Thundercats vs Silverhawks

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presents GCRN Wars Two geek topics will be challenged

The ultimate battle will come to pass One shall

stand One shall fall Hello and welcome to episode

three of GCR and Wars. I am one of your hosts,

Steve, Joe, and Mike. Joining me is Optimus Solo.

Hello. I am here. I am not. Steve Megatron. Shut

up. You fucker. Steve Megatron, hello. The sickly

Optimus, hello. Good evening. What? He sounds

like he's trying to come from Castlevania. Goody!

From Castlevania! I'm not the one that doesn't

voice this shit. I'm Simon Belmont and I'm happy!

If I do voices, it's apparently only Japanese

ones and then I'm called racist. Longtime listener,

fan of the show, Toon Master Tim is joining us

for the first time. Hello sir! Hello everybody!

What the hell was that? This is going to be interesting.

Yeah, this is going to be very interesting. It's

fabulous! That sounds like a Simon Belmont from

a certain cartoon. Mike, come on, you're the

only one that hasn't done a voice yet. No, do

it, do it. That's not even going to. Yes, do

it. No. Yes. Do it. Mistake by that much. Mine's

better. Then do it. Do it. I'm not doing it right

now, damn it. Do it. Do it. Today we will end

the age -old argument between Kevin and myself

of which series is better, Thundercats or Silverhawks?

Not just between you and me. Well, no, no, no.

Okay, well, let's give some history here. That's

what really started this episode two and a half

years ago when Kevin and I started Tooncast Classic.

Episode five, we reviewed Thundercats. Episode

seven, we reviewed Silverhawks. I like Thundercats

better. He likes Silverhawks better. Really quickly,

Tim, why don't you introduce yourself to the

listeners as you are a listener as well? Who

is your daddy and what does he do? No, it goes

more like, who is your daddy and what does he

do? Much better. Well, I guess, I don't know

where to start. I've been listening for... Over

a year. I started with the real Ghostbusters

episode of Tooncast and have just been listening

to several of your shows since then I went back

into the archives and I've listened to every

episode of Tooncast and Yeah So those early episodes

had some audio issues, but yeah, no some great

stuff there and I think you guys put out some

great shows. I'm just glad you invited me on

for the Silverhawks and Thundercats show. Cool.

And going around the table really quickly, one

sentence or less, what have you guys been up

to this week, Steve? Too much to count. Fandubs.

Redoing PredaconEmpire .com and that's pretty

much it. Kevin? Watching Silverhawks and Thundercats.

And screencapping every character that speaks

in all of them. I've been screen -capping, but

I've been screen -capping something else. Yeah,

blah blah blah. Off to the bottom of this, what

have you been up to, sir? Really quickly, one

sentence or less? Bacon. That's not a sentence,

that's a statement. I like bacon. Period. Alright,

Kev, so why don't you just give a brief rundown

as far as what this is going to entail and then

we'll get into it. Well, hopefully all you listeners

out there have already... listened to GCRN Wars

episode 2, which was our Flintstones versus Jetsons

debate debacle, ultimate battle battle, in which

the Jetsons beat the Flintstones 12 to 8 in the

voting tallies. We're basically doing something

very similar with slightly different categories

here and there. We are comparing the Thundercats

and the Silverhawks. We're basically talking

about just the cartoon minus one exception, which

we'll get to later on, but we've, uh, we've...

divot up 20 different categories ranging from

you know writing to music to different characters

to setting you know all the way down the gamut

there's 20 different things what we're going

to do is we are going to introduce each of the

20 categories we will go back and forth talking

about them a little bit as far as everybody giving

their opinions on them maybe trying to convince

the other people of what their position is and

then as we near the end of discussion for each

individual topic we will each cast our official

vote for Which show did whatever the topic was

better and since there's five of us there will

be no ties basically how we set this up is Now

we're not all gonna vote the same Right, we're

not all going to vote on the same thing that

we're all here for. We can all vote for whatever

we want to vote for, but how I originally set

this up was Tim and I are on the Thundercats

side, Paul and Kevin are on the Silverhawks side,

and Steve is in the middle and he's being tugged

in either direction. I'm on the fence! to convince

Steve and the rest of the people that were right

in our opinions and we'll kind of just go back

and forth as far as who goes first and who talks

and this and that and honestly there's some things

that I'm dead set that Silverhawks is better

there's some things that I'm dead set that Thundercats

are better and there's a handful of things I'm

still undecided and I want to hear everybody's

opinion so we'll see where it goes I have the

the tally sheet ready to go and ready to keep

score So, that's basically how it will work.

Cool! Yeah, Kevin is the mathematician of the

Geekcast Radio Network, because none of the rest

of us give a shit about math. We stupid. Or I'm

the Excel geek. Yes, there you go. So let the

games begin. First up in our Ultimate Battle

Royale Thundercats vs. Silverhawks is, it makes

sense to start here because this is the first

thing you hear every time you watch one of the

shows and those are the theme songs from each

show. Obviously they're done by the same people

so you're not really comparing who wrote them

or who did the music, it's just overall which

theme songs you're liking better, quality of

the music, words, etc. I will say that Silverhawks

by far has twice as amount of the amount of words.

Because the whole Thundercats theme song uses

11 different words. Thunder, thunder, thundercats.

Not that that's bad or good, but Mike, why don't

you start us off with your opinions of both theme

songs? I like them both. The Silverhawks theme

song reminds me of maybe a 80s glam rock band

recorded it It just it just sounds like synth

80s metal to me Thundercats song For me along

with the imagery it tells a story of each of

those characters And I prefer thundercats over

silverhawks as far as the theme song now. I'm

not saying Now I'm not saying that I do like

them both, but seeing as how we're forced to

choose in every single category, if I was gonna

choose, it would be Thundercats over Silverhawks

in this category. See, for me with theme songs,

first of all, no, I'm gonna get geek fandoms

out there pissed off in a second, but people

should know that I'm a geek when it comes to

theme songs, especially cartoon theme songs.

And 80s action, 80s, the boys, 80s action shows,

don't really necessarily have great theme songs.

They have memorable theme songs. They have ones

that we remember because we watched the show,

but when you stack, like, any of them, when you

stack, like, He -Man, Transformers, G .I. Joe,

Thundercats, Silverhawks, they don't really stand

up to DuckTales and Gummy Bears, and some of

those, as far as theme songs goes, with the exception

of... maybe Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and

Mask. Those are about the only two that stand

out. So I don't think either one of these theme

songs is like freaking fantastic, but I love

them both for the nostalgia factor. But to me,

Silverhawks is more of a song. It has lines with

lyrics that are not just thunder, thunder, thunder,

thunder, and more thunder. So the song person

in me... Likes the Silverhawks version better

as far as the imagery that's going on. That's

kind of secondary to me I mean, maybe some people

like the the intro imagery and they let that

way into it but for me I'm basing this just on

the music and the lyrics so I'm Definitely leaning

towards Silverhawks no surprise here. But uh

Tim any thoughts on the theme song? Yeah, I I

agree I do like both themes and I was watching

thundercats preparing for the show and was taking

notice of The thundercats theme as how you said,

it's basically the same few words over and over

but what I think distinguishes it from Silverhawks

one of the reasons I tend to like it more is

That it does have that Real upbeat rock theme

to it. There's guitar. There's drums There's

the cool animation behind it, of course. There's

something to say about it being so simple that

it's just thunder, thunder, thunder, thundercats.

I know on paper it looks ridiculous. Anybody

looking at that would go, wow, that's a terrible

theme. But the chorus that sings it, I think

they sing with such enthusiasm and with that

music underneath it, it just really gets... I

mean, for me, anyway, it gets me really excited

for the show. And I think that when you get into

the show, the theme that you've heard is expressive

of what the show actually entails. It's a big

action adventure show that combines magic with

technology. And Silverhawks is a good theme,

too. It's upbeat. It's just not as big and not

as exciting, in my opinion. I think the one line

that does it for me in both songs, my favorite

line from either of them, is the Silverhawks

part, though, that goes, you know, soaring through

the highway of the heavens in their flight. When

you listen to that in the theme song, that's

the longest line that either version has, and

it just... Yeah. I can just feel it like taking

off. I mean, it kind of fits that whole, not

airplane thing, but the whole flying, you know,

being in space type genre. That's the line that

I think sells it for me. But I do think that

these two are very close. When I did my rankings

of like all time cartoon theme songs, I had these

neck and neck. I mean, they were literally right

after each other in the countdown. I think they're

that close. Mr. Bottomless, can I call you that?

Oh, please, you can call me much worse than that

as well. You know, the thing that instantly grabs

me with whenever I'm listening to something or

whenever I'm going to start watching something,

it's the instant. The very first thing that I

hear and instantly when I listen to Silverhawks,

I hear that beautiful. bass. As soon as I hear

that, I'm instantly grabbed. I love what you

were saying about how it's more of a song as

opposed to the regular Thundercats where it's

kind of just like music. It's going along with

it and there's some words that are thrown in

there. Even before all this was decided that

we were going to do this show and everything,

I mean... Whenever I would think of the thundercats

the only thing that would pop in my mind whenever

I would listen to it in my mind was Thunder thunder

thunder thundercats. That's all I heard and that

was it and that was you know, and it had the

music going along with it with silver hawks though

There's more of a story at least to me. There's

more of a story that without images and without

anything else they tell the story of what the

Silverhawks are the wings of silver, nerves of

steel. They tell, you know, parsley metal, parsley

real. It's all the story of what they are is

right there in the song. And for me, the Silverhawks

is just a better story. The theme song is a better

storytelling apparatus for the show in general.

You know what you're getting into when you're

going into it. I think you kind of bring up a

good point because for me, and I don't know if

we talked about this with the Flintstones or

Jetsons, but if you take away all of the imagery

and if you take away all of the visuals and you're

just left with the audio, you don't get as much

from the Thundercats theme song as you do from

the Silverhawks theme song because, like you

said, when you're watching it, it's almost like

when you're watching the Thundercats one, you

don't even hardly need the words. Because you're

just watching it and you're listening to the

music and that carries it and it seems like they

just kind of spatter the words in just to have

something And I think it says something about

the theme song if you take all the visual part

away Which one stands on its own better and that's

why I agree with you. I think it's I still think

it's Silverhawks I think without necessarily

having to go through an official vote. It's pretty

obvious that we're two and two right here Good,

I'm just gonna say I think those are really good

and valid points But also I'm looking at the

the words of the theme song for thundercats and

one things I'm noticing and I hadn't paid attention

to this before Is how like every line in the

theme song is so memorable though? You know how

people remember? Thundercats are on the move

thundercats are loose, you know feel the magic

hear the war. These are all almost you know taglines

for The Thundercats franchise. Well, there is

only four lines. Yeah. Good point. So you better

remember them, dang it. Yeah. Well, see, that's

the thing, though. Now that we've been talking

about this and we've been discussing this, I've

been, you know, I've been able to replay the

song in my head as far as that goes. The Thundercats

theme song, as Paul said, is more about the actual

music, less about the lyrics. Yeah. See, I'm

a lyric guy, so I guess that's why I tend to

gravitate towards songs that have more. of the

lyric and less of the music part, which is not

everybody. Some people like the musical part

better. Steve, I think we're going to have to

have you break a tie on this one. Yeah, I have

a feeling that's going to come down to that.

I got 20 bucks here, Steve. It depends on if

they would actually get sent to me. Oh, yeah.

It's in the mail, dude. PayPal? Instantaneous

email? But I accept bribes. Don't we all? Yes.

Cheap whore. So I have to kind of give it like,

and I'm going to start with a cop out down in

the middle, but I'm still going to make a decision

by the end of it. I like both theme songs for

what they are. And I do have to agree with you.

You guys with the points that you've made as

far as like silver hawks does tell a story. So

I mean in that sense That one would be more memorable.

But at the same time the thundercats I mean granted.

Yes, they have that audio in there just as filler

for the visuals But the kind of annoying part

with it is they list thunder in there 23 times

Despite being attached to cats on some of them.

It's still thunder in there 23 times Whereas

Silverhawks is in there six Not as much of an

overkill No, so I mean it while I do have to

give Thundercats that it is very very upbeat

It does get me more psyched as far as the theme

song is concerned for the show coming up ahead

For the tempo that's going on and everything

but Silverhawks does tell a better story of what

you're going to be watching So it's tough for

me in this but in that sense I'm gonna have to

give it to Silverhawks Only because it's more

memorable telling you what you're watching And

the Silverhawks fans rejoice You had your chance

to bribe me So that is Paul's $20 paint off and

the first topic our second topic We're still

kind of sticking along with stuff that's gonna

happen basically at the beginning of the shows

and stuff You're first introduced to next one's

a seemingly simple one. We're just looking at

the actual show logos. It seems simple But when

creating a show this is something that people

spend a good deal of time on because the logo

is everywhere You know, the logo is what you

see when the cartoon starts. The logo will be

seen on toys. The logo will be seen on commercials

and stuff like that. So I mean, the logo is an

important piece to this. And you can visit our

post. If you're not listening to this straight

at Geekcast Radio, if you're listening to this

through iTunes or something like that, you can

go to geekcastradio .com and find the post. We'll

have pictures of all of this stuff on the post

so you'll be able to see the logos if you don't

know them from memory. But looking at the two

logos, Mike, we haven't talked to you for a little

while, so give me your thoughts on the two logos.

Now, the two logos, the two images that you have

linked are the main images for both shows. However,

the Thundercats logo over the years and even

back then had so many different versions to it.

I prefer the one that actually happened in the

actual show. partly because of at the end of

the song, they've got the Sword of Omens actually

blending into the logo. Whereas the Silverhawks

one, it's cool, it's interesting, but just don't

care. Basically, the Thundercats one, you have

usually a black background, or like Mike said,

a background with the Sword of Omens. You have

the traditional red I don't know what you want

to call it. Thundercat face, lion face thing,

whatever it had. Thundercat logo. Yeah. Thundercat

logo. And then you have the Thundercats with

their jagged edged, like cat -like font. Whereas

the Silverhawks, you're in space. It's kind of

a bluish space background. You have a very clean,

like streamlined font using for the Silverhawks,

kind of doing a little bit of the metallic look

with the, the triangle, um, Tallyhawk type Silverhawks

logo above it. Um, to me, The Thundercats logo,

the font is one of the big selling points and

then the actual circular Thundercats logo versus

the triangular Silverhawks logo. I just find

the Thundercats logo a little bit more interesting

actually on this one. The Silverhawks one seems

too clean cut and bland to me. Yeah, I mean it's

just the fact that it's just there. And as I

said before, with the actual introduction on

the Thundercats cartoon, the logo was interactive

with the other imagery. Because as soon as you

see Lionel hold the sword up, it then flips over

into the logo. And the Silverhawks one, it's

not like... It's not like the Mirage created

the logo. I mean, you know, it's not like one

of their vehicles created this logo or somehow

formed this logo for them. That's not how it

happened. So yeah, Thundercats all the way on

this. Who else wants to chime in on the logo?

Paul, why don't you go first? In terms of the

font. I do have to say that there's a little

bit more interest or interesting things going

on with the lettering. I do like the jagged claw

looks of the Thundercats, but you talk about

how the logo is formed out of, you know, the

sort of omens and everything. The logo for Silverhawks

is formed out of Tallyhawk's head. There's a

scene towards the end of it where you have a

group shot of them all standing there and there's

like these little flashes and then it flashes

on Tallyhawk's head and then it comes back and

then you have the Silverhawks. I like that imagery

a little bit more. Now if we're talking about

the 2011 Thundercats, that's something a little

bit different. No, we're just talking about the

original. I know, I know. Both of them are very

simplistic. Both of them get the point across.

But I just, I love the group shot of all the

Silverhawks there. And out of Tally Hawk's head

comes this logo. So it's not much, it's not much,

but it's just a little bit of an edge that I

have to give to the Silverhawks in that. I will

say, just completely kind of unrelated, but I

will. As we've gone through the fandoms and progressed

and people write these logos, they never write

the names of these shows right. It is clear as

day in both of these logos that there are two

capital letters in each name. The S and the H

on Silverhawks and the T and the C in Thundercats.

Yet nobody writes those names like that. Yeah,

I'm guilty of that. They all write lowercase

for both of those, and every time I write Thundercats,

I write a capital C, and I'm like, why am I the

only one doing this? But anyways, I just had

to inject that. But Tim, what are your thoughts

on the two logos? I agree with a lot of what

you said, Kevin. I really like the Thundercats

logo. I have a preference a bit over the Silverhawks

logo just because of the claw lettering and that

just striking. orange logo with the cat inside

and silver hawks is it's clean it's you know

very straight sort of a helvetica sort of font

you know with those those s's on the end but

the the tally hawk icon almost looks like i don't

know if anybody's familiar with the 101st airborne

icon of the screaming eagles but that's what

it kind of reminds me of it's not a bad thing

And I wouldn't take off any points for that,

but I just think the Thundercats logo, it's so

striking. It's different from a lot of other

logos that are out there. And watching the DVDs,

there's an extra that talks about the creative

genius behind the show. Ted Wolf designed the

characters and designed this logo, and they were

talking about how he designed this incredible

looking logo. Can't remember all they said about

it, but the right I mean it it's I think it's

great and then and that's why they're still using

it with the new show I mean, it's it's you know

been changed a bit from from the original logo,

but The basics yeah, it's still there Alright

Steve the art genius amongst us that does all

of the GC are and logo in and fonts and lettering

and whatnot What are your expert thoughts on

these two logos? Okay. Overall, just off of gazing

at them off, first off, Thundercats does draw

my eye more. And it's because there's more of

the, they have two solid colors for the most

part. I mean, you have the kind of gradient silver

on the Thundercats word and the cat in the red.

dot. It's kind of plain, but it's to the point,

and it seems to draw my eye a lot more than the

Silverhawks, despite having a couple of lens

flares and space in the background. And there's

a different kind of gradient on that as well

with you have kind of a silvery and then you

have some blue in the middle. While that is,

you know, Both of them are very 80s, but the

Silverhawks logo definitely doesn't really hold

up in today's standards as far as graphically.

If I were looking at the two on a shelf or on

some kind of an ad somewhere, I would definitely

still be drawn to Thundercats. Go ahead. Just

gonna say like I think you made a good point

there and it's kind of been shown as far as the

2011 Thundercats series like the Thundercats

Reboot happened and you really didn't need to

do too much with the logo I have a feeling if

they did a Silverhawks reboot unless they were

just trying to be true to the original that they

would Do something different with the logo. Don't

you think? Yeah, I would definitely think so

only because like I said, it's it's not Very

appealing and it looks very very early 80s As

far as graphically mm -hmm and Thundercats you

know like you said doesn't really need any anything

But a couple like slight modifications to update

it Kind of like how they did with transformers

or GI Joe. I mean they they're still pretty much

the same mold they just Get slightly more update

mm -hmm so I on this one I would definitely have

to say it Thundercats wins And for me, I think

really quick Kevin for you finish this up. I

think that the thing between the two logos is

I've only ever seen the Silverhawks logo as it

is in the images that we're looking at. The Thundercats

logo, I've seen multiple colors, multiple variations.

Sometimes it's a black cat head inside the red.

But they've also been around a lot longer. No,

they've been around the same amount of time.

Thundercats had a longer run, is what I mean.

They had a longer television run than Silverhawks

did. Silverhawk's got one year, Thundercat's

got two. That's not that much longer than another.

It's longer to give variation. I will say that

the Thundercat's logo that you see on the cartoon

and the one that's pictured in the script is

not the same logo that they used on any of their

stuff. Right. Like any of their memorabilia.

It's more of a silver look, isn't it? Well, yeah,

and instead of the Tally Hawk head being above

it, it would be in between the two words, Silverhawks,

mostly. Every once in a while it would be above

it, but on lunch boxes or even if you have the

DVDs, for example, it's a different logo, just

slightly. But I still think, like Steve said,

it still screams more 80s than the Thundercats

one. I mean, I think it's easier to modify the

Thundercats one than it is the Silverhawks one

into modern day. Not that that's what... we should

be basing it off of modern day times, but I just

think overall the Thundercats one maybe had more

appeal, I don't know. Yeah, it looks more actiony,

more fierce than Silverhawk. Silverhawk's just

kind of, while it does look kind of cool, it's

more plain than Thundercats itself. And if you

were just to take the Thundercats symbol, They

have a symbol there that is used over and over

in the show as far as, you know, the sword as

far as Lionel calling the other Thundercats.

That red symbol is iconically Thundercats. I

mean, that's the thing you see on t -shirts.

You don't necessarily see the word Thundercats.

