The Cartoon Ended. The Brotherhood Stayed.
Some gifts don't reveal their value until decades later
A few weeks ago, I texted my brothers.
“Masters of the Universe comes out the weekend of June 5. Ya’ll want to go?”
That was all it took.
No convincing. No discussion. No debate over schedules or whether the movie would actually be any good. We were going.
To be fair, the movie was made for people exactly like us.
Back in 1987, I was around ten years old. My brother Sean was seven. Andrew, the youngest of the Wood boys, was only three. Every afternoon after school, Sean and I would settle into my parents’ bedroom to watch He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Andrew was usually nearby, soaking it all in and learning about Eternia before he was even old enough for kindergarten.
Looking back, it was a pretty odd place to watch television.
My parents’ bedroom had maroon carpet and a waterbed with framed cross-stitched pictures of roses my Mama had created. A little 13-inch television with rabbit ears sat on top of a wooden table with folding leaves. The table itself wasn’t much bigger than the television. Wedged between the waterbed and the TV was a brown rocking chair with wicker woven into the seat and back.
That rocking chair was prime real estate.
You couldn’t sit on the waterbed because it was too far away. When He-Man was battling Skeletor, you needed to be close enough to see every detail. Nobody defends the secrets of Castle Grayskull with our friends the Sorceress, Man-at-Arms, and Orko from halfway across the room.
So we’d crowd around that little television and watch every afternoon.
Saturday mornings were different. He-Man wasn’t part of those memories. Saturday mornings belonged to cartoons in general. We’d get up early, make our way to the living room floor, and settle in front of the television while Mama cooked breakfast. Pancakes and homemade syrup were usually involved. On a good day, tenderloin and biscuits. We didn’t have chores waiting on us because our farm wasn’t where the milking happened. My grandparents’ farm was home to the milking of cows a couple of miles down the road, so Saturday mornings belonged to cartoons, breakfast, and being brothers.
At the time, it felt completely normal.
Now it feels priceless.
Our room was filled with toys. Before we eventually finished our room upstairs, the three of us shared a large downstairs bedroom with high ceilings. He-Man figures were everywhere. G.I. Joe figures. Farm toys. Baseball cards. We had a huge wooden toy box shaped like some kind of farm animal. To this day, I couldn’t tell you if it was supposed to be a horse or a cow. I just know it held enough toys to keep three boys occupied for years.
I honestly don’t remember asking for many specific toys. Mama and Daddy bought them for us or we’d receive them as gifts. We simply played with what we had.
What strikes me now is how many of those toys depended on each other.
I had He-Man because I was the oldest I guess. Sean had Skeletor, though he still insists I somehow lost it at church. To this day, that accusation remains unsupported by evidence. Sean also had Castle Grayskull while I had Battle Cat. Later, Sean ended up with the Ghostbusters firehouse while I had Ecto-1.
Looking back, it’s funny how often our toys required cooperation. By themselves, they were just pieces of plastic. Together, they became stories. You couldn’t really play Masters of the Universe without both heroes and villains. You couldn’t properly bust ghosts without both the headquarters and the car. Whether my parents intended it or not, they gave us toys that encouraged us to play together.
And we did.
A lot.
We never really acted out He-Man adventures outside. Outside was reserved for sports. We’d put baseball cards into those 9-card sleeves, build lineups, and then head into the backyard with a tennis ball and a bat. Sean always found a way to put Dale Murphy on his team. Andrew usually grabbed Dave Winfield. I often ended up with Orel Hershiser.
The rules were simple. If you picked a left-handed player, you batted left-handed. If you picked a switch hitter, even better. We took our imaginary baseball leagues very seriously.
Inside was toys.
Outside was sports.
Life was pretty simple.
I think that’s why nostalgia resonates with us. People often say they miss old television shows, cartoons, toys, and music. I don’t know if that’s entirely true. I think what we really miss is how life felt when those things were part of our days.
We miss staying outside until dark.
We miss hearing Mama call us inside for supper.
We miss building forts in the bathroom with Andrew’s cardboard bricks for our G.I. Joe vehicles.
