Thundercats

Hey everybody, this is TFG1Mike with TuneCast

and the GeekCast Radio Network. Up next you're

going to hear episode 5 of TuneCast. We are still

working out the audio issues. I'm very, very

sorry. I'm still having problems with the recording

on my end. I don't know what the deal is. It's

gone across pretty much all of our shows for

GeekCast Radio. I'm still working them out. Audio

breakups and overlays aren't as bad as they were

in episode 4, but it's still there, unfortunately.

I hope everyone continues to listen. We still

have tons of good content coming on Tunecast,

so please listen to Thundercats next. To one

hello and welcome to the fifth episode of tune

cast I am TFG1 Mike and I'm joined by Kevin Bosque

dog and Dion the music man. Hey guys It's going

I've had a very rough week this past week Yes

That's a scary fucking thought Here's the nice

thing. We don't have to send you bills. Want

to bet? I'll send you a bill through PayPal.

Yeah. Anyway. Send it back saying, return to

sender, address unknown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway,

Thursday, I went to go. I was going to go see

Transformers. And well, the movie theater that

is closest to me is two buses away. And it takes

two hours to get out there. I didn't realize

that they had changed the route of the bus of

the second bus that goes actually out to the

theater so instead of staying on the bus and

going down the street where I was supposed to

go I got off the bus and had to walk a mile and

a half to the theater from the actual bus stop

because originally I thought the bus went straight

and not turned down the street that I was fucking

supposed to be going down so yeah and then after

the movie Again didn't know that this that the

route had changed Figuring it was gonna pick

me up right next to the movie theater on the

same side. Well, no it didn't So yeah, I spent

about three and a half hours at the movie theater

after the movie waiting for my mom to show up

and pick me up Yeah, well a cab was gonna cost

me 25 bucks and I only had 17 on me. So yeah

that that didn't mind on the cab idea Yeah, no

cabs suck, especially the ones in this fucking

town No, I mean just cabs in general man. They

have to leave that meter running but no I know

it But yeah, that was pretty much my week from

hell Just having to and and by the time I get

out of the theater and I was so stressing about

about how the hell I was gonna get home. I fucking

forgotten everything. I just saw I mean, yeah,

you could think, you know, oh, good movie, great.

And then it was, oh, shit, how the hell am I

getting home? Yeah, exactly. I guess we can go

ahead and bring up the multitude of celebrity

deaths this week. Let's see. The first one I

heard about was Ed McMahon. Then it was Farrah

Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and now Billy Mays.

Billy Mays died this morning. Yes. Florida I

read that on Wikipedia actually. Well by the

time this airs it would have been Sunday Yeah,

this one died so Yeah, I don't know. I just hope

that that that Jackson is remembered more for

and I think he will be I hope he's remembered

more for his music than the last 10 15 years

of his life and the scandals all that other Bullshit,

I agree. I just think that people need to remember

him for whatever, you know for all the music

that he's put out you know as a solo artist you

know even if he's been with groups or other solo

artists I think it just you know people just

need to remember him for the music but you know

he's got a lot of debt and you know that I think

that part of his life should be settled behind

closed doors and without the media getting so

damned involved in shit yeah the the problem

I have with a lot of the news media outlets when

it comes to celebrity deaths Farrah Fawcett's

death was just announced that morning. I just

heard it after I get out of the movie Thursday

afternoon, but apparently it had been running

all day and all of a sudden at like six o 'clock

Michael Jackson's death is announced and you

hear nothing else about Farrah's. Well the weird

thing, yeah, I know that Farrah was battling

cancer and you know that was just kind of a short

thing. I mean I know that they did a little bit

of a tribute to farah but that was it i mean

you heard more about michael yeah then you did

farah i don't get it i think if you want my honest

opinion um i think that is the way that news

media works okay well farah faucet was a great

star and she did all this and that's great but

michael jackson did all this so we're going to

cover him more and i i honestly think that that's

the way that some of these news media outlets

think and i hate that i really do because they

don't they don't Well, Farrah did Charlie's Angels,

which everybody I'm sure knows about, because

she was famous for that role. I believe she was

in the movie as well. But she did that, and I'm

sure she's done some other stuff. But they didn't

cover a lot of that. They covered more Michael

Jackson stuff than anything. Ed McMahon, I mean,

they covered him, but not as much. The same thing.

So Ed McMahon... Farah they just kind of pushed

to the back burner in a sense, you know So what's

been going now that we've covered? The depressing

part of the show So what's been going on with

you guys this week? Whoever wants to go first

doesn't matter Well, I got an interesting call

from Don peak. Yes, you pissed him off Yeah,

I did but I didn't mean to it was really an accident

more than anything Basically, I had read on the

internet that a volume 1 CD of Knight Rider stuff

that he had done was Unlicensed bootleg and he

in a roundabout way told me no it is licensed

and he told me about the feud that Steve Phillips

and he had and that's all I'm gonna say about

that particular part, but I will say that you

know You know volume one is licensed. It's it's

actually volume three, but it is reissued you

know people can go by the CDs off of Hitchcock

media calm and You know anybody who buys them

at least when he told me he told me that he'd

sign them So I'm gonna actually go pick up a

set cool Yeah, I actually bought the volume one

off of iTunes and it's no longer in the iTunes

store. So apparently that was the unlicensed

coffee I don't know. I just searched for Don

peak. Somebody told me that that he had a CD

out I figured okay. Well, I buy all my iTunes

so He said he was probably the one who started

that because you know about the fact that it

was unlicensed because actually technically it

was Yeah. Ron had the masters. Technically it

was somehow high tech records got the music.

They put it out and it was unlicensed without

his permission. And I think, you know, and I

told Ron that and he says, no, you know, Ron

says he's a cool guy. Usually, you know, he means

well, he's just tired of all the crap that he

and Stu Phillips went. because I guess what started

this whole mess was that Stu Phillips and he

went to Comic -Con in Germany and You know Don

said hello to Stu Stu blow him off. So Yeah,

well, you know see and Don told me he said it's

not my fault that NBC fired him Robert Foster

was Robert Foster was the one who did it so Robert

Foster called me or you know got a hold of my

people and I said yeah I'll come in and do the

rest of the night writer and that's what happened.

So, yep interesting little side of information

there but and then let's see oh the same night

you know that MJ passes away which was very sad

we had a fire here in the goddamn complex everybody

okay yeah everybody I mean we well let's see

you know Monica was getting our son to sleep

you know and the smoke alarm went off and then

it quit and then it started beep twice then quit

so i told her i said stay here let me go find

out what the hell is going on i went into the

hall i smelled something but i couldn't figure

out from where it was coming from and i thought

no it's not cigarette smoke and i know nobody's

cooking at least that's what i thought until

i got until a lady who lives in c8 she came down

stairs i went upstairs And I was like, you know,

what the hell is going on? And then somebody

actually was in C9, not C8. C9 came out, and

we were trying to figure it all out. And then

everybody from upstairs, from the top two floors,

came down. And we started beating on C4's door.

Her husband was over in another building getting

drunk. Yay. And she was at work. She left a pot

of beans on, and they were set to high. Oh, no.

Yeah. So they were set to high. So I had to call

911, get the fire department out. It was just,

oh my god. And a lady from C2 came out, went

over the balcony, thank God we're on the first

floor, opened up the patio door, and that's when

we saw the smoke. I mean, it was bad. Yeah, that's

not good. Yeah. That's not good at all. What

about you, Kevin? What have you been doing this

week? Apparently, I've had a much better week

than either one of you have. Bastard! uh... let's

see uh... i did but i thought that's the only

thing that's the only thing i can compare with

your negative uh... stories i went to the desk

uh... let's see positive things uh... obviously

went and saw uh... transformers on uh... we ended

up going wednesday night uh... we went to about

a nine thirty one and i don't know what we were

thinking but we didn't show up to the theater

except for about five minutes before it started.

There was four of us going and the only place

where there was four seats open in the entire

theater was the second row from the screen. I

don't have anything against it really. I just

don't tend to sit there obviously if I have a

choice of sitting somewhere else. Got to say

after the movie for about 15 minutes. I don't

think my eyes worked quite right The only part

of the movie that bugged my eyes I'm not giving

anything away or anything like that, but there's

a there's a shot of I don't remember I think

it's Megan Fox or something in there. The camera

is doing a 360 angle around her Yeah, and it

just seemed like they were doing that forever

when you're sitting in the second row and I'm

like, please stop spinning Other than that, I

mean that was the only bad part of the movie

experience sitting so close to the screen. Let's

see. I've been doing a lot of work with a couple

different websites. I mentioned last week the

Voice Compare that I've been doing. Give it a

little plug, BehindTheVoiceActors .com. We had

a request to do some compares on some He -Man

characters. So I just did He -Man, Skeletor,

and Tila. So you can listen to the different

voice actors that have done their voices over

the years. And at TFW 2005, we're in the middle

of our second Transformers tournament, where

we put a bunch of characters against each other.

And there's about 64 characters until we have

a winner. And we're two contests into that. The

one that we have going on right now is seeing

Huffer. beat the living crap out of swerve right

now. Other than that, the only other thing I

got going is looking at houses tomorrow. It's

gonna be the first time a house owner here this

summer, so the first time we're going out to

look is tomorrow. So that's what I got going

on. Buy a condo. Not in my area. By the time

this airs I really don't care about Spun Steve

and I have already spoiled the hell out of Revenge

of the Fallen in ATT 27 So I mean by the time

this airs People who want to see it should have

gone and seen it by now if they haven't first

of all What the fuck's wrong with you second

of all go see it right now So I did want to bring

up one little thing By the time this airs this

coming Wednesday uh... or well it'll already

be Wednesday when there's uh... Wednesday evening

I will be recording transformers toy cast with

a couple of my other uh... co -hosts not these

guys uh... we're recording with Pia, Optimus

Scourge, and I think General Techno and we will

be revealing the first Geekcast Radio contest

winner You have a bunch of great hosts for the

toy cast I've seen some of their collections

How you got you got some of the best of the best

with you on that one I know it I know it, I shot

for the best on that one. But anyway, yeah, the

first contest that would, it was just something

on a whim. Last Tuesday I had seen that the Tom

and Jerry Chuck Jones collection was out on DVD

and I said, oh shit, I'm gonna go to Target and

get that. So I called Target, they had it up

there. Last time I went there they didn't have

the Transformers 25th Anniversary Season One.

They had it this time. Unfortunately it was at

regular price and not on sale, but I got it anyway.

I only got it because I... I am so thinking,

and I hate that they're doing this, but I think

Shout Factory is putting individual special features

on the individual releases of the show and on

the complete series. It's totally different.

So they're not going to be the same special features

on each set. So I wanted to see the special features

on it. So I said, OK, well, I've already seen

it. I don't really need it because I'm getting

the complete series eventually. So I said, why

don't I do a trivia question and, you know, well,

Well, well, you know, I'll give it away as a

prize if somebody can answer the question. The

question was, if people can name us the main

U .S. cartoon and video game voice actors of

Optimus Prime, you'll win the prize. And the

way I was... You know, I've got about five or

six entries. For the most part, they're all right.

And what I'm going to do is I'm just going to

write them all down on pieces of paper. I'm going

to put them in a hat and do a random draw, because

it's much easier than, you know, since they're

pretty much all right answers anyways, it's just

easier to do random draw than just, you know,

half it, you know, just say, oh, yeah, this,

you know, sorry, everybody else, but this was

the first one that got it. You know what I mean?

So yeah, we are probably going to do contests

in the future. I don't know how often, but it

just depends. So yeah, actually the contest is

now closed. It closed this evening, Sunday at

10 p .m. So I'm going to work on that Wednesday

evening when I record with Toycast and then when

it airs Thursday is when it'll be announced.

So I think that... pretty much covers it on general

chat and we're going to move into today's topic

which is thundercats all right well today's um

topic is thundercats and we're going to pass

it over to kevin for the history lesson all right

hello nerds this is like he said professor boss

cagedog and it's time for another history lesson

for episode five we go way back to 1985 that's

weird last We had episode 4 in 1984, now we have

episode 5 in 1985. I planned it that way. Genius!

