If you want to see episodes of cereal:geek TV and He-Man/She-Ra Friday Night Trivia MANY months in advance (and be able to vote on the channel's Clip of the Week) please consider supporting me on Patreon! :) - www.patreon.com/jameseatock
Finally! The Diamond Ray of Disappearance! Great work, James👍 You mentioned Shuky Levy’s (spelling?) Filmation music showing up on another Japanese animation production… that wouldn’t happen to be The Mysterious Cities of Gold, would it?
Yeah, the unique music in this episode pops up in the dubs of Goldwing and X-Bomber, the latter of which found some success over here in the UK as Star Fleet! :)
20:00 That scene has more beauty than the whole Netflix series (including the Revolution season) When he Appears in the Mirror with that Majestic Music and the Sorcerer commands him... Frankly it gives me goosebumps
@@cerealgeekTV It's a very cinematic work... Filmation's show is very unique I'm surprised how no one talks about the beauty of the MONET sky, the unique aesthetics of Eternia's flora and fauna, the dark and unparalleled appearance of Castle Grayskull. The tales that refer to ancient series of Eternia, full of magic and mysticism, are very interesting. And the music? Still impressive today. It's interesting that even with a certain degree of infantilization, She-ha still maintains these characteristics (I like He-Man more, for the more sinister episodes like "House of Shokoti", "Reign of the Monster", "Daimar the Demon", and "To Save Skeletor"
The whole "what happened to the disappeared lizard" thing reminds me of the Rankin / Bass Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer special. The first time it aired, the residents of the Island of Misfit Toys were never seen again after Rudolph and his friends leave their island. People wrote in wondering if they ever found homes with children, so they replaced the ending for future reruns. Originally, the elves dropped wrapped boxes from the sleigh with parachutes during the ending credits, but the revised ending shows the Misfit Toys being dropped instead. And similarly, Rudolph also has an important scene removed when it airs today (to allow more time for commercials). Yukon Cornelius is seen throughout the special licking the end of his pick-axe after he drops it into the ground. The part where it is revealed that he's looking for a peppermint mine is always cut out from modern airings, so he just looks like a crazy person that likes to lick pick-axes.
2:40 The diamond was originally going to be the 'lost stone of souls'? I wonder if it was inspired by the sphere of souls from Blackstar... The sphere didn't make people physically disappear but it did do that to them in spirit, and it was another case of the magic item needing to be destroyed by the hero to restore the people it took. It does give some symmetry for He-Man's pilot to start where Blackstar's final episode left off, though I can see why they would want to scale the concept back a bit (can you imagine if the diamond had turned everyone into zombies rather than just neatly disappearing them?).
Oh man, I started watching your commentary on the official channel in 2016 and I was so bummed that it abruptly stopped. I have been checking back over the last 6 years or so to see if you had resumed so I am so stoked to find this channel.
I'm VERY pleased to hear that you found me again (and that you enjoy the episode commentaries) - And on this particular channel, I'm covering many, MANY different cartoons! :)
Great episode! Thank you! And yes, definitely: all the props to Robby London, who did so much to make our childhoods enjoyable. I don't know how it was in the UK, but I eventually got sick of this episode back in the 1980s. Several of the "HM&TMOTU" episodes, like "The Cold Zone," I only ever saw once the entire time the series was on TV and in 1990s syndication. But this episode and "Temple of The Sun" seemed to get played every five to seven weeks. Might've just been the local stations in my part of Ohio that were the problem, I dunno. Happily, a couple decades between the last TV viewing and getting the complete DVD set have enabled me to fully appreciate it again. Oh, man, I wish Dragoon had been in this episode, as well. We might've gotten a figure of him, then. As for the vanished lizard, I always just assumed he re-appeared, unnoticed back in Snake Mountain while everyone else was at Castle Grayskull, and quietly went about his lizard-y business.
