You know who Skeletor is, right? No? Here’s a quick tutorial so the rest of this entry makes sense.

The year is 1983 and an afternoon cartoon program for tween-aged boys has just launched. It stars He-Man (aka Prince Adam), a superhero of amazing muscular proportions, and his arch-enemy, Skeletor, an evil villain dressed in blue and purple with only a skull where his face should be. When Skeletor speaks, he sounds like an old grandma mixed in with a bit of Edward G. Robinson. Scared yet? Me neither. There are a variety of lazily named sidekicks (Beast Man, Panther) who assist with causing trouble that Prince Adam must transform into He-Man in order to quell. He-Man shouts “I have the power!” once he transforms and no one figures out that he’s Prince Adam even though he looks exactly the same except for his clothes.

Thankfully, I missed all this television because I was watching high quality programming General Hospital by 1983.

Fast-forward to 2010, and John and Melody are watching the He-Man cartoon series (much to my chagrin) via Netflix. Melody is fascinated with Skeletor, not knowing that was her nickname while in utero. At bedtime recently, she asked me to tell her a story, the plot of which was to be “the time Skeletor kidnapped you, Mommy.” What follows is the best recreation of that story as I can render. Enjoy. You’re welcome.

“So, one day I was just walking down the street minding my own business, when all of a sudden in front of me there was a bright flash and an interdimensional portal opened up! Out stepped this guy all dressed in blue and purple with a scary face that didn’t have any skin on it, and I was all ‘dude, what’s up with your face?’ and he was all ‘Nyah, get into the interdimensional portal, human!’ but I was stuck on his face, and I was like ‘dude, your micro dermabrasion really went bad, you should totally sue your cosmetologist!’ and he was like ‘Nyah, you heard me, into the portal!’

And then he grabbed me, and there was a big flash, and next thing I knew, I was in this crazy castle made out of rocks. There were rocks everywhere instead of furniture, and some of the rocks were carved to be the shapes of chairs and tables, but they were still rocks, and I said to Skeletor ‘wow, not only did your cosmetologist rip you off, so did your interior decorator.’ Skeletor just shoved me into this cave-cell room thing and said ‘Nyah, now He-Man will have to come save you and I will capture him!’ And then I was like ‘who’s this He-Man dude?’ and Skeletor was all ‘Silence, nyah! He-Man will be mine! Nyah, ha ha ha ha!’ and then he left.

While Skeletor was gone his sidekick Beast Man checked in on me, and then Panther came by, and they weren’t the smartest sidekicks, because I had arranged some rocks on the rock-bed to make it look like I was sleeping, and climbed out the window. I escaped from Crocodile Castle* and I was just walking around when this really muscular guy came up to me and he said ‘I am Prince Adam, how may I be of service to you, fair maiden?’

Well, Prince Adam was kind of…happy looking, so I just asked him to give me a ride, and while we were going back to his place I told him all about Skeletor and how I had escaped. THEN, Prince Adam started waving around this big sword and shouting something about a Gray Skull and he changed his clothes, and turned into He-Man! He was shouting ‘I have the power!’ and people were all excited to see him, as if he hadn’t just been standing there dressed like Prince Adam, and he asked me how to get back into Crocodile Castle, and if I could help him. Of course I said I’d help him if he’d get me back to my home planet, and since he’s He-Man of course he agreed. So we snuck back into the castle, and then we went into Skeletor’s bedroom where he was sleeping. We tippy toed across the room, and there was Skeletor sleeping on one of those rock-bed things, looking all sweet and drooling…no not really…he was snoring. He-Man shot a beam of light out of his sword and wrapped it all around Skeletor, then we woke him up, and boy was he mad! He was all ‘Nyah, what are these bonds! I must free myself! Panther, Beast Man, come assist me, nyah!’ and they ran into the room, but He-Man jumped out the window just in the nick of time! He grabbed me and pulled me out the window too, and just then Skeletor shot a laser beam from his fingers and when it hit me, there was a big flash all around me, and the next thing I knew I was home again, a little singed on the edges, but safe from Skeletor and He-Man forever.’ The end, bed time.”

*Not the real name of his fortress. I couldn’t remember what it was called and Melody insisted it was Crocodile Castle. It’s Snake Mountain or something like that.