You see people walking around with black t -shirts

with that orange or red, whatever color you want

to call it, you know, circular symbol with the

Thundercat head. And to me, that... even though

I'm a huge fan of Tallyhawk, that blows the triangle

eagle head out of the water. Oh yeah. That's

kind of what I was trying to say with the eagle

symbolizing other logos that I've recognized

and Thundercats being just so unique. When you

see that cat head, whether it's an orange cat

head against a black background or an orange

cat head or whatever color it is, Against some

background, you know exactly but you know, that's

thundercats you recognize it immediately. That's

like a symbol of the 80s almost the thundercat

head Right like the kids of the 80s Just like

the Autobot and Decepticon symbols are yeah Again,

I don't think you can draw parallels with those

because the Transformers have been crammed on

our throat since 2007 I mean that but you know

Transformers have been crammed on our throats

since they came out Yeah, I mean I mean in terms

of recent young and I mean I see it with all

no not not not not recent I know I know what

you're saying like I know what you're saying.

Don't don't freak out. I don't want Okay, what

would have to fly out to California for that?

I don't know. I don't I don't trust you Like

I said, I was always on the side of Silverhawks,

but listening to your guys' discussion about

this, one thing that I will have to say, and

I'm actually going to change my boat. I'm changing

it to the Thunderhawks. Or Thunderhawks? Nice.

Isn't that in the middle? See how I did that?

No. That'd be a cool crossover. No kidding. Coming

soon. I'm changing it to Thundercats, and the

reasoning behind it is because when I do see

it now in the 2011 series, To me, it speaks to

the power of that logo, that it was good enough

then, and it's good enough to be used now. And

it's funny, because we were sitting there, you

know, this is kind of off on a tangent, and I

promised Mike I wouldn't do this too much, but

I was talking to my wife about this podcast,

and I'm like, we're going to be discussing Thunderhawks

and Silverhawks. Thundercats and Silverhawks.

You were talking to Vern, yeah. I'm on medication.

Thundercats and Silverhawks. She straight up

was looking at me like I had weird tentacles

coming out of my ear. She's like, what are the

Silverhawks? She had no idea. And this is a woman

who grew up around the same time as me. She knows

G .I. Joe. She knows Transformers. She knows

He -Man and She -Ra. She had no idea what Silverhawks

were. And to me that says, to me that speaks

to the resonance of, you know, and I have a,

I mean, you guys were talking about t -shirts

with the red dot with the thundercats head in

there. As do I. I have a t -shirt that has that

and she instantly knows what that is. If I were

to walk around with the Tally Hawk triangle,

she would have no clue. And I think that's the

resonance and the power of the thundercats logo.

That's like what Tim was saying too. You know,

if someone was to walk around just with that

triangle, just with the Italian hawk triangle

in the face, people would be like trying to figure

out what that is. And people would be guessing

stuff like, is that like a armed forces symbol?

Is that an airplane symbol? Is that an animal,

you know, some type of zoo symbol? People would

not come up with silver hawks right away. Whereas

if you have the silver or the thundercats circle

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I agree. Amen. So I think that does it for that

category. We will move on to Something else that

you usually get a little bit of dose of right

from the beginning and and then throughout the

rest of the cartoon Which is the overall music

now? We're not just talking about we're not talking

about the theme song at all here. We're talking

about the musical themes Etc that are used throughout

the show whether it be you know a theme for Lionel

or a theme for Mone star or different characters

or might just be Just audio that you know music

that's being used in the background that type

of stuff and I want to go first on this one because

I want to make sure we're all considering the

fact that Silverhawks has two musical characters

built into the show Bluegrass is a country singer

musical person like his his Warhawk, if you want

to call it, fighting hawk, is a guitar hawk type

thing. And he even, Larry Kenny, who does the

voices, he even sings at different times and

episodes, which I didn't remember happening until

I was rewatching these. And he actually sings

some country songs at some point, you know, just

lions here and there as he's like almost singing

the blues or whatever. And then you have Melodia

on the villain side, who is like a, like Mike

was kind of saying before, like an 80s glam punk

rock diva. type person before they were popular

nowadays. It's like some melodious you get married.

It's like Lady Gaga of the 80s. I just say that

anyway So I mean you have two musical characters

in the show for Silverhawks, which provides a

lot of Opportunities and options for Silverhawks

to do all kinds of crazy stuff with their musical

themes They don't just have like space age like

Silverhawk sounds they have country sounds they

have this pop like rocker sounds going on and

I think that kind of makes it a little more diverse

on the Silverhawk side. Now, I'm not saying Thundercats

doesn't have some badass themes, because they

do, you know, when the Thunder Tank is getting

going or when Lionel is about ready to call for

the Thundercats. I mean, that's one of the most

generally, like, gradually building and building

and building musical themes in all of the 80s

cartoons that I can think of as far as getting

you excited for what's going on. I think everybody

knows when he put that sword up and did the Thundercats

thing, you were about to get some kick -ass music

coming along with it that you almost didn't even

need words or dialogue for a few minutes after

that because the music was just carrying it.

So I will give Thundercats that aspect, but Silverhawks

did have their theme too for when the Silverhawks

were taking flight in the Mirage and stuff like

that. To me, this one's a close matchup. And

I'm not gonna necessarily cast my vote yet until

I hear what everybody else has to say Let's go

to Mike as far as the musical themes Everybody

that's listening to me podcast since 2008 knows

I absolutely love the Thunder Tank theme However,

I will agree with Kevin that some of the songs

More specifically to Melodia because she is the

villainous. She had some pretty kick -ass songs

in Silverhawks I really don't think in any medium,

whether it's movies, television, cartoons, whatever,

if you have a main theme like the Thundercats

song or like the Silverhawks song, they're going

to use that every time the heroes show up. I

mean, yeah, granted, it may not be using the

words, but it's using that musical interlude

of that song. It's using a piece of music from

that song. So they each have their own points

to that effect. I like the quieter tones in Thundercats

music, like in the episode where we met Willa.

You know, when Lionel was sneaking around the

forest, there was some quieter music, so I really

like that as far as Thundercats goes. Silverhawks,

it's a little bit too synth. It uses way too

much of the synthesizer for me. I'll also wait

until we finish talking about this to see if

my my vote changes. What about you, Tim? Both

shows have a broad catalog of music, but it does

vary quite a bit. And I think Thundercats seems,

in my opinion, you know, watching the shows seem

like Thundercats has more music that was was

made for the show with As you talked about before

Mike on some of the other podcasts how each character

has his or her own theme And I really like that

about the show the Thunder tank even has its

own theme so that that's unique to Thundercats

silver Hawks I I don't quite see the melodia

and bluegrass songs. I don't remember them Singing

I mean, I'm I'm singing besides bluegrass had

like a couple times where he would sing a couple

lines That they weren't singing songs particular

they did like everybody knows though. They use

their Instruments or their weapons that created

types of music But no, I didn't want it. I didn't

mean to make it sound like they actually are

singing singing actual songs Okay, I mean I remember

bluegrass at you know in some episodes maybe

singing a few lines like I said, but I know like

he and Melodia would play their you know, he

would play his guitar and she would play her

What do you call that thing as part piano part?

Yeah, but she would play her instrument and you

know, they would go at it and but I didn't really

find any of those pieces of music memorable that

recurred in the show and maybe they did but the

Thundercat ones They did occur regularly in the

show, depending on what scene had what characters

in it. And then they also had these other musical

segments that were very rarely played, but were

sometimes just kind of strange. Like there's

this one episode where Tigra is in a cave and

Mumrah tricks him into thinking he's this fairy.

And God I remember that episode. Ah, yeah, and

that music is this kind of like it's almost like

carnival music or something It's really weird.

It's kind of dreamy. It's kind of hypnotic and

I was like, I mean I watched that episode and

it stuck in my head for a while and It ended

up showing up in some episodes later There is

Yeah, I just want to pimp this out real quick

if anyone's interested in the music and wants

even more in depth than we're giving out it on

on the Season two volume one DVD of thundercats

there is all of the special features are music

related they talked to Bernie Hoffer and The

Rembrandts and and they go into the musical themes

theme song etc So someone wants more information

on that you can always go there. I just wanted

to point out one quick thing I didn't mean to

interrupt you but The the thundercats you'd mentioned

that they did have themes for the individual

most of the individual characters at least the

main ones As well as obviously like Mike said

the the thundertank Silverhawks didn't do it

for necessarily for individual characters, but

what they did do is they did it for location

depending on if you were at Hawkhaven or if you

were at Bedlamar or the Sinister Saloon or Brimstar,

they changed their musical themes based on environment

or location instead of character like Thundercats.

They both did have their distinct musical themes.

They just kind of implemented them in different

ways, I guess is what I was trying to say. That's

all you can go back to talking Yeah I also noticed

that the Silver Hawk music because it is sort

of this cops versus the mobsters Mentality and

the show is that that sort of seemed to be a

theme of the music, you know, they sort of fit

into that crime noir Era, you know, it sort of

borrowed some some things from music you would

expect to see in those types of Films or especially

the scenes of stargazer. Yeah Had like the whole

private eye music going Well, look at his office,

I mean I was brought on to be a super hawk supporter

and I'm I'm leaning again towards thundercats

You know, I really I love what you said about

how I believe you said it Kevin I wasn't looking

at the the thing that talks for me. Um that that

the musical Tones and things changed based on

location as opposed to the individual people

in thundercats. But You know one thing that I

absolutely loved with the silver hawks now now

granted I mean I'm going I'm going thundercats

on this all the way what I really loved though

with the silver hawks was Copper kid and you

meant you mentioned the two other main musical

Characters I suppose I really always saw the

copper kid as a musical one as well Speaking

in his whistles and in the different tones and

things of that nature. That was always a for

me. I mean that that's all done musically his

his Communication is all done. I don't want to

say musically but effects. Yeah, so It was interesting

that they were able to bring a character to life,

and I hate to bring up the example, but this

is, you know, something that I was taught. I

think Mike, you and I have talked about this

before, with going into Transformers Prime with

Bumblebee and his whistles and his beeps and,

you know, there's so much that you can't emote

in certain things. And the music just, I keep

calling it music, but I'm gonna call it tones.

The tones that the copper kid would speak in

were able to come across and whatever he was,

and it goes through to the animation and things

of that nature as well, but I just thought that

that was a really creative use of those tones

and music. And even though I still say that the

background music and the epic And that's how

I look at thundercats. I listen to the music

and I can listen to that music if I were to put

that on Like a CD or something and just listen

to it. It's it's you know, there's times where

it's relaxing It's exciting. It's just I could

have nothing else on I could just have my iPod

playing with the musical score from it and I

could enjoy the thundercats more than I would

the Silver Hawks, but I think after listening

to everybody and kind of just going back and

forth and thinking about this a little bit more,

for me, I appreciate the ability, the Thundercats

main theme that they use when the Thundercats

are being called as being one of the, you know,

the most momentous as far as like just get you

pumped up, like better than most shows have ever

done as far as a musical theme in the background.

For me, what really does it though is the, I

get, tired of the sounds in Thundercats and I

can say this because I literally watched like

I don't know a month or two ago I literally watched

all every single Thundercats episode back to

back basically over the course of I don't know

a week or two or something like that so I listened

to them and watching these shows over and over

and over again and and you know by the 10th or

11th episode I was actually getting more tired

of of Thundercats music whereas I literally watched

32 episodes of Silverhawks in the last two days

and I never got tired of the music because of

the variety between the synthesized space type

sounds with the hawks and the fighting hawks,

the one I'm talking about, Tally Hawk and whatnot,

to the country music that you got with Bluegrass,

to the rocker music you got with Melodia, to

like what you were saying, Tim, before with that

Private Eye cop, you know, old school cop noir

type sounds you got when they were talking to

Stargazer, even the sinister saloon, like the

bar type sounds. To me, there was more of a variety

in Silverhawks and I didn't get tired of the

music in the background because it wasn't as...

Momentous maybe and maybe that's what made it

not get as old for me. So my official vote for

this one will be silver Hawks Mike did you make

up your mind? I'm For what little experience

I have of either either one I've kind of found

that I like the thundercats vibe more While I

do like a lot of the synthesized and kind of

techno -ish type stuff, I didn't really care

for any of it until it hit the late 90s, early

2000s era when they kind of perfected it, other

than when Vince DiCola did it in the 80s. But

yeah, I found myself more leaning towards the

Thundercats, like how they intro'd people and

everything else like that. It was more upbeat

for me Fair enough so thundercats for me as well.

Alrighty Going on getting away from music since

we've had a couple categories like that and getting

kind of into the the nitty -gritty of the show

and it makes sense to start at the beginning

when we first got our first couple episodes and

what I'm talking about is the actual backstories

of the shows the characters etc. I Don't know

if anyone wants to go voluntarily quick Backstory

synopsis on either show otherwise I can do it

but it's anybody got a quick do it. All right

Just do it. All right for silver hawks. It's

a it's a pretty basic premise here. You're dealing

with a mob that is wreaking havoc up in space

and they're needing a group to compete against

it and basically down on earth they engineer

these uh... partly metal partly real uh... fighters

to go against them and to send up to commander

stargazer to help him out and such the silverhawks

are born uh... gone through training almost like

they're training for you know nasa or something

like that and then they are sent up to hawkhaven

to help out commander stargazer and then the

other flip side of that backstory is You have

the main what causes all this is you have the

main mob boss so to speak breaking out of Prison

and when he breaks out of prison and gets the

mob back together. We're getting the game back

better. Anyways, he Starts to wreak havoc. So

that's his backstory as he has been in jail.

He's been in prison he gets a glimpse of the

moon and its powers and Breaks out and so that

we have the feud set up there between good and

evil and both of these shows are basically good

versus evil Thundercats, you start completely

different. You start, you know, obviously with

the planet being destroyed, an escape ship basically

trying to get out that is holding the original

Thundercats, mutants chasing them down, trying

to shoot them out of the sky, and everybody crashing

on Third Earth basically. And then discovering

that there's also another inhabitant of Third

Earth, which would be Mumrah in his little pyramid.

So I don't know really what more... That pyramid

wasn't so little. That was a huge... Yeah, a

huge pyramid. So basically, it's mutants and

thundercats finding themselves in Mumara's territory

and discovering a new land and discovering how

to live on a new planet, etc. So yeah, those

are the basic backstories. Mike, I'm not going

to talk about my opinions yet. I'm going to go

later, but Mike, go ahead. The one thing I want

to point out here is specifically to thundercats.

If you watch Exodus and the episode right after

it, the first two episodes of that series, they

are eerily familiar to the very beginning of

More Than Meets the Eye Part 1, because... No,

I'm dead serious! In More Than Meets the Eye

Part 1, the Decepticons create a magnetic junction

to the Autobot ship, where in Thundercats, the

mutants... basically burn acid into the side

of the Thundercats ship and they board the ship.

That's extremely familiar. You know, that's pretty

much the same deal. Well, clearly, Thundercats,

they were just copying something else that was

already successful. There you go. Well, at least

they didn't give any of their characters mutism

in later years. Anyway. For me... I like both

the origin stories separately. The Silverhawks

to me is more of in line with Voltron's origin

story as far as going out into space, helping

someone out, and then fighting this giant army

and these gangsters, mobsters, king, whatever.

I like the fact that they basically told you

that unless Steelheart and Steel will get prosthetic

hearts. They can't go. I mean, that's that was

something big. You know, did they did they ever

really touch on that during the series? Because

I noticed that watching the origin story and

I have just the first volume that was released

on DVD. I haven't picked up the one that was

recently released volume two, but I don't remember

them ever touching on that. I think there might

and Kevin can. Correct me if I'm wrong in this

I think there might have been a couple episodes

where if they overexerted themselves too much

or if they got you know If they've they got too

anxious or something there was something wrong

and because they're twins one feels the other's

pain I don't know I They touched on the whole

twin connection They touched on you know being

able to almost sense each other's thoughts and

feel each other's pain type stuff but as far

as the actual physical aspect of what was touched

on in the origin story. Granted, I haven't re

-watched all 65 episodes. I've only watched about

32, 35, somewhere in there, because I had to

start skipping because I was running out of time.

So it could have happened in some of those episodes

that I haven't watched since 1987 or whatever

it was. But no, on the episodes I saw, they never

actually touched on the whole traumatic beginnings

as far as the prosthetic. but overall for me

it the origin story goes to thundercats uh...

said simply because simply because that the reason

why i say it is because that it's the story of

i mean technically it's it's a superman origin

your planet blows up you go to another planet

you have these phenomenal new cosmic powers So

basically they stole from two other successful

franchises. I see where you're going with this.

Back then as a kid, I liked more of the sword

and sorcery and the magic and the technology

rather than just the technology of the silver

hawks, the metal body. That's why. Go ahead.

Go ahead. To me, it goes into how in -depth they're

getting into the actual character's background.

And I separate this between heroes and villains

as far as the backstory goes. As far as the heroes

go, I think you get a little bit more into who

the Thundercats are as characters in their backstory.

Whereas outside of Steel Will and Steelheart,

the Silverhawks basically, they're showing up

You're seeing them at the age When the show is

gonna take place basically, you don't get necessarily

get into what was happening in Quicksilver's

past You know what happened to him before he

became a silver. I mean you get little Quick

synopsis I guess in the but it doesn't go as

in -depth as to it seems like you get to see

a little bit more of the Thundercats Not much,

but you get to see a little bit more now during

the actual show. It might be different as far

as Backstory as it's revealed throughout the

show But as far as just the origin stories as

far as like, you know Just the first couple episodes

of each series you get a little bit more I think

as far as what was happening to the Thundercats

before they show up on third earth Whereas Silverhawks

is like here's the people they're going and then

you learn about him as they go now the flip side

of that is the is the villain part and For me,

it's almost vice versa with the villains with

Mumra You know the mutants discover him and it's

just like they awaken this guy and here he is

Whereas moan star you see him. What's happening

to him before the series? He's been captured.

He's in jail He's doing around there. You understand

where he's getting this power from that. He's

broken out He doesn't ever wants to go back to

jail Seems to me like that's a little bit more

of a development than what you get with Mama

I can see it argued either way But for me, I

like the backstory better for the villains of

Silverhawks, but for the heroes of Thundercats

Tim or Paul one of you guys want to jump in Sure,

yeah, I've quite a bit at say about the backstory.

I'll try to You know break it down so I'm not

taking so much time but Ted wolf created the

Thundercats And I think it was later than picked

up by Rankin -Bass. I don't think that he was

commissioned by Rankin -Bass to create the Thundercats.

And then they decided that, you know, hey, there's

this, you know, these really great characters.

Let's, let's, you know, use these characters

in some way and turn it into a cartoon. And I

think that they seem, to me, they developed a

richer history, a richer backstory with the Thundercats.

It seemed like Silverhawks, they were... Coming

off the success of thundercats and trying to

find some way to you know create this other series

I gotta jump in though before you say that because

I knew this would come up eventually We got to

set the record straight here, and I don't mean

to to call you out or anything, but Both series

were pitched originally at the same meeting The

thundercats and Silverhawks idea concept and

everything were pitched together The Silverhawks

episodes, true, were not made all before the

Thundercats, but all 65 episodes of Silverhawks

were already done with as far as written and

everything before the very first Thundercats

episode even aired. Interesting. This is on one

of the special features, I believe, on the Silverhawk

set. where they say that they pitched Thundercats.

That was the main reason why they were pitching

it and then they just kind of slid in at the

end and said, and we also have this as far as

the Silverhawks goes. But then the main lady,

I can't remember her name though, that was behind

it said that literally all the Silverhawks shows

were done as far as writing goes and developing.

I mean, they weren't made obviously, but they

were already written basically before the first

Thundercats episode aired. And I think it's very

common for everybody to say that Silverhawks

was just playing off of the success of Thundercats.

Now, I'm not saying if Thundercats bombed, you

know, maybe they would have never been a Silver

Rock, so it is partly due to their success that

they were able to make the show, but I don't

want anybody to misinterpret the ideas that happened

during Silver Rocks to be taken because Thundercats

was successful, because they had no idea Thundercats

was successful. was going to be successful when

they wrote Silverhawk. OK, I said my piece. Continue

on. All right, now I have a piece before Tim

continues because I have to counteract what Kevin

just said. Larry Kenny told us in the original

interview that we did with him that they were

recording voices in 1983 for Thundercats. Right,

voices. I'm not talking about the actual production.

No, I know you're not. I know you're not. But

what I'm saying is the Thundercats production.

even though by 85 the Silverhawk stuff was already

written, the Thundercats production was already

well into development in 83. Right. My main point

is that neither one of them, nothing was done

based on the success of one of them. Right. It

could have been done, allowed to be produced

and made into a show because of the success of

Thundercats, but as far as the back, the stuff

behind the scenes had nothing to do with Thundercats

success. It had already been done by that point.

Right. Okay, Tim, you can continue now. Sorry.

Oh, no. And I appreciate that backstory on that,

Kevin, because I didn't know that was the case.

