Slime Pit

The Slime Pit is the name of two Masters of the Universe locations. The original Slime Pit was released with the original Mattel storyline, with the other coinciding with the MYP/Four Horsemen MOTU series in 2003. Both locations were made as playsets for the toylines and both playsets came with sticky green slime for play value.

Original Horde Slime Pit

The original Slime Pit belongs to the Evil Horde, it is a dinosaur skull-shaped device and a claw, which Hordak uses to trap Eternian Warriors inside it. The dinosaur head then tips forward to coat its unfortunate victim with slime.

In the MOTU universe, the effect of the slime transforms everyone covered by it into a lumbering, mindless slime-monster, stripped of their own free will, and instead carrying out Hordak's evil bidding.

MOTU Publications

The Slime Pit playset was packaged with the customary mini-comic "Escape from the Slime Pit!", in which He-Man himself is captured by Hordak and trapped inside the Slime Pit to be transformed into a slime-monster, but the Rock People manage to help He-Man regain his own free will.

Prince Adam is also captured by the Horde and slimed by Hordak in a Star Comics story; "The Garden Of Evil", but this time Orko comes to Prince Adam's aid by returning the Sword of Power to him.

In an MOTU "Kids Stuff" read-a-long audio book; "Prisoner In The Slime Pit", Hordak schemes to lure He-Man into the Slime Pit again by sending two Horde Troopers to steal the Great Book of Wisdom from Castle Grayskull. In the end, He-Man recovers the book and Hordak ends up taking a dip in his own Slime Pit.

Unusually, the MOTU character most depicted being slimed on the toy's packaging is Beast-Man, indicating that Hordak not only uses the Slime Pit on the Heroic Warriors, but on the Evil Warriors as well, since the Evil Warriors' leader, Skeletor, is also Hordak's adversary.

The Slime Pit is one of the many MOTU toys that was largely unused in the Filmation animated series. The Slime Pit makes only a very brief on-screen appearance in an episode of He-Man's spinoff "", but it bears a totally different look to the playset, the slime itself is gray, and no-one is seen being slimed in it.

Mutant Slime Pit

Another Slime pit was made in 2003 for the new Four Horsemen toyline, with the name "Mutant Slime Pit". It is very similar to Skeletor's throne as it appears in the series and includes a Mutant Warrior figure and slime.

For story purposes, the Mutant Slime Monster is summoned from the pit by Skeletor, but He-Man hits the monster with his sword and it explodes.

In the episode "Out of the Past", Skeletor uses his minion maker (the Mutant Slime Pit) to create goo-covered monsters (the Mutant Slime Monster).

In order to differentiate the minion maker from Skeletor's throne, it is slightly altered for the series.

Differences between Slime Pits

*Owner: The original Slime Pit belongs to Hordak. The Mutant Slime Pit belongs to Skeletor.
*Slime use: The original Slime Pit's slime is a used as a sort of hypnotic magic slime when it covers its victim's body. The Mutant Slime Pit's slime is used as the Mutant Slime Monster's "blood".

References in other Pop Culture

* Similarly in "Ghostbusters II", the river of slime in the Manhattan subway tunnel also changed the character's behavior, but only to a lesser extent.
* The Gunge Tank was a feature of many TV light entertainment programmes, where unfortunate celebrities or members of the public would also get covered in gunge, which was usually made from starch and food colouring.

External links

* Original TV Promo for the Horde Slime Pit [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl1UxAP__Oc]