This post is one of a series called Trivial Tragedies. Each installment is a small story of minor heartbreak that has stuck with me from my childhood.

Like many humans on planet Earth, I enjoyed the He-Man series and the related toys as a child. When one of my well-meaning aunts asked my parents what I would like for Christmas, they must have suggested a He-Man doll (or “action figure”, as we nervously called them).

This well meaning and generous aunt headed to the local Consumer’s Distributing outlet where she discovered that all of the He-Man figures were sold-out. They did have a blue version of He-Man though. He’d do.

Well, it turns out that the “blue He-Man” is no He-Man at all. A true fan knew that this was Faker (I remember him being called “Fake-or”, but the Internet has me second guessing myself). Faker looked exactly like He-Man, except that he was Smurf blue.

Faker’s super-power was that he could fool people into thinking that he was the real He-Man. People like my aunt.

I was devastated that Faker had fooled my aunt and left me with a villain-toy rather than a hero. This was clear enough to my parents that they took me to exchange the toy at Consumer’s Distributing (site of the telescope tragedy). Of course, there were still no He-man figures in stock. 

I settled for a Man-e-Faces instead. He could turn his face around, but he was no He-Man.