Pop Culture Happy Hour - Masters of the Universe and What’s Making Us Happy

Episode Date: June 5, 2026

The new Masters of the Universe movie is packed with Easter eggs for fans of the old 80s cartoon and toys, but does this wannabe summer blockbuster have anything to offer for everybody else? It features big names playing the signature characters, like He-Man (Nicholas Galitzine), Evil-Lyn (Alison Brie), Man at Arms (Idris Elba), and Skeletor (Jared Leto). But the movie also adds a contemporary and comedic comic riff on the story.    If you like nostalgic adaptations for superfans, check out these episodes:In 'Mortal Kombat II,' fatality meets fan service'Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves' has high charismaConnect with Pop Culture Happy Hour:Letterboxd / FacebookOur weekly newsletterSupport Pop Culture Happy Hour+See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

Are you in the Masters of the Universe window? If you were a kid in the 80s, you probably are, because ever since Mattel launched their line of Masters of the Universe action figures back then, there have been animated series, movies, comics, and more that worked to sell those toys to kids and nerds. Well, there's a new movie starring the whole gang, He-Man, Skeletor, Evil Lynn, Men at Arms, and the cast is stacked with big names, Nicholas Galatine, Alison Bree, Idris Elba. That's great news if you're already a fan, but does this, want-to-be summer blockbuster have anything to offer for literally anybody else.

I'm Glenn Weldon. Joining me today on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour is podcaster Jordan Morris. He's the co-host of Jordan Gissigow and free with ads, hey Jordan. Hi, Glenn. I have the power to talk about this movie with you. You certainly, certainly do. Also with us is filmmaker, pop culture critic and I-heart radio producer, Joelle Monique. Hey, Joelle?

Hi, Glenn. Let's get to it. The new Masters of the Universe movie takes the basic plot points of the old 80s cartoon and adds a contemporary comic riff on them. Here, Adam is a sad sack HR professional on Earth, played by Nicholas Galitzine. He longs for his lost youth as a royal prince on the planet Eternia. But when the evil Skeletor attacked, young Adam escaped to our planet and lost the legendary sword of power somewhere along the way. Spoiler, he finds it and returns to Eternia to try to defeat the villain and save the world. The problem, he's still just a slubby guy who can't fight. Can he

learn to unlock the sword of power, which grants him amazing powers and the body of a fitness influencer, along with a loincloth, a harness, a spray tan, and a blowout. Masters of the Universe is in theaters now, and it is an Amazon original film, so we should note that Amazon supports NPR and pays to distribute some of our content. Jordan, what's your take here? Were you a Masters of the Universe kid? I was. I was in the pocket.

A. 80's kid over here, so I had some of the action figures. I definitely watched the cartoon while I was eating egos. But unlike some of the other properties of my youth, I haven't really kept track of this one. I know it's been rebooted a couple of times and had, you know, Netflix series and new toys and video games and stuff. I haven't really paid attention. So this is the first Masters of the Universe thing I've consumed in a while. And yeah, I liked a lot of the Easter eggs.

I think there's a few cast members here who just nail this. I think there's some, you know, terrific acting in this. Some cool action, I think there's a lot of jokes. There's a lot of humor. This movie feels very punched up to me. There are four credited screenwriters, but I would also guess that probably six or seven people who had worked on Rick and Morty at some point all got $2,000 in a sandwich to come in and dump in a bunch of jokes. So, yeah, sometimes it feels uneven. Sometimes it feels like unrelated jokes are coming in from.

off screen. I think this movie kind of lives and dies by whether or not you think it's funny. And yeah, that stuff worked for me a little bit less, but there is a lot to enjoy. I'm glad you brought up the humor. I want to unpack that even more, but first, Joelle, would you make of it? Oh, Glenn. I was not a

he-man Stan growing up. It took me a while to discover the allure of hair metal. I got there. But I am a fan of the comic book summer blockbuster movie, and So I was eagerly awaiting this film. I said summer, new kids on the block, we're getting some new stars or stars we maybe spent some time with on TV or taking their big leap to a major motion picture.