But I will say, I'll rephrase, that it feels

to me like Thundercats was the superior product

and it aired first. I saw it first and then along

comes Silver Fox. So it seemed like Thundercats

was the one that was the Success first and then

they tried to write, you know create something

else to to match that success. So to me it was

like, oh we're doing this but now it's in space

and Didn't quite appeal to me as much I did watch

it as a kid. I enjoyed silver hawks I can't say

that I enjoyed it as much watching it again as

an adult the way I did with thundercats But I

also think one of the things that appeals to

me about the backstory of Thundercats over the

Silverhawks is that, you know, they're leaving

their homeland, their home world. Lion -O is

this young cub, as they call him, and you've

got Jaga, the wise one, who's, you know, they're

telling them all is going to be okay, and, you

know, he's, you know, helping Lion -O, he's giving

him some guidance that's going to help him. later

on as he grows, which he doesn't really quite

understand at that point. And then they go into

stasis lock and, you know, Jaga basically tells

them, you know, I'm too old. I'm not even going

to survive. So I have to pilot this ship to get

you to this planet that panthero said, you know,

has a 99 .7 % chance of of sustaining life, you

know, air that we can breathe. And I just, you

know, I just find that so fascinating. And then,

you know, they they crash on the planet and Lionel

has to defend the ship. by himself against the

mutants who are there to scavenge the ship and

take what is there. And then Jaga shows up. And

that's one of the aspects I really love about

Thundercats, too, is that Jaga is there, he's

a mentor, he's a spirit, and it just adds something

to the series. The Silverhawks opening, it's

basically two parts. The first part is all about

Mondstar. getting out of prison because the the

the opening is Commander stargazer reporting

the earth and saying I need help And they're

saying hey, give me this report. He is in this

report and says, okay, you know this time monstar

You know basically breaks out of prison. So the

whole first half of the episode is monstar breaking

out of prison and then the second half is on

earth where they're turning these humans into,

you know, partly metal, partly real Silverhawks

so they can withstand the trip in space, you

know, to Hawkhaven to help Commander Stargazer.

So you don't even really, to start, the Silverhawks

don't even get to to Commander Stargazer until

the second episode of the series. Right, it's

a kind of interesting way to introduce things

where you don't really give the main characters

in the first episode so much. Yeah, and actually

when they... When I started off that episode,

they introduced all the characters. So, you know,

Silverhawks opens up and they tell you basically,

you know, who the players are and you get to

see all the villains. So, they're both good.

I can almost call this one as a tie, honestly.

Maybe, maybe Paul will be able to convince you

one way or the other. I doubt it. For me, my

interests as a kid were the robots and the things

of that sort of nature. So naturally, I would

gravitate towards the silver hawks. I'm like,

oh, wow, they're becoming cyborgs, basically.

That's so cool. So that's something that would

play into my personal interests. for and Tim

you brought up a terrific point that you know

the entire first episode of Silverhawks is is

basically the introduction of the main villain

and For me, I I really do like that It's it's

something that's completely different every other

series that has come before then you get the

huge backstory about these good guys and Why

they're good guys. They're already good guys.

We already know that we don't need to know how

they became good guys, but with with monstar

I love seeing things from his perspective right

up front because this is a guy who's who's evil

he's just a bad dude and We get to know why he's

like that and what goes into his mentality and

things of that nature. For me, it's just something

that's radically different than anything that

we've ever gotten before. We always get the good

guys. It's always the good guys perspective.

I mean, I know you could say, well, he's a bad

guy. We know he's going to be a bad guy, but

it's just something that's different. I remember

as a kid watching him and seeing him and as opposed

to seeing Lionel, you know, using the Sword of

Omens for the first time, we get to see Monstar

using his powers for the first time. And getting

like, ooh, you know, for me, it was I instantly

got a sense of how powerful this guy is and how

serious he is. So that was something that always

stuck in my mind. And I always kind of remember

that. And I don't want to say I appreciated it

more, but it was definitely something that was

different. And It was it was just for me different.

That's all I can really think of I mean everything

else is I Mean Mike brought up, you know how

and I jokingly, you know made comments about

how it's just like others You know, so when I'm

watching thundercats Mike you're right. I saw

that introduction in Transformers. I saw the

planet blowing up with Superman it was the same

kind of stuff so now now imagine imagine Superman

but Instead of starting off with the origin of

Superman, we got the origin of Lex Luthor. It

would kind of, in my mind, it would give a different

kind of tone to the movie in general. And that's

what I really liked about the Silverhawks. So

I'm sticking with Silverhawks on that one. Fair

enough. Steve, any comments on stuff that we've

been saying before we all give our final vote

on the actual backstory? I actually have to go

back to what you... Said earlier and actually

I completely agree with your your statement.

So it's actually kind of moot for me to repeat

it Which statement? I Don't remember everybody

else has talked since then but I remembered agreeing

with you It was probably the thing where you

said about that thundercats was more backstory

for the heroes and silverhawks was more backstory

for the villain Well, Mike, did you give a definite

vote on this one yet? Thundercats. You said Thundercats.

Paul says Silverhawks. Tim, what was your vote?

It's going to hurt me, but I'm going to say Silverhawks.

Why? Steve? Thundercats. Everybody's getting

shanked tonight. I guess that means I have to

break the tie on this one. Yep. It's just so

hard for because I agree with a lot of what Paul

saying is that I like the interesting part of

introducing the villain aspect and I do like

moon stars Introduction much better than mamaraz

And I just thought of something good. I just

thought of something as a kid I never did understand

why why you know aged and nobody else did Because

they were all already older. No, I know Now that

I am 33 years old and I've gone back and rewatched

it, it now makes sense. But as a kid, it made

no damn sense to me whatsoever. I do remember

for a little bit as a kid being confused as to

that as well. Because I was pretty young when

I watched this for the first time and I didn't...

you know it's not like today where you you miss

something or you don't understand something you

just click on the internet or something and go

back and re -watch it. What was it YouTube back

then? Yeah there was no YouTube back then. That's

what I'm saying you can't do that back then so

back then you saw these episodes one time and

it would have been a long time before you saw

that episode again. Right because of syndication

now I will say now that Paul brought that up

though the way I see it is Jaga had said that

he would never survive the the suspension. Jaga

wouldn't, Jaga wouldn't. Right, Jaga wouldn't

because he was already so old. However, when,

uh, Sheetara, Tigra, and Panthro, specifically

those three, think of them when they started

in that, in Exodus, when they first started.

Think of them as maybe 25 years old. I see where

you're going. And by the time they got to Third

Earth, they were 35 years old. Okay, I see where

you're going, but then why weren't Wile E. Kitt

and Cat older? Another thing is interesting is

that the Thundercats and the Silverhawks both

have sci -fi Backstories, right? Like they're

both completely science fiction origin stories

You know, which one makes which one makes more

sense As a kid Silverhawks, which one was more

unique Silverhawks, which one was more interesting

from the hero standpoint Thundercats For the

uniqueness alone just because we've seen it before

Thundercats we saw it in Other things like Mike

said we saw in different things the same basic

origin story. I'm gonna give it to the uniqueness

of Silverhawks So, yeah backstory is a tough

one and I still don't even know if I made the

right choice but moving on to the next topic

Which is the setting basically and what I mean

by the setting is third earth as far as the thundercats

go versus the galaxy of limbo as far as Silverhawks

go and I'd like to say my piece first here Because

this is something that has always bugged me I

love sword and sorcery Stuff. I love Dungeons

and Dragons. I love he -man. I love thundercats.

Do not get me wrong But something that always

bugs me about these things is whenever you have

a planet in a fantasy sword and sorcery type

environment as you're setting, there apparently

are no rules. There are no rules to the size

of this place. There is no rules as far as how

many different environments you can create and

act like they always existed on this place. I

know that there are maps that people have made

of these places, but they're all bullshit. Because

the maps of these places would be impossible

because they'd have to be like so large and so

confusing because they put like a million different

environments in these places and To me what it

is in and it's the same for human and it's the

same for Dungeons and Dragons Those are just

the two that come to my mind as it is in thundercats

There was it seems like there was no setting,

there was no map, there was no outline as to

this world. It was created episode by episode

to fit each episode's need. Like, oh, we need

a forest. Boom. There's now a forest in Third

Earth. We need a jungle. Boom. We will create

a jungle. We'll name it, and we won't even tell

you where it's at in relation to the other places,

but it's just over there somewhere. And that's

always bugged me about all of those shows. On

the contrary, Silverhawks has a map shown in

one of the episodes, in one of the early episodes,

where it shows all of the planets in relation

to each other. And it stays consistent for 65

episodes as far as these are the planets in this

system. Out there somewhere is the time, you

know, is the limit to where they can go. the

silver rocks have no jurisdiction past that limit

and they very rarely talk about anything outside

of that limit so within their limit they have

a set universe they have a set environment with

set planets you have bed llama you have hawk

haven you have brimstar you have um fence you

have uh dolar you have all of these things that

have their distinct environment and i i appreciate

that more because it doesn't seem like Something

where the writers can just create new stuff to

the environment every single time to fit their

needs in the silver rocks. They're dealing with

a. environment that has already been set and

is consistent and for that I'm I'm giving you

my vote right away for this one because it's

a it's like a slam dunk for me on this one Silverhawks

has the better setting just for consistency and

Being able to understand it as a kid. You knew

which plants were out there You knew where they

were you knew what type of inhabitants were on

those planets Whereas third earth it could have

been something different every single week. You

were getting a new part of this earth and to

me That just bugs me. I don't know with third

earth though They had an entire planet. Okay,

like us here in the United States. You're going

to compare the size of a planet to the size of

space? Yes. Yes, I am. Damn it. You'll fail miserably.

Just shut the hell up right now. Shut the hell

up. Okay. Third Earth, they had an entire planet.

So, Momra's pyramid could have been in Egypt.

wall cats layer could have been in africa while

saying is it's never defined in the beginning

so it makes it seem like there's making up as

they go and again and and and i agree they probably

were making go however about the point of this

was to talk about cats layer in hawk haven not

the last that's number six or on setting number

five uh... some jumping books yeah uh... i like

third because it was I liked it because it was,

every unique setting was so unique. It wasn't

just the same, you know, you could make different

planets have different things, but there's, you

know, it's just on one planet and there's so

much that you can do on one planet instead of

having to go to 20 different planets and then

have one fall off the map because it no longer

exists. Oh, hi Mickey's dog. But see, setting

also, I mean, besides just the actual physical

places to me has to do with the inhabitants of

these environments too. Thundercats, you literally

have a thousand different people you come across.

Right. Silverhawks, you have a... I almost want

to save this for later. so I'm not going to keep

going into this very often, but it just goes

back to that consistency of you know what you're

getting at each place and you know what the inhabitants

of Fence are, you know what the inhabitants of

Bedlamah are, etc. Whereas Third Earth, you turn

the corner, you go over this hill, and it's like

a whole new species and a whole new environment

that you didn't even know existed. Okay, but

that's the point though with the two versions

because in Third Earth, And in Thundercats, their

planet blew up. They're exploring this new planet.

I get that. But like I said, this isn't a gripe

of mine specific for Thundercats. This is a gripe

of mine to any sword and sorcery fantasy type

setting that does this. And to me, if they had

a map or something laid out or something to give

some logical, you know, like Lord of the Rings

did it. Like Lord of the Rings. Here we go. No,

I'm saying it's a fantasy. It's a sword and sorcery

basic thing. But you understood. But you knew

where Mordor was in relation to the Shire. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. See, I completely agree with Kevin

on this one that and I think what it boils down

to is you don't know where I mean you have the

primary mode of transportation for the Thundercats

is the Thunder Tank. You can literally go from

an ocean to a forest to a desert. in a span of

like no time at all like it's just down the block

which for me makes it seem as if their planet

is like the size of LA I mean it really is kind

of ridiculous and I appreciate that they have

all these environments but it works better when

you're in the vastness of space where you have

one planet that is like this and you have another

planet that is like this and you see them traveling

there through the mirage you know I mean they're

space dwelling organisms that these people are

riding on to get from point A to point B and

it seems more realistic whereas when you're looking

at third earth it's like oh I'm gonna go over

to the desert and I'm just gonna walk out my

front door and it's gonna be there and it just

doesn't there's there's no cohesion there and

I just I couldn't stand that either that that

was always one thing that bugged me and You know

looking looking at it through the the context

of Storytelling I understand why they do it and

I mean it's it's it's it makes sense I mean,

we're gonna have a story about you know, the

burbils and you know, here's the forest. Okay,

that's fine You know now we're gonna you know,

go over to mum Ron. He's in a pyramid in a desert

You know, that's fine. I mean I understand for

the story it they kind of you know, I don't want

to say they had to do it but It just seemed like

they got lazy with it and at least with super

hawks i mean yes it was very simple you can go

from one planet to the next planet but at least

it it explained why there is so much of a difference

in terms of the different settings for me was

easier as a kid to conceptualize it understand

it and and accept it and as a kid like i said

with human with all these other ones i always

couldn't accept the fact that every week There

was a place that we were not, it didn't have

a place in my brain and that show up until that

week. And I'm like, wait a second, we've never

heard about this place before. And I think that

was the problem as a kid is watching it through

a child's mind and Silverhawks, everything had

a space and a spot and a location that made sense

in my brain. And every week I wasn't like trying

to figure out where the heck they came up with

this place. Right. Yeah, I I like thundercast

for the reasons that Kevin hates it and I And

I hate silver hawks of the settings for the reason

that Kevin likes it The mapping thing. It doesn't

mean anything to me. I just don't care And I

know the whole JR JRR Tolkien You know mythos

had this own map and everything and I just look

at that and go I don't care, you know, I really

That's because you're not a historian geographic

person. I'm just kidding. Right, and that may

be. I really like the discovery aspect of Thundercats.

I like tuning in every week to find out where

they're going to be next. I know it doesn't necessarily

make sense. I can understand the argument that

they've got a tank, but yet they're going to

all these places. How fast does a tank go? How

can they possibly get here and there and do it

so quickly? I also remember there were episodes

where they would go out in the tank or they would

Maybe go out in the feline or and they wouldn't

be back the next episode necessarily And we don't

really know how much time there was between episodes

But I really liked that because it gave the writers

freedom to just put the Thundercats in all these

different environments and meet different characters

and as Mike was saying It's a planet. We don't

know how big third Earth is It could be huge.

I mean, look at all the different terrain there

is on Earth, and Earth really isn't that big

of a planet. So I really don't have that big

of a problem. There's a planet with no oceans.

I'm sorry? There's a planet with no oceans. They

never got to a geographic aspect of this planet

that prevented them from getting from one place

to another or from... See, my problem is if you

compare it to Earth, and like Mike said, and

I think that's accurate, you could say that,

yes, all these different places could... literally

exist in a planet -size object. But my problem

is, like Paul was saying, they get to all of

them within an episode or two. And I know you

don't necessarily know how much time is passing

in this or that, but the proximity that the forest

must have to the jungle must have to the desert,

to whatever, is what I couldn't buy as a kid

because it seems like it should, especially in

an 80s mind, before everything that we can do

today and the internet and whatnot. Whatever

it just wasn't fathomable to me to buy that they

were getting to these areas such relative speed

and with no ocean to cross or with no You know

ridiculous huge mountain range to get over That

was my problem is how easily these places were

connected and you know as your kid these are

the times when you're learning about environments

and you're learning about different types of

like tundra versus jungle versus whatever and

it's all you know relative to you know how far

you are from the equator etc as far as earth

you know what we're taught as a kid and to me

it's like this had no rhyme or reason because

these places should not be able to exist in such

proximity to each other based on climate and

stuff like that I know I'm taking a way too scientific

approach to it, but for me as a kid I just thought

of this if Instead of the galaxy of limbo I know

that's a cool name for a you know setting for

a story and all that if they just had it in the

Milky Way galaxy and use the other plant used

Mars you you know you you know worked around

I Think a lot of kids would have had more, you

know That would be another lesson for a kid because

you learn about the planets in school. I think

when we do the silver cats, we can do that. With

the silver cats. I think the lesson that they

would learn would contradict what they would,

watching the show, would contradict what they

would learn in school because there's nothing

that's living on Jupiter. There's nothing that's

living on Saturn. Yes, it's true. But most people

Alexi most people back then knew the difference

between Television and actual reality kids today

don't know that your phone your voice that that

being said then Why does it need to be in the

Milky Way galaxy? Is this in a galaxy far far

away? Mike your vote is for Thundercats on this.

Yes. I have a few more things I want to say real

quick about this for me Cartoons don't have to

always make sense and I think there's a lot of

that, you know and people especially when they

look back on old cartoons or saying oh Well,

there's you know, that can never happen. That

doesn't make any sense. I you know, it's a cartoon

I just I enjoy it in the moment. I like You know

again being surprised being taken places. I like

TV shows that take me to different places, you

know Law and Order is a great show, but it's

always in New York City almost always and I like

other shows that you know maybe you're in the

woods one week, the next week you're in the city,

some other week you're near the beach or at a

lake. I like being taken to different places.

And with Silverhawk, it was basically the same

boring settings over and over and over again.

And watching that first volume of the DVDs, it

was hard for me to get through them. I just kept

thinking, why is it I don't like the show? Why

am I getting bored with it? And it was a lot

of just fighting in space. I mean, yes, they

had the planets they would go to. But a lot of

times the background was just space. I didn't

really see much going on on the planets that

you mentioned that were part of this world. I

think it's cool if they created this map and

they stayed within those boundaries. But it just

seems so boring. And if I was there, I'd say,

lock me up in that prison that you got Monstar

out of. See and I had this I like being in different

places and to me the planets each represent a

different area in a different place so I don't

I didn't get bored as much when I was watching

it whereas Thundercats I actually did find myself

getting more bored with the environment and stuff

even though you're getting introduced to new

things all the time to me it was the lack of

consistency that like I said it just bothered

me and I don't know why as a kid but even as

a kid I said they just created that for this

week's episode Well, let's all right. Let's face

it. Let's this the only time I want to point

this out because I point this out every time

we have a discussion about the this genre of

shows The 80s were not about continuity. Oh,

I didn't say there wasn't continuity. There's

continuity Right there is but what I'm saying

is as far as the actual places Right, you know,

it's not about continuity whereas as Tim alluded

to earlier with law and order Yes, it is only

in one city, but you have multiple Areas of that

city that you're going to you know, so I don't

know Steve You don't know your desert in one

on one city blocking and a mountainous area in

another Steve weigh in so we can move on Okay

Yeah as far as those are concerned I I I like

the the the looks graphically of The the third

earth but I have to agree it's kind of just you

know one shot you know make shit up as we go

that and I'm more of a space fan than just sitting

here camped out on a planet so I'm gonna have

to go with silver hawks on this one and the crowd

rejoices I'm glad Steve can just break the tie

though, because I think we would have been going

like eight rounds on that one. Yeah, because

space is definitely cooler than just sitting

there on a planet. I agree. Says the guy who

loves Beast Wars. That's not different. Star

Trek's on a spaceship. So what are the votes

now? Mine is Thundercats. Steve's is Silverhawks.

Tim, what's your vote? Thundercats. Thundercats.

Paul and I both voted Silverhawks. Yes, so moving

on to something similar, but slightly different

going more specific here our sixth category here

is The actual bases we have the cat's lair versus

Hawk Haven You know the cat's lair is being helped

co -built by both the Thundercats in them and

the burbills a giant Sphinx like creature with

stairs going up the middle his paws lift up to

let vehicles out people can go exit through the

mouth of the, I don't know what kind of cat you

want to call this, just call it a sphinx. Whereas

Hawkhaven is basically like a planet type, smaller

than a planet, but like a asteroid, I don't know,

sized thing with a hawk coming out of it. And

then the middle of it has an opening where the

silver hawks can exit, the ships can exit, et

cetera. Very similar in some ways, but very different

in others. We haven't started with Tim before,

so let's start with Tim real quick on the bases

as far as your thoughts on Cat's Lair versus

Hawk Haven. They're both great designs. I really

do like both of them, but Hawk Haven is just

a bird perched on an egg. There's really not

much very exciting there. I guess you could sort

of say a thing about Catslayer, but Catslayer

just does more. I mean, those paws come up and

the Thunder Tank comes rolling out. I like that

the cat head on Catslayer rotates, and so that

allows them to scan the area and see what's out

there, which doesn't really give them a whole

lot of, you know, doesn't give them a very wide

angle view of what's going on, but... That's

what they used it for. And then it also, I think,

didn't eyes shoot beams or something? Yes, yes

they did. Yeah. So, I just like that design.

I like that it's kind of tucked in there in that

cave or part of that mountain that's been blown

up or whatever. It's really, really cool setting.

My vote just goes to Catslayer, hands down. I

think the coolest thing about Hawk Haven is when

they do the... when they do the actual shot of

things leaving from the center there, it's a

cool visual that they give, but I do agree that

the cast layer has a lot more functionality.

Paul, your thoughts on the two bases? In terms

of functionality, you're absolutely right. I

mean, Tim, Kevin, you guys are absolutely correct.

