I like that Roboto is wearing a poncho.
(b1977, excited about this show)
(b1977, excited about this show)
News He-Man anime series from Kevin Smith coming to Netflix
- Thread starter Enterprise is Great
- Start date
Exactly why it needs to be corrected.
Heck, I'm surprised Filmation was willing to settle for an overwhelmingly white cast, since they were all about diversity and inclusion, even if it was often in a token-ish way. (What we now see as Asian stereotypes in Filmation's shows were actually pretty progressive for their time, in that at least they included Asian characters and portrayed them heroically. One step at a time.) But I guess they were constrained by the Mattel character designs. In Filmation's earlier Blackstar, which was sort of a prototype for He-Man in a lot of ways, they originally wanted the title character to be black, hence the name, but the network wouldn't allow it, so they just made him ambiguously dark-complexioned. So Lou Scheimer would've been absolutely fine with adding more diversity to the cast, and the racist idiots are just being racist idiots as usual.
If the He-Man wiki is believable, even at the time the animators were embarrassed by how blatantly the caricature was. For this reason the character made only one appearance (it was still Mattel who took care of the design of the characters).
https://he-man.fandom.com/wiki/Jitsu
Wow. That is pretty blatant, and he was a villain too. Usually the worst it got in Filmation shows was stereotyping their token Asian characters as martial artists, which didn't seem as bad then as it does these days. (The main exception was Joanna Pang in season 1 of Isis, but maybe they just didn't expect a girl to be a fighter.)
Ironically*, the figure doesn't look nearly as bad as the Filmation depiction IMO.
* I'm sure I'm not using that word properly....
* I'm sure I'm not using that word properly....
Mind you, we probably have Filmation to thank for making Zodac appear black, as the Mattel figure had a skin tone similar to He-Man's:
Mattel didn't make Zodac a black character until the 200X series. The only actually black character in Mattel's original line was Clamp Champ, and he was introduced as one of the last figures, after the Filmation series had already wrapped up.
Mattel didn't make Zodac a black character until the 200X series. The only actually black character in Mattel's original line was Clamp Champ, and he was introduced as one of the last figures, after the Filmation series had already wrapped up.
It's weird -- I watched He-Man pretty regularly in first run, yet I have no recollection of Zodac as a character from the show.
He appeared in only three episodes.
Hmm, I wonder if they were Tuesday episodes. I saw my therapist after school on Tuesdays, so I always got home late and missed the first half or more of the Tuesday episodes. And since there were exactly 65 episodes airing 5 days a week and rerunning in the same order, the same episodes always ran on Tuesdays, so I always missed the same ones. I don't think I managed to see the full episode about Teela's origin story until I saw the series on streaming video within the past decade or so.
Just like Kojak....
Zodac was also listed as a villain back in the day when he was really more like an impartial observer.
Well, as Elie Weisel said, "Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim."
Note the caption at the top of the card - Zodac was a villain in the original toy line, which predated the TV series. Many of the characters were changed for use on TV.
If Ted Cruz was Zodiac from Eternia, that may explain how he was killing as the Zodiac killer a decade before his supposed birth.
Although...
What the $uck happened to all his muscles?
Although...
What the $uck happened to all his muscles?
Yeah, but I'm more shocked to hear they liked the new She-Ra cartoon. I mean, those characters were... *hushed whisper* teenagers.
Mind you, we probably have Filmation to thank for making Zodac appear black, as the Mattel figure had a skin tone similar to He-Man's:
Mattel didn't make Zodac a black character until the 200X series. The only actually black character in Mattel's original line was Clamp Champ, and he was introduced as one of the last figures, after the Filmation series had already wrapped up.
And voiced by Christopher Judge no less.
My understanding with Zodac (as originally spelled) was, it wasn't really clear what to do with him. He was one of the first MOTU characters designed for the toyline. The idea of him being a cosmic balancer seems to possibly be Mattel's original intent, as he was portrayed this way in both the DC comics and his few animated appearances. Unlike most of the toys, he didn't really make much appearance in the mini-comics and his description as an evil character seems to have been added to possibly balance out the numbers. Some tie-in sources followed this description and made Zodac an ally or servant of Skeletor, while other depictions have shown him as being primarily heroic.
Season 01 episodes - "Quest for He-Man", "The Golden Discs of Knowledge" and "The Search"
Hm, none of those were Tuesday episodes, so I must've seen them. I guess the character just didn't make a strong impression.
Dark Horse will be doing a "prequel" comic mini-series a couple weeks before the premiere.
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/masters-universe-revelation-comic-fills-160035775.html
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/masters-universe-revelation-comic-fills-160035775.html