We miss Saturday mornings before responsibilities started piling up.
Most of all, we miss the people who shared those moments with us.
Life eventually became more complicated.
My parents divorced.
Like many children whose parents divorce, we understood what was happening. That didn’t make it easy. Looking back, I think my brothers and I leaned on each other more than we realized. The relationship built through years of shared bedrooms, baseball games, cartoons, and toy boxes suddenly mattered even more.
As the years have passed, that bond has remained.
When Andrew got older, there was a season when he actually lived with me in my first house for a few years. It wasn’t something either of us thought much about at the time. That’s simply what brothers do. You show up when you’re needed. You help when you can. We got along great.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped being three boys who happened to live in the same house and became three men who genuinely enjoy being together.
That’s rarer than people think.
One of my favorite examples happened years ago during a game of Taboo. If you’ve never played, the objective is to get your team to guess a word without using certain clues listed on the card. Most teams use obvious hints.
We didn’t.
Me, Sean, and Andrew started using random references from our childhood. Old stories. Family moments. Things nobody else in the room understood.
People got frustrated.
We kept winning.
Not because we were smarter than anyone else, but because we spoke the same language. We knew each other’s stories.
That’s one of the greatest gifts family can give you. People who know the whole story. People who remember who you were before the job title, before parenthood, before the responsibilities. People who remember the rocking chair, the rabbit ears, the waterbed, and yes, the missing Skeletor figure.
When the new Masters of the Universe movie finally arrived, we met at the theater with several of our kids. Before we even went inside the theater, we stood in the lobby and talked as our kids, the cousins, caught up like they had seen each other yesterday.
Then we walked in and sat together.
What’s funny is we naturally sat in birth order. Nobody planned it. Nobody discussed it. It just happened. The kids ended up sitting around us while the three brothers settled into the middle of the row like we’d been assigned those seats decades ago.
Throughout the movie, we’d lean over and whisper observations to each other. There were references to the old cartoon everywhere, and every time one appeared, somebody noticed. The movie was packed with Easter eggs for people our age. Ordinarily, I would be worried about bothering people around us, but luckily, the theater was not that full.
The movie was good.
But if I’m being honest, the movie wasn’t the best part of the afternoon.
The best part was looking at the two seats to my right and realizing that after all these years, we still enjoy spending time together. We still laugh at the same things. We still remember the same stories. We still pick up conversations right where we left them.
When the movie ended, we stood outside talking before everyone headed home. We took a picture and told each other we loved each other.
As I stood there, I couldn’t help but notice how different life looked now. The three boys who once crowded around a tiny television had become husbands, fathers, homeowners, and taxpayers. Somehow that feels less exciting than discovering the secrets of Castle Grayskull, busting ghosts, or battling the evil Cobra Commander, but here we are.
The responsibilities were waiting for all of us the next morning. Jobs. Families. Schedules. All the things that come with adulthood.
Yet for a couple of hours, we had stepped back into a simpler season of life.
Not because of a movie.
Because of each other.
As I was driving home, my phone rang.
It was Mama.
She had already seen the pictures we’d posted.
“I’m so glad y’all got to do that together,” she said.
I knew exactly what she meant.
The older I get, the more I realize that God often does His best work through things that don’t seem important at the time. A rocking chair. A toy box. A handful of action figures. Pancakes on a Saturday morning. Three brothers learning to share.
None of those moments felt significant while they were happening.
Yet somehow, God used all of them to build relationships strong enough to survive childhood, adulthood, divorce, heartache, distance, and time.
We went to see He-Man because we loved the cartoon.
We left grateful for something far more valuable than the memories it brought back.
The toys are gone.
The cartoon ended years ago.
The rabbit ears are gone.
The waterbed is gone.
Even the little television has long since disappeared.
But Sean is still Sean.
Andrew is still Andrew.
Maury D. is still Maury D.
And I’m still thankful God let me grow up with them.
By the power of Grayskull, He-Man always saved the day.
Looking back, I think God gave me something even better.
He gave me brothers.