I mean, obviously there's functionality about

that. I don't, in terms of... You know if you

were to draw a parallel between the two I mean

they're in space so naturally there's gonna be

an asteroid so you build a giant bird into the

asteroid Conversely the thundercats are on a

planet so you build the giant layer into the

side of a mountain I mean they're they're relevant

to whatever cartoon you're talking about. I mean

there's there's Really not that much of a difference

when it comes down to it, but I do have to actually

give the edge to the thundercats Just because

of the functionality of their layer itself And

if you would ask me as a as a as a kid which

one I thought was cooler I would have said the

cat's layer. I Still desperately want a cat's

layer for my collection Mike thoughts on the

bases If you say Hawk Haven, I'm gonna slap you.

Well, all right, here's the thing. Hawk Haven,

I wonder how many people, you know, got insurance

policies to build this thing. I mean, it looks

like a makeshift Death Star with a hawk on top

of it. I mean, that's pretty much what it is.

It goes to cat's lair, hands down. Functionality...

Coolness it's much cooler than hawk haven You

know more storage room I will say that the silver

hawks was at a disadvantage just in general of

coming up with a base because It was gonna have

to be something similar to that I'm not saying

you know that makes hawk haven any better But

I don't know what else they could have come up

with that would have been as cool as cat's lair

No now correct me if I'm wrong. I I could be

I seem shut up all I seem to remember that did

Hawk Haven ever move? No, it did there that picture

doesn't necessarily show everything there is

usually no, no, no, I'm not talking about the

picture in general. I'm asking. I was just going

to say the only the only time anything ever happened

to it was there was some there's a part of it

that's below the actual asteroid that got ripped

off in one episode. But no, I don't. believe

I ever remember it moving. I don't either. It

just floated the bay doors open to let ships

in and out. Steve, what's your vote go to? OK,

this one for me is going to be easy. I'm going

with the cat's lair. It just looks cooler. Yeah.

It's more it's more graphically and aesthetically

pleasing than Hawkhaven. It looks like it like

Mike said, a hawk on a giant rock. It looks like

something that should be on your hood ornament

or something. Yeah, like on the front of your

Cadillac or something or your knockoff Mitsubishi.

Yeah. So our second unanimous topic here, we'll

go to one more here before we shift gears a little

bit, and that is the actual storytelling writing.

And we're not going to go super into specific

details of each and every episode or anything

like that. We're just kind of a generic comment

on the storytelling or writing. because for the

most part these are both what I like to call

just one -off episode shows where you have individual

episodes that loosely can be connected to other

episodes but there's not a giant overarching

story. Now I will say that Thundercats has a

slightly different aspect to it because it ran

two seasons. Yeah, anything over the course of

one season can easily spend their first season

introducing characters and Kind of having a bunch

of one -off stories What happened that separates

these two in my mind a little bit and I haven't

decided necessarily who I'm giving the vote to

but in Thundercats second season stuff starts

to shift Instead of having one -off episodes.

We actually had overarching stories that continued

for you know multiple episodes for example as

far as the um uh the what was it the last bit

of the season where they were continuously trying

to find in thundercats they were trying to find

the different um items that were scattered throughout

what was it new thunder at that point I'm talking

about the actual 1988 episodes where there was

kind of a overarching continuity because they

were trying to get the different treasures as

far as you know it's been a while since I watched

it but they were trying to collect the different

things and it kind of carried an overarching

story which wasn't something that you saw in

the first season of Thundercats. So there was

that aspect of we finally had some overarching

Continuity lines during that second season thundercats

something that may have happened if silver hawks

had a second season But since it didn't if you

were just to compare the first seasons of both

shows, they'd be very similar As far as one thing

that the one thing I want to point out here is

I just counted it up between the two series silver

hawks only did Two multi -part stories. They

had four episodes that were part one and part

twos of each other Thundercats you had way more

suck like mini sagas like Thundercats. Oh the

movie Returned to Thundera had a four four five

parter So they had more even in the first season.

Yeah, even in the first season They had more

like self -contained mini stories than Silverhawks

did like feline or part one and part two Um,

but overall both of them have had their, you

know, regular villain of the week or story of

the week episodes as well. Well, just to correct

a minor flaw there, uh, Silverhawks had three

two -parters, but that's not really that many

more than two. So that's fine. But my point is,

my point is in the first season of, of Thundercats,

you actually had less than that. You only had

the one. You had feline or part one and part

two so so my point was if you're just comparing

the first of them it's different, but as soon

as this the Other stuff comes in Thundercats

where you have the Thundercats whole movie And

then you have the mum rah lives because what

they did is they started every year with a basically

a five -parter um so to speak so it was it was

that extra boost that they got an opportunity

to do stuff after that season one that separates

the as far as if you're just looking at a continuity

or or that aspect of the show as far as the individual

storytelling i mean it kind of comes down to

maybe a little bit of you know space stories

whereas in silver hawks you're you're constantly

trying to uh capture the mob and put them behind

bars Whereas in Thundercats, it's more about

the Sword of Omens, getting a hold of that, maintaining

the power over Third Earth, etc. So the stories

are very different. I'm not saying which ones

are better. If you're going based on which one

had more continuity and story arcs, you might

have to go with Thundercats. But one thing I

do, and this last thing I'll say before I let

you guys talk, but the last thing I'll say about

the writing is... One thing I do appreciate on

the Silverhawk side and it was kind of going

back to what I was saying before and it has a

little bit to do with the setting and Thundercats

you literally are introduced to a million different

characters and I know this because I screencapped

pics of every single person and that talks and

my point is just like the environment you're

introduced to new species of people all the time

you're introduced to new characters all the time

and so the writing is much more diverse as far

as amount of people you get introduced to. But

for me, it's cool about the Silverhawks is each

planet has its inhabitants that are used over

and over. There's very few characters in Silverhawks

that are only in one episode. With almost no

exceptions, you always seem to see these people

show up again. And I like that from a writing

standpoint in Silverhawks is you never just introduce

a character for one episode. You introduce them

and then you might come back to them five episodes

later or ten episodes later. They might be involved

in something. And I like that aspect of Silverhawks

is that these planets have consistent inhabitants

that are part of the story. You get to know the

taxi driver. You get to know the, you know, the

kind of the bad inhabitants that frequent fence.

You get to, you know, there's certain people

in charge of each planet that are consistent

throughout the entire series so as far as continuity

you might get a little more from thundercats

as far as consistency you might get a little

bit more from silverhawks i'm not saying which

one i'm voting for but uh... mike you wanna talk

a little bit the thing for me is as we've already

stated thundercats played up to the heroes backstory

in the beginning and silverhawks played up to

the villains In Thundercats specifically, especially

with the Mumrah Lives multi -part episode, that

gave you more insight to Mumrah. Thundercats

Ho was amazing. The backstory of learning more

of the escape from Thundera, from the original

planet, and then them finding and creating a

new planet, you know, new Thundera. I prefer

Thundercats. Overall, however, I will say that

to me, Thundercats has more of that overarching

continuity because to me Silverhawks is basically

metal space cops. It's a metal military unit

is what it is to me and it's basically sure they

can put character development on every single

character they can have. Pretty much yeah sure

they can have you know multiple different owners

of planets and multiple different villains I

like in thundercats that the main villain is

mumra the mutants, and then they bring in you

know the others You know other stuff, but overall

mumra is the main one The one thing I wanted

to point out for Silverhawks and one thing that

I absolutely loved was actually episode 49, Window

in Time. Oh God, that was good. Thank you for

bringing that up. When hardware accidentally

finds a window in time and travels back in time

to before the Silverhawks left Earth for the

galaxy of Limbo, Flashback follows him and tries

to stop him from sabotaging the Mirage and stopping

the Silverhawks from reaching Limbo. But can

he do it in time? amazing, amazing storytelling

episode right there. And there was one previous

that introduced a character, and we'll get to

them a little bit later, but that introduced

the character flashback that was amazing. I actually

tweeted last night that it may have been one

of the best 80s episodes I've ever seen as far

as storytelling goes, because when they got into

the time travel aspect of Silverhawks and some

of those more sci -fi things, the storytelling

was phenomenal. And it happened about halfway

through to two -thirds of the way through their

65 seasons and really kind of rejuvenated. the

series for me and which is why I didn't really

get bored so quickly with the series. But yeah,

their time telling and time traveling episodes

were pretty good. Yeah. What about you, Paul,

as far as the overall story between the both

shows? In terms of the overall story, in the

writing quality, I think we're looking at, or

at least me, I think we're comparing two things

that really aren't all that equal. We're comparing

something that had two seasons to something that

had one season. Now, because of, you know, the

length of Thundercats, I think we're able to

get more things into it. Where, you know, obviously

you have more story arcs and things of that nature.

Now, that being said, with Thundercats, you're

getting all these different characters and all

these different things coming at you. What I

liked about, and I think, Kevin, you said this,

that with the Silverhawks, you have less characters,

but in my opinion, you had more time spent with

those characters, as opposed to, we have a little

bit of time with this guy, and a little bit of

time with this guy. And it constantly keeps jumping

around with Thundercats. Yeah, there's a lot

more character development in Silverhawks. And

that, you know, for me, that is more quality

writing. When you're able to spend more time

with a character, and develop that personality

and that character itself, you can become more

attached to it and you can determine whether

or not you like it and you can pick parts of

your own personality and you can identify with

certain characters. Whereas if you're just having

a whole bunch of them thrown at you, you're kind

of like left looking back and forth and it's

like, who do I pick? Who's my favorite? Who's

more exciting than someone else? Because they

just don't have as much time to develop. 20 characters

as they do with 10 characters. So for me The

least it wasn't a hundred and thirty in three

episodes. Well, you know that would that would

be bad. Yeah For me, it's just it's it's the

quality of the storytelling and Now that being

said if you had more Seasons with silver hawks

could that have gotten watered down. It's possible.

I You never know but For me, it was just, I was

able to identify with the characters more with

Silverhawks. And that's because of the writing

that was put into them. With shag carpeting,

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That's Napa know -how. Napa know -how. Tim? Yeah,

you were saying it could have gotten watered

down. That was what I was thinking, too. I mean,

I think they're both good, but... you know, even

though Thundercats had two seasons, the more

time the writers could say, okay, we've done

this in season one, where are we going to go

with season two? We've got 65 more episodes to

write, guys. They did a good job with it. Yeah.

But it could very well have just been filler

and could have been You know just crap and it

you know could really left a bad mark on on the

whole franchise But I think they did a good job

with it and likewise with silver hawks, you know

They could have had a second season and could

have really gone places and taken the franchise

in a direction and expanded on what they already

had but you know again, I've watched these episodes

the entire Thundercats run and the volume one

DVDs of silver hawks recently as an adult and

And I just I find Thundercats more enjoyable.

I just the the repetitiveness of the storytelling

Shows for me when watching Silverhawks and maybe

that's because I'm not really a big Fan of the

whole crime and mob Stuff I'm more of an action

of entry guy. I like as I go back to what I talked

about with the settings with Thundercats and

Silverhawks is that the The settings allow for

more diversity in the storytelling. You know,

as you said, bringing in other characters. I

like the snowman and snow meow and, you know,

some of the other characters that they came across

on Third Earth and New Thundera. So my votes

for Thundercats. Paul, just before we move on,

what was your vote? Silverhawks. Alright, I've

I'll try to give my vote here. I'm really torn

because I do like the five parters I do like

a lot of the stuff that that happened in the

second season of Thundercats, but Man, I like

the time traveling aspects of Silverhawks and

the fact that we got to really know the additional

character as well And the fact that they were

recurring and I don't want to penalize Silverhawks

just because it didn't get that second season

because they both Had very limited two parts

or story arcs or continuity if you just take

their first season against each other Goodness

I'm gonna go for the silver hocks Mike. I Already

said thundercats. What about you Steve? I'm gonna

go with Thundercats just cuz I like the The storylines

better It captured my attention It's hard to

beat five -parters and stuff like that Exactly

if they're done, right, right, right Correctly,

yes. Alright, so that does it for the big categories.

We're going to move on to some easier categories

with our next selection. Huh? Chaga? The sword

will never obey in order to destroy Wantonly,

Lion -O. Oh, I was just going to have some fun.

Fun? Your food supplies are plentiful at present.

And those gentle creatures have as much right

to the life force as you do, Lion -O. The sword

will only come to life to combat evil. Do you

understand? Well, yes, Jaga. I guess so, but...

Jaga? Oh, he's gone. I have so many questions.

Well, come in. Wow! Sure is homey. You're Quicksilver,

right? Yes, sir. That's right. Oh, can they serve

stuff, Lieutenant? We're gonna be working together

too closely for all that. Right. Let me introduce...

No offense, Quicksilver, but let's make the intro

short. You're Steelheart, right? And you must

be your little brother Steelwill, right? You

got it. Put it there, Commander. Forget it, I

read your file. Yes, you're the Copper Kid. From

the planet of the mimes, huh? Never been there

myself Colonel bluegrass, right? Mm -hmm Young

for a Colonel. Oh shucks just naturally talented

commander So you're the latest models, huh Pretty

slick And first up in our series of six categories

in a row that are dealing with the characters

The first one is the masters or the mentors so

to speak which we compare Jaga from the Silverhawks

to commander stargazer Oh, sorry. What the fuck?

You know what I meant. Jaga from the Thundercats

to commander stargazer from. Paul's got me all

confused here. Oh come on now wait me it's those

damn californians that commander stargazer from

the silver rocks the two leaders that's what

we're talking about mike started off save me

alright commander stargazer out of the episodes

of silver rocks that i've watched in preparation

for this he's just a hard -nosed drill sergeant

to me he has no real character has no real emotion

other than get the job done and get it done right

except for he does have a lot of connections

to the different Characters that they're hunting

down right experience. He does but He's made

of gold there He's your standard military officer.

He's not you know, he's your standard military

high -ranking officer There might I believe there's

a couple episodes where stuff might hit home

for him Like what wasn't there one having to

do with his wife or something like that? There's

quite a few that that hit home form right, but

Whereas Jugga is your typical dead spirit Okay,

he is your typical Obi -Wan and Anakin and all

that stuff use the force do not do not replace

The original actor with fucking Hayden Christensen.

Thank you very fucking much So Jugga was more

of a teacher he was more of You know teaching

Lionel for the future and and even as a ghost,

you know I mean the ghost of Starscream didn't

teach astro train anything. He just stole his

body, but you know Jaga he's still Making Lionel

learn his lessons as he is still growing up in

in in Lionel's mind So for me this one that goes

to Jaga Tim I think Jage is just awesome. I think

it's because he is that father figure that so

many kids want to have. You want to have someone

who is wise, who can guide you and help you out.

And that's what he's doing with Lionel. He's

giving him guidance and helping him grow. And

Lionel did. He matured during the show. especially

that second season you see where Lionel's not

questioning himself as much and I can't remember

if Jaga even showed up as much in the second

season I want to say he didn't but but yeah Stargazer

I kind of see him similar to what Mike was describing

as kind of this drill sergeant I don't think

he was quite that hard -nosed but he was still

just kind of you know kind of there giving them

direction and he did show emotion but it was

somewhat limited so my votes for Jaga I do like

the fact that Stargazer was the only one made

of gold and that he had the cool eyepiece and

that he had the history of, you know, they brought

villains down that he had originally put in the,

you know, behind bars and, you know, that he's

the one calling for replacements or for the original

Silverhawks. Like, I do think he has more character

than Mike was giving him credit for, but Jaga's

just pretty cool. Unlike Mike, I'm not afraid

to make a vote for the other show. So I will

vote for thundercats on this one anyways Paul

I'm sticking I'm sticking with silver hawks.

I love the the connection that's the the master

as as they're being called to the master to the

main villain of it and how there's a there's

a history between stargazer and monstar and how

Stargazer was you know, I mean he captured them

in the past And now he's too old to really kind

of do it again. And here comes the new group

of Silverhawks that help him out. Well, Jaga

has that same connection with Groon. I mean,

you can make that same argument for Thundercats.

Groon is not the same as Mumrah. So, you know,

while that's nice, that's all well and good,

I don't care what you say. For me, I like that

personal connection. Between the man who is leading

the thundercats or the silver hogs There I go

again. I'm on medication guys. Come on He's on

drugs leading the silver hawks in the battle

against the main villain in the show whereas

Jaga I absolutely agree that I think he's a wonderful

mint and he he trains why you know very well,

it's but But for me, there's not that personal

connection. It doesn't work for me. So I have

to go with Stargazer. Steve? I'm going with...

Jugga. Just because I like the Obi -Wan -ish

type character and the cyber guy kind of looks

like a douche. He's made out of gold! he's working

he's not going to talk about it and golden cyber

douche somebody component of this meant to make

money off them they can help him down for that

uh... So moving on to our next group of people,

the heroes, the heroes that these masters were

mentoring, et cetera. On one side, we have Lion

-O, Tigra, Panthero, and Chitara. We're just

talking about the main original heroes. And on

the Silverhawks, we have Quicksilver, Bluegrass,

Steelwheel, and Steelheart. Now, obviously, like

we said, Lion -O is the young mentor. He's the

main guy. Panthero is the brute force. Chitara

is the speed. And Tigra is supposed to be kind

of the wiser. at least in this series, the wiser,

you know, more disciplined full of integrity

type character, as explained by the series creators.

I'm not making this up. So that's not just my

words. Quicksilver is the leader of the Silverhawks.

You have Steelheart and Steelwill, which are

twins, and they're very strong. And then you

have Bluegrass, who is the pilot and the music

maker of the group. Let's start with Paul on

this one. He haven't started one, I don't think.

So what are your opinions on just the four main

heroes of each series? In terms of the four main

heroes, I One of my favorite characters of all

80s cartoons is Panthro. I make no secrets about

it. I mean, when it came to Thundercats, I loved

Panthro. When it came to Ninja Turtles, I loved

Donatello. When it comes to Transformers, I loved

Wheeljack. I'm into those. And that's one thing

that Panthro, he was, you know, I mean, yes,

he was the brute force, but he was also smart.

I mean, he designed the Thunder Tank. I mean,

he knows what he's doing. I was always very impressed

with him. But now... Overall, in terms of all

the characters, I like the Silverhawks more.

Quicksilver, I liked more because he was already

kind of a confident leader, whereas Lionel was

still trying to... and I like the development

of Lionel into a leader, but I like the fact

that Quicksilver was already there. Bluegrass...

Bluegrass was always kind of weird for me. He

always brought a sense of humor to it, which

I liked, but... Honestly, I remember watching

I was like this guy's pointless I mean he flies

the mirage I was like he doesn't work for me

too much, but now with steel will and steel heart

I mean, obviously you got steel heart who's kind

of like the cheetara. I mean there's there's

parallels with all of them and you know what

steel will with panthro, but I like the fact

that they were brother and sister I like the

fact that they were twins and They had that they

had that connection going obviously there, but

just in terms of the characters overall I have

to pick the Silver Hawks For for me, I don't

care for either of the females in this grouping

Compared to some of the other 80 shows that had

much better female like superhero type characters

Like Shira for example and even Tila and he man

Far outweigh these two So I kind of discount

both female characters as I don't I didn't like

either of them Bluegrass I was obsessed with

as a kid. He was like I was I don't know if it

was the cowboy hat or the blue metal or the Song

and dance or or what awarded the pilot? I don't

know. I for some reason loved bluegrass. He was

the first Silverhawks figure I ever owned So

I loved him and if you were if we were to take

this just as like the two heroes if we were just

comparing Lionel and Quicksilver I would give

it to Silverhawks because I like Quicksilver

way better than I like Lionel. But for me, what

makes the difference in this category is Tigra

and Panthero. I really like Tigra and Panthero

for some reason. And like you said, Panthero

was the one coming up with all the different

devices and building all the things, similar

to what Steel Wheel and Steel Heart were doing,

but Panthero was doing it on his own. Earl Hyman

did a great job, but we'll talk about voices

later. The combination of tiger and pan throw

a little bit outweigh the steel heart and steel

the steel twins as they're called So overall

if we're gonna take all four of them I will take

the Thundercats if we were just going on Lionel

versus Quicksilver though This would be a Silverhawks

vote for me. So Mike Should be no surprise but

Thundercats because they're a family. I never

felt a family vibe with the Silverhawks. They're

all military officers. They're not family. They're

not at all. At least the actual family exists

with the Silverhawks. There's a brother and a

sister. Okay, a brother and a sister. Okay, those

two I can discount, but as far as the overall,

as far as the overall between the four of them,

they're not a family at all. In my opinion, I

mean sure bluegrass is copper kids father, but

other than that Stop it. It goes to it goes to

thundercats because as as Paul said, I always

gravitated towards pan throw pan throw was awesome

Each of the thundercats characters has their

own unique Backstory and character traits lino

is the young leader learning tigra is The middle

-aged wise man, I guess you could say Panthro

is the tinker and she Tara is the hot piece of

ass Yes, she is the animation model So mine goes

to Thundercats, what about you Tim? Yeah, my

post for Thundercats to the silver hawks they

They're not very distinguishable in my opinion.

