THE HEROIC FIREFIGHTER
Snout Spout
Snout Spout carries his own water supply and fires it through a metal trunk, and Filmation put him on screen in She-Ra before Mattel had his figure in shops.
Snout Spout is a Heroic Warrior with a metal elephant head who fires water from his trunk, a 1986 Masters of the Universe figure with a small part in Filmation's She-Ra: Princess of Power.
The record
The facts
WHO HE IS
An elephant who fights fires
A fantasy army needs someone to deal with fire, and Mattel's answer in 1986 was Snout Spout: a hero with a human body, a gray metal elephant head and a trunk that blasts water from a tank on his back. He began as Roger Sweet's idea, under the working name Hose Nose, and Ted Mayer drew the character before Mike Barbato refined the sculpt into the figure that reached shops that August.[1] The toy really did squirt water, as a stream rather than a mist.[2]
The style guide gave him a sadder story than the toy suggests. Snout Spout was an Etherian peasant turned into this shape by Hordak, and he is self-conscious about how he looks, sure that everyone is laughing at him. His minicomic, Eric Frydler's "Eye of the Storm," plays the same note: he feels useless next to the athletic heroes until Skeletor sets Eternia ablaze and the firefighter is the one the planet needs.
[1] ^ The Battle Ram Blog's history of the figure (Adam McCombs, March 2020) traces the design from Roger Sweet's Hose Nose idea through Ted Mayer's concept art to Mike Barbato's refinement, which dropped the tusks. It gives an approximate US release of August 24, 1986, and quotes the 1987 style guide's description of him as a "heroic water-blasting firefighter."
[2] ^ The same history says the toy's water comes from a mechanism in its chest and leaves as a stream, where Kobra Khan and Dragon Blaster Skeletor give a spray or a mist.
THE SIGNATURE EPISODE
Day of the Flowers
By the time Mattel's figure arrived, Filmation's He-Man series had finished, so Snout Spout's screen career belongs to She-Ra. Durnford King's "Day of the Flowers," first aired on November 15, 1986, is the episode that names him. Adora is hosting a festival on Flower Mountain and introduces the guests herself: "My brother Adam and his friend Snout Spout have journeyed from Eternia to help celebrate the beauty of our world."
Hordak, short of workers, has struck a deal with the Monstroids, giant machines that take the villagers away and start flattening the flowers, and Orko has made the twins' swords vanish by accident. Adam and Adora work out that the Monstroids run on heated fuel and need cooling down, so Adam turns to the two guests with cold to offer: "Frosta, Snout Spout, we need your help." Snout Spout's answer is the plan in one line, "I'll blow water rings in the air," and Frosta freezes each ring before it lands. Madame Razz and Broom bomb the machines with the rings, Orko grows a batch to fifteen feet to roll down the mountain, and Snout Spout is in the line of heroes raising joined hands over the flower fields at the end.
Snout Spout on the ledge with Frosta and the twins.
Clipped from our own copy of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Day of the Flowers (She-Ra: Princess of Power, 1986), 7:17 to 8:44, 1 minute 27 seconds. Nothing is added and nothing is sped up. Copyright Mattel.
BEFORE THE NAME
Hose Nose and the gardener
Filmation had already used the design a year earlier. In "Small Problems," Catra's troopers spray She-Ra and Glimmer with a miniaturization formula, and She-Ra steers Swift Wind for a lake because "Hose Nose will be there to help us wash this off." He is standing in the water when they land, Glimmer complains that it is cold, and the formula shrinks the pair anyway a moment later.[3] The episode went out in October 1985, while the toy was still months from shops, and it uses the name Roger Sweet had started with.
"Out of the Cocoon" opens with the same elephant-headed figure in Glimmer's garden at Bright Moon. He offers to wash the worms off her roses with the tank on his back, the spray flattens the plants, and he apologizes: "I'm sorry, Princess. I thought you wanted me to." Nobody calls him by any name, and the worms turn out to be caterpillars.[4]
[3] ^ "Small Problems" first aired on October 10, 1985, from a story by Steven J. Fisher with a teleplay by Larry DiTillio. The Battle Ram Blog notes that the She-Ra cartoon used both names for him and simplified the toy design, with smaller tusks and different colors on the harness, belt, gloves and boots.
[4] ^ The gardener in "Out of the Cocoon" is never named. He is drawn on Snout Spout's model sheet, tank and all.
LATER SERIES AND FILMS
After Filmation
The later continuities count as additional material on this site, and none has found room for him on screen. Snout Spout is not in the 2002 series, Masters of the Universe: Revelation or Revolution, or Netflix's She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. The Dolph Lundgren movie leaves him out, and he is not in the 2026 film.
IN PLASTIC
The figures
Plastic is where he has done best. Masters of the Universe Classics made him a subscription figure in 2012, and the Origins line remade the 1986 toy in 2022 with a soft backpack that holds water, two alternate heads and an axe. The Masterverse figure of 2024 is the biggest, nearly 8 inches tall, with a removable tank, hoses, light-piped eyes and a water-blast effect, and it was sold through Mattel Creations. The vintage and Classics figures are long retired, and the Masterverse figure has sold out.
IN BRIEF
Snout Spout, from Hose Nose to Masterverse
"Small Problems" airs
He waits at a lake to wash the formula off She-Ra and Glimmer.
Mattel's Snout Spout figure
A water-firing Heroic Warrior, with the minicomic "Eye of the Storm."
"Out of the Cocoon" and "Day of the Flowers" air
An unnamed gardener in Bright Moon, then Prince Adam's friend from Eternia.
Masters of the Universe Classics Snout Spout
A subscription figure, now retired.
Masters of the Universe Origins Snout Spout
A remake of the 1986 toy with a water-spraying backpack.
Masterverse Snout Spout
An oversized figure with a removable tank and hoses, sold through Mattel Creations.
Questions
Snout Spout questions, answered
Who is Snout Spout?
The firefighter of the Heroic Warriors in the Masters of the Universe toy line.
Is Snout Spout in the 1983 He-Man cartoon?
No. His figure came out in 1986, after Filmation's He-Man series had ended, and all of his cartoon appearances are in She-Ra: Princess of Power.
Why is he called Hose Nose?
Hose Nose was the working name for the character at Mattel. She-Ra uses it in "Small Problems," the 1985 episode that first puts him on screen.
Which episodes is Snout Spout in?
"Small Problems" (as Hose Nose), "Out of the Cocoon" (as an unnamed gardener) and "Day of the Flowers."
What does Snout Spout do in Day of the Flowers?
He comes from Eternia with Prince Adam for the festival on Flower Mountain, then blows water rings for Frosta to freeze into ice bombs against Hordak's Monstroids.
How did Snout Spout become an elephant?
Mattel's 1987 style guide says Hordak turned him from an Etherian peasant into his present form. The cartoon never tells that story.
What did the vintage figure do?
It squirted water, worked by a mechanism in the chest.
Who voices Snout Spout?
The Filmation episode credits do not name his voice.
Who wrote Day of the Flowers?
Durnford King.
Which Snout Spout figure follows the vintage toy most closely?
The 2022 Origins figure, which remakes the 1986 toy at the same scale, water-spraying backpack included.
Compiled by the heman.org desk from the She-Ra: Princess of Power episodes "Small Problems," "Out of the Cocoon" and "Day of the Flowers" and their episode guides, the Battle Ram Blog's history of the Snout Spout figure, He-Man.org's archive entry for the Origins figure, and Mattel Creations' Masterverse listing.
Alongside
Characters in the same story
On Screen