Interviews – John Takis – Eternian Producer

Hi, this is John Takis, writer and album producer,

and you are listening to the Geekcast Radio Network.

Hello and welcome to the Powers of Greyskull

podcast. I am TFG and my Optimus Solo is not

joining me this time around. But folks, we have

spent three years here on the Powers of Greyskull

covering Tales of Eternia. We spent three years,

45 episodes, covering all 130 episodes in depth

of He -Man and the Masters of the Universe. We

just released about a week ago our... He -Man

and She -Ra Secret of the Sword commentary. I

do have plans to bring you guys more interviews

in our brief hiatus before we start our She -Ra

coverage coming up in September. Tonight is one

of those times. I am talking with album producer

extraordinaire, Mr. John Takis. Hello, sir. Hello.

Good to be here. How are you? I'm very well,

thank you. So the reason why John is back, and

this is actually his first time on the He -Man

show, but this is his second time on the GCRN.

We had talked to John back, I talked to you back

in October of 2014 when the Batman the Animated

Series Volume 3 came out. Yes. Well, John has

entered Eternia, folks. He has painstakingly,

and we will go over some of this in very much

great detail tonight. gone through and given

us, for La La Land Records, a two -disc release

for He -Man and the Masters of the Universe,

the classic filmmation cartoon series. 111 tracks.

I just... It's staggering. The mind boggles.

I mean, it's... I'm always one of those people

that, because I have been dealing with La La

Land Records for two years now on written reviews,

and I also do certain audio things for them as

well. I actually just interviewed Matt and Michael,

was it the end of last year for the first time?

So, you know, I'm used to seeing their two, three,

four, six, you know, I'm used to seeing these

multi -disc releases from them. And what always

boggles my mind is how much you guys can get

on whether it's just two discs or four discs

or whatever. And with this release, it kind of

surprised me because of the way that it's laid

out. The first disc is the... Yeah, it's 53 tracks

overall. But the first 11 are referred to as

the album. I will ask you about that in a moment.

But, you know, you've got 53 tracks on disc one,

and most of those tracks are pretty much what

we've heard, what we hear throughout the... The

cartoon series, like the Save the Day theme,

like the Goodbye Orko theme. Let's see here.

The Battle in the Sky theme. I always remember

what is called the Battle in the Sky theme, the

track 18 on disc one, because that's the music

that they always play. when a Wind Raider or

a Skyslider or whatever flying vehicle Skeletor

had for that week. You know, the Roton or whatever.

I always remember that one. So, how did you...

Did Laughland... approach you and say, hey, we

want you to be the one to do this, to get this

together. How did it go about you working on

this release? Sure. Well, I'll start out with

a little context just, you know, so your listeners

don't get a too high opinion of me. I am a co

-producer on this release. I have to give great

props to, first of all, to MV Gerhard and Matt

Verbois, who are the heads of the label and the

executive producers. Their diligence is what

allowed us to put this together in being able

to premiere release, do a premiere release of

the original tracks from the original tapes,

first generation tapes. They spent a long time.

searching for this material and they found it.

And then I co -produced the album with Neil S.

Bulk, who did a tremendous job sorting through

this material, coming up with a sequence. Thanks

to our associate album producer and art director,

Dan Goldwasser, for doing a spectacular job.

And a very special thanks to Johnny D. Davis.

Stephen Marsh and Fernando Lee, who handled the

transfers and the mastering. And all these credits

are in the booklet. But just, you know, we really

benefited from a lot of skilled hands on this

and making it the best album it could be. Now,

a little context. This album has been in the

works for years. It's been literally years. So

that's actually when I was approached. It was,

I think, a little over two years ago. It was

before that big boxed set. with the DVD set in

the shape of Castle Grayskull. It had the classic

series and the new series. The Mill Creek release.

Yeah, that giant Mill Creek release. It was even

before that that they wanted to do something.