I was really excited for it. I have notes. To me, if we're going to do a summer blockbuster and it's about the sword, you got to make these fight scenes have impact. I need to see new inventive stuff. I need to see creative ways of shooting it. And I think after the roller coaster ride that was the Mando action sequences specifically, this felt a bit of a letdown. However, portions of the comedy really worked on me. I thought, goofy, good time over the top.

My God, do we get some, like, class A, like, just tongue in cheek. Like, it's very adult. I was shocked at how, like, winking and nudging it was to the audience into more of, like, an adult context. And so in that way, like, it really, it pinged for me. I thought costumes, production design, fantastic. Like, if you're going to do a very, like, over the top in your face kids show, like, I kind of think visually, this is how you bring it to the screen. So I think, like, as a non-fan, I actually kind of left being like, this is fun and I would see a second movie. It's not perfect.

I think we could have cut 40 minutes from this movie and done just fine, guys. I don't think you need most of that second act. Going to be real honest. But when it was working, it was hidden. All right. This is a good mix. You got some people like the action, maybe not the humor. Some people who like the humor, maybe not the action. This was just a fascinating cultural experiment, social experiment for me because as someone who is off book on superheroes and the deep lore of Star Wars and Tolkien to sit through a movie as a normal. Just like to feel like my long-suffering husband must feel every time I'm forcing him to watch something. It's like because this missed me, right? I was a snot-nosed teen when all this stuff came out. I would watch this, but I would watch it ironically with all my friends to laugh at how terrible the animation was. It has to be seen to believe, how bad that animation was. But I didn't

internalize any of this. I didn't love it. I dismissed it, which is exactly what a lot of people have been doing to everything I love for decades. So I get it. And I sat there thinking, boy, this stuff just isn't hidden for me. And there's no reason, Joel, to your point, to keep me here for over two hours. But I am so happy for the folks that this is going to hit for, because Because I can tell how ruthlessly it's been targeted to hit them. So mazeltob, you're in for a treat if this is your thing, go in peace. I do think it's interesting that this is a Mattel Studios production. Mattel also did the Barbie movie.

Barbie is another piece of extruded plastic that is responsible for generations of young women's body dysmorphia. So like equal time. He, man, screwed up a lot of young men's body images. I know that for a fact. So they're screwing everybody good for them. Not to mention cats, right? I mean, you see Cringer and you're like... Cringer, and you're like, geez, look at those haunches.

I'm never going to have those haunches. You're never going to have those honches. So one of the writers on this is Chris Butler. He is a writer and director of animated films. He wrote and co-directed Paranorman back in the day. He wrote on a film called Kubo in the Two Strings, both of which I liked. Fantastic. He was interviewed on the red carpet at the premiere of this movie because he's a writer on this film too.

He talked about how. As a queer kid, he was drawn to He Man. He maybe didn't understand why. He joked about how good he looks not. harness. Where's the lie? And he said he realized that when he went back and saw those, the original series, he loved it because it was camp. And he decided when he came on board this movie to steer into the camp. And look, I want to get your temperature on this because certainly there's always been a lot of queer-coded stuff in the world of He-Man, starting with that name.

But apart from some pretty obvious and some pretty cringy gay jokes, which I was here for, because I felt they were targeted to me. And the Queen Needle Drop, which I think it's more a Flash Gordon riff. But I think the gayest slash campiest thing in this movie is Jared Leto's performance as Skeletor, which is, yes, he's wearing a mask. The voice is buried under layers and layers of digital voice modulation.

But somewhere underneath all those ones and zeros, this guy is having a ball. And like he is giving classic, gay Disney villain. He's giving Scar and Jafar. And you pick up a little bit of Frankenfrider. Oh, yeah. The whole time I was waiting for him, like, he's looking for Prince Adam, right? But I was just waiting for him to, you know, find Rocky. It's like, it's so Tim Curry. I mean, the antitha. Very good. Also, a bit of Addison DeWitt, a bit of George Sanders and all about Eve. Oh, yeah, sure. I can't be mad at that. But I don't like Jared Letto as an actor. I mean, Requiem for a dream was 20. 26 years ago, and also because he was jumping into that accent with both vocal cords, and because the audio mix was so crunchy and because you can't get any visual cues to what he's saying because a skeleton got no lips. I was working at about 87% comprehension level of his dialogue.