Yeah, I have heard over the years from fans that certain episodes appeared to get heavy rotation in syndication - Over here in the UK, on terrestrial TV, we only ever had the series air TWICE...so there were a few episodes that I didn't see for the first time until 1996 (when the He-Man and She-Ra community began tape trading)! :)
Yeah, I think I've recorded an episode commentary track for "Diamond Ray of Disappearance" about five times - Let's see if I can recall as I type this - So, firstly, there was the UK DVD release...then I recorded an anniversary commentary for my He-Man and She-Ra Blog in 2013...then one for the official RUclips channel...one for the German Blu-ray release in 2022...and now THIS one! :)
That would be news to me - Let me know where you suspect a scene was removed/edited - I still have both the TV broadcast version and the digital version! :)
So this is commentary number three for this very episode. ;) The one off music tracks in this episode would have been used in the French dub of the the Japanese tokusatsu/marionette production X-Bomber. (Better known in the west as Star Fleet with theme song by Queen's Brian May). Shuki Levy was of course HUGE in France. Thank you James for commenting on the UNCUT version of this episode. We fans salute you good sir. :) As well as for explaining to us the odd almost silent line said by He-Man in the episode too. I'm sure the lizard did return off screen, that's what Filmation wants us to think. ;) I didn't think Skeletor said 'boob' that many times, but I;m surprised to hear that it was only done twice, interesting. Robby London deserves a lot of respect for helping in his own way to get He-Man and the Masters of the Universe it's start. :) Great job as always James. :)
actually my friends its his 5th commentary....2nd for the uncut version first one was on the bluray...he did another one with Fans Of Power too i think.....
@@AJDPharmD I still want the interview, I’m not of this cancel/woke/me too generation. While I’m not dismissing what he allegedly did. To me that doesn’t take away from what he has given the world in the past.
After watching this episode many times later, the music pieces you speak of give the impression that this is one of the first episodes to be produced. (That, and Skeletor's roll call of his evil warriors.) I'd love to know the name of this Japanese production that this early Shuki Levy composed music came from. It sounds so weird, and unlike the rest of his music, and gives Eternaia a more bizarre atmosphere than what we're use to. Also, I bought this episode digitally, and yes, it's missing the scene where the vase falls onto Okro's head. Guess I can blame Hallmark for that blunder.
"I'd love to know the name of this Japanese production that this early Shuki Levy composed music came from" It's actually from a dub of a Korean cartoon, but was also used in a dub of a Japanese puppet show at the same time it was used for MOTU. I'd mention the titles, but it might be best to keep it vague as companies that own these things are very prone to legal freak outs (even though it's all fine as Shuki's music operated per licensing from Haim Saban (meaning that he owns every single cue)). That said, on La La Land records release you can find one more track from it that went unused - "Alien Attack".
Yeah, the show I was referring to in the commentary was Bomber-X...it's bizarre watching it and hearing the music that we (of course) associate with He-Man and the Masters of the Universe! :)
@@cerealgeekTV While people assume that Skeletor said the word 'boob' alot when he only said it A few times, he does utter that word on the infamous 'Chip N' Dale: Rescue Rangers' movie in A scene where he calls 'He-Man' A boob at A convention. Also, are you referring to Go Nagai's 'X-Bomber'? ('Star Fleet')
It's interesting that Snake Mountain is not the place where the evil warriors live and they get transported there when needed. Just like Castle Grayskull, the sorcerous summons the good warriors there when she needs to tell them something. I feel that later episodes give the false idea that the evil warriors actually live in Snake Mountain.
Completely agree with your comments - Yeah, here we see the Evil Warriors presented as INDIVIDUALS that roam Eternia (and possibly the universe given that they were known, at this point, as the "Masters of the Universe") creating havoc - Whereas in later episodes, they always seem to just be hanging around at Snake Mountain, killing time...
BTW I have the mega construx (tiny) Skeletor with Panthor, and was surprised to discover it came with a little helmet the same color as panthor's saddle, which all together was shaped like Battlecat's helmet and saddle. I wonder if Panthor was supposed to have a similar helmet to Battlecat.
The only time the helmet for Battle Cat showed up on Panthor was in the series guide produced by Filmation - Beyond that the helmet was never entertained for the animation model - Though, if I recall correctly, in the storyboards for "Diamond Ray of Disappearance" Bob Kline illustrates Panthor with the helmet! :)
Correct - At some point I want to make a video on how Levy's music for specific shows popped up in other shows - Like one piece of music from He-Man and She-Ra appearing in the Mr. T cartoon! :)
Yeah, when Robert Lamb first explained the use of the term to me in the nineties, I just thought it was such a wonderfully catchy term - And so when we created "The Return of Faker" we used that as our company name...and I carried it over to cereal:geek TV! :)
James, I don't know if it's in your plans, but I really hope it does: talking in details about the He-Man transformation and She-Ra's too would be super interesting imo. The ideas behind it, the problems, the solutions. I would like to know everything. Once I made a gif with the shadow of He-Man on a dark reddish background and the lightnings that were repeating their sequence in perfect loop; I tell you what, those lightning movement are hypnotic to me. They really make it feel like they're injecting power into He-Man's body through the Power Sword while he's staying still in that statuary pose. Lol, I'm totally addicted to that sequence since I saw it the first time.