And that came with a CD containing some of the

old album material, of course. So yeah, they

said, hey, do you like He -Man? Do you like Masters

of the Universe? And I said, yeah, of course.

Child of the 80s. That was... I was not a super

fan as a child. I was a little young when it

first started airing. You know, my parents were

among those who were not all that into me watching

violent cartoons. And I've said, you know, one

of the great things about going back and revisiting

the series after all these years is just how

whimsically innocent it all seems. You know,

it's tough to get yourself in that headspace

where people thought that He -Man was just, you

know, violence unleashed. But yeah, it was a

part of my childhood, as many filmmation shows

and animation shows of that era were. And so

I was excited about the chance to go back and

revisit it. And even if you didn't watch the

show, as you well know, even if you didn't watch

the show regularly. He -Man was unavoidable.

It was inescapable. The merchandise was everywhere.

The action figures were everywhere. I got hand

-me -down action figures from my cousins. The

action figures were at my kindergarten. So, you

know, you could not get away from He -Man. It

was a huge, huge phenomenon. So, yeah, it took

a couple of years once I was approached for everything

to come together. We weren't sure what we'd find.

And then within the last year, it just kind of

all, you know, kind of came to a head. We found

the materials. We got them transferred. We got

them sorted. And the results of that are now

available to buy. Yeah, I mean, you know. I was

three years old when the show premiered, so I

watched it when I was, you know, 86, 87, when

I was seven, eight years old. So, I mean, a lot

of the He -Man stuff, and I've said this on the

podcast before, a lot of the He -Man stuff I

had watched later, somewhere between ages six

and ten. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't even really,

like, when it first debuted, I had no clue. I

think it wasn't until maybe 86. that I even knew

about Secret of the Sword. Yeah. Well, we were

kind of the first generation where He -Man was

kind of always on our radar, you know. Yeah,

it's because of that first run syndication deal

that Shimer had. Absolutely. And, you know, like

you said, it was... Besides the toys, the cartoon

was everywhere. I mean, you couldn't turn on

a cartoon, you couldn't turn on a TV on a weekday

or a Saturday morning without seeing at least

one, two, or three different episodes of He -Man

throughout the day. Yeah, it was a tremendous

success. I mean, the syndication thing, again,

it was considered a big risk at the time, but

boy did it prove the naysayers wrong. Absolutely.

Now, the process of finding the materials, and

I know it's in the booklet, but for everybody

listening, walk us through, because I have you

here. I might as well just have you tell the

story. I'm not going to just sit here and have

you listen to me read through what you wrote.