Did you guys have that problem? Yeah, Leto's going for it. And yes, a lot of digital gunk is being dumped onto his vocal performance. And yeah, I feel like I more got the tone of what he was saying rather than what he was actually saying a lot of the times. And yeah, and I like the tone. And I think the Leto stuff is a good marker for the stuff I liked in this movie. It's the over the top stuff. It's the camp stuff.

I thought that stuff worked really well. Some people in the movie know what movie they're in. Some people do not. Leto definitely did, I thought. It's so funny, when I was sitting down, somebody's like, the voice is going to be a big thing for me. They can't get the voice wrong. So I know, like, for super fans of He-Man, like, that voice needed to be on point. And I think they found a good overall tone for it.

I don't know if I wouldn't say it was like perfect. I do think maybe it could have been clearer here or there. If we were going to go full camp almost feels like, I'll put it this way. I feel the studio pulling that back a little bit. I mean, like, we're not going to go full till gay camp over the top. But we'll let you have your fun here and there. I do think the overall look for him worked really well for me. I felt like the BDIs were working.

I thought like the mouth movie We have a lot of people with either no lower jaws Or like the teeth mouth thing doesn't work Because there's not muscles which sometimes like pings for me When I'm watching skeletons on screen But this kind of it worked I think what made it work though Was him opposite Allison Brie

Yeah who plays evil in right I think like he's having such a good time That's it I finished Of course my lord When I raise my fist like that I'm dumb Yes

That is the crescendo. No for the future, my lord. She plays evil in so well. That is a camp character. That like, she's like two second shy of Cruella de Villing this thing. Like, it is such a delight to watch her. And I think the two of them together playing almost two different types of evil and going back and forth. Like, every time we cut to them, I was like back in the movie.

Like, I really loved them. I wouldn't mind seeing, like, it's just the two of them do the movie. A lot of fun. Yeah, and I also liked Alison Brie a lot in this. I think she really nails it. I want to shout out another actor who I thought really understood the assignment. Camila Mendez, Veronica from Riverdale. She's a real pro at kind of staying in the moment,

but also kind of letting you know that she knows what she's saying is bonkers. And yeah, I think she's perfect for this. She has to play this kind of like, you know, hard fight and hard punch and warrior woman. Tila, yes. And she's in it, but also she's not spiking the camera going like, can you get a load of this, this gun? Except, Jordan. Yes, please. I think she is.

Okay. I think she is. And I think that's what I'm pinging on here. This movie's humor seems to me to be squarely in what I now think of as the current default approach. The sensibility we're getting a lot of these days, which I would call the comedy of de-escalation, right? Which is where if there's some thing in your big nerd property that's like this big overblown piece of nerd lore that you have to, you know, work around, the way you do that is you have all the characters comment on how nerdy and goofy and overblown it is. You call them Fisto? Really? Seriously?

Like that. Yeah. do. It seems like when we process nerd culture into something for the masses, we're making sausage, right? And that's just the spice we add to the sausage. And I know you've decried this approach on this show in the past, Jordan. So how does she finesse that? Because not a lot of people in this movie are finessing that. Yeah. I also agree with you, Glenn. I think that this movie has a move that it does a lot. And that move is music swells leading the audience to believe something dramatic is about to happen.

And then the music cuts off and something silly happens. This movie does that so many times. And I do think it works in some cases and it doesn't in others. But yes, you're absolutely right that the movie wants you to cry when, you know, we're cradling an injured character. But then in the very next scene, it's also like, get a load of this crap. This is kind of dumb, huh? You guys, we've cracked it.

We've cracked it because here's the thing. Okay. If this movie is 40 minutes shorter, you don't care about any of that. Yeah, sure. That's true. I was like, oh, okay, listen, this is act one. We're on the planet. Kids got a problem.

There's a disaster. He gets sent somewhere else. He has trouble getting back. He gets back. Okay. You know this movie already. You've seen it a dozen times. It's fine.

It's a summer blockbuster of He-Man. I'm very cool with like paint by numbers. And in that first act, Idris Elba is carrying us. He put all of us on his shoulders. He said, I've got this. I understand the tone of it. I understand who I am. I can do the comedy.