I find most of them are just rather boring and

I hate those sports metaphors that Steelheart

and Steelwheel are throwing out that just gets

on my nerves. And they're always high -fiving

each other. To me, it's the twins that ruins

it. Yeah. Because Steelheart, I actually like

her. And Steelwheel, I was always a big fan of

these big bulking characters when I was younger.

Just like with Voltron, I was a big fan of Hunk.

He was my favorite of the Voltron force. uh...

and i i love panthro and thundercats too i i

just think that the stronger cast is on the thundercats

and quicksilver he just seems really boring to

me i i think tiger on the thundercats team is

seen as a boring character and i think part that's

probably because of the delivery that the voice

actor gave for his character uh... and i i don't

think he intended to be that way he even said

on one of the comment on one of the special features

on the on the dvds that he didn't He didn't know

he sounded so stiff and boring. But I still think

Quicksilver is just like the blandest leader

I've ever seen in a cartoon. And I like Bluegrass

the most of the Silverhawks. I think he's an

interesting character. If you really want to

look at it, Quicksilver isn't the leader. Bluegrass

is. Yeah, I kind of get that feel, too. Bluegrass

is the second in command. Bluegrass took way

more charge in leading the team than Quicksilver

in the pilot. In terms of actual physical rank,

yeah, Bluegrass was higher ranked than Quicksilver

was. Yeah, because in the pilot, I was trying

to think what rank they said he was, but one

of the guys on the team putting the Silverhawks

team together on Earth, one of the aliens, because

they were aliens actually putting the Quicksilver

team, oh, I did it again, the Silverhawks team

together. It's getting late. Blame it on me.

But one of the guys made a comment about, you

know, what is this cowboy doing here? And one

of the guys said, you know, that cowboy is a

colonel or whatever, you know, commander or whatever

his rank was. And it was meant to say this guy

is a high ranking military officer. So don't

discount him just because he's wearing a cowboy

hat. Yeah, bluegrass is the colonel. And Quicksilver

was just a lieutenant, I believe. Right. And

the other two were sergeants. Yeah. And then

obviously Sargeazer was like the commander of

them. So Quicksilver was the field commander

because Bluegrass usually was in the Mirage and

didn't actually go out and do the actual... So

that's why Quicksilver was in charge of them

in combat, so to speak. But yeah, Steve, what

is your vote for as far as the main heroes go?

I'm voting for... the thundercats because Because

I just think their personality is better than

the rest of them. As far as the thundercats are

concerned somebody's typing I hear bitching going

on I have not read it yet I mean it's it all

boils down to the fact that you know it depends

on your preference of the character styles yeah

you have you know your three males and the one

female in both teams but it's I don't know I

just I think I like the characters better themselves

on thundercats than on silverhawks as far as

the heroes are concerned Yeah, I can see that

I mean there's an easy argument for them having

bigger personalities on the Thundercats And then

the Silverhawks being more somewhat blander or

cookie -cutter so to speak so that makes sense

our next character Discussion might be the hardest

one for me to come up with a winner And that's

the villain of the show the main villain we're

talking mumra versus moon star Now they each

have two forms. This is where we go all transformers

on everybody Because mumra has the decrepit old

mummy like guy and then mumra the ever -living

when he goes crazy and bulks up and Everything

and then you have monstar who is like a furry

beast animal thing That turns into a spiky middle

beast like thing Still very similar in size compared

to the difference in size that we get in with

mumra To me. I think one thing that has to be

brought up with here is that? Mumra can only

be his bigger form in certain conditions right

whereas monstar does need the Moon beam to trigger

his transformation, but nothing necessarily makes

it go away Right He has no kryptonite right so

he is like if you're taking the weaker forms

of both of them moan star is the more badass

weaker guy If you want to say it because he's

still badass in both forms if you're comparing

the two hulked up versions I think they're very

similar Although you do have to say that Mumra

has this magical Wizardry type power whereas

most are is more of a Muscle leave mob leader

type person, right? But I'll let you guys talk

because I still haven't made up my mind on this

one I'm I'm just gonna say one thing one of the

reasons I wish that to me You know monstar is

all about oh, I need the moonbeam. I need this

to power up and he has this badass form before

it looks I I took a screen cap of his of his

left eye glowing and it's so badass and then

he just Turns into a transforming robot. I mean,

that's all it is. It's it's a fucking transformer

It looks like shit to me. I don't like it whatsoever.

So as far as the overall look, I prefer Mumrah.

What does Mon - what does Mon -Star's other form

really give him though? That's what I don't really

quite understand. Well first of all - Hold on,

you gotta understand that number one, we're out

in space, which is - which means that there's

a lot of like laser type fighting. Which is a

different type of fighting than we have in in

thundercats and his metallic version is number

one more Defensible against that than his I guess

what you want to call his beast version or whatever

And it's not just him that transforms. He also

transforms his his vehicle. It's almost like

a he -man transformation where battle cat hulks

up to he has his like Octopus squid thing squid.

Is that what it is? sky runner that turns into

a kind of a badass assault vehicle as well so

it's not just him that's that's doing it it's

his vehicle as well um but um run needs no vehicle

his pyramid is his vehicle right but as far as

like what it does for him um he he does now this

is where it's kind of falls back on the animation

of the 80s there are times when you see him in

his hulked up version that he is gigantic Yeah,

like there's one scene where he's standing next

to I don't even remember who he's standing next

to and he is just hulking over him which he doesn't

do when he's in his Previous version even though

at the surface they seem like they're about the

same size But you got a picture that the the

spiky version is actually a lot bigger. Yeah,

I Just I like the overall design of you know

pre steroid monstar I like both versions of mum

rah So I think I'm going to give it to Mumrah

and give it to Thundercats on this. I like the

wizardry of Mumrah, but I don't like that one

of his versions is so weak, whereas most ours

are both strong. I still haven't made my decision

yet, but Paul, go ahead. Yeah, the thing that

in terms of, you know, Bill and, you know, it's

Mumrah as his regular version is such a weakling.

He can't, it doesn't seem like he can beat anybody

in that form. He has to become his Hulked Up

version. Whereas, at least with Monstar, his

normal version seems like he could actually be

a menace, and actually do something, and not

have to do the transformation. And I know we're

going to talk about this later on, but as a kid,

when you're watching these shows on tv you draw

a connection with them because you're playing

with the toys as well and for me i i always preferred

monstar because the toy was so much cooler i

mean you had you had the toy that you just flipped

it you know his head could flip and you would

have both versions whereas mum rob you just had

the the hulked up version of them and that was

it so for me i i gotta i gotta go with monstar

like For Mumra, Mumra scared me more as a kid.

He was more creepy and scary. But if I was picking

who I wanted to lead my bad guys, I would have

been like, Moanstar is more of a badass. Even

though Mumra is scarier and has his magical powers,

Moanstar is just intimidating as all hell. I'm

still torn. I'm still on the fence. Tim? Steve?

Or Steve. I don't remember who it was. Whoever

wants to talk. Tim, I guess you could go. From

a visual aspect, I like the design of Mumrah

a lot more, both in his weak mummy form and his

bulked -up form. I did like Mondstar, too. I

remember drawing Mondstar as a kid and other

characters like him, because I liked the idea

of the spikes coming out of the head. I thought

that was so cool. Also, I like that Mumrah has

to depend on the ancient Spirits of Evil You

know to perform his transformation and during

the the course of the show there was one point

where the ancient Spirits of Evil decided they

didn't want to help mom raw anymore because he'd

failed so many times to stop the Thundercats

and he was able to come back and and and you

know Gain their favor again become I'm raw but

And really all that monster had to do is have

yes, man pull a few levers to tilt the planet

just right so that the moon star can shine a

beam through and into his eye. And I think that

monstars form before the transformation is much

cooler, like Mike said. So I'm going to vote

for Thundercats. I'm going to vote for Mamra.

The other thing I will say real quick about those

two characters is As far as like I said, you

know mama has magical power so he can do some

stuff that monstar can't if you're basing it

on who was the better leader and fighter and

all that stuff though, like I just think monstar

had He was in battle more. He was used more and

he didn't ever have any of his people ever try

to like Backstab him really to to an extent like

There was a lot of loyalty there. I mean besides

the fact that Sometimes he wouldn't pay them

and they would try to hold out for money or whatever.

No one was trying to Battle with moan star because

he was such a badass, but I guess nobody was

really trying to battle with mum or I either

Steve what do you think about these two guys?

I'm gonna have to go with silver hawks in this

one just because the bad guy looks Like I'm not

too thrilled with his his robotic form, but his

other form looks fucking wicked compared to Mumra.

Mumra just looks like a mummy that's kind of

a knock off a Skeletor and kind of a sissy. Yeah.

So to me, that guy is like weak by comparison,

whereas Mondstar is he just looks like he's a

fiery death trap. Yeah, that is true. The other

thing I want to point out really quickly before

we move on is Mumra in his mummy form Would always

create things whether it's a bat whether it's

Others, you know other man's like they have Power

Rangers He would use he was you he would use

the magic to his advantage I mean, you know take

the episode Tim mentioned earlier about tricking

Tigra and all that stuff, you know he will use

the magic to his advantage, and I think that's

something that Mondstar doesn't have any kind

of advantage like that. The only thing I hated

was that his reflection was his weakness. Yeah.

I got him so many times. Seems like he had a

lot of weaknesses is my problem. Like he had

the cooler speech, that's for sure. As far as

transformation speech, I like, you know, ancient

spirits of evil type thing a little bit better

than Mondstar's even though they're both kind

of iconic. Think what it boils down for me if

I have to pick who's gonna be my big badass boss

leader I want somebody that's badass a hundred

percent of the time not Forty percent of the

time when he doesn't see his own reflection But

I don't want to make this seem like it's a big

dread to me. It's like a fifty point five percent

to forty nine point five I'm barely barely barely

giving this to monestar just because he's badass

in both modes instead of just one So next up

on our group of characters we have to deal with

the rest of the bad guys from both of these shows

With the Thundercats we have the likes of people

like Rattaro, Groon, Vultureman, Monkey and Sly,

then Jackalman and Silverhawks we have Melodia,

Pokerface, Yes Man, Wind Hammer, Mumbo Jumbo,

Buzzsaw Hardware, Molecular and I could throw

in their Time Stopper and a few other people

as well I gotta go first on this one because

I got a lot to say here, but I'll say it quickly

To me this was always always always and I love

thundercats, but this was always the weakest

aspect of the thundercats show was the henchmen

They're Not developed to the point where I don't

know there doesn't seem to be a huge amount of

character development outside of maybe slide

I mean vulture man and jackal man's neither one

of them have a brain if They might as well both

be beast man from he man You know Grune was badass.

I'll give him that but He wasn't used like you

can't count this as the 2011 Grune. This is the

original Grune and He was the baddest out of

all of them as far as the most badass and everything

but To me they just there's something lacking

from the bad guys They all seem like henchmen

to me. Whereas the personalities of the Silverhawks

guys are incredible Poker face, you know being

the casino type guy and having His eyes I love

his eyes his eyes change and make different things

like one time he gets knocked out and one eye

says K and the other says oh or they'll come

up with you know clubs or hearts or spades or

Different stuff on his eyes. That's cool. Yes,

man, even though he is the weakest and just like

the Little whipping boy of monestar. I love the

characterization of him and how he speaks straight

out of like just old -school like Cool like mobster

type persona there Windhammer had powers beyond

control as far as his cyclones and tornadoes

mumbo -jumbo was kind of whatever I could care

less. He was a bull that never hit anything Bus

I had a lot of spinning spikes and blades and

stuff. So he was cool hardware Came up with so

many things hardware. It was like the device

Master he would come up with the sky shadow He'd

come up with all kinds of different effects and

stuff He obviously we talked about melodia with

her music and molecular was just badass with

his turning into different forms And Timestopper

was something I don't think I'd ever seen before

at that point in the 80s, was a character who

could literally hit his belt and everything would

freeze for one minute, and he could do whatever

he wanted to for a minute before everything else

came to life. There was just a lot more diversity,

personality. I love the Silverhawks villains,

and to me, outside of Mumrai and maybe Groon,

the Thundercats villains were just there, just

so they could have a story. There was nothing

to them. Paul, what do you have to say about

the villains? I Mean you bring up a terrific

point When you look at the bag at least for me

when you look at the bad guys for undercats all

of them Seem like they need to have Mumra They're

his henchmen. They're they're there for him.

Whereas with the super hawks I can really see

all of them being successful villains on their

own I mean, if you were to look at, you know,

like a mob setting, you know, I could see all

of them being the head bosses of individual mobs

that are working with Monstar. And Molecular,

I mean, he was always my favorite. Just, he was,

I mean, just absolutely ridiculously badass.

So... For me, it's it's I think they're better

characters simply because on their own they could

be successful Probably not as successful, but

at least you know outside of what you said with

Groon None of the other henchmen for Mumra really

I think could make it on their own as bad guys

And it's to me. It's like if Skeletor was surrounded

by seven beastmen Like there's no yeah There's

no diversity between some of these characters.

Now, I'll give you, Sly has a little bit more

brains working for him, and Groon obviously has

the historic badassness, but like Vulture Man,

Monkian, and Jackal Man, there's no difference

between those three characters. Besides how they

speak and that they're different animals, they're

the same character. To me, they're not deep enough.

There's not enough to the Thundercats villains.

I know these other guys are going to say otherwise.

I know. Go ahead, Mike. I'll let Tim go first.

Go ahead, Tim. OK, Mike, I like the Thundercats

villains. I especially like Groon. I think he's

one of the strongest of the Thundercat villains

to be in the series. And there were villains

here and there. But yeah, the four main villains

really did depend on Mumrah. Silver Hawk villains

there was more diversity there, and they certainly

seemed more competent at least You know most

of them You know buzz saw I'm not sure he was

one of the strongest of the villains, but And

then same thing with mumbo -jumbo as you said,

but the other ones were very strong characters

I really like Melodia She's always a joy to watch

I like episodes with her in it. I think when

hammers really cool. He's really you know, really

cool design character. It seems somewhat simple,

but I really like his design. Yeah, and Poker

Face, he's cool. I like the molecular. Looks

like a bunch of molecules stuck together and

he can transform into other things to disguise

himself. He looks like the dude with the fruit

of the looms. Great. He looks like the great

dude. And even though that slide and Hardware

look so similar and they sound similar You think

oh, you know, it's basically the same mold. They

just you know create these two separate characters,

but hardwares He's really cool. I mean, he's

always got some trick up his sleeve He's always

got some other gadget that he's ready to to use

against the Silverhawks and you know I I do think

that the Silverhawk villains Are better and I'm

gonna have to give my vote to Silverhawks on

this one like Fucking traitor. All right first.

Oh, don't even you have there's no party lines

here All right, first things first Melody needs

to go join the misfits because she just doesn't

fit to me She needs to go join Pizazz and the

Misfits. She's awesome, I like her, but she just

doesn't fit with the rest of the gang to me.

You know, Wind Hammer, his weapon's a goddamn

tuning fork, really? Compared to what, Jackalman's

weapon? Yeah, come on. At least he actually had

a weapon. What was it? Tell me what Jackalman's

weapon was. The bow. The staff. Oh, how creative.

Hey, at least it's an actual weapon instead of

a fucking tuning what the tuning fork does master

of mastery things there with the hurricanes Let

me pull out a bow watch what I can do with this

big stick. You probably can't even tell me what

Monkean's weapon is None Chuck's Monkean is essentially

Michelangelo. So we got a bow and I'm Chuck's

okay, so And the thing about Vultureman, you

guys mentioned Vultureman earlier. Vultureman

essentially is a panthero for the villains. He's

the one making all the stuff, making all the

vehicles, putting shit together. This category

is just going to prove one thing to me. That

you're not looking at this in any type of objective

standpoint. This is by far a landslide for Silverhawks.

Yeah. No, not at all. You have a level of retardation

that I don't think has ever been properly diagnosed

You live in California, there's more retards

out there Anyways, going back to this Geroon

For what he does show up because he you know

He eventually goes away after a while and he

and Jaga end up fighting in the stars forever

I liked it. I liked him as a character. He was

pretty cool I don't know, I just don't like the

whole mob thing with the Silverhawks. It reminds

me of bad DC villains, really. What in limbo

is wrong with you? So we really don't even need

to talk to you the rest of the time. We'll just

give your vote to the Thundercats and move on.

Shut up. Yeah. Steve, what's your thoughts on

the villains? Um... Feel free to vote for Thundercats.

I don't want to make it sound like I'm going

to rip on you for that. I'm only ripping on Mike

because he's had 13 consecutive Thundercats votes.

That's the only reason I'm ripping on Mike. Did

you just say Silvercats? Yeah, probably. If I

say Silvercats, that means I'm voting for both.

Dang it. And that's not allowed. Honestly, all

these villains look like ass. Like literal ass?

Yes, like literal ass. But SuperHawks screams

80s cheese. Yes, it does. You've got Jem and

the villains. These came out in the 80s. You

can't hold back against them. I can too. In 2012,

yes you can, but not in the 80s. Shut your pie

hole. Yes, master. Um, yeah, I mean You get friggin

Igor you get a bowl you get somebody it looks

like from Power Rangers with the bubbles all

over his head. I mean In granted I haven't seen

enough to really tell their personalities enough

But just from seeing that alone I'm gonna have

to go with thundercats as far as the villains

because they at least are consistent Consistent

and that's purely on seeing them and not having

seen enough episodes to see them in action. So

let that be heard Across the board here, right?

What I will say is The original foreign thundercats

they all have their faults slide was a little

bit more sinister But once Rattaro came in Rattaro

was like, I mean essentially when Rattaro joined

the cast The other four were basically his lieutenants

at that point because Retaro was meant to be

this huge giant evil general person. And he kicked

so much ass when he entered the scene. I'm glad

your vote didn't count too much, Mike. Going

on to the next category, which is the sidekicks.

Because come on, it can't be an 80s cartoon without

a sidekick. I'm already going to stab you. We've

seen so many horribly annoying sidekicks from

Orko to Scrappy Doo to... I'm just kidding. I

didn't say that. So in this one, we have Snarf

and the Copper Kid. And I actually don't hate

either one of these characters, but I think Copper

Kid is probably the least annoying sidekick in

80s lore. I know he doesn't speak and he's from

the Planet of Mimes and whatnot, but there was

something I really liked as a kid about Copper

Kid. You know, I like Snarf, too. He's a little

more annoying, though. And I don't know. Copper

Kid was kind of cool. And he had this that he

took out of his hip and flung at people. Paul,

what do you think about the sidekicks? I think

you're right on that when it comes to Snarf and

Copperkid, we're doing a presidential election

where you pick the lesser of two evils. I mean,

Snarf, the biggest problem that I had with him

was he was always, always, always questioning

everything that everybody was doing for good

or bad. You know, like, are you sure you want

to go over there? I mean, stop it. I mean, at

some point in time, just let Lionel go be a retard

and fall down a cliff. OK, that's which. Which

he was so annoying on the 80s show, even though

I still kind of liked him, he was so annoying

that that's why they don't allow him to speak

on the 2011 version. Exactly, and I love that.

Love it. Now, with Copper Kid, I actually dug

him, like I said earlier, I mean I love the fact

that they utilized the mathematical rhythms of

the different beeps and the tones and things

in his speech. I thought that was really cool,

plus there was always that that connection again

as a child at you know and we'll talk about this

later on where at the end of the show you know

he would always do his little education lesson

that that i always really enjoyed actually so

copper kid while kind of an annoyance in both

of these series i think could have benefited

from both of snarf and copper kid not existing

in them I think copper kid is the lesser of the

two evil. So I'm picking copper kid is my favorite

Tim a lot of people hate sidekicks in cartoons

and A lot of people mention snarf when when you

start talking about sidekicks that they just

absolutely hate But I I actually liked him. I

found him kind of a lovable character. He didn't

bother me when I was younger He didn't bother

me when I was trying to watch the show again

as an adult. Now, the other snarf, snarfer, and

the rest of that race, there were several of

those characters that annoyed me quite a bit.

But yeah, I thought he was a good character.