There's not that much to tell about the finding

of the materials, which, first of all, that kind

of happened. in between when I was contacted

and then when I was brought back on. So I was

not, I was not actually involved with the, the

great, uh, uh, the great master tape hunt. Um,

but, uh, yeah, I, I believe the source was in

England. Um, and they, they sent a list of what

they had and Neil looked at that and said, okay,

we need this and this. Um, and they sent it over

and, uh, yeah, I mean, it, it's, I, I guess you'd,

you'd have to. ask mv or mad if there's more

of a story there but i've been told it's a pretty

simple story of we found a guy you know so yeah

see i remember as a kid it is and it's so my

memory is so fuzzy on this because it was at

a time when i was With my best childhood friend

at the time, which, God, I haven't seen him in,

well, it's been over 20 years now. But anyway,

it's one of those things where he had an old

LP, and I don't know if it was one of the story

LPs or which LP it was, and I've been trying

to search online for Masters of the Universe

LPs to see if I remember, because I remember

what the cover, like the... the album art looks

like i remember all that i just don't remember

what was actually on the album and i think it

was one of those old story it almost certainly

was because odds are that your your friend was

not connected enough to have an import uh well

from the from one of the regions i mean maybe

he was i don't know your friend but uh but no

we were eight nine ten years old there's no way

in america most most uh kids had to content themselves

with story albums it was only in some of the

you know as spanish -speaking latin american

regions and then in in europe there was a french

lp there there were only a few that had actual

underscore music tracks on them. Now, of course,

you listening to the story, the story had music

and sound effects playing along. So you, you

know, it was all part of it, but isolated music

was, was really only confined to territories

outside the United States. Yeah. So when you

guys got all the material together and you went

through to assemble it, what was, what was the

decision making in making the first 11? on disc

one from the album and then the rest of them

well basically we had an independent source for

that and those tracks are stereo with the exception

of the very first one because the the album that

we uh retrieved uh and and did a very um painstaking

transfer from vinyl was the uh was the spanish

album And the first track on that album was the

version of the theme song that has vocals, Spanish

lyrics to it. As much as we love that, and we

preferred that as a bonus track, and to have

the broadcast length version of the theme, the

more familiar version of the theme, to kick off

the whole set. So we opened disc one with that,

but then we wanted to present that original album

because that... That's the way it was originally

presented to those fans who were lucky enough

to have it. And because those tracks are stereo

and so they they have kind of a different sound

field. The mono tracks sound great. Don't get

me wrong. Mono tracks sound fantastic. And they're

from original quarter inch tapes, whereas the

the stereo album is merely a very professionally

done vinyl transfer because the stereo, whatever

stereotypes originally existed for that album,

we were unable to be found. But really, I mean,

I just keep coming back to what a miracle it

is that this stuff was found at all, given how

long and persistently it was believed to be lost.

But to answer your question, that's basically

why. We had the stereo tracks, it was the original

album sequence, and we wanted to kind of honor

that. And it's a good listen. It's a short listen.

It's a good listen. And then we move into the

brand new, newly discovered, newly released stuff

from the show. Stuff like He -Man at Home, He

-Man Trapped, Prince Adam and Tila. He -Man in

Space, He -Man in the Country. He -Man in the

Country, that's a funny track. It is, it is.

That's a funny track because it's one of those

ones where... As soon as I hear it, I know what

scene it's supposed to be in. It's supposed to

be in any scene when Adam is either fishing or

he's doing his lazy stuff. Yeah, yeah. And Tila's

in the background just nagging at him like the

nagging bee that she is. Oh, no, that's hard.

No, dude, I'm telling you, if you go back and

you listen to any of the 44 previous episodes

of this show, Tila is my least favorite character

in this. entire series i've spent three years

watching this girl and she makes absolutely horrible

Look, someone has to make horrible decisions

or the plot's not going to happen. That's true.

But he made it in the country. As soon as I heard

it, I'm like, yeah, that's not the country songs

I grew up. I can't picture, and I live in the

state, I can't picture BFE Kentucky with all

these horse farms and farmlands and tobacco.

That's not a country song to me, but I get it.

I understand why it's called that. it sounds

the way it does is because it's supposed to give

you a sense of relaxation. It's not a battle

theme. It's more of, hey, let's go be lazy. That's

the whole point of this music, is to take you

to someplace weird and wonderful and special.

The way that the music... One of the great things

that the music for this show did was it created

a really unique atmosphere. And it really helped

make Eternia feel like this wild and alien place.

And that's a big part of the fun of the show,

I think, was getting to go so far outside of

the normal. Absolutely. You know, tracks like

Facing the Castle and... which is, uh, track

five. And then the castle is track eight. You

know, so you get some castle gray skull themes

and then you have the snake mountain theme, which

I'm trying to look here. What track is that?