Dude, that's just creepy as hell. Thundercats

was a Rankin -Bass production which debuted in

syndication in the United States in September

of 1985. It lasted for two seasons, so all of

you internet sites that have it listed as four

seasons, you're full of shit. It lasted for two

seasons of 65 episodes a piece, giving us a grand

total of 130 episodes, and it was later rerun

on the Cartoon Network in 1997. And for a somewhat

brief synopsis for those of you that don't remember

what exactly the Thundercats story was about,

Here we go. All right, Thundercats follows the

adventures of cat -like humanoid heroes from

the planet of Thundera. The series' pilot begins

with the dying Thundera meeting its end, forcing

the Thundercats to flee their home world. The

fleet is attacked by the Thundarians' enemies,

the mutants of Plundar, who destroy all the starships

in the Thunder fleet, but spare the flagship

hoping to capture the legendary Sword of Omens.

The sword holds the mystical Eye of Thundera,

the source of the Thundercats' power. Though

the mutants damage the flagship, the power of

the eye drives them back, and Lionel's elderly

guardian, Jaga, pilots the ship to the safety

of the world of Third Earth. However, he dies

in the process as there are insufficient cryostasis

pods aboard the ship, and the journey to Third

Earth takes several decades, even with advanced

interstellar spacecraft. The flagship contains

the young lord of the Thundercats, Lionel, as

well as Chitara, Panthero, Tiger, Wilycat, Wilycat,

and Snarf. When the Thundercats awake from their

suspended animation on Third Earth, Lionel discovers

that his suspension capsule has failed to inhibit

his aging and he is now a child in the body of

a man. Together, the Thundercats and the friendly

natives of Third Earth construct the Cat's Lair,

their new home and headquarters, but before long

the mutants have tracked them down to Third Earth.

The intrusion of these two alien races upon the

world does not go unnoticed, however. The demonic

mummified sorcerer Mumrah recruits the mutants

to aid him in his campaign to acquire the Eye

of Thundera and destroy the Thundercats so that

his evil might continue. to hold sway over the

third earth the rest of the 130 episodes the

rest of the 130 episodes follow this battle between

the thundercats and mumrah between good and between

evil all right let's move on to the rest episode

this has been professor boss k -dog in classes

yes before we go on to the general memories segment

i would like to play um some of the jog of uh

clips uh here's one And then the code of Thundera.

And then where's the other one? The Mystic Sword

of Omens. The sword is alive! Yes. But there

are holes in the hilt, Chaga, and I don't see

any eye. The eye sleeps until needed, I know.

And these are not merely holes you see in the

hilt. Looking through those magic apertures will

give you sight beyond sight. But if I do need

the eye, how can I wake it up and let it know?

There will be no need. The eye will know it is

needed before you do. I I can't lift it Jaga.

No, you have not the strength yet, but Snarf

would you ask the other thundercats to join us?

It's important snarf But it will not be long

before the sword feels natural in your hand So

yeah that That was kind of the beginning of the

show and we're going to move on to the general

memories. Okay, now we're going to go on to the

general memories and recollections and Kevin,

I believe you wanted to start first. Yeah, I

mean this was just this was a huge part of my

cartoon watching as a child I mean obviously

you had He -Man and you know Transformers GI

Joe and stuff like that but I remember specifically

actually and I still have it having the the claw

that Lionel carried around and I believe I had

something else I just can't remember what other

piece I had it wasn't the sword or anything but

I I still have the claw and I remember running

around in my backyard and we were you know kind

of a Role -playing thundercats in the backyard

and knowing, you know all the the main lines

and stuff like that I never had any of the toys

when I was a kid, but I remember watching the

show I remember having coloring books of it and

I remember having the claw and running around

in my backyard So definitely remember thundercats

big time from my childhood Yeah, I'm the same

way. I don't remember actually having any of

the toys. I wanted the sword I so wanted a sword

of omens. Oh yeah. I so wanted the sword. And

I didn't just want one with the insignia on it.

I wanted the one from the show. I wanted it to

come to life. And I wanted that fucking sword.

Yeah, you know, I think now that I've gone back

and watched it over this past week, the two main

shows that I was watching at the time... Was

this and transformers. I mean I was kind of still

watching he man, but Wasn't really watching it

that much anymore Because I think it had already

gone into syndication or it. No, I think by this

time The secret of the sword was out and then

they premiered Shira and he man was done. So

I really was you're right, you know, I really

didn't I really wasn't watching he man anymore.

I was still watching Transformers and Thundercats

uh... and i love the show is such a great show

i i mean you know what we'll talk about it when

we get to the legacy segment but this show so

holds up today that's on it but undercast for

me i would say was probably i mean it was i mean

it was it had it had just about everything you

know just like any other cartoon they tried to

have humor action heart and they had Just a lot

of good story plots. That was actually the good

thing about cartoons back Then is they actually

tried to do story plots, you know, and they tried

to stick with the story plots the kids You know

back then we're interested in that type of stuff

because if you don't grab a kid's attention you're

done You know, so that was it for me. I never

had any of the toys. I actually I Never had like

the figures and stuff. I had the claw and I did

have the sword bastard Oh God, that was fun.

That was fun. That was a lot of fun. Yeah, I

remember watching this show, but after a while,

especially going back now and watching it on

DVD, a lot of the episodes, I really don't...

I mean, just the episode itself. I mean, if I

was going to do a Thundercats specific podcast...

Guarantee you a majority of the first first season

episodes. I'd be ranting on because I I don't

know I just I didn't like them after a while

for the most part like the first five or six

or seven are They're all linked together As far

as the storyline continuing after they land and

they start, you know building cats layer and

everything else But yeah, I don't know so I kind

of had a crazy experience while I was watching

it back this week I mean I the first I was watching

the first I remember the first episode but I've

also watched that episode numerous times over

the years but You know some of the some of the

episodes after that I wasn't remembering too

much and it got to the episode that man Dora's

in And it was just crazy. It was like I was I

just taken, you know I just Traveled through

time right back to when I was a kid and I remembered

every character in that show perfectly and I

hadn't seen I hadn't seen any of those characters

I hadn't seen pictures of them. I hadn't seen

the episodes and you know over you know 15 years

and to see it all sudden it was like whoa I remember

exactly what that looks like I remember having

the coloring book with those pictures of them

I'm like that's so crazy I'd like forgot about

it for all these years and then I saw it it was

just like memories instantly so I had that same

thing with uh Mandora and then the same thing

with uh um what was his name Grun? Yeah Grun

the Destroyer. So I just that was kind of a crazy

experience this week watching those and I was

like whoa that's so picture perfect how I remember

it and everything. Yep, so we're going to move

on to the next segment with Slive. Yes! Right

up now is the voice actors and characters segment.

Despite its large cast of characters, Thundercats

featured a rather small circle of voice actors,

with only six actors providing the voices for

the entire first season. Every actor provided

multiple voices, although the distinctive baritone

of Earl Hyman, Panthero, left the actor providing

only very, very occasional guest voices in comparison

with his fellow performers. In particular, the

first season's only female actor, Lynn Lipton,

Chitara and Wiley Kitt, provided voices for every

single female character that appeared in the

season. Above all others, however, actor Bob

McFadden would most regularly provide the voices

of guest characters with his two diametrically

opposed main roles, the timid high -pitched snarf

and the rumbling slide. Despite introducing a

large number of new regular characters the show's

second season brought in only two new actors

Jerry and Raphael provided the voice of from

Ira and was able to provide Lynn Lipton with

some relief by adding new female voices all actor

Doug Prius Holy crap you drive a powder blue

Prius. Oh jeez. I'm going I'm going into my Jeff

Dunham I was waiting for that! While actor Doug

Prius is regularly credited on the internet as

the voice of Link, so it was Bob McFadden who

provided that voice, Prius actually provided

the voice of Lunatak Alluro. I did not know,

and I'm sure we'll go into this, I did not realize,

I had, when I was, you know, like Kevin, you

know, having realizations with watching this

show, I did not know... You know the voice of

panther. I didn't know who it was and I'm like

wait. I'm listening I'm listening. I'm like holy

shit. It's grandpa cause me no way Actually in

the in the script that we that Kevin put together

yes Let's see if I can find something from pan

throw Yes, you keep talking shut up now But yeah

I Didn't know either I just There was a line

that panthro said I think it was during the the

anointment trial episodes where he was talking

really calmly to Lionel and I just started listening

to him like Holy shit, it's grandpa Cosby. No

way I'm trying to think what was I gonna say?

Oh, yeah on the script that Kevin pulled up.

We only have like a very very small Cast for

from IMDB, but I looked at the actual credit

in the show There was a lot of voice actors that

that that are credited on the show hell Tress

McNeil was in this and I didn't I don't know

what she played. I'm sure Well, I'm sure she

was probably just doing background voices or

additional voices. I guess we could also say

this is another show that Frank Welker had nothing

to do with. Yeah. I gotta say that for me, the

voice acting on this show is all over the place.

I mean, you had some voice acting that was really

good. You had some voice acting that was just

really god -awful. I was watching with a couple

of my friends this week. We were watching a bunch

of episodes back to back. And you guys might

not agree with me, but Lynn Lipton on this show

was awful. She was awful. The only character

that I could even stand her doing was Wiley kit

And I don't know if she just did a younger person

better, but she had no cadence to her voice She

would be saying stuff as Chitara or as I forget

who it was if it was Willa or Luna and it's just

like What is what is she doing? Like is she reading

this for the very first time and she has no idea

how people speak in the real I don't know I could

not stand Lynn Lipton which made it which made

the first season hard to listen to some every

female character is her But I gotta say, I mean,

I like Larry Kenny, I like Bob McFadden, I like

a lot of the other guys, but I just could not

get past Lynn Lipton and her voice actor. Yeah,

I have to agree. Chitara was pretty much the

only voice I could keep up with. If you listen

to Willa and Luna, if you have them on two separate

channels, like say you have Willa on stereo speaker

left and Luna on stereo speaker right, they're

basically the same voice Luna has just altered

a little bit. But And you could tell you could

tell most of her characters you could tell that

it was oh, yeah person doing it very much so

I I did not know at first that Peter Newman did

I mean I knew he did tiger But I didn't know

who did monkey and and I thought that was so

cool And it is so cool to watch on the DVD of

him doing the monkey and voice in the in just

the expressions He makes with his with his mouth

when he does the monkey sounds. It's funny as

hell Yeah, I think he did a good job doing different

voices for why they cat monkey and and tiger

I didn't necessarily care for Bengali as well

as it sounded way too much like tiger But I think

I think for most of his voices. He did a good

job keeping them separate kind of like the same

thing that Earl Hammond and Robert McFadden.

I mean you could definitely tell Big differences

in the voices. They were doing which I think

was good number of voices. They were doing Give

you a couple interesting facts about larry kenney

for those of you that don't know uh... he is

sunny the cocoa bird for cocoa puffs and uh...

he was account while i did is count chocolate

sunny the cocoa bird i had no clue Of course

this just since we're talking about voice cast.

We'll see this whole voice cast again If and

when we look at silver hawks because it's basically

the exact same. Yeah Yeah, I believe and I know

this is getting off the voice actor topic I believe

silver hawks is episode 7 which will be in two

weeks Larry Kenny actually was was gonna be the

original vulture man too, but for some reason

He got replaced early on I don't know if it was

because his voice wasn't different enough or

whatever But they switched it to Earl Hammond.

Yeah, I um, I don't know And I don't think I

don't know if you added these two in at the end

Of course, of course you being the Rob Paulson

fanboy you you are you you had to add that in

Those are just two guys I found on IMDb that

are credited for being the show But it doesn't

really say much about who they did or what they

did and I don't understand the other guy That's

being credited as jackal man since that was yeah,

that's I don't know Yeah, that's why I put question

marks next to them So I don't know it says under

their biography as it says Rob Paulson and this

Victor Trujillo. Yeah, we're both in it But yeah,

I don't think they were because like you just

said Kenny did did Jackalman for the most part

We're going to go through the list of heroes

and villains like we did with Voltron and either

before or at the end of each hero. If I have

something for them or villain, I will play it.

So wherever you want to start, you want to start

with Lionel? Yeah, sure. For those of you that

don't remember, Lionel is obviously the leader.