He was there to watch over Lionel. That was his

job to try to protect him. So I didn't really

have a problem with him. Copper kid he's he's

okay. He added some color to the team. It's a

different color I did like the discs that he

would throw so that was a cool aspect to his

character, but yeah, you know, I I really He

had more of an impact and an effect on the actual

Like he took part in the battles and took on

the bad guys won, you know mano -a -mano at times

which is Snarf was more like oracle. He would

only do that by dumb luck. I don't know if that's

a vote for either one of them, but Yeah, snarf

is definitely not a fighter. He's not built for

it Although in some episodes I noticed how large

he looks sometimes Well, those episodes are probably

after Snarfer landed on Third Earth or New Thundera,

because once Snarfer came in, it actually gave

Snarf some character development of saying, hey,

look, you have this nephew that you need to look

after. And at that point in time, Lionel had

already grown up enough where he didn't need

a nursemaid anymore. So Snarf had more character

development in dealing with his nephew, Snarfer,

than anything else. for me I Didn't care for

either of them as a kid But going back and watching

both cartoons and watching different episodes

Copper kid annoyed me less and less. Oh My god

as a kid You're on the fence throughout this

fucking episode, you can't call either way, you

asshole. I'm on the fence, jackass. As a kid,

I probably learned more as far as test -taking

from CopperKid than anything else as far as the

PSAs go, so my vote actually goes to CopperKid

and SilverHawks. Oh my god. Oh my god. He did

it. He said the words. Shut up. And hell froze

over. Yeah, what are your thoughts Steve um Well,

I'm a fan of snarf as Much as I can't stand the

sure sure sure like constantly um I I still found

him more amusing Obviously because copper kid

doesn't say anything, but I'm not a fan of anybody

that doesn't say anything in his show With the

exception of snake eyes Fair enough. We have

been tortured with the non -speaking characters

lately. Yeah, I mean, Transformers Prime, we

have two of them. Alright, well, that's a discussion

for another day. I don't want to get into that

debate. I understand that. However, that still

applies to why I chose what I chose. You've got

to snap out of it, Lion -O! Call the Thundercats

before - Shut up, you fuck. As far as - our last

character one we have the the new characters

that came in either midseason or between seasons

or or wherever some of them came in at different

times but the new thundercats were lynxel pamiro

and bangali and they knew i said thundercats

right yes new silver hawks i'm never gonna say

these correct again now after this episode we're

a hot wing oh fucking paul's fault hot wing flashback

condor and moon striker now Hot wing was introduced

a little before the rest of them and then flashback

came in and then condor and moon striker came

in on the same episode Whereas the three thundercats

thundercats all came in at the same time Real

quickly on the thundercats. I always thought

Ben Galley looked awesome. Even though he's basically

another version of tiger I always thought visually

he looked cool and he had a cool weapon Going

back and watching the episodes though when he

shows up he's hard to watch like I don't know,

we'll talk about voices later, but the voice

is bad for him. You know, you thought Tiger was

slow and square -like. It's worse with Bengali.

And I wanted to like him because he looks cool

to me, you know, the Bengal Tiger look and everything,

but he was just awful in the actual animation

aspects of the show. Whereas Linkso looked like

a badass and was pretty much a badass. I can't

say anything bad about Linkso. To me, Pamyra

was neither here nor there. She was a non -issue

for me. For the Silverhawks, Moonstriker is one

of the gayest characters I've ever seen in my

life. He looks like Steel Will's dad. So we will

just take Moonstriker with his blonde hair and

blue body and discount him. So we're now looking

three against three. Condor was cool because

he was like the old grizzled veteran that was

around when Stargazer was that's now coming back.

He'd kind of been doing his own thing for a while

and now he comes back. uh... hot wing was like

the dude from mike tyson's punch out that had

the little thing is he's like magic howling could

do all kinds of crazy stuff and he was the first

silverhawks figure ever had so i have a special

spot for him but his his first episode he's in

is really cool because all the other than it

gets the captured and he comes in and and sprees

a lot of other cats over all with his magic you

know what i mean and flash an episode flashback

is part of some of the best silverhawks episodes

in the whole run, because he's the time traveler.

He's the one that can basically manipulate himself.

And he also has a pretty cool design. That's

not a great picture in the script, but there's

better pictures on the link I gave you guys.

But he's got a cool design, and he's all the

time travel episodes. So to me, I like Condor,

Hot Wing, and Flashback, whereas on the Thundercat

side, I only like Linkso. even though I wanted

to like Bengali. So my vote for this one is for

the Silverhawks. I'll let Tim go next. This is

where I think the Thundercats had a better cast

of new characters, because not only did they

have the good guys you're talking about here,

but they also had the Loon attacks that came

in. So I want to include them as part of this

as well. Because when you bring in new characters,

it can almost be the death knell for a show You

know if they're if they're not interesting if

people don't like them then people go okay, you

know, this is this is the jump the shark moment

and And we'll just be done with the show On the

other hand the Silverhawks characters that they

brought in added more personality to The team

and the show like you said with hot wing the

episode where he showed up I was like, oh, yeah,

you know, this guy's awesome and then he was

gone And I know I don't remember seeing the episodes

with flashbacks so that must have come later

in season one Yeah, it came about episode 40

something. Yeah, and I don't remember condor

or moon striker and In those episodes either

and I haven't seen those those shows in such

a long time that I can't really comment on on

their personalities, but But yeah links though.

He was He was a really cool character another

strong character kind of like pan throw but also

very wise like Jogger To see that the Silverhawks

brought in new characters and tried to be more

racially diverse and then the the Thundercats

brought in new characters and were more diverse

as far as like the handicapped so Sorry, that

was just irrelevant, but Yeah, so and yeah, I

like the Loonatacks too. So when they brought

in, you know, the new Thundercat characters They

brought in the Loonatacks as well and that added,

you know more villains with them for them to

You know pull into the cast and use them to create

more diverse stories. So So yeah, I like the

Thundercats new characters more than Silverhawks

Mike? Thundercats. Because it goes back to the

origin story. Because originally, Linkso, Bengali,

and Pumira were going to escape with the Thundercat

Nobles. uh, or they were going to attempt to

because when they were trying to escape, because

on, on Thun, on Thun, I almost said Thundar.

Wow. This is not Thundar the Barbarian over here.

Um, fuck. Um. When they were trying to escape

because the entire planet was trying to escape

Their ship got damaged because of all the earthquakes

or whatever it was or the planet exploding They

tried to get to the noble ship, but they could

never get there They then came back and told

that story of how they wanted to be on the noble

ship ship at that time Link so as as Tim said

is kind of filled the jogger roll a little bit

Yes, Jaga still appears and everything else,

but he kind of fills that at this point. And

you basically, at this point, had two separate

teams. You had the original Nobles at Cat's Lair,

and you had Linkso, Pumira, and Bengali at Tower

of Omens. Yeah. So they're basically two outposts.

And that's what I liked best about it was it

was two completely different teams and tons of

different personality. If Ben Galley would have

been as cool as he looked, I might have been

able to get on with you guys. But to me, it's

just links though, and the other two are just

not as good. But Paul, what do you think? I like

what Mike said about how you had two different

kind of teams going on. But that being said,

that really kind of, as a kid, would always pull

my interest. As a kid, I already had a ridiculously

bad attention span. I couldn't focus on more

than one thing. Just like now. Well, yeah, pretty

much. Well, yeah, it's kind of weird how that

turns out. But, you know, with Silverhawks, I

think some of the best storytelling that I've

seen in a very long time, like Kevin was saying,

was the whole time travel aspect. And Flashback

brought that into it. And it really entertained

me. It was definitely something that was neat

and you got to see You know a little bit more.

I don't want to say history, but you know You

see you see more with stargazer and things of

that nature But um and and I'll go out and say

it regardless of how gay he looks. I actually

liked moon striker He was cool because he could

self -propelled he could self -propelled, but

I liked I liked his his arrogance That was always

something that really kind of appealed to me

Which again might play to how I am as an adult.

I don't know but I mean so Those two characters,

you know really really did I mean when they came

in I enjoyed episodes with them hot wing Throw

them on the Barbie and cook them up. There you

go. Yeah, I wasn't I wasn't all that people are

going to be like, it's because he was black,

right? No, it's because of his name. The name

didn't bother me. It was just, you know, for

me, there was always a stark difference between

Thundercats and Silverhawks. Sometimes I would

get confused and, you know, it would actually

be Thunderhawks. But there was, you know, there

was the whole sciency aspect that the Silverhawks

brought in, you know, the technology and clients

and things like that. You're in space. And Thundercats

was more of a mystical sort of thing. When Hawin

came in, it was kind of like you're bringing

that mysticism into Silverhawks. And that always

kind of bugged me. I never got a good feel with

that. He had a cool voice, though. Anyway. He

had a cool voice. Speaking of voices, though,

Condor I absolutely loved because he sounded

like Humphrey Bogart. He did. I always thought

that that was just cool. I mean, I could have

cared less about anything that that dude did.

As soon as he talked, I was like, oh, it's so

cool. So just in terms of the newer characters

that came in, Silverhawks were always better

for me. I mean, the Thundercat ones, they just

never did anything for me. It was always, like

Mike said, there was two groups of them. And

I was more emotionally attached to the original

group. They got more of the screen time, and

I could never really get attached to the new

guys. Steve, you have to break another tie. Oh,

no. We can make it $40 right here. $200, you

got a deal. Nice. Don't base it off the crappy

pictures I put in the script, please. All righty

then. You can do it you can do it yeah links

on condor the two old guys That's the only comparisons

I can make between the two groups I'm gonna be

an ass to you, but yes think that while innovative

on the on both sides actually I mean because

both of them have at least these humans on silver

hawks look a little more diverse I'm not quite

a fan of them either though I'm still gonna have

to go with the thundercats on this one Now you

just lost the 20 bucks that you made earlier.

You are winning! Alright. I'm winning. Moving

on past, we've had enough characters for now,

we're done with the characters. So we're moving

on to some other stuff, starting with weapons.

Weaponry. Just a quick rundown, you know, with

Thundercats we have stuff like Sword of Omens,

with its Sight Beyond Sight, we have the Bolas,

we have the Nunchucks. with the open -away cat

paws, we have the bow staff, the little ball

gimmicks that the two kids have, and that's just

talking about the heroes, so to speak. Silver

hawks, obviously we have the army of hawks, all

the different birds that each one had, which

each had their own abilities. The razor -edged

dis that a copper kid had. Just in essence, their

bodies are weapons. They're bionic bodies. They

have metal armor. They have wings that are retractable.

They have a protective mask that they can put

on and not. They have thrusters on their elbows.

They also have, well, some on the elbow, some

on the feet. They have laser weapons at different

spots of their body. So that's just kind of with

the heroes, if we were talking about villains.

there's a whole different range of them. And

like we said, Bengali had the cool hammer. Mike

said that the villains for Thundercats were basically

the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. With the Thundercats,

it's a lot more actual like handheld weapons,

like you would see on like the Turtles or like

He -Man or this or that. Whereas Silver Fox,

it's a lot more technology, I guess, is how you

can sum it up. Mike, what are your thoughts on

the different types of weaponry? I like the military

weapons for what they are. I like how you're

going up against a mob who's going to use guns.

You're going to need more than a sword that has

magical powers. But at the same time, the mutants

and the Luntaks and Rattaro and all those guys,

they all had some sort of blaster or something.

I think it's gonna go to Thundercats for me simply

because of what each Thundercat was able to do

with their weapons. And it's more hand -to -hand,

more martial art -like combat. If you could choose,

if you could choose to carry around a bow staff,

or if you could have a body that is a weapon

of itself, which would you choose? Neither. I

want the Sword of Omens, damn it. Well, that's

kind of cheating. no it's not cheating it's it's

the right fucking answer but no i gotta give

it to thundercats on on this one simply because

of how each individual person use their weapons

in their own because it's not often that you

know in the same line i was off you know fighting

snow me out you know sure he's gonna call the

thundercats in after about five minutes but that's

five minutes of him battling on his own you know

Same thing with Chitara or Panthero. My vote

goes to Thundercats. What about you, Tim? I kind

of feel like this is similar to the heroes and

villains discussion. I feel like, you know, there

I felt like Thundercats had the better heroes

and Silverhawks had more well -defined villains

and it's kind of the same way here. I feel like

the thundercats or the heroes they get the cool

weapons and The villains not so much Whereas

with silverhawks, it was kind of opposite, you

know, the the good guys has had their laser Guns

on their shoulders and yeah, they had their wings

so they could fly They did have the Hawks and

each one of them got a hawk in one episode I

remember that. But the villains in Silverhawks...

Let's all go to the pet store! Let's all go to

the pet store! Those hawks are badass, but yeah,

like you're saying, the villains had some cool

weapons. Yeah, the villains had the cool weapons

in Silverhawks. But I love the Thundercats weapons,

and you just can't beat the Sword of Omens, so

the vote is for Thundercats. Paul? Again again,

I draw to What what I loved as a kid and Playing

with the toys and again, I know we're gonna talk

about this later on But so she could probably

already put my vote down for the toy aspect.

Um, it's I loved playing with the toys and having

those wings and When I saw those, you know them

flying around on TV as soon as I saw that all

of them in my opinion had a sword of omens, with

the exception of bluegrass. But, you know, that

was the cool thing. You put your arms down, you

lift it up, and you got wings and you're flying

around. But could wings really be defined as

a weapon? I don't know. Well, probably not so

much a weapon as it got them into a place where

they could use their weapon. Well, turn them

each into a fighting jet, basically. Oh, yeah.

Good answer. Good answer. So if a fighter jet's

a weapon... So here's one other theory that...

I'll go back to what Kevin said earlier about

trying to make sense of things. How do wings

work in space when there's no freeze? Well, you

can't... If we were to dissect these about the

space and the right or wrong as far as what they

get away with... We would be here for five hours

past what we've already been here for. Yeah,

they did have jets in their feet though. So,

okay. Sorry, sorry to interrupt. Well, you could

also say how could they talk in the vacuum of

space, but that's neither here nor there. Yeah,

that's the other thing that bugs me. Oh god,

here we go. But you also have a planet of a whole

bunch of animals running around, and they're

not in the Milky Way galaxy, as Mike has already

explained to us before, so they're in a different

galaxy where all the laws of physics don't apply.

You know, weapons, it's... You know, I mean,

like I said, I like the wings, so I always looked

at that as they all had that special ability,

like the Sword of Omens gave Lionel, and to my

recollection, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm probably

wrong, but the only thing that the Sword of Omens

did was got bigger and gave Lionel Scythe beyond

sight. Did it actually, I mean, it didn't help

him really do anything. Not really, no. I mean,

it was just a big -ass sword. I mean, that was

all, I mean, so the only thing that the Sword

of Omens could really benefit somebody, if you

were to take Lionel and put him up against Quicksilver,

the only thing that the Sword of Omens would

protect him from would be Tallyhawks smacking

him from the back of the head. See the hawks

is what does it for me. Yeah, I mean, I have

to, I mean, I have to give the edge to the Silverhawks

just on those, on the hawks. I mean, each one

of them had a hawk that had a different ability

and whatnot. And to me, it's also what Tim said,

is the bad guy's weapons were better, too, because

you had Poker Face, which had his little staff

thing that could shoot all kinds of different

stuff out of it. You had the Wind Hammer. Yeah,

don't forget the tuning fork. Yeah, the tuning

fork, which was badass. Momestar had a pretty

cool little gun that he used. But then you had

these hawks that were like each had their own

abilities which and to me if you're gonna Give

me a choice carry some num trucks, which I'm

probably gonna hit myself with and hurt myself

Carry a bow which could be broken by any sword

that anyone else was carrying or fly around thank

god tv's mr neil is not on this episode because

we would get into a dual lightsaber battle of

how uncool it is because it would cut your fucking

arm off i'm just saying you have these you have

your choice of carrying nunchucks or a bow around

or you have a choice of being suited with metal

armor being able to fly and shoot lasers out

of your body why are we talking about this no

kid would choose a bow over a metal armored suit

with wings and lasers We're talking about this

because you put it in the fucking script. Sorry,

my vote's for the Silverhawks. Steve? Oh, there's

gonna be some pissed off people tonight. I'm

going to have to go with Silverhawks on this

one. And it's not that I wouldn't want to have

the Sword of Omens, but as stated, it's sight

beyond sight and you have a big fucking sword

yes it's cool but I would rather have a freaking

suit of armor that I could pound the shit out

of somebody that's annoying me yeah so I I would

rather have the gear it I mean think about it

it's like running around as iron man basically

and then you also have a pet bird that's gonna

kick people's ass yeah so it's kind of hard to

argue with that I agree All right next category

I am so on the fence with this one is ridiculous,

but I will admit we're talking about vehicles

and We can talk about all the vehicles. I just

put pictures of the main vehicles, which are

the Thunder Tank and the Mirage. I don't think

it's spelled like that, but... Since Kevin is

on the fence, I'm actually gonna go first on

this one because... I just want to make sure

we're not just talking about these two, but you

can focus on these two. Right, you're right.

We can talk about all the different vehicles

from both series. But the main two are the Thunder

Tank and the Mirage. And you did spell it correctly.

Okay. That's how they do spell it. That's what

I thought. When I first, because I haven't...

Besides the I wasn't really paying attention

to the Mirage when I was watching the cartoons

back But just looking at this image Paul does

that remind you of anything that has come out

in the current day toy line for Thundercats?

It kind of looks like the 2011 Thunder Tank and

damn fucking right as you you know, so They combine

both of them. Yeah The Mirage was just it was

a transport vehicle it was a no no no stop stop

you gotta stop right there wrong because first

of all the the front section like it's like the

star ship enterprise and can disengage from the

rest of the body and go solo on a flight right

it can but essentially things shoot out you know

they do but essentially through most of the episodes

that i watched it was the silver hawks on their

own flying through space okay I will say that

stargazer had his own motorcycle space motorcycle

And then they each had their own little individual

vehicle on top of the Mirage to Whether it be

a flying vehicle or a motorbike of some sort

even though it's in space shush the Thunder tank

was just cooler for me it could go over mountains

and through streams and trees and icicles and

That's right, the Thunder Tank, between the Mirage

and the Thunder Tank, the Thunder Tank was just

cooler for me, especially when you put that music

to the Thunder Tank because it was so awesome.

As far as other vehicles like the Fee Liner and

all that stuff, I like them, but nothing really

beat the Thunder Tank. The thing is, to me, Thunder

Cats, you only had vehicles really with the Thunder

Cats. yeah I mean as far as prevalence as far

as how often you see them whereas like the mutants

had the gliders that they used a lot yeah they

had the gliders slide had the nose diver yeah

when it comes to the villains vehicles though

I really like the fact that the Silverhawks each

had their like 1920 style like space cruisers

vintage squid give me a fuck no and the squid

Yeah, I shadow you had the taxi cab you had a

lot of cool like vintage like earth type things

as well as your futuristic space like Mirage

type vehicles I do think the Thunder tank was

badass and I do think a lot of the Thunder cats

vehicles are badass I just didn't care for much

of the mutants vehicles. I mean, I know that

logistics How the fuck does a squid survive in

fucking space? the same way cats talk put that

in your pipe and smoke it shut up realistic these

are cartoons these are cartoons there's no realistic

part well my vote goes to thundercats all right

paul talk about the vehicles you know for me

it's you know we were talking about this before

with with weapons and i kind of i kind of Showed

my hand a little bit. I consider all the Silverhawks

with built -in vehicles And I always thought

that that was absolutely ridiculously cool Build

upon that you have the Mirage which which kind

of like was a Okay, we got to go a little bit

further than our wings can take us. So we're

gonna hop in here I really you know and Mike

Mike you actually kind of helped me with this

because I was kind of on the fence about it When

I got the new thunder cap or the thunder tank

from the 2011 series it made me want to go to

eBay and buy a mirage Because it reminded me

of how much I thought that thing was cool And

I'm absolutely not gonna buy one because that's

the most ridiculously priced vintage Yeah, we'll

get to that in a second, but um you know I mean,

I think that the thunder tank is very cool looking

but to me it Kevin, you made the joke about how

it could go over everything. And while it can,

to me it just seemed limiting. I go with the

Mirage, and I love the fact that as soon as Bluegrass

separated it, the back rear section could disappear.

That is a cloaking device. Yeah, I thought that

was cool. So, I mean, that part's hidden. and

answers that age -old question about what happens

to Optimus Prime's trailer when he transforms?

What happens to the back of the Mirage? Well,

yeah, what happens to the back of the Mirage

when it disappears? Well, it disappears. But

Bluegrass would acknowledge it and he'd be like,

stay here. Right, exactly. I mean, he would still...

It's on autopilot. Yeah, and I love the... I

mean, obviously you had Panther with his connection

to the Thunder Tank, but... Bluegrass just seemed

a whole lot more connected to the mirage probably

because that was the only way he could get anywhere

so I mean it was that I mean the mirage was his

buddy that was his sidekick and I mean it almost

was like the mirage itself was a whole nother

character unto itself so I'm going with the mirage

Tim I thought Mike was gonna go there but Yeah,

no, I mean, I thought you're gonna go a different

direction when you were talking earlier. Oh,

really? I think some of our listeners might remember

a show called G -Force or Battle of the Planets.