Someone said to me on Twitter, I think it was

Grimbot, who is one of the people over on the

He -Man .org forum, said something about you

speculated that that might be a demo track. Oh,

we encountered some tracks on here that actually

sound more polished than what was used in the

series. Okay. Which is to say that instead of

this kind of very artificial sounding fakie brass,

there are a few tracks that we were able to uncover

that have a much more realistic live. brass sound

and and you know again i i'm sure that not even

the composers might remember why and how this

was done so i i don't want to say that the ones

that were used in the show were demos um they're

just they're they're they're a little rougher

from a from a musical standpoint and and they're

not you know they're a little more synthy a little

less live instruments um and so it's apparent

it was apparent to us that that some of these

cues were were simply done twice um and we we

had some of the versions that didn't wind up

getting used in the series um that we that we

know of. I always want to be careful when we're

talking. 130 episodes, plus all the episodes,

90 -some, whatever it is, of She -Ra. 93, yeah.

I don't want to say about any of these tracks

that, well, this track wasn't used in the series,

because I know that the second I do that, some

T -Man superfans such as yourself will say, ah,

no, in episode 120 on the transition back to

the castle, you hear five seconds of this cue.

So I want to be very careful. careful uh saying

that any particular cue is not used in the series

at all i will leave that to people who are more

dedicated scholars than myself that said i think

i was surprised by the amount of material on

here that felt new to me that i didn't uh instantly

recognize um from the show and i wouldn't be

surprised uh if some of this wasn't used i know

certainly that because we have complete pieces

There are themes that were used in the show,

even used many times, but they may have been

used piecemeal. They may have used a minute of

it here, a minute of it there, but they never

put it all together. So you're hearing here the

tracks as they were recorded. So that's pretty

cool. And the other thing is that there are tracks

on here that the titles, because we found original

track titles for this. They're read out on the

tapes. And what's very interesting to me is that

the way they were titled reflects probably the

request that was given to the composer that says,

okay, we need music for this, this, and that.

We need music for, you know, here's a picture

of Beastman with some skulls. So you get a cue

called Beastman and Skulls. But from watching

the show in context, the way that that cue would

have been used, you would never necessarily guess

that it was called Beastman and Skulls because

this was all library music and they picked and

chose what they wanted and used it how they wanted

it. So I think it'll be very interesting to fans

to compare these track lists. There were some

surprises for me. I imagine there'll be some

surprises for everyone who goes through this

with a real good knowledge of the series. What

really surprised me is not necessarily the body

of the music that's on here, but some of the

things that I never thought we'd ever get an

actual track of, like the title card stuff. Yeah,

yeah. The title card themes are, even though

they're only like 11, some of them are only 11

seconds, and they're really, you know, it's so

nice to have something like that. How many times

did you hear those title cards watching the series?

They only had a handful of them and they cycled

through them. So, yeah, it's great to have that.

I mean, it was on there. There's no way we were

going to leave that off. I'm curious about this

because it lists it as, and I think it lists

it as this on the track listing in the booklet.

Track 81, Singing Crystal, it lists it as a remix.

What's that all about? That's how it was identified

on the tape. Okay. That's basically it. It's

not a remix in the sense, you know, we gave it

to a popular artist to do a cover. Yeah. If I

had to guess, I'd say because there are layers

to that piece, you know, it might have been recorded

and, you know, there might be an earlier version

that's stripped down, maybe doesn't have the...

singing part of it. That's just a guess, though.

It's the only version of that cue we had. It

was marked as remix. I think it's the same as

you hear in the actual episode. That's one case

where it is from exactly the episode you think

it's from. There's only one episode with a singing

crystal. Yeah, exactly. And then there are six

alternate ending tracks. And there are six mono

tracks. Yeah, mono mixes of tracks that were

on the original album, yeah. Right, yeah. I think,

honestly, the only one that I had to actually

take off my iTunes playlist is the Spanish theme.

Didn't get into the spirit of it, huh? It just

doesn't. And see, that's the other thing. You

guys don't have, and I understand why it's not

here, and I don't, I don't. blame anybody for

this when i saw he man main theme which is the

very first track i thought it was going to be

that traditional prince adam comes oh yeah yeah

i am and i am yeah and i'm like yeah and i'm

like okay so it's not that it's just the It's

just the instrumental and the vocal, which is

fine. I don't have a problem with that. And then

I realized, oh, wait, it's not on here at all.