I can do the action sequences. I can make you feel a lot for a character in a very short amount of time. And then they take him away and you're like, bring Idraselba back. Oh, you kind of need him. You need that level of energy and star power, I think. And I think, I really wish we had just been with Sasha Seared Zameda on Earth. She is killing this role. She is so funny as the head of the.

HR department. Oh yeah. She's really funny. She's really good. Uh-huh. She plays Adam's boss, Susie on Earth. She was really great. And I think that that was what was working for me.

Like, we'd have these cameo people kind of come in, deliver these really great, fun, cheeky performances. All of that is good. I don't know. I just thought maybe more of these, like, little cameos and keeping the tempo up could have done a lot to save this movie. I don't say save it, but make it better. I will say watching it at a screening, which was both repress and four, I was going to to say normals, but there were some real fans there. There were some mechanax stands in this audience that I didn't know existed.

It was interesting here which jokes hit, which jokes didn't. The cheap gay jokes got a big laugh entirely from me. But anything that riffed on the original series cliches, there's a way that characters laugh in the original series. Big hit. It was the new stuff that is ostensibly there to bring in people who aren't like fans of this. Like anything that was Adam as an HR guy trying to work toward. conflict resolution, which happens a lot. Crickets every time in my view.

Really? Absolutely. Crickets. Yeah. That's a joke this movie also really likes, is that, you know, on earth, Adam is a, you know, wimpy HR guy who likes to ask for consent and use pronouns and stuff. And ha, ha, ha, wouldn't that be funny if someone did that? And, you know, and that's to contrast with the he man who solves problems with. swords and punching. Sure.

And at some point, this movie wants you to think that solving problems with talking is the way to go, and maybe we've evolved more since the 80s, and isn't it time for a new kind of he-man that solves his problems with talking? And then it just has him beat a bunch of people up. So it's not looking into that too hard, but it takes a crack at maybe investigating the kind of toxic masculinity stuff that He-Man is part of, but it doesn't look at it that closely. And I understand that you can't make this movie and have He-Man and Skeletor talk it out, you know, over a macha. I understand that that's not the ending anybody wants and that that would be pretty sweaty in and of itself.

But I think the fact that it spends so much time going like, isn't talking really the way to go and then just turns into punching, I think just kind of points to the fact that this movie doesn't know what it's doing. all of the time. I kept getting reminded of films like John Carter and Jupiter ascending. Oh. But those films were not pegged to like a culturally ubiquitous totem of body dysmorphia like He-Man like is. Like this is a known IP. It should get butts and seats. I don't have a sense if it is going to though.

Yeah. Because I'm outside the window. It's a great question. I do think that if you are a He-Man Stan and you have a kid who's kind of in the pocket too, you have a 10-year-old or something, I think this would be a fun movie to see with them, you know, depending on how much your 10-year-old loves homoerotic humor. So, you know, there's some, there's some adult jokes in this, as we've mentioned. But, I mean, I do think that the, you know, 10-year-olds of the world will like the action. They will like the talking cat. And they will want

thousands of dollars worth of toys based on this. So I do think this could be a fun shared experience. What was really pinging me is in my critics and fans screening, all of the fans were older than me. I did not see any babies in gear or chatting it up afterwards in the lobby, excited to hear about it. I think the amount of 10-year-olds who know about this property are probably very low. I'll be interested to see who comes out for this film. I just think there's some kind of disconnect between this IP and the very young generation. Mm-hmm. All right. Well, we're all coming down on this a little bit differently, which is healthy and good. I think we all kind of say, look, if this is your thing, go do that thing. Strap in. Yeah. All right. So up next, what is making us happy this week? Now it is time for our favorite second of this week and every week. What is making us happy this week? Jordan, kick us off. What is making you happy this week? Yes, I would love to. Since this movie is powered by nostalgia, I thought I would give a recommendation that also gave me a lot of good nostalgia feels. It is a graphic novel called Raised by Ghosts by Brianna Lowenson, a great cartoonist. This actually just got nominated for an Eisner Award. That's the Oscars of comic books. So, you know, this is a good one. This is a memoir comic about growing up going to high school in the 90s.