He's the lord of the Thundercats. based on the

lion, all right, wields the legendary sword of

moments, able to fire bolts of energy and allow

Lion -O to see across great distances with its

power of sight beyond sight. And of course, the

claw shield, which Deion and I mentioned that

we owned when we were kids, and that was awesome.

That was kick -ass. A gauntlet that launches

grappling lines from it's claws. A mere child

of 12 years old at the time of Thunder's destruction,

aged to adulthood during the trip to third earth.

Although cunning and skillful, he is truly a

child in a man's body and throughout the series

must learn what it takes to become a true leader

and gain true maturity. Lionel also has the ability

as Lord of the Thundercats to command all cats,

as he demonstrated a couple times during the

show. Yes, especially when he was battling Snowman

and Snowmeow, he told Snowmeow to halt. And here

is Lionel with his Sight Beyond Sight. And I

fully admit I should have taken the gas part

out before. I should have exported that out,

but I didn't. Oh well. That's the Sword of Omens.

That's the actual, that's the warnings theme.

And it's also the theme of the sword, as I said

before. Almost everything in this entire show

had a theme. So, yeah. That was what kept it

consistent. That was what made it good, too.

I always liked it when he did the William Shatner

pause on that, when he'd say, give me sight.

Oh, yeah. Sight beyond sight. All right. Jaga.

Known as Jaga the Wise, based on the Jaguar,

this elder warrior was once regarded as the greatest

of all Thundercats, an advisor and protector

of the Lord's family. It was Jaga who gathered

the nobles of the Thundercats to escort Liono

in the Eye of Thundera to safety. but his age

condition he did not survive the trip to third

earth. However, Jaga does reappear on third earth

as a spirit seen only by Lion -O at first to

guide him in his lessons and adventures. At times

he appears before the other Thundercats as well.

When he was alive, Jaga also wielded the Sword

of Omens and was a formidable fighter in combat.

I don't have that much from Jaga, I just have

what I already played. Which is this. Jago was

a character that He was almost a father figure

to Lionel and he pretty much was seeing as how

Claudus who is his actual father? We'll talk

about later. He came in a in an episode where

Lionel got to travel back to Fundera right before

it blew up I was like Aga because and we'll mention

this later on this show was pretty much It was

pro -social programming because, as everybody

knows, back in the 80s, as I think we've said

before, everybody was against all the violent

cartoons. So, Jago was that voice, as he said,

you know, as it said, you know, the wise old

man and, you know, just giving advice to Lionel

and eventually the other Thundercats. uh... and

i thought that was really really cool uh... if

you want to tell you again uh... tiger was the

staunch level headed warrior obviously based

on the tiger Tiger is known as the Thundercat

architect and scientist. He is the one Lionel

often turns to as second in command and for counsel.

He's responsible for the design of all the Thundercat

structures on Third Earth, the Cat's Lair and

the Tower of Omens. He is also gifted with mind

power, the ability to create lifelike illusions

in other people's minds. He uses a whip -like

bolus in combat with which he can render himself

invisible to the naked eye. where creators Ted

Wolf and Leonard Star describe Panther's character

as being based on strength and Chitara's character

as being based on speed. Tiger's character was

described as being based on speed. Yes, and here

is Tiger. I believe this is when he was facing

Monkean at one point. Now you don't see me! Now

you do! And next up is Panthero, the next noble

and also the second eldest after Jaga until Linksuo

is introduced. Based on the Panther, this warrior

is chief mechanic slash engineer and pilot for

the Thundercats. He is also physically the strongest

and is cutting warrior in combat, relying as

much on martial arts as on physical strength.

With Tigris' help, he builds all of the vehicles

and Thundercats used on Third Earth, including

the Thunder Tank, the Feline, Thunderclaw, Thunderstrike,

Hovercat, all that stuff. The jovial soul he

is, however, also quick to lose his temper and

has paralyzing fear of bats and a dislike of

spiders. In combat he uses a pair of chain fighting

sticks slash nunchucks. uh... with all the way

cat paws which has several chemical spray compounds

that he can use against foes and as far as just

bands uh... can be used like projectile weapons

or as grappling lines uh... panthro as far as

i remember you did not see it especially in american

cartoons japanese cartoons maybe but in an american

card is a you do not see the ninja character

a lot uh... and i thought that was really cool

that that that they had put that in there for

him. And here is Panthero's temper coming out.

Mutants! Always those blasted mutants! I'll let

you... Go ahead. Chitara's the next one on the

list. which was obviously our female warrior

based on the cheetah, the only adult female thundercat

until we later see Pamyra. She is as lovely as

she is brave and caring, I guess to some, often

a voice of reason. She is also the bearer of

a budding sixth sense, detecting when something

is unsafe or if evil is near. This precognitive

sense, which Chitara regards as a curse for the

most part, also allows her to perceive visions,

whether involuntary or by forcing herself, but

can leave her very weak and she may require days

to regain her strength. She has incredible speed,

one's clocked at speeds of 120 miles an hour

on a morning jog. She can only maintain this

top speed for brief periods, but with it, she

can move very fast in combat. Her weapon of choice

is the bow staff that can grow or shrink to variable

lengths. I always wondered where the hell she

pulled that from. I never saw the arm band. I

always just see her reach behind her arm or something.

I didn't either. Did she pull it out of her ass?

What the hell? uh... uh... uh... well that's

it'll no longer safety this show had a couple

things like that it's kind of like optimist primes

trailer that uh... yet there's anything with

uh... when why not just magically attaching his

clon sword to his hip yes it's like uh... there's

no i think that's just a welly cat and when i

get i i don't i didn't get any voice uh... stuff

for chitara nor did I do the twins either. Twin

siblings Cat the Boy and Kit the Girl who are

the youngest members of the Thundercats team

both based on a wild cat. They are technically

and jointly referred to by the others as Thundercittens.

They are mischief makers and often have their

own lessons to learn alongside Lionel while they

live on Third Earth where they frequently use

tricks and traps to combat evil. Kit is the more

adventurous while Kat usually errs on the side

of caution. Kit also appears to be the more agile.

Their agility is often displayed when they ride

their space boards, especially designed flying

devices shaped like Earth surfboards that can

carry them over long distances. Each uses special

capsules, balls, and other gimmick weapons carried

in pouches. On their belts, they sometimes use

slingshots to fire these at mutants or other

foes. They also carry trick lariots with which

they can either tangle and ensnare foes or use

to pull themselves out of danger. In the first

episode, they appeared to be slightly older than

Lion -O, but when they went into suspended animation,

they did not age as far in their suspension capsules

as Lion -O did in his. Wile E. Kitt is the elder

of the twins. Wow, I did not know that. And then

of course we had we have some new thundercats

that came in when the second season began Won't

go into great detail about it, but we had the

three names Bengali Pamyra and link so Bengali

being the Bengal tiger that was somewhat of a

brother figure to tiger you had Pamyra the second

female thundarian and then you had link so who

was well really yeah became blind so did become

blind, but that was Technically you could have

if they had gone back to shown in Exodus the

actual launch and in that whole storyline if

they had shown that in Exodus that didn't really

would have been the first episode but they go

back in a flashback and show how link so became

blind as as something exploded on Tundara and

then the noble ship took off So yes, and I don't

have any audio from them I really liked it that

they brought in new characters like that, but

that they... it was different than some of the

other cartoons, I mean... Obvious cartoons come

to mind, but where you had to get rid of all

your other characters to bring in the new ones

I liked how they did this with that. I mean there

was a second season They knew they had to bring

something new they basically kept all the old

characters Just added a few a few new ones, and

I really liked them when I was watching this

as a kid I especially I was a big yeah, yeah,

I did too The addition of these new Thundercats.

I actually like kumara better than chitara after

a while Yeah, but they didn't really have a whole.

I mean they they had episodes where where they

had you know good good amount of act excuse me

good amount of action uh... but most of the episodes

uh... at least the ones that i was watching i

mean it didn't really sometimes it was showcased

one of them with the rest of the team or two

of them with the rest of the team and then somebody

else was back against layer or tower of omens

or whatever but i don't know uh... i like the

original originals the best i think And then

on Thundera you had Claudus, the previous Lord

of the Thundercats and Lynos' father. Claudus

ruled Thundera before its destruction. He lost

his sight during the war. He fought and against

the mutants of Plundar. In the episode, Return

to Thundera, Liono is transported back in time

to Thundera the day before it was destroyed.

He later rescues his father from past versions

of Sly the Invulgerman who are attempting to

recover plans for a warbot that Claudus Spies

had gotten their hands on. He then proceeded

to give these plans to Liono who used them in

the present to destroy mutants, a warbot believed

to have died on Thundera while assisting the

royal flagship and taking off and was later found

to have been captured by the Shadowmaster. through

the sequence of nightmares. Lino eventually learns

of his father's imprisonment in the shadow realm

and is able to rescue him. I understand they

were going for a storyline with Claudus and that's

well and good, but when I first saw that episode

and then I saw Linkso later on, I'm like, well,

why the hell couldn't they have just made Linkso

the surviving father? Yeah. But and then on new

thundera when the planet of thundera is reformed

in season 2 of the series thundercats must work

to Stabilize the planet before it can tear itself

apart again, and here is that they discover another

thundercat Jagara Found deep within the core

of New Thundera, this powerful ancient thundercat

based on the jaguar -like Jaga is a mortal sorceress.

Her duty is to guard the massive gyroscope that

keeps the planet intact. She uses the powers

of levitation, teleportation, and psychokinesis

to perform her tasks and to defend the gyroscope

from attackers. It is noted by Jaga, no relation,

that she has been acting in this capacity for

countless years. And we also had, of course,

our lovable favorite characters, the Snarf, and

all of the versions of the Snars. They basically

are native to Thundera, living in the Valley

of Snars. And then, of course, we have the main

one who takes the name, the actual name of Snarf.

accompanies the Thundercats to Third Earth and

throughout the series we're introduced to various

other SNARFers, SNARF Oswald, SNARF Egbert and

so forth. They're basically your comic relief

even though this show had comic relief everywhere.

Yeah. This is your main character as far as the

good guy is that it's supposed to be that comic

relief character. Yeah, I think I have a couple

of SNARF stuff. I wish I had gotten Snarfers

saying, okay, Uncle Osbert needs, and he would

say, don't call me that, but here's one of Snarf's.

And it actually, we didn't mention this in, well,

we didn't mention this earlier when we were talking

about Bob McFadden. He actually made that up.

The, Snarf, Snarf, you know, that, that, that,

that part of the voice for the character. Yeah.

And once we're not going to go into great detail

over Just the the other allies and natives of

third earth the Robear burbles the warrior maintenance

Wolos Balkans Mandora the evil chaser female

unicorn guardian Hachi man the Samurai snowman

of hook Mountain and snow meow Anyway term agar

dr. Dome tome. I don't remember whiz raw, but

that sounds really really Bad. That sounds, I

can see why. Sounds like somebody's whizzing

on somebody else's head. It's like short -lived.

Yeah. I will whizz -raw all over your head. Um,

um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,

um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,

um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,

um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,

um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,

um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,

um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um,

um, um, um, um, um, um The Tuska warriors were

not included, no reason given, but seemed an

obvious choice, especially over Mandora, who

was not native to Third Earth and spent most

of her time off -world. Well, oh, yeah, there's

so many freaking voices There's so many freaking

voices and there wasn't really that many memorable

things that they said, huh? Yeah, I mean, you

know, there's only so many times you can get

a little you know midget, you know Metallic slash

furry looking teddy bear saying okay lion. Oh

And it doesn't so far in the little list here.

It doesn't say what in the voice list it doesn't

say their voices So anyway moving on to the villains

I guess you can start with the chief villain

since Holy I was gonna say holy crap Mumra has

a long bio Yeah Um Mumra is the chief villain.

He's the antagonist against the Thundercats He

is the demon priest as they call him and the

self -proclaimed ever -living source of evil

on third earth He has powers of sorcery and an

apparently an unlimited lifespan But in fact

he is bound servant to the ancient spirits of

evil represented by the four statues that we

see in the cartoon over and over again kind of

resembling Egyptian canopic jars Who provide

him with increased power and virtual immortality

to further his pursuit of spreading their dark

influence. Yes So I think that's a pretty good

synopsis of what Mumra is without getting into

the deep background of it. And then of course

the other big... Before we go into the mutants,

here's a couple clips from Mumra. And then his...