Hmm, that's interesting. Well, that wasn't on

the tapes. We would take that directly from the

DVDs, which we already have. Huh, that's... That's

interesting. I wonder why it wasn't on the tapes.

Well, because this is from the recording sessions.

I'm sure they didn't add the dialogue until the

first dubbing sessions. I don't think he was

there in the studio doing the narration along

with the orchestra. If he was, it was not on

the tapes that we found. I know this is going

to be hard for you, but can you pick your top

three favorite tracks? Oh, sure. I'll take a

stab at it. I'll tell you one I really like.

I really like the one called Good Guys on disc

two, track 26. It's long. It's two minutes and

30 seconds, and it has this great big climactic

feeling. I like that track an awful lot. Gosh,

let's see. I like... Hmm. One that someone put

me onto. I think it's Journey to the Unknown

Planet. Yeah. which is this kind of funky, you

know, almost techno feel to it. Someone asked

me about that cue before the album came out.

They were, they were anxious that it'd be on

there. It was from that She -Ra episode where

she and Hordak are kind of like plunging through

dimensions together. And they said, you know,

I think that's from He -Man because even though

it's She -Ra and Hordak, you know, the music

is going. You know, it's doing the He -Man theme.

So, yeah, yeah, that's a good one. Let's see.

I'm going to go with Orko Means Well. I need

to get a good Orko track on there. Yeah, you

got to love Orko's theme. And he's probably the

one character that has many variations on his

theme. Yeah, him and Tila and, of course, He

-Man got a lot. Oh, and Desolation, the track

called Desolation. You heard that. That plays

so many times in the series. Oh, yeah. But for

a reason. It's a very, very evocative cue. So

that's another favorite. What is the deal with

track... Well, it's overall track 65, Video Game

Sting. What is that, Video Game Sting? It's 12

seconds. And I don't know if it was supposed

to be a game track or if it was supposed to be

from the series itself. I don't think it was.

Is that from, it's the episode with the guy who

puts them into a video game? The game master.

Yeah, that could be it. That's it, yeah. Yeah,

that could be it. I don't know. I'd have to go

back and look. Like I said, you know, you marathon

a hundred and... 130 of these episodes, and they

can tend to blur together a little bit. So yeah,

I couldn't tell you off the top of my head if

that cue was used in that episode, but it was

probably written for that episode. Yeah. What

was the most interesting thing about working

on this project for you? The most interesting

thing for me was getting to go back and revisit

this series as an adult and as a student of animation

history. I certainly was exposed to the show,

had good memories of the show. But I wasn't like

a real super He -Man fanboy. I didn't run out

and get all the DVDs. It's not like something

with Batman, which I was totally obsessed over.

So getting to go back and watch the show kind

of with fresh eyes, it was very interesting to

me to see elements from those kind of people

who worked on the show who would later go on.

to become big names in the entertainment industry.

Or big names, at least in our circles. So, you

know, you had Straczynski, who worked on this

show. You had Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, who worked

on this show before they did Batman, the animated

series. And the whole trend of making an animated

series for syndication, which was... virtually

you know unheard of before this that's another

thing that that kind of became an industry normal

industry practice. But yeah, you know, so I'd

be going through and I would say, Oh, here's

a Dini scripted episode. And it was interesting

because you can see kind of his fingerprints

there, which is something I never would have

picked up on as a kid, but now going back and

say, yeah, these are some of the story themes

and the character types that, you know, concern

him as an artist. So it was, it was just interesting

to connect, you know, A to B to C. It was interesting

to see the, the. the things that were happening

on this show that were both kind of reflect where

Filmation had come from and where some of these

artists and creators would go on to create. Because

they put so many resources into this. They really

had all hands on deck. They had the old guard,

but they had younger talent eager to prove themselves.

