The Littlest Giant

A storm batters the Widgets' fort, and Squinch barely manages to save Kando with Lara's help. Frustrated at not being big enough to handle things alone, Squinch tries to drag away a fallen tree by himself, prompting Kando to signal He-Man instead. Prince Adam and Orko spot the flare and Adam transforms to help, clearing the tree with ease, but his effortless strength only deepens Squinch's wish to be as big as he is.

That night, Squinch sneaks to Snake Mountain and begs Skeletor to make him giant-sized. Skeletor is ready to toss him in the dungeon, but Evil-Lyn intervenes with a scheme: she gives Squinch a small box to deliver to He-Man, promising to grant his wish if he does. Squinch signals He-Man and Battle Cat and hands over the gift, which releases a sleeping spell the moment it's opened. Skeletor's warriors haul off their unconscious prize, abandoning their promise to Squinch along with it.

Back at the palace, a guilt-ridden Squinch confesses what happened to Man-At-Arms, Teela, and Orko, and after being forgiven, joins Teela and Orko on a rescue mission to Snake Mountain while Skeletor and Beast Man storm the undefended palace. At Snake Mountain, Evil-Lyn ambushes the rescue party and traps Teela and Orko, but when one of her own magic blasts tears a hole in He-Man's cell wall, Orko briefly grants Squinch his wish to grow large, only for Squinch to realize being small is exactly what he needs to slip through and free He-Man.

With He-Man loose, the heroes race back to the palace and corner Skeletor's forces in the kitchen, dousing them in flour and water and baking the villains into a loaf of bread. Squinch realizes that his size was never the problem, and He-Man reminds him that what matters is what's inside.

Squinch: "In today's story, He-Man said what is important is what you're like inside. It's not really important whether you're big, or small, or tall, or short, or fat, or skinny. In other words, what's important is being the best person you can be. You know something? I'll bet there are a lot of people out there right now who'd like to be just like you." Orko: "Good for you, Squinch. You said it."

John Erwin as He-Man/Prince Adam, Beast Man and Squinch

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

Linda Gary as Teela, Evil-Lyn and Lara

Lou Scheimer (credited as Erik Gunden) as Orko, King Randor and Kando

"I just know you'll want to be part of this flour, old boy." - He-Man, to Skeletor, during the kitchen ambush

"The Littlest Giant" spends its cold open making Squinch's problem as literal as possible: a tree falls across the Widget fort's gate, and Squinch, minutes after watching He-Man clear a fallen tree in a few casual swings, decides he will clear the next one himself, because that is what a hero does. The title tells you where this is going before the plot does, but the episode earns the trip anyway, because the moral it lands on is not the generic believe-in-yourself close the setup threatens. It lands closer to irony with teeth: the one time Squinch actually gets what he asked for, the chance to be as big as He-Man, it turns out to be the worst possible moment to have it.

Evil-Lyn's scheme runs on the oldest trick available to her, a sealed box and a promise, and the episode does not pretend Squinch is clever for falling for it. He knows the deal is bad before he agrees to it; Skeletor's own court all but tells him so to his face, and he takes the box anyway, because the same impatience that sent him at the fallen tree alone is still running the show. Evil-Lyn is just the first adult willing to use it against him. By the time the box opens over a sleeping He-Man and Battle Cat, the episode has made its case: Squinch's size was never really the obstacle. It was an excuse.

The rescue plot pays that idea off mechanically rather than just stating it. Teela, Orko and Squinch reach Snake Mountain together. Teela, full-sized and armed, is the one Evil-Lyn nets almost immediately. Squinch gets through alone, finds the hole Evil-Lyn's own stray bolt has blasted in the dungeon wall, and realizes it is too small for anyone but him. Evil-Lyn, with the kind of cruelty that plays as a punchline on this show, grants his old wish right then and there, zapping him to full size purely to shut him out of the one job he can actually do. Squinch has to beg Orko to shrink him back down before he can be of any use. Few Saturday-morning cartoons come this close to telling their hero that the thing he wanted was never the thing he needed.

Skeletor and Beast Man carry the episode's other half, a parallel assault on the Royal Palace that mostly exists to keep the stakes moving while the Snake Mountain plot plays out. It is competently staged without doing much new with the formula; Beast Man hauling off Lara is the only beat here with real tension, and even Skeletor's aside about "this small one" being amusing reads more like the writers checking in on their own joke than building one. The kitchen climax that follows, flour and water dumped over Skeletor's whole raiding party until the villains come out baked into a single dough loaf, is the episode at its silliest and its most confident, a sight gag the animators clearly relished and one that earns its laugh through pure escalation rather than a pun doing all the work.

What keeps "The Littlest Giant" from coasting on that gag is the choice to let Squinch solve the plot through his size, not in spite of it. The closing scene doesn't just tell him what counts is what's inside; it has already shown him a locked door only a Widget could get through. A locked door is a sturdier argument than a speech. The episode's sweetest beat follows from it: Orko stretches his own shadow into a giant just to get a laugh out of He-Man, and it lands as a wink rather than a retread. Squinch already got the real version of that joke an act earlier, and it cost him something to learn it.

1. Behind the scenes: Script was approved April 19, 1984.
2. Continuity: The shot of Teela cradling He-Man on the ground had previously been used in The Cosmic Comet, where it was Prince Adam instead of He-Man. This is also the second episode in which Skeletor manages to sit on the throne of the Royal Palace, after Creatures from the Tar Swamp.
3. Squinch, Lara and Kando are Widgets, a race of diminutive forest dwellers introduced in this episode; this is their only appearance in the vintage series.