"Powered by the advent of television and super-charged by the deregulation era of the 1980s, media companies and toy manufacturers joined forces to dominate the psyches of American children. But what are the consequences when a developing brain is saturated with the same kind of marketing bombardment found in Red Scare propaganda? Brian "Box" Brown's The He-Man Effect shows how corporate manipulation brought muscular, accessory-stuffed action figures...

Follows the continuing events and developments in the family life of Mike Baxter, his wife Vanessa and their three daughters, Eve, Kristin and Mandy. Returning from a fantastic two-month road trip, Mike finds a lot has happened at home and at work. Vanessa has changed careers and Kristin is now part of Mike's "work family" as the manager of Outdoor Man Grill