And that's what the Mirage reminds me of is the

Phoenix from that cartoon. It's somewhat similar

in its design. And each character had a vehicle

that would transport them to the spaceship or

in some cases be taken into or lifted up into

the spaceship. So Mirage kind of reminds me of

that. I think it's a really cool ship. I like

the design. It is sort of a transport ship. It

does have some unique features to it. Like I

said, the center pod can... Eject from that and

bluegrass can fly around in it and it has weaponry

and then he can make the back part disappear

for a brief time Or even a long time I guess

but But yeah, I I really like the Thunder tank

You know when you see it, you just know what

it is. I think it's so unique in its design It

really stands out from anything else I've seen

or remember seeing in cartoons And the secondary

vehicles, like the gliders that we mentioned,

the feline and those things, they're OK. But

those aren't things I look at and go, oh, wow,

I want that toy. But when you see the Thunder

Tank, it's like, I want that. Or when you see

the Mirage, you say, I want that toy. And especially,

we get to the toy discussion later, I know. But

yeah, the Mirage was really cool because the

toys actually fit inside those pods. So that

was pretty neat. It's it's difficult to choose

honestly like if you were just taking the secondary

vehicles against each other I think the silver

Hawks would have an edge I think if you're just

taking the Thunder tank against the Mirage Maybe

the Thunder tank gets an edge, so it's kind of

hard when you take them all together I'm torn

too. Did you did you have a vote or are you still

torn? Yeah I think I'm gonna vote Thunder cats

on this one Just slightly over the Silverhawks.

They both had some pretty cool vehicles, especially

those main two that you'd really want to own

as a kid, and I never owned either one of them.

Yeah, I didn't either. Steve, what are your thoughts

on the vehicles? Well, just based on these particular

two, the Thunder Tank and the Mirage, not to

knock the Thunder Tank, but it looks like a rejected

G .I. Joe mobile. The thunder tank is better

than any GI Joe tank ever made Maybe differ but

did you watch it? Did you watch it in the show

much Steve or are you just going by design? I'm

going by design Okay, I can see where that would

would play a role in your it I could see where

it could be better as far as the show, but they've

never fought Cobra, so it's kind of a moot point.

Wopro would kick Cobra commander's ass any day.

This I command. Yeah, I don't particularly care

for it because it looks like a rejected like

snowcat or you know It does have paws that go

up and down in a mouth that goes up and down,

but it does look like a snowcat I'll give you

that and I mean just from the back treads I prefer

sky fire. I mean mirage Don't you mean jet fire

It's sky fire it just has two extra things on

either side cockpits I'll say this. I like that

vehicle a lot better. Okay. If we were just going

off of the two, Thunder Tank versus Mirage, my

vote would be for Thunder Tank. I think just

one -on -one it was the cooler vehicle, so I

will say that for the ThunderCats fans out there.

But if we're going for vehicles overall in the

entire show, I like the Silverhawks vehicles

better. So a half a vote for Thunder Tank, but

a whole vote for the Silverhawks. Moving on now

to a completely different category. We're almost

done. We just got about five categories left

here. Our next category is voice acting, the

voices of the shows. Now, this is an interesting

one because, you know, we do this when we have

cartoons against each other and we will in the

future. This one's interesting because it's basically

the same voice cast for both of them with a few

exceptions. And the main exceptions here are

Thundercats. We had Earl Hyman from Cosby fame.

Grandpa Cosby, as Panthero. And in Silverhawks

we had Adolf Caesar as Hotwing. But the main

difference to me is the females. Lynn Lipton

as Chitara in Thundercats versus Maggie Wheeler

as all of the females. Well, Lynn Lipton was

basically all the females in Thundercats until

Jerry and Raphael came around. And Maggie Wheeler

was the female voice for all the Silverhawks.

So that's the main difference. Otherwise you

have the same Larry Kenny, Peter Newman, Bob

McFadden, Earl Hammond. We're in both shows.

So their voices are pretty Like well known well,

well, I'm just saying we can kind of watch them

out because they're in both shows I mean, but

quicksilver is Tiger, you know, that's why probably

why Tim why you were saying they're somewhat

both kind of boring because it's the same voice

so quicksilver and tiger the same voice whereas

You know Lionel and bluegrass with the country

accent are the same voice So they kind of flipped

roles and that shape um monstar and mumara are

the same voice for me without going into the

individual characters it boils down to the females

and mike you should know where this is going

because lin lipton here we go is one of the worst

female voice actors of all time The voice of

chitara. I like the character. I like everything

else and trust me guys I listen to a lot of voices

on a daily basis and lynn lipton is terrible

Whereas maggie wheeler who now you can hear in

most notably probably like shows like the archer

And you've seen her on tv. She's the very much

like fran drescher as far as her one voice goes

But maggie wheeler is a much better voice actress

So I like the females in and silver hawks better

than Oh What the hell's her name um In friends

um Any of you guys watch friends yeah, you're

talking about the Fran Drescher type character

Yeah, the one that would that would constantly

keep going out with Chandler. Yeah That's just

I mean, I'm looking at her picture. It looks

at the exact same. Oh my god But she doesn't

use that voice always no, I know On the special

features, she actually spoke about this and she

said it was this role as Melodia that where she

discovered she had that annoying because that's

not her regular voice, obviously. She doesn't

normally speak like she does on Friends, but

it was it was this role that kind of showed her

that, you know, grading kind of. annoying voice

that she used later as Janice on Friends, but

you know, she doesn't use it when she talks with

Steelheart. You know, her voice is different

in that situation. So I just love her voice if

compared to Lynn Lipton who is terrible. But

someone else talk about voices. I will agree

that Melodia's voice is better than Lynn Lipton's

usual voicing, but I always did like her Chitara.

I just thought her Chitara was really good. But

I am going to give it to Silverhawks. As far

as just the females, I will give it to Silverhawks.

As far as overall cast, my vote is for Thundercats.

How does that make any sense? It makes sense,

damn it. Okay, you gave a half point to somebody.

No, no, no, what I'm saying is the rest of the

cast is the same. It's still sound I didn't like

country Lionel. Thank you very much. I like regular

Lionel country lionel I'm still my vote for You

said the only difference under gas you like silverhawks

better and so for where the rest of the cast

is the exact Same you like thundercats better

My vote goes to thundercats. Of course it does

Paul speak on this because I can't When it comes,

you know, I mean because for the most part, you

know The voice actors are all the same and and

there's just different kind of tweaks to to the

different people Different characters that I

really am Right down the middle on which one

I would like now Where I do give the edge it

goes to in my opinion. It goes to the writing

what the voice actors have to say and what kind

of story they're telling and I prefer the Silverhawks

aspect of the whole writing thing and I just

think that delivery for the performances that

the voice actors are giving are better suited

to the stories that are in the Silverhawks. They

did go a little bit away in the voice direction

as far as they didn't make it as like William

Shatner esque like thundercats was no no no no

Excuse me, but what I mean is like I mean all

these you know I mean you can come you can say

you know one person's better than the other they're

all fairly talented and they all know what they're

doing and in and in both well okay except for

her so That's a very good point right there though

um You know, I mean both I mean so aside from

lid silver hawks and undercats benefited from

having terrific voice actors and When it comes

down to it, I think it's the story that they

have to tell. I mean you could you could give

you know, um Larry Kenny, you know a part that

sounds you know, it's written like absolute crap

and You know, I mean he can do the best that

he possibly can but it's still gonna come across

as crap because whatever's written for him is

crap so For me, the Silverhawk stories, not saying

that the Thundercats stories were bad, or crap

for that matter, I just tend to like the Silverhawk

stories more, so that's where I'm going. I think

the voice actors did a better job with those

stories than the Thundercats. Before Tim speaks,

I do got to give a shout out. Bob McFadden by

far is the most experienced and the most diverse

in his voices on the show. If you go through

and listen episode by episode, you can absolutely

tell who Larry Kenny is voicing. You can absolutely

tell who Peter Newman is voicing. And that's

not a knock against those two individuals. They're

great with their voices. You know, Jackal Man

compared to Lionel. There's different. You can

still tell it's him, but it's completely different

voices. But Bob McFadden is like he's back from

the days before television and he's a genius

voice actor. So I want to give him some credit.

I didn't think of this, though, until you just

said that, Paul. And that is the Thundercats

was a little bit more as far as plotting with

the voice. Direction as far as it was a little

bit more both shows are known for their over

-the -top voice acting because that's how it

was written But Thundercats even to a little

bit more of an extreme like I said for me It

just boils down to the females of both shows,

but Tim. How do you feel about the voices? I

Think that one of the anchors that's missing

from Silverhawks is Earl Hyman. I mean his voice

was this so big. When I heard Panthro talking,

I watched the pilot episode of Thundercats just

before the show, and there's dead silence while

they're in the ship, and he's delivering his

lines about the planet that he found where there

could be... of life where they could, you know,

breathe the air and everything. I mean, just

any time he's talking, it just grabs your attention.

He just has that commanding voice. So I really

wish he had been somewhere in the Silverhawks

cast. Yeah, but I do agree that Lynn Lipton has

a very dry delivery and a lot of her characters

sound very similar. Whereas the other cast, like

you said, you can tell that it's But it's not

the voice of Lionel or is the voice of tiger

are doing this other voice, but it's not so close

that You pick it up right away. And as a kid

you might not Right. Yeah. Yeah, but when you're

listening to mandora the evil chaser you're going

Wow, that's not just like chitara Or luna or

whoever it is in the one of the amazonian women.

Yeah So I I do see that argument I do like her

voice in Chitara. I think it's fine. Yeah, it

is sort of dry, but it's kind of sexy. She comes

off as a little older woman. I wasn't that bothered

by it, but I certainly see why people have issue

with her voice in that character, why that delivery

can be a problem for some people. But again,

Earl Hyman. vote for Silverhawks because I can't

see that difference in the female characters

really having that big of an impact on the entirety

of the show. And Earl missing from Silverhawks

is that missing piece. Yeah, if there is a reason

to vote for Thundercats, I think it is Earl Hyman.

Steve? I'm doing a cop -out. I'm going with Thundercats

just because I am more familiar with it. Fair

enough. Suck! Moving on then to our last few

here, the end of the series. We talked about

the backstories and the origin stories. We got

to talk a little bit about the ending of the

series as far as how they come to a close, how

it's left off. It may not seem like it's fair

because Silverhawks is one season compared to

two seasons for the Thundercats. As far as the

Silverhawks, most people probably aren't familiar

with how it ends, because if you didn't remember

it from when you were a kid, you have to own

the second volume on the DVD in order to see

that. It's a fucking air show. No, it's not.

Yes, it is. It starts off, they're at an air

show, and then Monstar comes in with a regular

Villain of the Week plot. No, it's not. And you

haven't seen the episode, so stop talking. Oh!

I, on the other hand... who actually watched

the episode recently can actually tell you what

it is. It does start off with like an Independence

Day type air show, but it's not a villain of

the week type of thing. I will give them credit

because part of them must have at least, I know

the writing didn't write this as a end of the

series type episode, but I get the feeling that

they knew that there was a possibility that this

was the last episode. So although it does not

have the end, like Thundercats does where they

knew it was coming to an end and they actually

write an ending episode, a finale. They do do

some things in Silverhawks. They bring in everybody.

First of all, they have all of the Silverhawks,

all of the new additions. They bring in all of

the bad guys. They bring in Seymour with the

taxi cab. I mean, they bring in everybody. And

the plot basically is that Molecular has has

turned himself into the Mirage and they don't

know that. So the air show goes haywire when

he takes off into Outers, you know the the nether

reaches with the original team and then the new

team is left one -on -one and they pair off against

an Each one of the bad guys so it does give a

lot of homages to all of the individual characters

as far as they each get some time in battle they

each get Some moments and then they all end up

back at hawk haven and it shows all of this The

only time ever in the whole series where they

show all of the silver hawks together. So I will

give them credit for at least including everybody

and giving everybody some air time. But they

did not have the advantage like Thundercats did

of knowing the series was coming to an end, whereas

Thundercats got to write a finale episode where,

you know, everything turns out to be golden and

everything, you know. How does Wikipedia or something

wrote it off as like, everything turns out all

right and peace and calm turns over all the world?

It's basically for Silverhawks, It was basically

that It says it starts off at a regular air show

and then monstar comes in and I just told you

the whole thing about Silverhawks Watch the episode

Anyway, I'm sorry. I keep saying two seasons

for for Silverhawks. Technically it was four

seasons actually Know there's debate on this.

I know there's debate on this because there's

two seasons as far as the DVDs releases are go

But if you go by years, they were it's four years

or different years And each one started season

two three and four each started with a five -episode

miniseries So technically if you want to go by

broadcasting it was four seasons But everybody

else considers it two seasons. So we'll let the

debate on that go somewhere else Yeah uh... basically

the finale for thundercats is that's panthro

is finally figured out how to access the key

you know decipher studies the key of omens and

he enters the code open the lock and suddenly

the guardian of omens is summoned and they basically

have to go out and find out all these things

within twenty four hours and and and and meet

back uh... he did that so Yeah, it's kind of

like a key to vetters Vector Sigma storyline,

but at least it was a legitimate ending You know,

I think when it comes down to it and I don't

know for sure But I think I think like Kevin

said I think that they had an idea that it might

be the last one I see it looking like this. Okay

guys write this episode. Um We might get picked

up for another season, but we might not so you

know, if we don't kind of work some stuff in

there where this could be the last one. But if

it's not, you know, work it so, you know, it

could not necessarily be a last episode. That's

how I look at the ending for The Silverhawks.

And I think it's very unjust. And I think when

you... I don't think you can give a proper comparison

between the two because Thundercats was ended.

There's no question about it. I mean, it was

a finale. That's just how it was. Silver Hawks

was, you know, well, it might be the end, but

it might not be. I mean, you can look at it now,

you know, through the, you know, the looking

glass. And in hindsight, you can see that, you

know, yeah, okay, it could work as a last episode.

But, you know, when you're a kid and you're watching

it, you have no idea that it's gonna be the very

last episode. Right. Silver Hawks is basically

a... A shitty NBC pilot as far as its finale

because they cancelled it before it got a good

ending. Unfortunately, there's very few cartoons

out there that get a proper ending. True. Unfortunately.

But Thundercats did, so just to get it out of

the way, my vote's for Thundercats on this one.

I do have to give it to Thundercats with the

pretext that I don't think we're comparing two

equal things. That's fair thundercats your hole

So is it safe to say everybody's voters from

thundercats and we move on yeah, yes The next

category was The ending PSA is because, hey,

it's not an 80s show unless it has an ending

public service announcement of some sort. So

we have the moral lesson that was put into the

Thundercats versus the science lesson that was

put into the Silverhawks. I am going to let Paul

- I'm going to shock people here. OK, but I'm

going to let Paul talk first here. Well, hold

on before he goes into a long tangent. I'm just

going to get this out of the way right now, and

I'm going to shock people right now. I got my

moral lessons from He -Man, so I choose the science

quiz because, as I said earlier, about two hours

ago. It actually helped me taking tests in school

as far as learning something. You got smart.

Exactly. I choose Silverhawks as far as the PSAs.

Okay, Paul, go ahead with your long -winded answers.

Long -winded answers? That's harsh. That's right.

He called you a candy -ass in secret. That's

what he said. I'm going to go with the science

quiz simply because it... It it involved kids.

I mean there's a moral lesson and you know, you

can learn it. Okay, that's fine I mean, I mean

you okay, so you watch it There's a moral lesson

and then they explain it to you and then yours

as your kid you okay I get it but at least with

you know, the science quiz it involved you and

you got the pick and If you were wrong, you know,

I thought shit. I'm wrong, you know, or you know,

I mean It involved you. It was interactive. So

I'm definitely going science quiz. To me, what

it comes down to is there's nothing wrong with

the moral lessons from Thundercats. And I think

they did a fine job with them. But to me, Silverhawks

did it different than anybody else in the 80s

did. Everybody did the moral lesson. You know,

G .I. Joe, Human, Transformers, Thundercats.

And to me, I give credit for Silverhawks coming

up with a different way to do something at the

end of the show. So, yeah, I'm going Silverhawks

to Tim. Yeah, a lot of those shows did those

moral lessons, but Silverhawks are sorry Thundercats

Did it a little differently it usually fit in

with the show in GI Joe or he man there be The

end of the show would wrap up before You know

the last commercial break then they would come

back and have this very short segment that may

have something to do with the show Or maybe it

wouldn't right. I remember he man showing up

in one episode and you know came in to the I

will give them credit because they actually had

a psychologist online that they would give the

first draft of the story and then the child psychology

guy would come in and then they would adjust

parts so that the moral actually fit into the

episode. So that was a good thing. Yeah. I mean,

they promoted the show that way too, saying we're

going to teach kids morals in the show. But the

science quizzes were a cool way to deviate from

that, you know, to do something different, but

yet still have a message for kids. And it was

fun to watch those shows and then try to guess

the correct answers. I think every kid played

along with that. And I even enjoyed them, you

know, watching them as an adult again, you know,

trying to see if I could get the right answers.

It's too bad they didn't get to do what they

originally were planning to do because it was

originally going to be like a call in or mail

in contest that you could Participate in as far

as with your right answers if you called in and

got the right answers You can get like a prize

or whatever, but they couldn't work it out logistically

Yeah, and that would have been really cool, so

I think they had a great idea with this I think

it worked out really well fit in with the show

So yeah, I'm gonna vote for Silverhawks on this

one Steve I I'm going to go with Silverhawks

on that because I just remember watching a lot

of shows and having the same kind of upbringing

watching them as far as the learning at the end.

A clean sweep for the Silverhawks for once. One

thing that I will say quickly, I was just, I

don't know why this just kind of popped in my

mind, but not to create some kind of a controversy,

but I don't... I think it's necessarily the responsibility

of cartoon creators to teach morals to kids.

I think that should come from the parents. But

in the 80s, they had to. Oh, no, you're absolutely

right. But, you know, I mean, there's, you know,

they're sticking, you know, the morals down here,

down your throat. And this is the way that it

is. And for the most part, I mean, I agree with

all the morals that they're saying, but I think

that that really should come from the parents.

Yeah. I would really hope that if the parents

were watching these with their kids, that they

could elaborate more on the morals that they

just watched in the cartoon. So that's all I

was going to say. And you're right. I mean, they

did kind of shove the morals down people's throats,

but they did that because... It's learning. Well,

that, but they did, they had to do that because

of the fact that at the time... You know, everyone

talks about the ratings boards now and TV ratings

at the time. All those action cartoons would

not have been on TV without those. Well, it would

have been the 70s and everything would have gotten

banned. I mean, you got all these cartoons where

there's, you know, good versus evil and there's

a lot of violence and stuff. And then at the

end of it, you can learn what that violence,

you know, really meant. Why are the good guys

fighting these bad guys? And I agree with everything

that they're saying, but I just. I just wanted

to make a little side note that hopefully that

the parents were also doing that kind of stuff

with their kids. In an ideal situation. In arm

unlike the parents of today, which hopefully

that yeah, we'd almost have to have these today

because otherwise Where are they gonna learn

their morals from? Our next category although

technically not a part of the rest of it because

this is supposed to just be comparing the cartoons

But part of everybody's experience as a kid watching

these cartoons, especially in the 80s Obviously

since that's what we all get yelled at for. Oh,

it's just a 30 minute commercial bullshit nonsense

Anyway, is the action figure so I don't get me

started on that soapbox, but we'll just specifically

look at the action figures comparatively, the

Thundercats and the Silverhawks. Thundercats

were much larger in scale, a little less articulation

on the Thundercats side, but bigger weapons,

bigger characters, whereas the Silverhawks were

a little bit smaller scale, bigger than G .I.

Joe. I don't even think the articulation was

all that different. I think the articulation

was almost identical between the two. None of

the silver hawks have like elbows or knees or

anything. That's true. I don't think any of the

uh. Moanstar has Moanstar had knees. Oh, that's

true. That is true. Yeah. I'm knocking all of

my toys over. Um but uh I wanted as far as comparison

goes like the the silver size wise silver hawks

are close to like closer to like uh the turtle

size. Yeah. Um kind of like five, six inch type

uh figure I wanna say. The the theracasts are

huge. Yeah, they are. Yeah, they're more so like

5 -inch, 6 -inch. Yeah. But good gracious. I

mean, I personally only have experience with

the ones that I own. I own Lionel and Mumra for

the Thundercats. I own Quicksilver and Monestar

and Copper Kid and Hot Wing for the Silverhawks.

And I used to have Bluegrass. I don't know what

happened to them. And the Silverhawks all have

cloth wings. Well, I shouldn't say that. Some

of them have cloth wings. And another line had

the actual like, I want to say like a I didn't

own any of these, but they were almost like plasticky

where you could hit their knees and they would

like pop open. Yeah. So there was some cloth.

There was some plastic. They all came with a

bird of some sort that could perch on their arm

or that had some type of action. No weapons,

so to speak, whereas the Thundercats had more

weapon accessories, whereas the Silverhawks just

had their birds. I'll let you guys talk first.