And that was interesting. It was very interesting

to me. And then the other thing I think was just...

I think how well it holds up as a trip down memory

lane is a listening experience. When we watch

the series, there's so much tracked music and

so much library music that it's easy to kind

of slip into the mentality that you're just hearing

kind of the same handful of tracks over and over

again. And in some cases you were. They certainly

favored some cues rather than others. having

it on disc like this though without that repetition

gives you a much better idea of the full scope

of the show and the different places that it

could go and you know how diverse and interesting

the music stays I was thinking like gosh you

know what's going to be like to sit down and

listen to two CDs of this and I you know ate

it up quite happily so I spent after you know

Matt sent me the review copy I spent maybe Four

days, listening, writing, listening, writing.

Because the way I have to do some of my written

reviews is sometimes I go track by track, but

obviously on a release that's 111 tracks, I can't

sit here and talk about all 111 of them. Yes,

that is also why there is not a track by track

analysis. Yeah, no. The book would have been

60 pages. And honestly, there are some cues on

here that... just don't catch my ear. Not that

I dislike them, but there are some where it's

like, okay, what's next? With a disc that's so

diverse with so many tracks, yeah, you're going

to have your favorites and ones that don't catch

you as much. I think what's nice is that there's

kind of something for everyone on here. It's

a cliche thing to say, but this has something

for everyone. It really is true. And it is really,

really awesome. They have done an amazing job.

You guys have just done so well putting this

together. Thank you. So where? do you guys go

from here? And I know that's more of a label

question than for you, but like the next, no,

I've seen fans. I tell you where we go from here,

where we go from here is giving the same answer

to approximately 12 ,000. When are you going

to do She -Ra? And, you know, God, God bless

the fans. You know, we, we love all this stuff

too. That's the bottom line. You know, we we

love this. We are kind of of that generation,

too. You know, we came of age with this stuff.

It's not a lack of will. to make it right well

yeah it has to be the right conditions the right

time the right the right materials you got you

have to find the materials uh the the legal framework

has to be in place as you say you got to make

the deal um and then you actually have to produce

the set which you know it can take years um i

mean where we go from here is where we've always

gone which is you know, onto the next cool project

to release. And I hope, I certainly hope that

the stars align and we're able to give people

everything that they want. I hope we're able

to do She -Ra. I hope we're able to do all of

that. Unfortunately, I don't get to decide. And

in some cases, Matt and MV don't get to decide

because sometimes it just can't happen for a

variety of reasons. Not to discourage people,

but just as a warning to anyone who asks, you're

probably going to get the same answer, which

is we love this stuff. We'd love to see it happen.

We can't promise you it'll happen at X date.

All I can say is that we love this stuff, and

we love being able to get it out there. My assumption,

and I know what happens when people make assumptions,

but my assumption is they've already found all

the She -Ra stuff, and it's going to be out before

the end of the 30th year, which is this year,

since She -Ra came out 30 years ago this year.

That would be awesome. I know it probably won't

happen, but that's my assumption. That the work's

already being, it's already started. What other

projects do you have coming up? Or what other

things can you talk about that you're working

on? What can I talk about? The answer is not

much. One of the nice things about He -Man was

that MV had kind of been saying for years that

he was going to release it, so it wasn't like

a huge secret that that one was coming. I mean,

Without giving too much away, I think that from

La La Land, you know, you're going to see them

pursue many of the kinds of projects that they've

been pursuing. I think you're going to see more

stuff Star Trek related. I think you're going

to see more stuff with the DC animated properties,

which is first to the gate. You know, what gets

greenlit. sooner than the others? How long do

they take to produce? I can't comment on any

specific release. But I think if you're a fan

of animation or science fiction or Star Trek

or superheroes, I think that we're going to try

and keep these next few years as exciting as

the last few years have been. Absolutely, absolutely.