So, you know, you get a lot of great music references. You get a lot of great fashion, but it's not just that. There's also a really kind of like beautiful, sad, funny story here. This is Brianna's story about growing up with divorced parents who are kind of absent and her kind of like making her way into the adult world. And it has these kind of beautiful, like painterly visuals. But all the dialogue, I think this is really brilliant. All the dialogue is from her kind of past notes in high school. So the notes you can. kind of fold up elaborately and hand to your friends. And it's like diary entries too. So all of the dialogue is the stuff she was feeling and thinking at the time and then kind of going with these kind of largely dialogueless visuals. It's a really, really clever way to tell this story. So yeah, it's raised by ghosts. It's by Brianna Lowenson. And it's fantastic. That's a great pick. Thank you so much, Jordan. All right, Joelle Monique, what is making you happy this week? Glenn, I know you share with me and our love for your interview with a vampire. I have seen the first three episodes of the vampire list.

Joel, make that three. Jordan, welcome to the club. Oh, my God. This series had me nervous. Uh-huh. If you follow interview with the vampire, you know, you've been following Jacob Anderson's

Louis DePaul de Pond Locke for two seasons and what has been a blistering, riveting, retelling of Anne Rice's classic novel. They changed a lot of things. He's black now. He's dealing with a country, trying to re-enslave people. It's not at all relatable.

It is dark and sexy and fun, and I'm totally in the grip of this show. This season, they're calling it the Vampire Listat. They're switching leads. Sam Reed's Listat has been in the show from Git. He's fantastic. And now he's taking over the lead role, essentially. All the same characters are coming back,

but it's Listat's show, and they're changing a lot to fit the tone of this new lead. Character, it's also a musical notoriously challenging to do specifically in the medium of television. We only have so many good musical moments on TV. You can count them. It's daring and risky. And my God, if the first three episodes are any indication, they're pulling it off. I really think this show is something special and I don't want people to miss it while it's airing.

Joelle, I agree with you. I was worried about this season two because it's a big change. All I wanted it to be was funny. Stay funny. It's staying funny. So that is interview with a vampire, the third season of which is now called a vampire Lestat on AMC. Thank you very much.

What's making me happy this week? Documentary Now was a very funny mockumentary series that ran on IFC for four seasons between 2015 and 2022. It was created by Seth Myers and Bill Hader, Fred Armisen, and Reese Thomas. And it was just a, they did a series of parodies of, you know, groundbreaking documentaries, everything from salesmen to Grey Gardens to Black to Black to Postmas. teacher to Giro Dreams of Sushi and many more. But the thing is, it did it with this incredibly

exacting level of detail and wit that made it all the funnier. It was also a show with a bit. The bit being that this show documentary now wasn't just a comedy series on IFC, but it was in fact an American institution that had been broadcasting prestigious documentaries

into American homes for decades now. Last month, the gorgeous coffee table book called Documentary Now was published. It's a companion book to the series. and like the series, it's got a bit and it's committing to it because it purports to be the revised and expanded fourth edition of the seminal 1975 text. It features an original introduction written by the original host of the show, Bert Lancaster,

which is not actually written by Bert Lancaster because he was not actually the original host of the show. A new introduction by Helen Mirren, who was the host of the show. But that was actually written by Seth Myers. The book contains all these behind-the-scenes archival materials, which are not actually behind the scenes, archival materials, and then, you know, stills from the show that identify every actor on it, like Hater and Armisen and Kate Blanchett and Owen Wilson

as the characters that played on the show. Some folks will be interested in this. It also includes the complete musical score for Co-op the Musical. So if you want to get soused this Christmas and have everyone gather around the piano and sing along to the song, Holiday Party, parentheses, I did a little cocaine tonight,

close parentheses. Now is your chance. That's the coffee table book. Documentary now. And that is what is making me happy this week. And that brings us to the end of our show. Joelle Monique, Jordan Morris. Thank you so much for being here.

We had the power after all. Thanks, Glenn. Was it the friends we made along the way? Was that the power? I kind of zoned out near the end of the movie. Was it the friends we made along the way? Also, he says, by the power of Grey Skull, I have the power, which is just too many powers. He said the word powers.

We're not competitive. Let's do another pass on that catchphrase. Let's do another pass at that. This episode was produced by Lenin Sherburn, Huffe, and Mike Katz have been edited by our show writer, Jessica Reedy, and how low-com-in provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Glenn Weldon, and we'll see you all next week.