Well, in a few weeks (specifically November 11th) you'll see a video which shows that sequence you speak of...as it's NEVER been seen before - Then, next year (probably), I'm going to make a video breaking down every single element of the Prince Adam to He-Man (in front of Castle Grayskull) sequence! :)
If you want to see episodes of cereal:geek TV and He-Man/She-Ra Friday Night Trivia MANY months in advance (and be able to vote on the channel's Clip of the Week) please consider supporting me on Patreon! :) - www.patreon.com/jameseatock
Finally! The Diamond Ray of Disappearance! Great work, James👍
You mentioned Shuky Levy’s (spelling?) Filmation music showing up on another Japanese animation production… that wouldn’t happen to be The Mysterious Cities of Gold, would it?
Yes. Saban, and Levy were known for composing music for DIC during the 80's.
Yeah, the unique music in this episode pops up in the dubs of Goldwing and X-Bomber, the latter of which found some success over here in the UK as Star Fleet! :)
20:00 That scene has more beauty than the whole Netflix series (including the Revolution season)
When he Appears in the Mirror with that Majestic Music and the Sorcerer commands him...
Frankly it gives me goosebumps
THAT scene when He-Man appears in the Window of Spirits...and the music kicks in...it's INCREDIBLE - You sum it up perfectly with "goosebumps"! :)
@@cerealgeekTV It's a very cinematic work...
Filmation's show is very unique
I'm surprised how no one talks about the beauty of the MONET sky, the unique aesthetics of Eternia's flora and fauna, the dark and unparalleled appearance of Castle Grayskull. The tales that refer to ancient series of Eternia, full of magic and mysticism, are very interesting.
And the music? Still impressive today.
It's interesting that even with a certain degree of infantilization, She-ha still maintains these characteristics (I like He-Man more, for the more sinister episodes like "House of Shokoti", "Reign of the Monster", "Daimar the Demon", and "To Save Skeletor"
The background artists at Filmation did a wonderful job creating a WORLD...where anything visually was possible! :)
The whole "what happened to the disappeared lizard" thing reminds me of the Rankin / Bass Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer special. The first time it aired, the residents of the Island of Misfit Toys were never seen again after Rudolph and his friends leave their island. People wrote in wondering if they ever found homes with children, so they replaced the ending for future reruns. Originally, the elves dropped wrapped boxes from the sleigh with parachutes during the ending credits, but the revised ending shows the Misfit Toys being dropped instead.
And similarly, Rudolph also has an important scene removed when it airs today (to allow more time for commercials). Yukon Cornelius is seen throughout the special licking the end of his pick-axe after he drops it into the ground. The part where it is revealed that he's looking for a peppermint mine is always cut out from modern airings, so he just looks like a crazy person that likes to lick pick-axes.
I was VERY unaware of the revised ending to that special - What an awesome thing for Rankin/Bass to do though - I love it! :)
2:40 The diamond was originally going to be the 'lost stone of souls'? I wonder if it was inspired by the sphere of souls from Blackstar... The sphere didn't make people physically disappear but it did do that to them in spirit, and it was another case of the magic item needing to be destroyed by the hero to restore the people it took. It does give some symmetry for He-Man's pilot to start where Blackstar's final episode left off, though I can see why they would want to scale the concept back a bit (can you imagine if the diamond had turned everyone into zombies rather than just neatly disappearing them?).
There's a chance it could've been inspired, as Robby London was around at the time of Blackstar, though he didn't work on that specific episode...:)
Oh man, I started watching your commentary on the official channel in 2016 and I was so bummed that it abruptly stopped. I have been checking back over the last 6 years or so to see if you had resumed so I am so stoked to find this channel.
I'm VERY pleased to hear that you found me again (and that you enjoy the episode commentaries) - And on this particular channel, I'm covering many, MANY different cartoons! :)
Great episode! Thank you! And yes, definitely: all the props to Robby London, who did so much to make our childhoods enjoyable.