Do you have, if you can remember, do you have

a favorite episode of He -Man and the Masters

of the Universe? Oh, gosh. There's only 130 to

choose from. There's only 130. I'm going to say

anything with Granamir in it. That's a good answer.

We love Granamir around here. I love Granamir.

He's weird and wonderful. I mean, a lot of my

choices, I'm sure, are going to be cliches because

they're fan favorites. So things like the...

Oh, shoot. The problem with power. Thank you.

That's a nice cliche one to mark down as a favorite,

I'm sure. I like Granamir, I think, just because

he's such a wonderfully kind of unexpected type

of character. He's such a unique character. He's

not your stereotypical dragon in a fantasy story.

He's got that weird helmet and he's kind of...

He's kind of, you know, not really aligned with

the heroes. He's not a villain, but he's, you

know, he's kind of in that gray area. So, yeah,

anything with Granomir I enjoy quite a bit. I

like the one where He -Man, Prince Adam, no more.

yeah where he decides that he's he needs to prove

himself to his father by giving up and that's

a paul dini script too so you know talking you

know paul dini i i think even even back then

on on this show uh you know like to kind of dig

more into what made the characters tick what

made their psychology you know work um so yeah

that's that's another good one um there was the

the really The really early Tila's Quest. I know

you're not a Tila fan, but I like that. That

is the one episode. I think probably the only

Tila episode. I gave it above a three on a five

scale rating. That's another Dini script, too.

Yeah, I think that's probably why, because it

was Dini. It's always been good with strong,

you know, female characters. And, you know, I

mean, it was as we saw, you know, of course,

with Harley Quinn. But yeah, so those are a couple

of my favorites. And I find the Secret of the

Sword, not the Secret of the Sword, the Christmas

special. The Christmas special. I find that to

be just... pure, hilarious joy. When the puppy

licks Skeletor's face, oh my gosh. And the little

shoehorned in robot aliens that we've never seen

before that I have a suspicion was intended as

a test pilot for a possible new spin -off. The

way they were kind of shoehorned in there, I

thought was... I find it absolutely delightful.

It's wonderful holiday viewing. Well, I would

take that over the Star Wars Christmas special.

Oh, absolutely. Now, let me ask you this. Have

you actually watched the Star Wars Holiday Special

from beginning to end? I've heard about it. Without

skipping? No. I can safely say I have never seen

the Star Wars Holiday Special, but... I can also

safely... And I'm not... Go ahead, Joel. I say

they ought to give out merit badges for that.

That is such a joke. I can safely say I've never

seen it, but I've heard people review it on podcasts.

