Day of the Flowers

She-Ra and He-Man free villagers from a Horde labor camp, while Hordak, short of workers, tells Horde Captain Sludge Man that he has made an arrangement with the Monstroids. On Flower Mountain, Adora welcomes her brother Adam and Snout Spout for the day of the flowers, and Orko's practice spells leave the heroes' swords missing from their bench. An old villager reports that the Monstroids have taken the men and boys to the nucleon mines, and Hordak orders the Monstroids to bring in the rebels and destroy every flower. Without their swords, Adam and Adora see that the Monstroids run on heated fuel, so Frosta and Snout Spout make ice rings, and Madam Razz and Broom bomb the machines with them. Orko then enlarges ice donuts to 15 feet, and they are rolled down the mountain. When Orko finally remembers his spell, the swords return, and He-Man and She-Ra finish the job with Frosta's frozen lake. Loo-Kee closes with Orko's lesson about believing in yourself.

Loo-Kee: "Hi! Did you find my hiding place today? Want another chance? Okay. Do you see me? Here I am! Today, Orko helped defeat the giant Monstroids. He showed them that you don't have to be big to do big things. But what you have to do is believe in yourself. Because when you believe in yourself you can do anything. Bye now!"

Orko: "Hmm, nothing happened."

Madam Razz: "Oh, dearie my. Fancy is my middle name."

Orko: "I think I found almost everything I ever lost."

Orko: "Bobbily bee, bobbily beet. How about growing to 15 feet?"

Orko: "I gotta do it. It was my fault and I've got to make it right."

Day of the Flowers is a story about size. Hordak sends the most powerful machines in the universe after a mountain of blossoms, and the heroes answer with ice donuts and a magician who keeps losing things. The joke is plain, and the episode never drops it. Big is not the same as strong, and small is not the same as useless.

The setup is neat because Orko makes the problem and the answer both. He is practising on the flowers, first with "Diddly boo, diddly bulb. Point my finger, make them grow." Then he tries one blindfolded, and when the flowers do not disappear he shrugs it off with "Hmm, nothing happened." Two swords sit on a stone bench beside him. A few scenes later, Adora and Adam come back for them and find the bench empty. It is a good piece of cartoon logic, because the audience has seen the cause and the characters have not.

With the swords gone, the middle of the episode belongs to Adora and Adam, and they spend it thinking. The Monstroids run on heated fuel, so they decide to cool them down. Frosta and Snout Spout are drafted to make ice bombs, shaped like donuts, and Madam Razz and Broom become what Adora calls the Etherian Air Force. Their bombing runs are more fun than they have any right to be. Madam Razz answers the request for fancy dive-bombing with "Oh, dearie my. Fancy is my middle name." Broom, the talking broom, often looks frightened. The plan has a built-in clock too, since a Monstroid hit once is down only until it is back at full power in ten minutes.

Meanwhile Orko searches. He turns up a trunk, a lamp and a mop, and reports, "I think I found almost everything I ever lost." The scene could have been cruel to him, and it is not. Adam keeps saying the same thing in different words: don't give up, keep trying, we are counting on you.

The standout is the moment the plan needs something big. Adam asks Orko for ice donuts about fifteen feet high, and Orko, who has not yet found the swords, is told that "making things big is something you're very good at." He tries a rhyme and the first donut grows. Then comes another: "Bobbily bee, bobbily beet. How about growing to 15 feet?" On screen, a glowing ice ring swells in a burst of sparkles on the grass. The scene is warm because it asks him to do the one thing he is good at, and nobody makes a speech about it until afterward, when one of the twins tells him, "You can do anything you put your mind to."

The weak point is the swords. For most of the hour the heroes cannot be He-Man and She-Ra, and then Orko recalls his own spell at the last moment: "Wait a minute. That's it! I remember what I said." It arrives right when plan B has failed to exist, and the line that greets it, "Good work, Orko. Just in time," says as much about the script as about the magician. The cause of the loss, which Orko puts down to a size spell and a color spell, is also never really explained. Nor do the Monstroids get much character. Six of them roll, stride and glare, but only the donuts ever do anything surprising.

Even so, the ending lands. After the frozen lake and the heave-ho, a speech follows that the title was waiting for: "The Horde is strong like the rock. But we are fragile like the flower." The flower that grew in the rock is a small image, and it fits. Loo-Kee then gives Orko the moral. This is a lightweight crossover with a clear idea and a real laugh in every act. It gives each guest something to do, and that is more than many crossovers manage.

1. Continuity: Adora introduces Adam and Snout Spout as visitors from Eternia ("My brother Adam and his friend Snout Spout have journeyed from Eternia"), and Frosta is already on Flower Mountain when the Monstroids come.
2. Continuity: Hordak's Horde Captain is named in the dialogue as Sludge Man, and the Monstroids are the "arrangement" Hordak says he has made.
3. Note: Orko's hunt for the swords turns up a trunk, a lamp, a mop and "an old hat", but not the swords.
4. Production: Written by Durnford King and directed by Bill Reed, first aired 1986-11-15.