And then, uh, there's his, um, transformation.

No, I don't think so. Yeah Mumra later on is

shown to have a blue bulldog companion named

ma mutt capable of flight and supernatural feats

of strength and Speed he is generally evil though

some episodes depict him as having a sympathetic

qualities Yeah Yeah, that's kind of stupid and

being totally not necessary yeah I mean, how

can somebody who is evil love anything? I mean,

that's kind of you mama. Yeah And he actually

says in the one episode yeah, he did just say

that I couldn't figure that out, but it was funny.

Oh, please tell me he didn't just say that And

we had we had about five main groups for the

music slide, yes We had the reptilians who were

the lizard men who basically are represented.

Yeah, which had Monkean. Which I think I have

Monkean, I'm not sure if I do. He is, yeah Peter

Newman did both voices. I love Monkean. And then

next is? Yeah, that was the same gut. It sounded

like the tiger, I think. Yep. What manner of

a chamber is this? Okay, okay. Cool. And then

you all, good. Jackalmen. And actually, yeah,

the other two are actually, I like these, the

later, I like these two groups of mutants actually

better than the first three. I may be alone on

that, but we had the Vulturemen. See I think

they did I mean I wasn't really too impressed

with retire just because He was actually not

very technically he is the leader of the munit

Of the mutants because they were all or he used

to have a slide in some drill camp or something

or other But good You know like I couldn't get

past when I was watching this now, though. Vultroman

looked like something straight out of, like,

the Dark Crystal, and Rattaro looked like something

out of... I'm forgetting what movie it was. I

don't know what the fuck that was, but okay.

I don't know if it was a Disney movie with all

the little mice and all that stuff. Whee! Um,

I can't remember what it is now, but they...

That was that was just for the Disney mice thing

because then you had the lunar tax hailing from

the moons of plundered like something's While

beings are once feared criminals Yeah plundered

yeah, really They do on the dark side of volcanic

region on the far side of fire rock mountain

They were encased in molten rock by mum rah when

they attempted to take control of third earth

uh... and we're tax or luna amok tug mug chiller

red eye and loro uh... then you had uh... hammer

hand in the berserkers i wish i'd get in some

of the audio for this but you know thursday friday

night i was like uh... okay shows almost done

i really don't have anything else to do these

dvds i'm trying to wonder about names will be

here now but uh... hammer hand in the berserkers

This odd band of pirates first appeared pillaging

the North shores of unicorn forest in the episode

the terror of hammer hand They have a habit of

repeating certain words or phrases three times.

You had hammer hand top spin top spinner ram

-bam and cruncher good I They yeah, they repeated

certain words three times, but it seemed like

they only did that in the first season. Yeah,

because you had episodes of them. They only said

it twice. The last few episodes, I saw them in

season two. And just the minor villains, and

then we're going to move on to the next segment

after this. Gru the Destroyer, I don't see how

you could put him as a minor villain, seeing

as how... No, well no Grun was in several episodes

Grun was actually a thundercat and bad and he

and Jaga were in locked in a mortal combat as

their ethereal selves But I don't see him as

a as a non I mean, yeah He's not the main main

antagonist like mum rah or the mutants, but he

still had a whole lot of stuff Yeah Yeah, and

then you had you had Safari Joe the demolisher

Captain Cracker Captain Shiner just as much as

you know the lunatics or the Captain Cracker

is what it said Captain Shiner mongor driller

the Shadow Masters acts and the mad bubbler Yeah,

I don't even think I watched that episode I would

have to go back what really pissed me off and

we'll and we'll get to this in the DVDs there

are There's a five part episode thing that is

out of order on the DVDs and I'll get to that

later Yeah, we can do it Before we get on I just

want to give my my real quick things for my favorite

and my least favorite character I think Overall

over all the characters of the the show by far

my two favorites were or panther on tiger Well

mama really didn't have a voice he probably which

actually I'm surprised no one found anywhere

if it was Welker doing the barking for for mama,

but I Yeah, I know I don't know I I didn't I

didn't look for it, but one of your favorites

or least favorites day on on any of the credits.

I don't - Yeah. Um. Um. Tigra is one of my favorites.

And Panthro. Yeah. Um. Those are my two favorite

characters. Um. Actually I - Yeah. You know.

I'm not gonna say Lionel is my least favorite

because he kicked ass. Um. I would say Jitara

is my least favorite. What's like you talk my

least favorite because they just didn't you know,

I mean, yeah, she had powers and that was great

You know, I'm not saying that, you know females

don't rule don't get me wrong Yeah, I think yeah

Listening yeah sometime. I thought sometimes

it did and for the most part didn't for her just

just that role just oh my god It didn't work.

Yeah, did that work? Yeah I didn't uh... yeah

sometimes as far as i'm gonna go in these areas

first i'd like to learn tax on any of them all

of them they were just to uh... there is two

out there a you know i wasn't really really into

the whole uh... that whole plot line uh... and

then uh... for my favorites uh... i gotta go

with lionel and uh... pan throw just because

you know they were they were really super cool

um I wasn't really a fan of the mutants I kind

of liked monkey in but I wasn't like I didn't

like really care for them either way I think

yeah yeah best quality is this that's about the

best quality gotten like there's something wrong

with my song what the fuck yeah that's about

yeah see i think i think the show did a lot better

of developing good characters good minor characters

for the good guys and they did with the bad guys

because if you take groom the destroyer and mum

raw out of the bad guys like the rest of them

aren't very Well, yeah, no, they're just not

well that was just the first season that was

just for the majority of the first I'm very surprised

that you know, they only had you know, yes, we

only had six actors Doing everything, you know

Right, but for that for that first season. That

was very good They did not rely anyone else,

you know, they did not rely on anyone else. Well,

yeah, I was gonna actually say that I mean, it's

kind of funny that that I Put these two shows

back to back in a way Voltron in episode 4 and

now thundercats in episode 5 I don't know why

I did that that way. It's just the way I thought

of them Yeah, but yeah, so I guess we're gonna

move on to the next segment All right, we're

gonna move on to the creators writers behind

the scenes segment just a little footnote or

head note here Normally, I would have gotten

audio for this But I'm either going to put it

in between One of the clips probably either before

this or after this or I may put it the entire

episode About the behind the scenes, you know,

there's a there's a special feature on the first

DVD uh... what is it it's uh... no not the will

we can crap uh... on the second DVD season one

volume two thundercats hoe creating a pop culture

phenomenon uh... executive producer Arthur Rankin

jr. shares secrets from the show uh... the special

feature and i'll go on to this in the DVDs but

the special feature on the first one is uh...

Feel the magic, hear the roar. Thundercast fans

speak out. Will Wheaton and other loyal fans

give their memories and support to this animation

classic. Which is like a 10 minute thing about

them saying that they liked it. It was pretty

fucking lame. Yeah, it's really lame. But going

on to the writers, Leonard Starr was the, I guess

he was the head writer in the first season. He

was the one that came up with the original treatment,

the 12 page treatment for Exodus. And then you

had people like J. Larry Carroll, Pierre Lawrence,

Bruce W. Smith. Ted Wolf was actually the creator

of the characters. Thundercats, Mutants, Mumrah,

all that stuff. Yeah, I really don't have that

many things to say about this there really isn't

that much on this on the writers the production

companies were rank -and -bass productions telepictures

corporation Laura Marr telepictures And then

distributors in 85 it was telepictures telepictures

Laura Marr in 86 89 was Warner Brothers television

family home entertainment in 85 as well, I guess

Oh, yeah, that was the VHS is okay and then Warner

home video for the DVDs in 2005 and then a VRO

television for TV and then Cartoon Network from

97 or 2002 Just for the writers and stuff, so

this isn't really a short short segment the stories

for the most part are awesome They actually kind

of continue even though they're not one long

continuation story like like you had like the

The two -parter or the hour -long Exodus and

then you had another episode after that it continued

from that story So even though it wasn't a direct

continuation. It wasn't like Exodus part seven

or whatever, you know At least the continuity

continued throughout the entire series Yeah,

I will say that the animation since animation

is part of this to the animation seemed at times

You know, I know this is kind of typical for

a lot of 80s show, but it seemed clumsy There's

there's scenes where they'll have two characters

I remember one scene where where Lionel is talking

to Willa and they're just having a conversation

all sudden Willa like jumps three feet backwards

like Like, I even really wound and watched it

like three times. I'm like, does something scare

her? But I mean, there's a lot. I mean, I know,

like I said, I know it's typical for eighties,

but the animation in this one, even compared

to some of the other ones in that time period,

seemed a little bit substandard. Well, if you

look at the entire, I mean, I'll fully admit

this wasn't one that I watched every single episode

just because of certain things that I'll get

later. But if you look at majority of the episodes

from the beginning of season one to the middle

of season two, first of all what I noticed was

the animation on Mumra's transformation changes

as the storyline for Mumra goes on. And the actual

chamber changes. Like when it's on Newt. Like

take the black pyramid that's on third earth

and move it to Thundera. the cauldron looks different

it's the same color purple water but the just

the actual the physical place of it like where

it was built it looks like it has a different

shape to it as they were going on so i don't

know if they were getting better in animation

as the two seasons progressed or if they were

getting worse not really sure seem like they

used like comparing it to human for example it

didn't seem like it used as much stack footage

of just showing the same sequences over and over

again so i'll give it credit for that but just

seemed like there wasn't someone that like watched

it at the end and I mean I know they're on a

tight time schedule but it just seemed like there

wasn't that oversight at the end that said well

hold on that's messed up a little bit here that's

wrong there yeah yeah I'm not really sure and

a lot of the animations sometimes I would just

go like this That was a clip from snarf in the

very first episode where he he stumbles down

a rock after they're out of the capsules and

he trips and he Exposes the sort of omens and

I just thought that was funny as hell I think

the animation if you're just watching it to enjoy

it and not trying to review it and I mean We're

not even trying to review it here. This is not

A full exposure expo, you know look at every

detail Discussion, but I mean if you're just

watching it to watch it and reminisce it's fine

There there are slight changes, but if you're

looking at it as far as a reviewer's standpoint

Yeah, you're gonna have a lot of grapes with

it So I believe unless you guys have any other

thoughts on the behind -the -scenes stuff I believe

we're gonna move on to the next episode or next

clip All right Up next is the wait. What segment

is this the actual show? Oh, yeah, that's right

actual show I actually blanked out there for

a minute We basically had two seasons like we

mentioned before with a brief kind of TV movie

in between called thundercats hoe Just give you

a little brief synopsis of both seasons in the

movie here the first season The status quo holds

strong for most of the first season, kind of

serves as the basis for a vast array of stories.

Mixed elements of science fiction, fantasy, traditional

good versus evil. Steadily introduce more and

more and more and more recurring allies and villains

into the world of the Thundercats. You have a

lot of everything. You have the futuristic technology,

you have the sorcery, you kind of have the best

of both worlds. There's a gentle continuity in

the first season with early episodes following

on from one another kind of and establishing

somewhat of some, you know, recurring concepts.

As the first season continues, that starts to

be a little more loose and we get to some, you

know, episodic, just one -shot episodes. And

then tying the first and the second season together,

we have the five -parter center catch hoe. where

we have the first major shake -up of the status

quo, we have the introduction of the three new

Thundercats, and we have more heroes and villains

which were incorporated in the story that all

kind of come together, and it concluded with

the apparent destruction of Mammarra. Season

two, we have... Starting with the five -parter

Mumrah lives, so obviously we know that Mumrah

is not destroyed. We have introduction of new

bad guys with the Loon attacks. And obviously

the three new Thundercats take a big role. We

have eventually a move to new Thundera, which

we have to see Pamyra and Tigra kind of be left

behind for a lot of Season 2, since they stay

back on Third Earth. And eventually... We go

to the last episode, which is the Book of Omens,

which ends up where Thundera is restored into

the peaceful and pristine world that it was before

all this chaos happened, and we have our Captain

Planet moment. Shut the fuck up! I'm sorry, just

the whole last like 10 minutes or 15 minutes

it seems. No, it's not that long. Probably the

last five minutes of the last show. It's just

like a, feel good and how do we keep our world

good? We don't pollute. We make sure the water

is good and the air is good. Shut the fuck up.