I don't know how it was in the UK, but I eventually got sick of this episode back in the 1980s. Several of the "HM&TMOTU" episodes, like "The Cold Zone," I only ever saw once the entire time the series was on TV and in 1990s syndication. But this episode and "Temple of The Sun" seemed to get played every five to seven weeks. Might've just been the local stations in my part of Ohio that were the problem, I dunno. Happily, a couple decades between the last TV viewing and getting the complete DVD set have enabled me to fully appreciate it again.
Oh, man, I wish Dragoon had been in this episode, as well. We might've gotten a figure of him, then.
As for the vanished lizard, I always just assumed he re-appeared, unnoticed back in Snake Mountain while everyone else was at Castle Grayskull, and quietly went about his lizard-y business.
Yeah, I have heard over the years from fans that certain episodes appeared to get heavy rotation in syndication - Over here in the UK, on terrestrial TV, we only ever had the series air TWICE...so there were a few episodes that I didn't see for the first time until 1996 (when the He-Man and She-Ra community began tape trading)! :)
Memories! Haven't I heard you comment on this episode before? On the UK DVDs released back in 2004? Good times!
There's a commentary on the official He-Man channel of this episode.
There's also a different commentary on a podcast James did many years ago (after the dvd release).
Yeah, I think I've recorded an episode commentary track for "Diamond Ray of Disappearance" about five times - Let's see if I can recall as I type this - So, firstly, there was the UK DVD release...then I recorded an anniversary commentary for my He-Man and She-Ra Blog in 2013...then one for the official RUclips channel...one for the German Blu-ray release in 2022...and now THIS one! :)
Awesome episode. Speaking of missing footage, I think there’s missing footage in the “witch and the warrior” episode as well.
That would be news to me - Let me know where you suspect a scene was removed/edited - I still have both the TV broadcast version and the digital version! :)
Really happy to be able to watch this on the channel. Thank you!❤
I felt that it HAD to happen close to the 40th anniversary of the animated series! :)
So this is commentary number three for this very episode. ;) The one off music tracks in this episode would have been used in the French dub of the the Japanese tokusatsu/marionette production X-Bomber. (Better known in the west as Star Fleet with theme song by Queen's Brian May). Shuki Levy was of course HUGE in France. Thank you James for commenting on the UNCUT version of this episode. We fans salute you good sir. :) As well as for explaining to us the odd almost silent line said by He-Man in the episode too. I'm sure the lizard did return off screen, that's what Filmation wants us to think. ;) I didn't think Skeletor said 'boob' that many times, but I;m surprised to hear that it was only done twice, interesting. Robby London deserves a lot of respect for helping in his own way to get He-Man and the Masters of the Universe it's start. :) Great job as always James. :)
IIRC, on a different RUclips channel, James did a video where you could actually hear the line via audio engineering magic.
@@KasumiKenshirou I'm aware of it and I'm pretty sure it is on this channel. (If not then it may be the official He-Man channel here on RUclips).
actually my friends its his 5th commentary....2nd for the uncut version first one was on the bluray...he did another one with Fans Of Power too i think.....
@@jamesbass932James mentioned that he did 5 commentaries, still that's VERY impressive. :)
I ALWAYS bloody forget that Brian May composed the theme song for Star Fleet! :)
We need a like a 10 part interview (minimum) with Shuki Levy….
THAT would be rather awesome! :)
Um, you may want to look up an interview that the actress Sarah Brown gave about her relationship with him...
@@AJDPharmD I still want the interview, I’m not of this cancel/woke/me too generation. While I’m not dismissing what he allegedly did. To me that doesn’t take away from what he has given the world in the past.
After watching this episode many times later, the music pieces you speak of give the impression that this is one of the first episodes to be produced. (That, and Skeletor's roll call of his evil warriors.) I'd love to know the name of this Japanese production that this early Shuki Levy composed music came from. It sounds so weird, and unlike the rest of his music, and gives Eternaia a more bizarre atmosphere than what we're use to. Also, I bought this episode digitally, and yes, it's missing the scene where the vase falls onto Okro's head. Guess I can blame Hallmark for that blunder.
