:' "Well, I give up." Man-At-Arms:' "The most wonderful moment was when Thad realized he must face his own responsibilities. In that one tiny second, I saw a boy grow into a man."

John Erwin as He-Man/Prince Adam, Beast Man and Galen's Assistant

Alan Oppenheimer as Man-At-Arms and Galen

Linda Gary as Teela and Chad

Lou Scheimer (credited as Erik Gunden) as Orko, Trap Jaw, Attak Trak and Royal Guards

Erika Scheimer (uncredited) as Royal Page

"I found the egg. It's my responsibility."

- Thad

"Return of the Gryphon" spends its first act on a theft that barely matters and its last act on a boy deciding it matters enormously. Beast Man and Trap Jaw break into the Shrine of the Gryphon for treasure. Thad, a royal page nobody much notices, picks up the same jewel off the road and decides it will finally make him somebody. Neither reading is correct. The jewel is the Gryphon's egg, and until Thad works that out, every character in the episode is handling a baby without knowing it.

David Wise's script earns some credit for keeping that mistake alive as long as it does. Gailen, the shrine's keeper, knows what was taken and says so in the shrine's oldest language, curse and all, but the show lets Thad's interpretation, a lucky find that will win him respect around the palace, carry the middle third of the episode anyway. It is a small, mean little want, wanting to matter more than being right. We rarely get a Filmation page boy allowed to want something that ordinary. Thad is not stupid. He is a kid in a palace full of warriors and sorcerers, trying the only lever he has.

Gwen Wetzler's direction does its best work once the Gryphon itself shows up, and the character model is a genuine asset: a long-necked, bat-winged creature that comes across as frightened rather than monstrous even while it is tearing a tower apart looking for its egg. The attack on Eternos plays less like a villain's assault and more like a parent tearing a house apart looking for a missing child, and He-Man notices that before the episode tells us outright. The standout scene is smaller than the tower collapse, though: Thad in the palace storeroom, turning the glowing jewel over in his hands while Teela watches, still thinking he has found a prize rather than a life. The animation does nothing flashy there, and it does not need to; the confusion on Thad's face carries the scene by itself.

The weakness is pacing, and it sits where these episodes usually put it, the rescue sequence. Teela and Thad spend a long stretch of the back half stranded in the water while the plot waits for them, and the episode leans on repeated Gryphon flybys to cover the gap rather than giving either character anything new to do until the jewel, now openly an egg, is back in the right hands. It is not a fatal stretch, but it is a flat one in an episode that otherwise knows what its scenes are for.

What the episode gets right is the moment it has been building toward since Thad said he found something that would make him somebody. "I found the egg. It's my responsibility," he tells He-Man, refusing the help he would have begged for twenty minutes earlier, and the show does not undercut it with a joke or a rescue he does not need. He saves the baby Gryphon himself. Man-At- Arms' closing word to Orko, that in that one tiny second he saw a boy grow into a man, is a rare Filmation moral that is actually earned by the episode rather than bolted onto it. The growing up happens in full view, scene by scene, starting with a boy who wanted a prize and ending with one who wanted to do right by what he had found.

"Return of the Gryphon" is not among the show's more inventive premises: a mislaid treasure, a rampaging guardian, a misunderstanding sorted out before the credits. But it trusts an ordinary kid with the episode's actual stakes instead of parking him on the sidelines while He-Man handles everything, and you can feel that trust paying off once Man-At-Arms delivers the moral.

1. Behind the scenes: Script was approved May 3, 1983 and final script revision was done July 13, 1983.
2. Continuity: The character model used for Thad was prevsiously used as Chad in Double Edged Sword. The Gryphon's character model uses the same body seen as various dragons earlier in the series. The character models for Galen and Galen's Assistant are recolored and reused from those of Old Zak and Jaymar from The Curse of the Spellstone. The animation of He-Man lifting and throwing was first seen in The Taking of Grayskull and would be re-purposed to be used again in Quest for the Sword; The Gambler and a reanimated version was seen in Fisto's Forest.
3. More continuity: The sequence of the Gryphon destroying a window ledge with his tail is a recolored version of the dragon attack on the Royal Palace in The Dragon Invasion. The shot of the three Eternian towers exploding was seen earlier in Diamond Ray of Disappearance and Quest for He-Man. Man-At-Arm's Freeze Ray Cannon was previously seen as the Stasis Ray in The Dragon Invasion. The sequence of the tower falling and He-Man catching it would be used again in Capture the Comet Keeper and when He-Man catches the Life Bringer in Journey to Stone City. The animation of Orko clapping his hands (with his ears missing) was first used in the episode Daimar the Demon and was also seen in The Search and The Shadow of Skeletor. The animated sequence of Beast Man kicking down the door will be used again in the episode A Trip to Morainia.
4. Animation errors and goofs: After Beast Man kicks in the door at the Shrine of the Gryphon, he walks in behind the unhinged door that is resting against the wall instead of passing in front of it. Prince Adam laughs with He-Man's voice after Orko tells Man-At-Arms his new Freeze Ray leaves him cold. Orko's ears are missing as he claps his hands after Adam transforms into He-Man. When the Gryphon returns from space to find Man-At-Arms waiting for him on top of a tower, the same cloudy background is used in two subsequent shots. Man-At-Arms is flying the Wind Raider and seated on the left holding the controls when he drops off He-Man and goes to rescue Teela and Thad. Later, when all five are in the vehicle, the cel is flopped, so now he sitting on the right and still holding the controls. Man-At-Arm's green gloves are now flesh colored when Thad jumps out of the Wind Raider and later after he climbs back in. When Teela and Thad are rescued by an anchor lowered from the Wind Raider, the scene shifts to He-Man in another location, but the trees and plants in the background remain the same.
5. Plot note: the stolen jewel is revealed partway through the episode to be the Gryphon's egg, not a mere treasure; Thad finds it along the road after Beast Man and Trap Jaw's theft and spends most of the episode treating it as a trophy rather than a living thing.