I don't want to vomit. Sorry. Okay, you know,

as I said before, this show was pretty much You

know, they set out to make it pro -social programming,

but unlike He -Man where there's a message at

the end of every episode, this incorporated it

into the episode so where it didn't take away

from the actual stories. The one thing that I

took away from this show, and the reason why

they never could kill Mumrah, he even says it.

As I just played that clip, wherever evil exists,

he lives. But that's just the thing. It's a constant

struggle between good and evil. And that's what

this show showed you. Yeah, and they were dealing

with, I mean, we got to remember the shows being

made in the early 80s. And there had been a huge

backlash in the decades previous about violence

on cartoons. So they had to, you know, one reason

why the show has some of this. pro -social and

has some of these cheesy slapstick type humor

and all that type of stuff is because they had

to make sure that the violence was kind of masqueraded

as this kid -friendly show so that it didn't

incur the wrath again of the parents that the

last couple decades had had before that. Yes,

but it also, thank God back then, we didn't have

the rating system. I don't know if that would

make such a big difference considering what the

fuck is on TV nowadays. No, that's fine. But

dude, you're also talking like 10 to 15 years

later as well, that we have this rating system.

And back then, back in the 80s and back in the

80s up to into the 90s, the rating system didn't

really start till late. So we didn't have that.

We didn't have that rating system back in the

80s. We didn't have to worry about. You know,

I mean, obviously, if the parents didn't think

the cartoon was good enough for the kids, the

kids wouldn't be able to watch it unless they

snuck over to a friend's house. But, you know,

we didn't have rated PG, rated Y7. You know,

we didn't have all that shit. Well, I think the

reason why we didn't, I mean, I know this is

kind of off topic of the actual show of Thundercats,

but it kind of pertains. reason why i don't think

we need the radiation rating system back then

until obviously all these parents kept you know

lodging against these cartoons was because uh...

that's what they are Let's call it Spade to Spade,

okay? Well, it all went in cycles, though. I

mean, the parents, it's like they have this uproar,

then they calm down, and then they have an uproar.

I mean, they really went crazy in the 70s, which

is why we had so much stuff kind of be tamed

down, and they stayed tame until, you know, the

early 90s again, and then it seemed like they

reared back up, and then we had, of course, all

the cartoons being cut and stuff like that. So

kind of, it all goes in cycles. Yeah, I know,

but, I mean, how can you not... Okay, how can

you see as a parent a show like Thundercats or

Voltron or whatever as complete violence, but

yet you have fucking kids abusing animals, holding

them in fucking balls and Pokemon for Christ's

sake? I mean, come on, give me a fucking break.

Yeah, well, I don't think I don't think people

went too nuts about about thundercats being a

violent show I think the people that made thundercats

went to extremes to make sure that parents didn't

have a backlash with thunder Oh exactly, but

I mean You know like Mike just said about Voltron

Voltron was the same way Yeah, well the other

thing is I remember my aunt perfect example my

aunt Debbie you she She would never let me watch

transformers never Every time I was over a house,

she thought it was way too violent. I thought

they cursed way too much. And I don't ever remember

hearing any curse words. I never heard them cursed

at all. In the cartoon, in the movie, yes they

did. But in the cartoon, I don't ever remember

hearing them curse. No. Yeah, in the cartoon,

they never did. That was always... You never

heard them edit words out. Exactly. That was

only done in the movie and only for ratings.

Yes, yes, yes. Anyway. Going back to the actual

show, did you have something else? No, I don't

think so. A couple things I noticed as I was

watching them, I kind of mentioned above, but

it seemed like they had a lot of little things

that happened throughout the series that they

really didn't do any type of explaining to. Like

we talked about Lionel's claw and sword being

magnetically attached to his hip. Um, we talked

about she taras bow monkey and he had this I

remember one episode he had a shield and we always

had a shield but he started shooting things out

of the shield like there was an endless supply

of ammo somehow being Held within the shield

that was just shooting out like there's some

of that stuff even as a kid. I remember being

like Where's that? How is that doing that? It's

having its magic And I gotta say they're the

fastest builders I have ever seen. Well, okay

I can kind of defend that though, because they

did have the burbles building. They did build

that fast. Yeah, but I mean, still, it's a what?

It's a what? 22 -minute cartoon. So I mean, you

really can't spend - A 22 -minute cartoon, yes.

Well, I expected it to be like a process that

was being done over a few episodes. Like, oh,

it's a third of the way done, and maybe Mammarra

tries to come attack it before it's finished

or something like that. Then over the next episode,

it's like halfway done, but it was like - Well,

that happened later, though. Know but it seemed

like all sudden the first episode that they decide

that they're gonna build a cast layer boom It's

done. I actually like the one on third earth

better than the one on on Newfoundland I do too.

I do too. Um and just one other note for me as

far as this section goes and that is a it's just

seemed like and I'm working to disagree on this

probably but It just seemed like there was a

disconnection, at least during the first season,

with some of the episodes. I remember watching

one episode and Lionel's complaining that Panther

never lets him drive the Thunder Tank. He said

Panthera. Yeah, I did. He says, you know, he

never lets me drive it and, oh, you know, my

first driving lesson is tomorrow. It was either

one or two episodes before that that Lionel drove

the damn thing. Was it? See, I didn't notice

that. Yeah, it was just episodes before where

he was driving it. They did a lot of that backwards.

Yeah, he was just driving it all over the place.

I don't know if they showed the episodes in different

ways than they wrote it, but it was like, this

doesn't make any sense. He was driving the thing

last week, and now all of a sudden this week

he's complaining that he never gets to drive

it. It was probably the way when they aired it

on TV. I hope so. it on TV, because you know

when they get episodes and stuff, they air them

differently than you see them on DVD sets. Oh,

we will get to that. We will so get to that,

because, yeah, I am so. Well, no, I wouldn't

be I'm only pissed about one part and I'll get

to that once we get to the DVD section Just going

down some of the memorable quotes, which I've

already played I'm not gonna play them again

because I don't want them to be overplayed the

thunder thunder thundercats ho from lino the

ancient spirits of evil from mum rah uh... sort

of omens give me site beyond site uh... uh...

where evil is this momra lives i was going to

get the other one that line or normally did as

the season's progressed which was sort of omens

come to my hand uh... so you know i i i didn't

get that i should have uh... lightsaber no this

is the sort of i know the sort of omens was nothing

like the lightsaber no i mean the way it flew

to your hand if you are you just like okay yeah

The sword can fly. It's the Jedi mind trick.

Yeah, only in animated style. Dude, don't encourage

him. So I think unless we have any final thoughts

on the... I mean, I guess we can go ahead and

give our final thoughts on the actual show part.

yet but i i'd say my favorite couple episodes

i kind of mention it before but i like the mandorah

one i also like the uh... the five -parter with

uh... the undercut so you know and um... basically

like the last episode except for the last five

minutes but you know it definitely had some real

good episodes within the two seasons i like very

much all the continuation and i mean i i will

end up saying this with with with any movie or

or show that we do uh... You know, I like the

continuing storylines. Exodus, Thundercats Ho,

Mumrah Lives, The Return to Thundera. And then

I actually, I tried watching a couple of the

episodes after Return to Thundera, and I eventually

just skipped straight to Book of Omens. But if

there's a fan out there that wants to not have

to watch 130 episodes but wants to get the shortest

amount of episodes and get the biggest idea of

what the whole series was, I think it's Thundercats

whole because you see almost all the bad guys.

You see all the good guys. It's a five parter.

So if you want a feel for what Thundercats was

like and you don't want to watch all 130, just

watch those five episodes. Yes, and I believe

I'm trying to think here. Where's that stupid

disc? It's on season two, volume one, I believe,

of the DVD sets. Now, are there more of those

out? No, I'll cover it once we get to the DVD

sets. So we are going to move on to the next

segment. All right. Now we're going to move on

to the music segment. Take it away, Professor.

Basically, there's a couple things to say about

the music segment. First of all, all the original

music is done by Bernard Hoffer. And it's just

seemed like everything in this show had a theme.

And I think that's one thing that made this show

good for kids, because when you hear the same

lines or the same music being played, every time

something happens, it just sticks in your mind

easier. And every character seemed to have their

own theme song. My favorite bit of music for

the show was after the Thundercats symbol went

up, because the music that they play after that,

it just got you excited. It got you pumped up

for whatever was happening. The only thing that

made me mad every once while is when they would

start to play it and then like immediately stop

it because I'm like all ready to go through the

whole theme and then like done for a minute and

I'm like damn it there's actually go ahead got

no then there's actually currently an online

petition to get Warner Brothers to release an

official soundtrack containing the music from

the series which I said was composed and performed

by Bernard Hoffer you can actually go online

and try to sign a petition to get the official

soundtrack up there the websites www .thundercat

.com Fans org but apparently there's a petition

up there. So if you really want like the music

I don't know if that's ever gonna happen, but

I don't I hope it does Again reply just look

at what Warner does with this type of stuff.

Yeah, I know It takes them forever to get it

released on DVD or VHS or even a soundtrack Well,

I mean bad about type of crap. Well, see I kind

of and I'm not and I'm not really trying to turn

this into a Warner Brothers home video rant or

I didn't even know until 2007. I didn't even

know these were on DVD. And they came out in

2005. So TV on DVD or cartoons on DVD, whatever,

had just started hitting in 2001, 2002. And then,

of course, as the years have progressed till

now, it's gotten bigger and bigger and bigger

with TV on DVD. So I could see something like

Episode 8 we'll be talking about mask mask isn't

on DVD. So whoever holds the rights to that.

They're taking their sweet time I can understand

that but I mean these came out pretty fast and

they're actually kind of hard to find now They're

almost that I don't know if they're out of print,

but it was very hard for me to find these I had

to actually find them online to get them Yeah,

they all came out like it seemed just like within

I don't know what the actual time was but it

seemed like boom boom boom They were all out

there. Yeah, it was like between 2005 and 2007

Yeah We can't go with our music section without

mentioning the theme song Theme song is a great

theme song I'm gonna it's one of the more memorable

ones from that time period and just to give my

my usual little thing here My ranking system

27th the best from 1980 to 1995 that damn song

yet. Oh, yes, they have actually Yes, they have

actually really on I believe it's the Is it?

Yeah. On the Season 2 Volume 1 set, special features

include the music of Thundera, composer Bernie

Hoffer, and the Rembrandts reveal the inspirations

behind the music. Rembrandts Thundercats theme

song music video. What the fuck are the Rembrandts

doing with the Thundercats, god damn it? Fucking

right the fucking people that made the friends

theme covered the friends under cat Yeah Before

we move on from the movie music segment. I'm

going to play I have three themes I have The

Thunder tank pan throw and she tires theme so

here is the Thunder tank and hopefully it comes

through Sorry about the actual sound effects.

It was the only part of the clip It was where

they were breaking down the barrier to Castle

plunder It's the only one that I could get that

actually had the music in it without without

the you know, the voices over it so And here

is panthro's theme again you know I couldn't

find one yeah I'm just gonna point out right

here and right now those two themes are alike

yeah they are but that's probably because Panther

drove the Thunder tank for the most right that's

probably where they got it from so they they

just took that particular theme and said all

right we're gonna make a Panther theme We're

going to change it up a little bit, but it's

going to sound the same in some spots. They all

have to have somewhat of an overlying theme.