Tim, why don't you talk about the toys between

the two lines? OK, well, this will be brief because

I didn't have very many of the toys. I had Lionel

and my brother had mum rah and I had no silver

Hawks But I wanted to have a silver hawk because

I thought they were pretty cool. You know seeing

the commercial they would I can remember what

it was they did what they like, you know pressed

her legs together Whatever it was to get their

wings to pop out. But yeah, that was that was

pretty cool And they were shiny so And Monestar

also had the ability, like Paul was saying, you

could open his chest and put one of his heads

in his chest and bring his other head out. So

you could have either version of Monestar, whereas

unfortunately back then, Mumrah, you only got

one version, whereas nowadays, obviously, you

can get both. Sorry, I didn't mean to interject.

Go ahead. Yeah, no, no problem. But yeah, the

Thundercats toys, from having Lionel, my brother

having Mumrah, they were this... Hard hard material

like it's hard plastic and I expected something

more along the lines of what he man toys were

made of That's what I wanted. Yeah, and it mean

even the they just looked awkward, you know I

wanted something that looked like a he -man figure

with you know, the the musculature and and you

know, the you know posable Nessa the legs and

the arms and the Thundercats were just kind of

stiff They didn't really move very much and and

then The Sword of Omens that came with Lion -O

was like rubber, and so it was never straight.

It was always bent because you always put it

someplace where it wouldn't lay straight. So

I, you know, as I said, I didn't have any Silver

Hawks. I was kind of disappointed with the Thundercats

toys. I didn't have the Thunder Tank or the Catslayer,

unfortunately. Those look pretty cool. There

was a Catslayer toy, right? I thought there was.

But yeah, the Thunder tank would have been awesome

to have even then the one from the new series

looks really cool so I'm gonna have to try to

grab that but I It's hard for me to vote because

like I said, I didn't have any of the Silverhawks

I Will agree though with what you're saying about

the Thunder the cats. That's what struck me when

I because I didn't own them as a kid I got the

I owned all my silver rocks as a kid I got the

lion on Mumra later on and I was not expecting

them to look like they did And I got them and

I'm like, first of all, they're huge. And second

of all, they're so stiff. And the coloring even

is a little bit weird. I will say that both lines

did great jobs on the likeness of the faces to

the cartoon. All of the faces of both the Silverhawks

and Thundercats, to me, look like the cartoon

faces, which is something that some toy lines

cannot figure out. But yeah, to me, it's the

stiffness. Look at you, Ghostbusters. It's the

stiffness and the size of the Thundercats. It

puts me off a little, whereas the Silverhawks

all did something. And that's always something

that's why I like Transformers as a kid. I like

toys that actually do something, and the Silverhawks

had to push the legs into the wings, pop out.

The Hawks did stuff. So I'm leaning towards Silverhawks

on this one. I think the only thing the Thundercats

toys did, I seem to recall that Lion -O and Mum

-Ra's eyes lit up somehow. Yeah, they were little

key versions. You put a little key flashlight

thing in the back of them and their eyes would

light up. Yeah, okay. I actually have to go with

Silverhawks on this one. I did love all the Thundercats

toys. I had Panthero, Liono, Tigra, and Mumrah.

I wanted Slythe Monkey and Jackal Man. I never

had those. There was never a Jaga figure, was

there? Yes, there was. Yes, there was. I know

there was because I have pictures of it and I

went through a whole friggin toy cast episode

85 Yeah, so yes, there was a jogger figure I

also had Grun. I loved having Grun. I thought

Grun was a really cool toy Yes, the Thundercats

figures are really stiff. Yes, the Sword of Omens

was a piece of shit. It just was. As a kid, I

always wanted to just reach into the television

and just take the actual sword out. The 2011

sword is a piece of shit too, by the way. Yeah,

it is. The only Sword of Omens that's any good

is with the 2010 San Diego Comic Con Lionel.

Yeah, that was actually the other the other sword

though that you can buy separately That's not

doesn't go with any of the figures in the 2011

line like a separate sword that you can actually

hold in your hand The roleplay sword. Yeah, the

roleplay sword sucks, too I think it's cool.

It only goes up twice. So it doesn't go the third

sword sucks I will say that I had the role playing

it has three extensions I Oh, there's one that

has two and there's one that has three, I'm sorry.

Right. Yeah, someone gave me that one for as

a gift for Christmas. And yeah, it has three

extensions. I'm wearing the Thundercat Claw from

the 80s. I am. Well, we talk about Kevin's private

role playing issues there. I had to have my mom

buy me at some point as a kid, three different

blue grasses, because I always would lose bluegrass.

I lost it. I don't know where it is. Yeah, I

could never find him Copper kid I remember I

would always have my mom run extremely hot scalding

bat bath water And I would just scald the hell

out of that figure. Oh You might want to see

a doctor about that. No, he's like die Die think

of copper kid as universe Starscream Paul, you

know what you did to universe Starscream raped

it Pretty much. Yeah, I loved the quick figure.

I loved The steel will and steel hard figures

so I get to give it to Silverhawks and the toys

I wish I could have got some of the bad guys

besides them on star because they look cool in

the picture even though buzz saws the wrong color,

but uh I wish I could have had like molecular

or It looks like he's green in the picture. Um,

he is green Yeah, thank you. I got the point.

No, I'm saying that cartoon is gold. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, okay Okay, whoa, so in

the cartoon he was gold and the toy he was green.

Maybe it was fake gold Or maybe we have a frenzy

and oh Don't even um Steve what do you think

of the the two toys by looking at the pictures

there and everything? um by looking at the toys

I'd have to I'd have to go with Probably silver

hawks. It looks like they've got more articulation

to them and more. More probably pose ability

to one that has more articulation than any of

the thundercats is a monster. Yeah, and it's

not necessarily the articulation on the surface,

it's just that they're not so stiffer. On stargazer

has knee joints, too. Yeah. And it's just that

they're not so stiff, even they might not have

like a lot more articulation, but they're just

not so stiff. Their arms move more freely up

and down. I don't know. It's just something about

him that... Didn't the Thundercat... Now, see,

I haven't had a Thundercat toy in about 28 years.

So, couldn't you also, like, squeeze the legs

together and their arms and move up and down?

The Thundercats? Yeah, or like... Or I'm thinking,

like, with Lionel, couldn't you... Or wasn't

there, like, a Mexican one? Where his, like,

one arm would go up? Yeah. Now, that's the only

thing I really remember, because I remember having...

Lion oh, and I remember having pan throw that's

all I remember having but The one problem that

I had with with the silver hawks and I mean I

I love the silver hawk toys I picked the silver

hawks, but The the chrome on them you couldn't

really play with those things without that chrome

coming off like Mean so it's so much that went

like not well a couple years ago I I went and

I wanted to buy some of them and I bought I bought

a copper kid I got a steel will Who else do I

have I got stargazer? I got mum raw molecular

and Oh God, there's another one that I have Oh

moon striker, I have a moon striker um in Every

single one of them the biggest problem with it

as an adult collector is I want them to be perfect

And the chrome to be perfect on them if unless

you buy these things Like mint in package still

you are not gonna find one that has like perfect

chrome You're gonna pay almost more than one

that you would buy if it was in box or in package

so That was always a huge problem that I had

with them. I loved them. I loved the way they

looked. I loved the whole wing gimmick, everything.

They had the flashiest look on the toy shelf.

Yeah. I just hated the fact that if you cooked

your mum raw and punched Quicksilver in the face,

well, you're going to end up chipping off some

of the chrome. And that's the other thing, like

all the flesh tones. Like, um, at least, at least

on like, for example, because I don't have Quicksilver,

um, but like, uh, Steel Will, his arm, like the

painted arm that looks like flesh is actually

painted. I mean, underneath it is chrome. So

it's, you know, it's chrome and then you paint

over that. It's really ridiculous. It is. So

buzz saw is really fun because you take his mouth

and you go up and down and go and his little

thing spin Buzz saws on his shoulders you like

lift his head and there's like a little gear

you lift it up And then they spin and then you

bring it down and they spin. It's real cool All

right, so moving on to our final category we

finally got to Category number 20, which is taking

all of this into consideration and you probably

can predict most of our bullets But taking everything

in it taking everything into consideration the

characters the stories the plots the vehicles

the environment everything Overall show who gets

your vote as the better overall show Mike? I

can go back and I can watch varying episode sagas

of the Thundercats cartoon more so than I can

watch Villain of the Week from Silverhawks. For

me, I love both of them and I never wanted it,

you know, during our Tooncast debate I didn't

want it to make it seem like I loved Silverhawks

way more than Thundercats or anything like that.

I love them both. I love them both, but for me

there's two things. Number one, I'm just a bigger

sci -fi and space fan and number two, in And

I know you guys have had different opinions about

this, but in watching both of these as a year

old person, I did not get as tired watching the

Silverhawks episodes. When I was getting through

all of the 100 and whatever Thundercats episodes,

it was almost painful to have to continue watching

them at one point. And then they introduced some

new characters and it got a little bit better

and then some of that got stagnant Whereas I'd

watched literally 32 episodes of Silverhawks

in two days without even flinching. I was never

tired of it I never was bored with it Let me

ask you a question though. Were you bored when

you were watching the first 32 episodes of Thundercats?

Yes. Oh, okay. All right As long as you're not

saying that you got bored with it when you were

in like season 2 of Thundercats No, no, no, I'm

saying like almost it was painful to have to

watch seven at a time Like that was because I

was I would watch them in like five or six or

seven at a time And it was much harder to get

through five or six or seven at a time of Thundercats

than it was of Silverhawks I don't know what

it was about it. I love both shows. I absolutely

love both shows I think they're both great, but

space and sci -fi usually gets the edge for me

So my vote is for Silverhawks as an overall show

Tim Yeah, I'm going back to thundercats again

for me. It's it's similar to what Mike said it's

just a team of crime fighters with the Silverhawks

and It's not a bad show, you know like you Kevin.

I like both shows I just like thundercats a lot

more just having those different settings. I

like the the mix of You know fantasy sword and

sorcery and the technology It just For me, it

made for richer stories. I like the Thundercats.

I enjoyed watching those. It was I wanted to

be a Thundercat. You know, that's kind of how

it felt like I want to be there with them exploring

the world. They were just a really cool team.

And again, I just felt like the Silverhawks were

kind of boring. I would rather not spend time

with them. I'd be on the villain side. It's all

right to be a villain fan. Paul overall show.

I really like, and I'm gonna steal Tim's words

here, that as a kid, I wanted to be a Silver

Hawk. I thought, I mean, kind of like what you

were saying, Kevin, that, you know, the whole

space and sci -fi thing, that was always something

I really, really enjoyed. And I just, I remember

as a kid, there was a couple different things

that I would do when I would go out into the

playground. I would always pretend I was Optimus

Prime, and I would always pretend like I was

transforming into a truck. Or I was a silver

hawk running around with my arms out pretending

like I could fly. So for me, I have to go silver

hawks. And that being said, Mike, just so you

know, Steelheart is hotter than Chitara. Drew

that. Carry on. No, no, no, no, no. You already

said there's no rebuttal. Steve, based on everything

you knew coming in, and all the discussions we've

had so far, and kind of what you've maybe learned

along the way, overall, which would you say was

a better show in your opinion? You can get that

$20 back! Three dollars anyway, so I'm gonna

have to go with thundercats overall Listen to

him cry Next we're gonna hear flatulence, but

I'm actually proud of myself. I haven't I haven't

had to go Okay, yeah Kevin what about you? I

already said You know, based on the sci -fi and

the space aspects, I have to go with Silverhawks

as the overall. So talk amongst yourselves while

I tally up the vote. Actually, we're going to

go to a commercial break. Okay. And then you

can tally up the vote and we'll come back with

the final voting results. And then we'll be done.

We'll be back after these messages. You can now

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the smart way to listen to radio. Sword of Omens,

give me sight beyond sight. I see a new episode

coming this week. Hey, I'm Gary. I'm Greg. I'm

Chuck. And I'm Justin. Join the four of us every

week on the internet's number one G .I. Joe podcast,

What's On, Joe Mine. That's right, it's Joe news,

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heard them before delivered right to your MP3

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It's What's On, Joe Mine, every week on the GeekCast

Radio Network. Tunecast is dedicated to the cartoons

we grew up with. 100 episodes and more make up

one of the GCRN's most popular podcasts. Join

hosts TFG and Mike, Optimus Solo, Terrorizing

Star, and tons of guest hosts. We also have voice

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as we look back on the cartoons that defined

us as geeks. You can find Tooncast on iTunes

and the web at www .geekcastradio .com. Tune

in. about four hours of discussion on these two

things, Thundercats and Silverhawks. We've broken

it down. We've got 20 different categories. We've

made our votes. The tallies have been cast and

the voting has been counted up and there's no

recounts. Remember, there's 20 categories. And

after the tallies have been counted up, the final

vote is, drum roll please, the Thundercats and

the Silverhawks, each getting 10 categories.

What? What? A draw? A total draw. After all this,

we brought in 200 people. But, as - as - This

fucking blows! No, no, hold on guys, because

not only did I keep track of the categories,

I did keep track of individual votes. Ooh! So,

although the categories were 10 for Thundercats

and 10 for Silverhawks, when we break it down

to the - There was 20 categories and there was

five of us, so there was 100 individual votes.

Out of the 100 individual votes, Thundercats

had 55, Silverhawks had 45. Haha! Thundercats

wins! So in a tiebreaker, in a tiebreaker, we

will give the decision in this GSarren Wars to

Thundercats. Oh, man, I feel like I've been shot

at and missed and shit at and hit. Barely. In

the first ever tie, and hopefully we don't have

too many more, but 10 -10, but 55 -45 in the

tiebreaker sudden death, whatever you want to

call it. So, final thoughts, Mike. Thundercats

wins. Larry Kenny was right. Larry Kenny, don't

even get me started on that. The only reason

why he likes Thundercats more is because he's

got more of a role with Thundercats than Silverhawk.

And it still lasted. No, as I've already said...

I'm going to shank the hell out of you. Shut

up! As a quick final thought for me, Thundercats

is a cartoon I can go back to. Between Thundercats

and Silverhawks, both of those Tooncast classic

episodes... I watched all 130 episodes of Thundercats

within one week's time. Same thing with Silverhawks.

I watched all 65 episodes in one week's time.

And I can watch Thundercats episodes more than

I can Silverhawks, so what about you Tim? I can

watch all 65 episodes of Silverhawks when it

wasn't on DVD yet. Just asking. You know what

I mean. Okay, anyways, we've already given our

final votes. This is just final thoughts. Final

thoughts, Tim. I feel similarly to Mike. I can

still watch Thundercats and enjoy it. I tire

of Silverhawks after a while. But if you like

Silverhawks, and that's your favorite, you're

not wrong. And if you like Thundercats, and that's

your favorite, you're not wrong either. Hopefully

you enjoyed us dissecting it. Yeah, I think it

was fun. From California, you're always wrong.

Do you know who feels bad in all of this? I'm

gonna eat my sword of omens and I'm gonna shank

you, Mike. I'm gonna take his sword of omens

and shove it up your ass and rotate it. That's

right. Say, let me see your sight beyond sight

in a little bit. I'll give you sight beyond sight.

So even though there are a lot of similarities.

Oh, final thought on... Hold on, Tim is finishing.

Tim is finishing. So yeah, even though there

are a lot of similarities with the voice cast,

a lot of the same writers, people behind the

scenes working on the shows, they're still very

different shows. You know, you can enjoy one

and maybe not enjoy the other or maybe enjoy

one more than the other. That's fine You know,

we've seen a resurgence of thundercats with the

new cartoon I think they've done a good job with

it and i'm interested to see if they do a revival

of silver hawks and to see What they will retain

from the old series or what they will get rid

of? Because I think there are a lot of things

in in thundercats that are sort of this, you

know timeless You know this timeless attributes

to some storytelling which like you said, you

know, it's similar to transformers It's similar

to you know, other stories that we've seen and

silver hoxes It's you know, somewhat different

than that and then you've got these, you know,

really strange villains and odd characters and

monsters, you know This very kick -ass toys out

of the silver Yeah, they were pretty cool looking

toys. So I mean they could make today if they

redid a revival They'd have some cool classic

versions. Yeah Paul, go ahead, final thoughts.

You know, I like what Tim said that, you know,

when it comes down to it, there's no losers in

this. There really, really isn't. I mean, I think

the voting kind of shows that both of these were

very solid shows in their own right. And you

can like one, you can like the other. It doesn't

really matter. I mean, they're both good storytelling

agents. And as kids, we were privileged and lucky

to have gotten those because a lot of the crap

that comes out now is crap. And you don't get

shows like Thundercats. I mean, even the new

Thundercats now is while it's similar, in my

opinion, it's radically different than the original

Thundercats. And I love I love what they're doing

with it in terms of the story. But, you know,

kids that watch it nowadays. they have a different

perspective of what the Thundercats were when

we were kids. So I would absolutely love to see

a revival of a Silverhawks series. That would

be, I mean, the toys would be phenomenal. And

like I said, as soon as I bought the new 2011

Thundercat, Thundertank, I wanted to go and buy

a Mirage again. And it's absolutely cool. I mean,

like I said, I think we're all very fortunate

to have gotten to watch these and kids nowadays

probably wouldn't appreciate it the same they'd

go back and watch and it would it would definitely

not they wouldn't even be having this discussion

with us because you know uh i i'm gonna use an

analogy i just watched a south park episode where

everything that we like that our parents didn't

i mean they they heard it as shit Everything

that we listen to now in terms of music that

young kids listen to we think what they listen

to sounds like shit So everything that we watched

kids nowadays would probably say looks like shit

So that's it Steve final thoughts It was interesting

when ours this whole wars between the two shows

I can't say I'm not surprised that they were

so close. But yeah, I also have to agree with

Paul that I doubt that modern era people would

have their appreciation that we do for these

type of shows. The one people I feel bad for

in all of this are the tiger sharks. Poor tiger

sharks, never getting talked about. But, uh,

no, I enjoyed it. I did not expect it to be this

close. I expected, you know, Thundercats to come

away pretty easily. Um, and I am glad that in

three categories, Mike did vote for Silverhawks.

Um, so that was impressive. Yeah, I can be objective.

God damn it. Anyway, you still picked snarf though,

didn't you? No. I picked the blaster of two evils.

Thank you very much. Oh, he picked the villains.

Yes. Anyways. Take it away, Mike. All right.

So we hope you enjoyed this episode of GCR and

Wars forever, how long as it is. I wish you'll

join us next time when we'll be arguing about

something else. For now, I am TF2 and Mike with

To Master Tim. I am Paul the Optobotamus. And

I am Optimus Solo, and if you have any other

ideas for future debates and battles, we have

some, but you could always comment and leave

us them. My name is Steve Megatron. Phillips.

We'll see you next time when we'll constantly

be fighting about something else. I bet the next

battle is Barbie vs. Friendship is Magic. Oh

shit, what the hell kind of storm have I started?

So we'll see you next time, only on GCRN Wars.

Monstar's headed for the casino, and he's going

to tear me and Poker Face apart! Lady, you got

more nerve than a bareback bronco buster. What

do you think, Skip? We've got to do it, cowboy.

That's what we're here for. Why don't we fuck

her first? She was right. I don't like it. And

I'm going to tear this place apart. I'm in charge

here. If you're gonna tear anything apart, start

with me, cocksucker. Sorry, commander. Not only

can he travel through time just like me, but

he's also a tracking bird, kind of a space bloodhound.

First, we give him something hardware has touched,

like this huge prophylactic. Get your nose out

of my ass and do what I tell you to! Where you

got these mice down to, oh? I should have known

the territory didn't mean us any harm when the

sword of omens didn't obey me and anyway It was

just plain stupid to assume it might be bad.

Just what the fuck am I talking about? Ha ha

ha! It's when Wile E. Cat and Kid are pretending

to be the most helpful that they're dropping

their pens on the thing while I'm talking! Let's

find the mega condenser. I'm saying that too

fast. Let's find the mega condenser. Still going

too fast. What's wrong, Lion -O? Fuck, here it

is again. What's here again? That thing, that

mega thing. Want me to say it? Yes! I'm going

to put this one right between her pretty. That's

the line of the show right here. And keep your

foot off that blasted sumo flange. What the fuck

is a sumo flange? I have to do that again. Oh,

Lionel! What's the matter, Snarf? You got a cold?

Motherfucker! You fucking dog! Shut the fuck

up! Get over here, bitch! Run out the fucking

plank, boys! Come here, motherfucker! Thunder!

Thunder! Thunder! Thundercasts are going too

high! You've got to get back to the lair, panthro,

before those mutants do something drastic! Come

on, man, get yourself together. I want to see

your tits, my dear. Can't stand it. Going to

pass out.