Toon Magazine: Vol. 1, No. 4
Lou Scheimer
"Well, I had done a show called 'Black Star,' which was sort of 'He-Man'
without the muscles. It was a nice show, but it didn't last, and Mattel
had come to me with this muscle-bound character, which was sort of Conan
done sideways, and they had only two characters originally: He-Man and
Skeletor. Well, just saying you were a He-Man in those days sounded so
awful. Today it's just kind of a generic word for that type of character,
when before that it meant this macho, male, bullshit type person. They
said they wanted to do something like this. And I looked at what they wanted
to do. They had him this barbarian with all this awful killing, maiming,
and hurting, and I said, "You can't do it like that. There's no way." And
I told them that if they gave us total creative control, then we'll create
the concept. At that time Westinghouse bought the company."