Yeah, and here is Chitara's. As you can tell

she was facing jackal man in that in that clip

I Think if I had to pick like my favorites obviously

the sort of moments music Which I don't have

the actual music without you know, why I know

doing either site beyond site or or you know

thundercats. Oh The sort of moments music and

the thunder tank music I got so pumped up when

I heard that I'm like, oh hell yeah We're getting

ready to go into some action or something's gonna

happen. So, you know that those are always my

favorites Yeah, and yeah, I just love after the

thundercats. Oh that theme music Just like like

we both said just pumps you up for whatever's

happening next on the cartoon I really hope that

Warner does you know if they if they decide to

do it I hope there is an official soundtrack

because that would be very you know be It'd be

a very good soundtrack to have for those that

grew up with this type of cartoon You know, I

mean we're all sitting around talking about these

cartoons We all grew up in the 80s and we all

remember this cartoon series. So, you know, that

that's really great I mean, I'm actually surprised

that you know Warner Actually came around and

did you know DVD sets? So that's good. So maybe

you know Maybe there will be a soundtrack save

maybe a year or two from now who knows, you know

with if more of the public Speaks out or says

look. This is what we'd like to see, you know

at that point, you know You know talks that have

to go on and stuff like that. Yeah, I I think

that With with the movie still in in planning

I don't know if anything as far as the movie

has been set in stone yet supposedly it's coming

out next year, but I don't think any any Any

definite plans have been made. I would hope that

they would do a Separate cartoon original cartoon

soundtrack and not just do a movie soundtrack

and score Yeah, yeah, so I think we're gonna

move on to the next segment unless you guys have

any final thoughts on the music All right. Nope.

We are going to move on to the legacy segment

This will basically include some of the merchandising,

the comic books, movies, and DVD releases. So

take it away, Professor. One thing that I'd like

to talk about is things that we're about to show

that you could get your hands on besides the

actual show. And this is one of the first examples

of the shows we've done so far at Tooncast that

actually had a big... Action figure line that

was done with it and just real briefly to get

into that. This is something that actually delayed

We haven't mentioned this but this is something

that delayed Thundercats from going on the air

originally. I mean Thundercats the first season

was actually all done in 1983. Yeah But it didn't

reach airwaves until 1985 and the reason that

was is because in the early 80s there was it

hadn't been done where you had basically a toy

line that is a cartoon, basically 30 minute commercials,

so to speak. And there was a lot of people that

were nervous about the backlash that parents

might bring to that. So it kind of took a couple

of things. Number one, it took a change in the

head at the FCC when Mark Fowler took over and

he kind of relaxed the rules there for cartoons

and the toy stuff being connected. Yay! And then

also, obviously, the thing that broke ground

for everything else that came throughout the

rest of the 80s was He -Man and the success that

it had both being in syndication and being a

kind of a toy line on TV. So that's what kind

of allowed this to happen with Thundercats. But

basically, it did have a huge toy line. I didn't

necessarily collect any of them when I was a

kid. I do actually have a collection right now

going where I have the main hero and the main

villain from almost every show that I can get

my hands on. So I have a little... action figure

of Lionel and one of Mumrah actually set up right

now. I will say that the action figures for Thundercats,

I don't necessarily care for compared to most

of the other action figures that were around

in the 80s. They're much bigger than anything

else. They're even bigger than the He -Man action

figures were. They're very tall. They don't have

a lot to them, but they are out there for anybody

that's interested in them. They were produced

by LJN. from nineteen eighty five to nineteen

eighty seven yeah bastards but uh... other ways

that you can see stuff besides action figures

on there is a few games out there There was one

that was actually, this will date us, because

I used to play this as a kid. Not the game, but

the Commodore 64 had a game. There's everything

in Thundercats, especially nowadays. You can

find board games, lunch boxes, a lot of apparel

is out there with Thundercats. You always see

people walking around with the black t -shirt

with the Thundercats logo on it. If you want

to find Thundercats stuff, it's out there. and

it's not too hard to find. Oh yeah, very much

so. Is that the only game system that was released

for? Yes. I'm pretty sure. There's another game

system listed here, another computer system that

I didn't, we had a Commodore 64 that we played

religiously, but the other one that is listed

is a Sinclair ZX Spectrum personal computer system.

I've heard of them, but I never owned one. Neither

did I. And of course, like all cartoons, there

was a comic book. That was out in 1985, there

was a Marvel one, and in 2002, there was a DC

Comics, since it's owned by Warner Brothers,

that had a little mini -series of comics out

there as well. Yes. And then the movies. In 1986,

there was Thundercats Ho, the movie. It was released

on VHS in the UK and North America. It was later

edited into the five episodes, which ultimately

led to season two, even though season two never

aired in the UK. Warner Brothers is in the process

of creating a CGI animated film based on Thundercats.

It will be original story expanding on the events

of the first episode Exodus, expected release

of 2010. I've got a couple things on that one.

It seems like it's kind of far -fetched and I

don't necessarily think it's going to happen

by 2010, but this isn't something we're making

up. listen to a couple interviews with some of

the voice cast and this is something that they're

all aware about larry kenney is that actually

i mean his people are actually talking to the

people that are doing the movie to try to get

uh... get him in to do the voices he said in

the interview that uh... there's actually are

the the the interviewer hate brash interviewers

but anyway uh... the interviewer said that there

is a a uh... petition on thundercats dot org

i believe it is that uh... has like five hundred

or something so this is like last year the interview

happened Five hundred and something signatures

on it to get mr. Kenny to reprise Lionel. Yeah

I didn't I didn't I didn't say replace. I said

reprise. No, no, I'm saying if they did not I'm

just asking how can just How can you replace

that voice if they don't get mr. Kenny to do

that? Who else are you gonna get? I mean if you

get somebody else, it's not gonna fit Yeah, no,

it's not. Because everybody's associated Larry

Kinney with Lionel for a number of years. Yeah.

And Lynn Lipton, even though I hate her, said

that she would definitely be interested in doing

the voice in the movie as well. I mean, obviously,

they would have to do some stuff because some

of the voice actors are no longer with us, unfortunately.

McFadden and Hammond have both passed on. So

they would have to find someone different to

do that, although Larry Kinney has done those

two voices for, I forget what it was for. he

did those two voices. It was later on in the,

I believe it was later on in the second season

where he did Mumrah and what was the other one?

Jaga? No, Jaga, no, no, no. Did you go for Mumrah

from season two? No, no, no. There was just a

couple of parts that he did, like it was, I guess

it was at the end of the season or something

or other where he took it over, but there was

one that he said he could not do, which was McFadden's

Snarf and Snarfer. Right. As well as McFadden

and Hammond, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be

able to get Earl Hyman to do it, even though

he did a great job. I mean, he's getting way

up there in age. I don't even know if he could

technically do that voice anymore. uh... but

you know if they even if they could just get

you know larry kenney and maybe you know peter

newman are a couple of guys in there that would

make it pretty human still around here's the

only looks young on the dvds i mean you know

that you can hear and not that not as old to

go to the hymen and hammond mcfadden were old

when the show was airing and you know these other

guys were you know just breaking into the business

basically Deanna if you go back and you look

at a episode of the Cosby show with grandpa Cosby

Yeah, and it that's how old him and disturbing.

Well, no, I know but that's all Hyman was when

he did the when he was doing Thundercats It was

that it was that it was that it was when the

Cosby show was still popular back then Yeah,

and that him but he also did the panther voice.

Yeah, right I mean, I think he's he's either

in his upper 80s or lower 90s right now. I think

Because you're saying look back at it. So like

like look at his Look at how he's aged or something

No, I'm so no say how old he was when though

when the cartoon was showing compare Larry Kenny

and Peter Newman who were you know I don't know

how old they were when the show was going but

I'm guessing they were in their 20s or 30s. Oh

god Yeah, so I would think by now those two be

in there what? 40s or yeah 40s 50s. Yeah, something

like that. So but that'd be interesting to see

if they do Be in his 70s, right? Yeah 70s 80s

90s something like that He's in his 80s at least

because I know I'll watch an interview of him

and I know he's in at least his 80s But it would

just be interesting to see if they do do this

movie eventually I don't know if it's gonna you

know, if it's gonna be based on how well some

of these other movies that have been going on

have have done or if they're waiting on something

or or what the deal is i don't know if the writings

the writer strike might have delayed it but i

i just i'm skeptical of that i'm skeptical of

it being actually released next year uh... and

going on to the dvd releases i will uh... talk

about my problems with them so i don't Let's

see you have season 1 volume 1 which was released

August 9th 2005 For region 1 we don't care about

the region 2 release The special features on

that are feel the magic hear the roar thundercats

fans speak out interview feature Will Wheaton

of Star Trek Next Generation and other loyal

fans give their memory and support to this animation

classic Season one volume two was released December

6 2005 Thundercats ho the making of a pop culture

Phenomenon exit excited producer Arthur Rankin

jr. Shares secrets from the show Season two volume

one was released April 18 2006 featured on the

series composer Bernard Hoffer music video of

the show's theme song performed by the Rembrandts

fuck the Rembrandts And season 2 volume 2 which

I think they could have put more features on

and only features one thing on disc 12 features

Thundercats ultimate adventure challenge, which

I had tried to do and could not That's the other

thing that's the other thing that Larry Kenny

did the voices on oh, yeah on the Mike it's just

like a Game. Yeah, it's a trivia game with bad

animation in it But my problem with the DVDs

it consists of Disc Disc season two or no season

one volume two discs seven through ten They have

a five -part storyline Lionel's anointment And

has first day second day third day fourth day

fifth day. Well in the DVDs. They're spread throughout

the the four desks they're not all like part

consistent exactly and i'm thinking okay wait

what the hell i just watched the first day and

now it's going on to the demolisher so i don't

know if they're out of order on the dvds or or

or what the deal is but yeah that's why i ended

up skipping around on uh... on uh... the season

one part two uh... volume two dvd said because

I did not like the fact that they did that. It's

always hard to tell if they're going to show

them in air date wise order or production order.

Well, they should always do air date. Or they

should do, like I said, they should do it. Like,

if you're going to have a five -parter, show

it all five parts. Concurrently I should note

and I do like this each set volume season 1 volume

1 is red and is red discs with the black symbol

and then season 2 is blue with a gray Thundercat

head season 3 is yellow with the with the silver

head and then sees or not season 3 season 2 volume

1 and then season 2 volume 2 is purple with a

silver head for the discs Which I thought was

really really cool They're great to have if you

if you're you know, if you just somehow one day

just end up thinking about the show and want

to watch it It's not something I could watch

on a regular basis But just you know just for

doing this episode and for going back to 85 and

and just reliving childhood It is very awesome

We have our weekly IGN Ranking wait wait wait

wait. We're already going into that or is that

part of this segment? Yeah, yeah, okay Shit I

thought it was a separate segment. I'm losing

my mind over here. Yes, sorry steal your thunder.

It was rated 49 49th out of the top 100 best

animated TV shows That's pretty good for all

the stuff they included. So oh, yes And I think

something that always shows how good a show is

or how much of an iconic or, you know, classic

show it is, is how often it's spoofed by other

people. And there's just all kinds of places

where you've seen Thundercats references. Please

tell me you're not going to read all these cultural

references. Holy shit, there's a ton of them.

No, but I'll just go through a couple of them.

I'm just going to mention a lot of the shows

that you've seen them in, you know, Family Guy,

American Dad, Robot Chicken, Drawing Together

South Park. You've seen them in a bunch of different

The Wayne Brady song has it in there. There's

some other songs. I have it in there They're

just all over the place if you I remember the

the Robot chicken because I remember I remember

Lionel showing up in that but I do not remember

American dad nor the Family Guy segments Family

Guy Let Larry Kenny actually his son uh... his

nineteen -year -old son said that you have to

do it it was an iconic thing that you did back

then it's you know it's very iconic now so you

have to do the voice for lionel in family guy

and lim lipton did the voice of jitara they did

a whole lot of other gets parity yeah we're not

going to go into that here even though this podcast

is explicit we don't need to discuss that uh...

uh... talk to me about And you even have some

actually some pretty current I mean I'm not saying

I'm fans of these people but you have some pretty

current music artists that put little lines about

this in their song Kanye West has a line that

says I'm trying to stop a lion like I'm mumara

But there's lots of little things like that that

show up in little different songs and stuff like

that Well, one of the things I noticed and only

because I even though I don't watch it as much

as I did, you know last year but There's a WWE

cultural reference wrestler Sheldon Benjamin

wears an eye of thundera necklace Since we're

talking about, you know legacy and how obviously

it's super popular obviously there's a lot of

uh Big internet fandoms that follow this just

like there are some of the other major cartoons

of the 80s. I'm gonna we're gonna have to agree

to disagree on this as far as me and mike go

i watching a bunch of the different 80s cartoons

for me um i don't think thundercats holds up

as well as a bunch of the other ones um i love

it i was waiting i love it i love it for what

it was i love the moments that i remember from

my childhood but for me Thundercats and He -Man,

watching them nowadays, they just don't hold

up as well as a lot of the other stuff that I

watch. I know you think differently, but at least

that's my opinion. I watched a ton of these episodes

this week, and some of them were just hard to

sit through, and I don't get that same experience

with some of the ones that we'll talk about in

future weeks. Well, I mean, I don't think necessarily

that we have to agree to disagree, because as

I said, I skipped over a lot of them because

of the order that they're on in the DVDs. As

far as the overall storyline ones, which... You

know, I've said thousands of times on this show

and we'll say on future shows and I've said on

the TFG one podcast as well Go listen to the

TFG one podcast. He can't radio .com Anyway,

you know Yeah, right. I have to pin my show.

