Battlecat

Every hero needs an appropriate sidekick, and Adam, Prince of Eternia and eponymous hero of He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe, was no exception. Prone to holding aloft his magic sword and calling upon the Castle Grayskull, at this point Adam ceased to be a rather wimpish prince with a girly blond bob and became the mighty He-Man. (Sadly, he still retained the girlish blond bob.)

Almost simultaneously, with a swift point of Adam's sword, his cowardly cat, appropriately named Cringer, would be transformed into the mighty Battlecat, complete with a hawk-inspired helm and some sort of seating device upon which He-Man could perch appropriately. Battlecat and Cringer's voice was provided by Erik Gunden, who also provided Man-At-Arms' gruff dialogue.

Of course, the aspect of Battlecat's transformation that really appeals to children, and possibly one or two nostalgic adults, is the notion that Cringer - cowardly to the core - actually fears being turned into Battlecat and will go out of his way to persuade young Adam to keep stumm with the 'By the power of Grayskull!' stuff. It's never that bad, of course, and the idea of overcoming such childlike fears is entirely in keeping with the moral stance of such cartoons; very rarely did an episode end without someone realising the error of their ways and finding out that evil never really paid off in the end.