Reruns continued to air in syndication until 1988, at which point USA Network bought the rights to the series.

Its lead character is Prince Adam, the young son of Eternia's rulers King Randor and Queen Marlena.

Together with his close allies, Battle Cat (who undergoes a similar transformation from being Adam's cowardly pet tiger Cringer), The Sorceress, Teela, Man-At-Arms and Orko, He-Man uses his powers to defend Eternia from the evil forces of Skeletor.

Skeletor's main goal is to conquer the mysterious fortress of Castle Grayskull, from which He-Man draws his powers.

Based on their animated commercial work for Mattel, including a spot for the toyline, Filmation was chosen to produce the series.

Mattel hired screenwriter Michael Halperin, experienced in live-action TV, to write a pitch bible (submitted on December 1, 1982) to flesh out the backstory both for merchandising and for the cartoon.

Unfortunately, it was not considered viable, so the bible was reworked by Filmation staff writer Tom Ruegger, having already developed Blackstar along similar lines.

[11] Despite the limited animation techniques that were used to produce the series, He-Man was notable for breaking the boundaries of censorship that had severely restricted the narrative scope of children's TV programming in the 1970s.

For the first time since Ruby-Spears's Thundarr the Barbarian, a cartoon series could feature a muscular superhero who was actually allowed to hit people (although he more typically used wrestling-style moves rather than actually punching enemies), though he still could not use his sword often; more often than not He-Man opted to pick up his opponents and toss them away rather than hit them.

Joe, an attempt to mitigate the negative publicity generated by this controversy was made by including a "life lesson" or "moral of the story" at the end of each episode.

[17] It is also noted for featuring early script-writing work from J. Michael Straczynski, later the creator of Babylon 5; Paul Dini and Brynne Stephens, both of whom who would go on to write acclaimed episodes of Batman: The Animated Series; Beast Wars story editor Larry DiTillio; and David Wise, later the head-writer of the TV version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and The Real Ghostbusters.

[20][user-generated source] The opening theme, snippets of which are used whenever Prince Adam transforms into He-Man and during interludes, is in C Mixolydian.

Each episode on BCI Ink & Paint's He-Man and the Masters of the Universe DVD releases were uncut, unedited, fully restored and digitally remastered for optimum audio and video quality and presented in its original broadcast presentation and story continuity order.

[31] On December 10, 2010, Mill Creek Entertainment announced that they had acquired the rights from Classic Media to re-release the series on DVD in America.

[36] The pilot episode, "Diamond Ray of Disappearance", has a minute or so of footage missing due to the master tapes being damaged.

In the original version, after teleporting the King and Queen and Man-At-Arms away to another dimension, Skeletor turns the ray onto Orko, who gets stuck inside a vase which deflects the beam.