Damn it. Anyway You know, I think a lot of the

storylines You know the continuation storylines

hold up, but but the you know the one -shot episodes

no not really I think a lot of the time you could

you know you could not only lose the audience

But you could lose the story if you continued

down that path. Oh, yeah If you continue down

that path and start writing all this stuff that

you know all you know line is supposed to have

Go back in time again or guitar supposed to go

back in time again. Nobody's gonna care about

that. Yeah They're gonna look everybody's gonna

lose interest include, you know, I mean it'll

air sure but you know you'll go look back they

would look back and they they would probably

be thinking why the hell did we write this for

also i mean i can understand it not holding up

to today's standards as far as animation goes

but then again majority of the eighties shows

that we talk about or that we will talk about

they were for the eighties and they are for the

nostalgia people that that want the eighties

back the age of the best fucking decade ever

you know i i i mean that cartoon was well music

-wise too Yeah, exactly except for the clothes

the clothes were a little out there. But anyways,

um Anyway, um, you know, I think that it does

You know as far as nostalgia as far as someone

who was a fan of it as a kid and wanting to get

the DVDs Those people should go out and get the

DVDs As far as you know, maybe introducing it

to your kids or whatever if you want to fine

if they you know get onto it you know if they

if they get hooked onto it cool um but as far

as what the hell was this that's why you know

most that's why you they don't get it if if you

want to find an 80s tv show like it's going to

hook your kids this probably is not going to

be the most most kids do not get it i'm sorry

i'm just going to i'm just going to blatantly

bluntly Say it. Most kids do not get it. Because

if it has nothing to do with Yu -Gi -Oh or whatever

the fuck it is, they don't... No, no, no. Hold

on. If it has nothing to do with that, if it

has nothing to do with Yu -Gi -Oh or Ben 10,

they don't care. I disagree. I have a little

niece and nephew and I got them hooked on the

Transformers without doing anything but popping

in a VHS tape. No, I'm not saying that all kids

are like that, but some of these kids, they just

don't get it. Know I don't think they under they

will never understand what good TV was for us.

Oh, I agree They will never understand that because

we have to show them look. This is what we watched

when we were growing up when we were your age

Okay, I know this is gonna be very Controversial

and I'm probably gonna get a whole lot of comments

on on geek cast radio comm for this from what

I'm about to say But you know how they have those

baby Einstein videos if I ever have You know

how they always say play them when the child

is sleeping or play classical music when the

child is sleeping to enhance child intelligent

Fuck that. I'm playing Transformers and Thundercats

DVDs while the kid's sleeping If I ever have

kids Thundercats is going on the DVD player and

the kid will you know brainwash right into him

I do have to give Thundercats credit for doing

for doing this for me as far as when I was a

kid I look at Thundercats as one of those shows

that bridged the gap for me from Transformers

to probably Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It

was one of those, I'm just saying it's one of

those, like I was a big Transformers fan and

I was - The only reason he's bringing up, Mike,

I'm gonna say this, the only reason he's bringing

up TMNT is because it has Rob Paulson in it,

god damn it. No, it's not actually. Paulson fan

boy. No, no, I'm just saying, those were two

shows. I was a big G .I. Joe, He -Man, Transformers

fan. I kind of got away from Transformers a little

bit in the movie, you know, after the movie.

And this is something that helped bridge the

gap until I found that next show, which was probably

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So it did do that

for me. No, Thundercats is probably one of the

best shows out there, you know, like Kevin said,

with He -Man and G .I. Joe and Transformers.

You know, you had all that. You had just... these

shows that I think in my personal I think they

There were just it was just a battle between

good and evil But it also had a message, you

know, and sometimes you know Maybe the parents

had to sit down with the child, you know their

children and explain to them what the message

was Exactly, because it wasn't as blatant as

he man were at the end of each episode You would

either have he man or man -in -arms or fucking

or or or somebody Well, yeah, same with Jira,

and we'll get to that once we get to episode

10. But I mean, it didn't have that blatant PSA

at the end. It had the message worked into the

story. That's why Lionel is a character that

has to build his maturity throughout the series.

So it's basically taking a little kid, sitting

him down and say, OK, this is what's going on

here. This is what this message is. And this

is, you know. What people should decide the cartoon.

I think it was just trying to say look. This

is how we should be Yeah, exactly good triumphs

over evil and no one that grew up on thundercats

No, i'm not gonna say that. Oh go ahead and say

it. You already started it No one that no one

that grew up with our cartoons like that And

we're we're showing those values ended up going

crazy and shooting a bunch of people. Yes, exactly

Exactly. Sorry. I agree with that. Yeah. No,

no, truly. Um, also I I should note, I also found

another clip that I can use for Kevin whenever

we disagree. No, geez. Of course you know, this

means war! I need my own books! No, you don't!

Alright, so we are going to move on to the closing.

My father first talked to me about it fairly

early. He said, what do you think of thundercats?

And I said, thundercats? What is a thundercat?

And the first thing I remember him telling me

was I had this idea for a series that involved...

superhumans that had the form of cats, what parts

of them were going to be animal, what parts of

them were going to be human. And he would put

that down when he pitched it. And it was kind

of like he'd say, thunder cats, thunder cats,

thunder cats. And after a while, it really started

saying, yeah. Rankin -Bass was an animation studio

that had pioneered stop -motion animation for

television. They became kind of the masters of

that. And then they diversified. They got into

doing cell animation as well. At that time in

the Rankin -Bass career we had just formed an

affiliation with telepictures and they're a strong

point and the reason they wanted us and we wanted

them is they had a great sales force. So Arthur

and Jules developed a relationship with them

and in the process of developing other shows

we were being pitched ideas by Leisure Concepts

Inc. this design firm. They would come up with

ideas and present them and I remember Stan Weston

came up And I forget exactly what he was pitching

to us, but I obviously wasn't too interested

in that. I looked over at his portfolio, and

there was this design in there of this half cat,

half human thing that was just this incredible

piece of artwork. And so I sort of wandered over

and took it out of his portfolio. I remember

Jules looking at it, and you could just see his

mind just off to the races. In New York at the

time, Rankin -Bass was the only animation company.

So we didn't have a pool of writers or illustrators

that worked specifically for animation. They

got to use a lot of people who didn't work on

the regular Hollywood cartoons. They got people

like Leonard Starr, who was a great cartoonist,

a newspaper cartoonist. And they've also got

people like the Powered Post. and Bob Haney,

who had written comic books for DC. Thundercats

was done with an American comic book sensibility.

And it really comes through with the kind of

stories and the imagination on that show. Jules

called me and asked if I could come in to recognize

his office. Everybody was gone. Jules was there

alone. And he had an easel set up with some posters

of... There was the Panther Man and the Tiger

Man, that sort of thing. There was also what

turned out to be the Thunder Tank. The best thing

about it was the lettering on the logo. It was

just sensational. So he said, can you do a treatment?

So I said, wouldn't you want it? And he says,

tomorrow? And that's what I did. It was a 12

-page treatment, the entire thing, the exodus

from Thundera and the dying planet and being

attacked by the mutants. Jules, in the very beginning,

said to me, what you have to understand about

animation was that whatever you can imagine,

whatever you want, you can do. You just have

to write it. We were a bunch of guys sitting

around a conference room table saying, OK, OK.

Well, they're in this new place called Third

Earth. They're going to have to move around.

We've got to have this thing called a thunder

tank. And then, OK, well, they can't just go

to the gas station. So we have to invent this

thing called throndillium that the thunder tank

runs on. And they can't find it. So what you

must do is open your mind to anything. So it

never occurred to me that we couldn't have an

Egyptian character with a spaceship. Why couldn't

we have thunder tanks? As long as you could somehow

fit it within that format. Just getting everyone

around the conference table for two, three long

day sessions and just kicking ideas around. I

had Thundercats Ho and Jules added the thunder,

thunder, thunder building on it. You could accelerate

it. Thunder, thunder, thunder. It's musical.

That was good. That was good. Jules had a touch

for that. It was collective. It was. But I must

say, Jules Bath was running the collective. The

vision of the show that Jules had was a very

clear, clean action -adventure show with a very

clearly defined comedy element. I think he had

very clear visions for each of the characters

and very clear roles for young kids like Wiley

Cat and Wiley Kid. First light I remember there

was no question there was going to be a good

guy girl And so we created Chitara and of course

there were a lot of a lot of jokes to me at first

They didn't want to give her a weapon They wanted

to put her in the layers kitchen and thank God

they were joking she tried to make Chitara You

know a strong female presence on the show and

of course all of most of the writers were male

and Didn't respond to that Oh, you got her a

stick. What else do you want? Oh, I love Chitara.

I think I identify with her. I just loved her

strength. I loved the fact that she was strong.

It was partially physical, but partially was

her speed. Chitara was just fast, you know. Her

whole point was speed. Anne Panthers was strength,

and Tigress was integrity and sort of leadership,

and Lionel was a learning experience. He's just

learning to be a superhero throughout the things.

I think the idea was to give the audience a model.

Somebody that the audience could identify with,

like an older brother, who has to go through

the process of growing up. He was a bad guy that

got mummified, possibly a bad high priest. But

there was no backstory. He was just there as

a villain. I named him Mum Ra and he was evil.

And it was very much like the Boris Karloff mummy,

you know, walking around like that. But the jewels

made him the monster. And there was a lot of

transformation going on at that time. You know,

cars would turn into big, big robots and that

sort of thing. And so transformation seemed like

a good idea. There had been many parents groups

that had been campaigning against cartoons on

television. They were considered too violent

for kids. In Thundercats, we had another idea,

which had not been done then. And with all of

the action going on, there was always a moral

to the story that was, if you will, sugar -coated

and hidden in there for kids to observe. And

we had Robert Cusas, a child psychologist, who

advised us on that. Children's TV is going to

go on. If we're going to produce it, let's bring

someone on and who's going to do something positive

for kids. My job as a consultant was running

to the review scripts to make sure that the content

was not going to be harmful. And then the idea

emerged. to write morals. He would look at our

outlines. He would then decide, OK, this story

is definitely going to adapt itself very well

to lessons in responsibility. And we would then

meet with the writer and discuss on the second

draft how we could expand that. I let him get

to me. And until I can control that. I've got

a long way to go. All I know in his development

is something kids could identify with, the fact

that he was learning just as they're learning.

And then I think of Jaga, the wise old man who

was a parent figure, someone he could rely on

to go to seek wisdom. You've always been my guide

and teacher, Jaga, and my friend. I think they

gave children then, watching it, a sense of safety

that there were... elders in their life, so to

speak, that they could rely on their wisdom to

learn. I wish he'd joined us in our struggle

to spread the code of Fundera. Justice, truth,

honor, and loyalty. We thought all of our shows

had good guidance and advice for our audience,

and especially young children. In everything

we did, we tried to show that this is the way

to grow up and become a real person. But the

message never dominated the storytelling itself.

And yes, it was good for the stations to be able

to point out that they were doing public service

work along with their adventure programming.

Sword of Omens, come to my hand. Sword of Omens,

come to my hand. Those volcanic eruptions are

creating a magnetic field that's destroying our

communications. What are we going to do, Lionel?