"I'd love to know the name of this Japanese production that this early Shuki Levy composed music came from"
It's actually from a dub of a Korean cartoon, but was also used in a dub of a Japanese puppet show at the same time it was used for MOTU. I'd mention the titles, but it might be best to keep it vague as companies that own these things are very prone to legal freak outs (even though it's all fine as Shuki's music operated per licensing from Haim Saban (meaning that he owns every single cue)).
That said, on La La Land records release you can find one more track from it that went unused - "Alien Attack".
Yeah, the show I was referring to in the commentary was Bomber-X...it's bizarre watching it and hearing the music that we (of course) associate with He-Man and the Masters of the Universe! :)
@@cerealgeekTV While people assume that Skeletor said the word 'boob' alot when he only said it A few times, he does utter that word on the infamous 'Chip N' Dale: Rescue Rangers' movie in A scene where he calls 'He-Man' A boob at A convention. Also, are you referring to Go Nagai's 'X-Bomber'? ('Star Fleet')
It's interesting that Snake Mountain is not the place where the evil warriors live and they get transported there when needed. Just like Castle Grayskull, the sorcerous summons the good warriors there when she needs to tell them something. I feel that later episodes give the false idea that the evil warriors actually live in Snake Mountain.
Completely agree with your comments - Yeah, here we see the Evil Warriors presented as INDIVIDUALS that roam Eternia (and possibly the universe given that they were known, at this point, as the "Masters of the Universe") creating havoc - Whereas in later episodes, they always seem to just be hanging around at Snake Mountain, killing time...
Classic and funny episode, especially since Panthor was in it.
You've made a wonderfully classic error there...Panthro was in ThunderCats...Panthor was Skeletor's giant purple steed! :)
@@cerealgeekTV LOL!! Sorry that's what I meant Panthor, I made the correction 😅
I think we've ALL made that error at one time or another! :)
BTW I have the mega construx (tiny) Skeletor with Panthor, and was surprised to discover it came with a little helmet the same color as panthor's saddle, which all together was shaped like Battlecat's helmet and saddle. I wonder if Panthor was supposed to have a similar helmet to Battlecat.
The only time the helmet for Battle Cat showed up on Panthor was in the series guide produced by Filmation - Beyond that the helmet was never entertained for the animation model - Though, if I recall correctly, in the storyboards for "Diamond Ray of Disappearance" Bob Kline illustrates Panthor with the helmet! :)
I’ve noticed about the lost scene when the DVD’s were released here in Australia
Yeah, it's a rather jarring edit - It's nice that it's been reinserted to many digital versions now! :)
08:57 those music tracks were specifically originally from the French dubs of Goldwing and X-Bomber.
Correct - At some point I want to make a video on how Levy's music for specific shows popped up in other shows - Like one piece of music from He-Man and She-Ra appearing in the Mr. T cartoon! :)
@@cerealgeekTV I'd watch that in a heartbeat.
Same/as is brilliant! Great name!
Yeah, when Robert Lamb first explained the use of the term to me in the nineties, I just thought it was such a wonderfully catchy term - And so when we created "The Return of Faker" we used that as our company name...and I carried it over to cereal:geek TV! :)
I love your commentarys! ❤
Thank YOU for the lovely comment! :)
No short cuts. The right way is the best way.
Except for that one time He-Man tried to sneak into Snake Mountain to steal the Rainbow Quartz from under Skeletor's..."nose"...:)
@@cerealgeekTV Well... the important thing is... Man-at-Arms didn't dare him!
😊👍🏾🎥
🙂
There are a couple more He-Man episode commentaries coming before the end of the year...:)
James, I don't know if it's in your plans, but I really hope it does: talking in details about the He-Man transformation and She-Ra's too would be super interesting imo. The ideas behind it, the problems, the solutions. I would like to know everything. Once I made a gif with the shadow of He-Man on a dark reddish background and the lightnings that were repeating their sequence in perfect loop; I tell you what, those lightning movement are hypnotic to me. They really make it feel like they're injecting power into He-Man's body through the Power Sword while he's staying still in that statuary pose. Lol, I'm totally addicted to that sequence since I saw it the first time.
Well, in a few weeks (specifically November 11th) you'll see a video which shows that sequence you speak of...as it's NEVER been seen before - Then, next year (probably), I'm going to make a video breaking down every single element of the Prince Adam to He-Man (in front of Castle Grayskull) sequence! :)
@@cerealgeekTV Excellent. I can't wait. I love those behind the scenes videos!
And I LOVE making them! :)