And it's just... No review you've ever had can

prepare you for a holiday special. You may think

you know what you're getting into. It's much

easier. I mean, you know... it's much more of

a chore to get through, but I have a lot of affection

for the He -Man version, and yeah, that's certainly

a high point, just in terms of having fun with

it, you know. At some point, I don't think it'll

be this Christmas, folks, but I think actually

it'll be Christmas 2016. in the powers of grayskull

schedule how we because this podcast is going

to be 125 episodes so and this is just for your

information because everybody else knows this

by now but this podcast is going to be 125 episodes

and i believe it's episode 75 .5 is when we're

going to be doing the christmas special but most

likely that won't happen that won't air until

christmas 2016 because we haven't even started

production on on the secret reviews yet like

i said we just finished the secret of the sword

stuff and like i remember seeing the christmas

special as a kid but i don't like that was so

long ago like so long ago i i don't even remember

it and with the star wars christmas the holiday

special it's like someone says oh it's all in

wookie If it's not in English, I don't watch

it. I mean, don't get me wrong. Yes and no. There

are quite a few scenes with the Wookiees that

are unsubtitled. But I'd say in the grand scheme

of things, that's probably a mercy. It's one

of those things where, and don't get me wrong,

I can watch stuff that has subtitles that, you

know, if there's, I've been watching the Marvel

Daredevil show that's on Netflix now. And, you

know, there's, you know, certain, like there's

the Yakuza gang, there's the Russian gang that

speak Russian and Japanese, whatever else. That's

all well and good. But if something is. entirely

in a different language other than English it's

probably something I'm going to avoid because

I just can't sit here and read when I want to

watch something for enjoyment I want to actually

watch it and understand the whole thing I don't

want to and I'm sure someone will say oh well

why don't you go get you know rosetta or whatever

the hell language learning just learn japanese

how hard can it be yeah yeah really well i i

as a fan as a major fan of foreign films and

i i i've i'm very used to subtitles at this point

so uh but uh um but uh um Yeah, I think with

the case of the Star Wars Holiday Special, well,

it's like in the Star Wars movies. Chewbacca

is never subtitled. You always know what's going

on. That's because you have the expositionary

characters around him. Oh, there are expositionary

characters in the Star Wars Holiday Special,

too. Again, I say you may regret that. some point

uh but it's most mostly third third third you

know what kind of washed up stars you know tv

stars and and uh and short little cameo appearances

from the uh the main star wars cast so give it

give it give it a shot get together with some

friends uh have some you know intoxicating beverages

on hand and you'll be fine Take a drink every

time Chewie shows up. No, don't do that. I know.

You won't make it. I know. All right, folks.

You can get the He -Man Masters of the Universe

music from the television series, two discs set

from La La Land Records. It's lalalandrecords

.com. I do want to bring this up. I know they're

addressing it. I know they have addressed it,

or they will be addressing it, because this interview

actually won't be out until the week after we

recorded it. But there was a problem with the

plant that La La Land uses, and some people were

getting CDR pressings. Yeah, there was a repressing,

which doesn't... I'm not sure if it was... People

have to remember that when a limited edition

release like this comes out, you know, 3 ,000

copies, they don't print all 3 ,000 at once.

It's done in stages based on the demand. It's

done in batches. And one batch came through and

it wasn't the first one, you know. And La La

Land sends these out sealed from the factories.

When you buy from La La Land, you get a factory

sealed disc. So, yeah, it wasn't until people

started reporting that they realized the issue.

But Lawland is addressing the issue, and any

of your listeners who happen to get one of those

discs can write to the contact information on

their website, and they will take good care of

you. Yeah, absolutely. All right, folks, that's

going to do it for us. Like I said at the beginning

of this one, I do have plans for Optimus Solo

and I to get interviews with other voice actors

from He -Man and the Masters of the Universe.

We're hopefully going to get Skeletor, hopefully

going to get He -Man himself, maybe. So we do

have plans to keep the content going between

now and our hiatus, but our next series up is...

We're entitling our next section of the podcast

Myths of Etheria, and we're going to be talking

about all 93 episodes of She -Ra. So that's what's

going on there. Yeah. I'm one of those people

where podcasting for me is I have to go in depth.

If I don't go in depth, I don't feel like I've

done the listenership. I don't think I've done

them a proper service. In the six years that

the Geek History Network has been online, we've

done three Transformers podcasts, a Mask podcast,

and it's a whole thing. But yeah, up next is

going to be our She -Ra coverage coming in September.

And we cannot wait. We are excited. I will be

the first to admit, and people know, listening.

At the end of He -Man Season 2, I was burnt out.

I never wanted to watch a He -Man episode ever

again. Oh, my God. All right, folks. John, where

can they get a hold of you online? Twitter, your

website, whatever you want to give out. Oh, yeah.

You can find me online at johntakis .com. That's

J -O -H -N -T -A -K -I -S. I don't update with

blog posts nearly as much as I should, but there's

usually a roster of my current projects on the

left sidebar and my email is there. And you can

also find me on Facebook and Twitter without.

I don't think I'm too hard to find at Twitter.

I think I'm just at at at John Takis. So, OK.

Awesome. All right, folks. By the power and for

the honor of Grayskull, we will catch you next

time. Amen!