Shall we have children? We had the freedom to

create these characters any way the director

would let us, basically, and do whatever sounds

and give whatever expression we could. Lee Donaker

was in charge of all of the actors and directed

and produced most of the voice recordings. And

we created this stock company of a dozen actors

that would come and do their parts on a regular

basis. Larry King was one of our first hires

as Lionel. There was just no question he could

be the American superhero. The first thing I

thought to myself was I don't want to play him

like a superhero because that's the first thing

you know I'm Lionel but they kept saying to me

we want a strong superhero voice so I just basically

kind of make him vulnerable and yet strong you

know. Lionel was the youngster. And so it was

somewhat about the more mature characters, like

Tigra, giving him guidance as we went. We had

to settle on how these characters not only were

going to sound, but what their attitudes were

going to be. I wanted Tigra to be a real guy,

a man's man. And so he would help Lionel develop

into maturity. Sometimes when I listen to Tigra,

I say, well, he's a square dude, kind of, you

know? Panther was my favorite character in the

show, and Earl Hyman voiced him. He had a delicious...

Delicious multi -level quarry. ...of his voice

was very beautiful and melodious and rich. You

are a genius. I am? The ventilation shaft, snuff,

you could squeeze through to the sword chamber.

Earl Hyman is a fine Shakespearean actor. He

speaks several Scandinavian languages and made

a long career playing Othello in Scandinavia.

Hadn't you better slither back to your castle,

Pluntar mutant? Lynn Lipton in the studio helped

in creating her voice, I think hit just the right

pitch. She had to have a voice that was feminine,

though strong enough to carry Lionel. So you

had to pitch her. You know, we are going to do

this, Lionel. And you know, you had to pitch

her so that she had such a remarkable sense of

strength. and yet motherly. And some of the guys

have said to me that I was their fantasy growing

up. I mean, I'm kind of flattered. Now, my mom

is this 80 -foot tall guy. Look at that mucus

coming out of his mouth and stuff. That was Earl.

It wasn't mucus, but whenever he had to do the

line, ancient spirit of evil, transform this

decayed form into... And then we'd all back away

in the corner. Mum -rah! It'd be all over the

room. I don't know if anybody expected Earl to

come up with the mum -rah he created. It was

so outrageous. Sometimes we'd just stand and

watch him do these speeches. And he'd go into

that fiendish laugh. And we'd just applaud. We'd

just applaud after it was finished. Whoever you

are, don't let me go if I were you. I'm a thundercat!

Bob McFadden. He was a snarf. He created this

wonderful sound for it. Are you guys gonna take

this? If you could see his face when he was doing

it, he was snarf. I mean, he became snarf. Bob

McFadden was crazy. I mean, the characters that

would come out of him, he was like Robin Williams.

He could do 50 characters, and he'd do it within

three minutes. He had this architecture in his

brain, this ability to create these characters

and spit them out at you, and it was like this

magic. laboratory in there. We all played many,

many characters. Each of us played at least two

or three of the main characters. So we would

audition for that in the studio as we were recording

the episode, you know, and say, okay, guys, who

wants to audition for him? We hold our hands

up and then you read a couple lines. You are

doomed, Thundercat. This time we've got you.

Jackalman, when he did that voice... We all just

die. Yes. Oh master. Yeah, it was just it was

terrific It was it was great and I'm happy to

say when I did monkey and everybody's kind of

just yeah, that's that's the voice Lionel your

time has come I remember several times when Lionel

would have conversations with Jackal Matt both

of whom I voiced Alex preferred just to do them

real time. For example, if Lionel was sitting

there, you know, contemplating, and he heard,

Well, Lionel, I see you're here alone. Jackal

Man, how did you never mind how I got in? Where

are the other thundercats? Don't worry about

it. 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? My talking

about any kind of recording session you're gonna

have outtakes people saying oh pooh -pooh I've

messed up a word And the engineers always save

it and they play for their friends at parties

and stuff. Oh Lionel Okay, you hear me saying

thunder thunder thunder thunder There's one where

I go Anyway We've got to find the Mumroz Cave

and take the Samoflange and put it... What the

f*** is a Samoflange? They would go off the script

all the time or they'd just make mistakes. And

it's funny to hear Lionel goof up. It was very

hard to keep from laughing when an actor is doing

that thing. Must reach the boulder. It's kind

of strange. Must got to lift. Which was in the

script all the time. Chitara, pan throw my leg.

I... can't move every episode. Something was

wrong with his leg. And when you watch another

human being doing that, it's very hard to keep

from laughing. He was terrific. We played hard

in the studio, but we worked hard as well. When

I said, OK, page 28, let's do it again, they

were back up to that mic, giving the performance

of their lives each and every half hour. We did

become a family. And there were birthdays, and

there were marriages, and there were babies.

And we all went through them together. The main

characters and the main mutants were all set

in stone, and so they needed me to do character

design for the new, you know, the guest stars

that would come in, the ships and the crafts

and the weird, monster -y little third -earth

spiders. Pumrah was the first character I designed.

I worked all day on Pumrah, and they really liked

it. It was good. I often would just go with whatever

picture came to mind right away and then let

someone else go, no, no, no, no. The horns don't

come out of his lower lip, they're out of the

top of his head. I think the writers would come

up dry sometimes... ...to try to create a third

-earth character or animal. They'd go, a llama

with a duckbill. An octopus with a duckbill.

The duckbill was like this thing. It was like

a magic ball. So one day I created a duckbill

samurai... ...who was this really mean -looking

Japanese Imperial warrior... ...with this big

duckbill on. That never made it in the show.

They would write the scripts. do the voice tracks

in the U .S. and then they would send it to Japan

for animation. The Japanese studio did the finished

animation, the cells, the backgrounds and all

that. The thing with Rankin and Bass was they

made very early ties with Japanese animation

studios. They did it first. They just knew that

there was a lot of talent in that country that

could produce this animation. Arthur was the

one that worked more closely with the designers

and basically helped Masaki Iizuka for Thundercats.

create his studio, which was really, we joked

it was Rankin -Bass East a lot of the time. Pacific

Animation Corporation was what he formed, and

we use them in our animation process. They're

very talented people, and we always welcome suggestions

from everyone in our group. And as you know,

no film is made by one person. Everyone has some

input. So we depended a lot on Pacific Animation

Corp to, you know, carry the ball. And of course,

you know, you can't tell from a drawing the way

people walk. They did all that. They created

all that. They brought them to life, basically.

The style of animation was beautifully Japanese.

I mean, it was anime. And it was even before

the American audience fell in love with anime.

Thundercats, as a US -based animation series,

was completely different looking from the other

adventure animation shows that were on at the

time, and mainly because it was animated in Japan.

And you can tell the Japanese had their own unique

style. There's a lot of movement, animation of

mechanical objects, the style of the background

art, something almost like an abstract piece

of Jackson Pollock art. Something like Thundercats

was a real revelation to a lot of fans. When

they saw it, it was like, oh, this is cool. It's

like a hybrid. And it really is the very, very

beginning of anime and its acceptance in this

country. From the time we saw one of the first

designs and thought, this is the show we want

to develop, in 10 months, we had a one -hour

special called Exodus. They began running in

the fall. And we were still recording. When the

word came back that... It's a hit. It's a hit.

I'm sure the thought crossed my mind. That means

we'll do more, doesn't it? We became the number

one show of its time. And being such a great

success, there was a traveling road show of Thundercats.

And they wore the costumes and so forth. And

one of the symbols of Thundercats, of course,

is the sword. And in Madison Square Garden they

had little kids, huh? We're all in to see this

show. And at one point, of course, there is,

you know, Thundercats, Thundercats, Thundercats,

oh, and all these swords lit up. I've never ceased

to be impressed by the power of that medium.

I became aware of how big a hit it was going

to be when I went to Toys R Us to get something.

And they had installed an entire row of Thundercats

stuff. I'm walking down the aisle thinking, thank

goodness it's a voiceover job where they can't

recognize me. Also, all these kids would be,

you know, idolizing me and wanting my autograph

and stuff. Anyway. This one kid says, I'm going

to get the jackal man. What are you going to

get? And he says, I'm going to get the mumra.

I couldn't help myself. I said, why don't you

get Lionel? He comes with a sword of omens. Come

to my hand. I walk away and the kid says, he

doesn't even sound like Lionel. I'm laughing.

I'm thinking if you only knew, kid. Wow, Thundercats.

I mean, it was just. right thing at the right

time. Everything just was working together behind

the scenes and then on the screen and for some

reason that just ended up magic and set us apart.

We've just made what we had to make, you know,

thinking they would be good and not knowing the

longevity of anything. Why do certain pictures

last so long and others come and go and fade?

I don't think any of us know the answer to that.

I guess we must have Felt the pulse then and

it's still continuing. It's a little embarrassing

but thanks for watching Thundercats. Thundercats

fans from all of us who did the show, thank you

for being such great fans and for enjoying what

we did. appreciate what we did thunder thunder

thunder thunder cats all right that is uh...

that's all for this episode uh... i guess we

can do our final thoughts on uh... on thunder

cats whoever wants to go first that's a great

show uh... you know I wish it had actually gone

more seasons then, too. Some cartoons, you know,

back in the 80s were just like that. But, you

know, as I said, you know, in the earlier segment,

Thundercats didn't show the message at the end.

It was in the cartoon. It was it was woven into

the cartoon. Thank God. And, you know, it was

just great. And I think everybody, you know,

if you go and get the DVDs, you know, I'm sure

that if you look at all the interviews, if there's

a ton of them on there, um everybody had a blast

and I hope that you know kids today will sit

and at least look at the cartoons with their

parents you know whether whether it's mom dad

or even with your aunt or uncle you know if somebody

grew up within our generation and looked at this

cartoon and said look you know and explain to

their the children you know their child whether

it be a niece nephew brother you know a you know

daughter son whichever the case may be you know

they can look at that child and say look this

is how you should be this is how i would like

you to be raised you know don't be evil all the

time you know just try to do the best you can

and be good at you know what you do and just

know that you know this is this is how it should

be so i i think that thunder cats for the most

part was an excellent show um It will probably

stand with withstand the test of all time. Who

knows? Well Go ahead Kevin, you know We didn't

mention it really too much but kind of like what

we said with Voltron if you last a hundred and

thirty episodes You had to be doing something

right? You know, there was very few shows in

the 80s that had more episodes than Thundercats

So, you know, it was good in that respect It

was a great show Especially, you know a great

show for anybody that grew up in the 80s I'm

not gonna say it's a great show for anybody that

didn't grow up in the 80s You'd have to kind

of get used to it a little bit, but it was great

for what it was They say it was it was great

for what it was and It was obviously one of my

favorite cartoons from the 80s. Oh, yeah You

know the other thing is Again, going with the

whole, you know, synchronization of episodes.

I didn't realize this, but in the special feature

where they talk about, you know, building a pop

culture icon, they actually showed that there

was a Thundercats live show. And I did not know

that. I knew that there was a Voltron live show

that they did. But I did not know that there

was one for Thundercats. I believe those are

the only two shows. Was it with the original

voice cast? No, I think it was just a guy in

a suit. Just like the whole thing with Voltron

was actors in a suit, it wasn't the actual voice

people. But I think outside of like, obviously

we'll get into Turtles later and stuff like that,

between the four shows that i watched back then

which is you know voltron thundercats transformers

and he man i don't ever remember he man or shira

or transformers having a live uh... alive action

play type of deal and i mean you saw i never

saw one in any of the old in any of those shows

and i just like i mean you all good i was gonna

say i never saw anything like that in any of

those shows except for thundercats and you know

you know voltron so yeah and i mean you have

that crap all you know now all the time thanks

to crap like rugrats and you know uh blues clues

and fucking purple purple the brownie dinosaur

so uh yes uh i believe we will leave our thundercats

episode uh we're not gonna leave it we're gonna

leave with one final voice clip from thundercats

with this And Yeah, do you have any other final

thoughts Kevin or Dion? Nope, nope, okay All

right. So well that is all for this episode of

tune cast. Please join us next time. We'll be

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the show is gc are in tune cast uh... mine is

t f g one podcast and where you're all story

names uh... and there's a dog the music and zero

eight uh... the forces you visit the the fourth

is that you can visit the earth dash two dot

net forums there are several threads in the self

-promotion section for geocast radio uh... the

fifth is the email address which is a gc rn tuned

cast at gmail dot com and as diana was trying

to point out earlier please leave us uh... reviews

and five -star feedback on itunes for now i am

tfd on michael with and we would like to thank

you for uh... listening and we will leave you

with this Bye!