ThunderCats ran for four seasons and 130 episodes, from January 23, 1985 to September 29, 1989. It was created by Theodore Walter Wolf, produced by Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment and Leisure Concepts, and it aired in syndication. Leonard Starr was head writer.
The show holds an 8.2 out of 10 audience score on TMDB, across 1,119 votes. That number is close to right. Here is why, and where the show falls short of it.
A Planet Dies and a Ship Limps to Third Earth
The premise is grim for a kids’ show, and ThunderCats never softens it. Thundera is dying. The Thunderians evacuate just before the planet is destroyed, and the Mutants of Plun-Darr chase them down. The fleet is nearly wiped out. Only the flagship survives, and only because the Mutants want the Sword of Omens intact.
That is the engine of the whole series. The villains spare the heroes for one reason: greed. The sword holds the Eye of Thundera, the source of the ThunderCats’ power, set into the hilt. The Mutants damage the flagship, but the Eye drives them back. Half engine power means the original destination is out of reach. The ship sets course for Third Earth instead.
Jaga, the eldest of the group, volunteers to pilot while the other seven sleep in stasis tubes. He dies of old age on the way. The ship crashes on Third Earth.
Lion-O Wakes Up as an Adult Child
The detail that makes ThunderCats more than a chase story arrives when the crew wakes. Ten “galacto-years” have passed. Lion-O’s suspension capsule slowed his aging instead of stopping it. He is a child in the body of an adult, and now he leads.
That is a real idea, not a toy commercial’s excuse for a hero. Lion-O has the Sword of Omens and the title of Lord of the ThunderCats, and he has no business holding either. Cheetara, Panthro, Tygra, WilyKit and WilyKat are adults. Lion-O outranks all of them and cannot outthink any of them.
The show does not resolve this. It just lives inside it for 130 episodes.
Mumm-Ra and the Mutants Keep Coming Back
The ThunderCats build the Cat’s Lair with help from friendly natives of Third Earth. Then the Mutants track them down. Mumm-Ra, a mummified sorcerer and the centuries-old embodiment of evil, joins the threat. He and the Mutants are constant, and they never win.
That is the structural problem. A syndicated action cartoon in 1985 needed a villain who could lose every week and return every week. Mumm-Ra is that villain. He is also, by design, incapable of finality. The show’s stakes reset at the end of nearly every episode.
Mumm-Ra the centuries-old embodiment of evil, along with the mutants that destroyed the rest of the Thunderians are a constant threat.
The Mutants themselves are the more interesting villains. They destroyed the rest of the Thunderians. They are the reason the ThunderCats are a small group on a strange planet instead of a civilization. And they are comic. The show asks you to hold genocide and slapstick in the same frame.
It mostly works. The Mutants are petty, and petty is scarier than grand when the grand villain is a mummy.
Six Actors, One Season, Every Voice
The cast is the show’s quiet achievement. Season 1 had six voice actors for the entire run of 65 episodes. Every one of them played multiple roles.
Earle Hyman voiced Panthro. His baritone was so distinctive that he took only occasional guest voices, unlike his fellow performers. Lynne Lipton voiced Cheetara and WilyKit, and as the first season’s only female actor she voiced every single female character who appeared that season. Earl Hammond voiced Mumm-Ra and Jaga. Bob McFadden voiced Snarf and Slithe. Larry Kenney voiced Lion-O and Jackalman. Peter Newman voiced Tygra, WilyKat and Monkian.
Two later additions matter. Gerrianne Raphael joined as Pumyra for 1986’s “Thundercats—Ho!” Doug Preis joined as Alluro for 1987’s “Mumm-Ra Lives!”
That is a repertory company doing the work of a crowd. It is also why the show sounds consistent in a way that bigger casts rarely manage.
Pacific Animation Corporation Did the Heavy Lifting
The animation came from Pacific Animation Corporation, a Japanese studio, with Masaki Iizuka as production manager. That studio was acquired in 1989 to form Walt Disney Animation Japan.
ThunderCats looks like what it is: a syndicated cartoon with a Japanese studio carrying the frame count. The character designs are strong. The action is limited in the way television animation of the period was limited, and the show covers for it with scale. Thundera’s destruction, the fleet’s loss, the crash on Third Earth — these are big images, and the show stages them with confidence.
Season 1 ran 65 episodes. Seasons 2, 3 and 4 each ran twenty, and each opened with a five-part story. That five-part structure is where ThunderCats gets to breathe. Multi-part arcs let the show build a threat across a week instead of resolving it in twenty-two minutes.
Telepictures, Lorimar, Warner Bros., and the Long Tail
Distribution is part of why ThunderCats lasted. Rankin/Bass’ then-parent company, Telepictures Corporation, distributed it first. Telepictures merged with Lorimar Productions in 1986. In 1989, Lorimar-Telepictures was bought by and folded into Warner Bros., whose syndication arm took over distribution. Warner Bros. has held the rights to the series and all Lorimar-Telepictures programming since.
Leisure Concepts, which co-developed the show, acted as licensing agent. That is the commercial fact underneath the show. ThunderCats was built to sell toys, and it sold them.
The series also aired on Cartoon Network as part of the Toonami block, which is how a second generation found it. Marvel Comics published a ThunderCats series from 1985 to 1988. Wildstorm, an imprint of DC Comics, published five series beginning in 2003.
A film adaptation was announced in June 2007, with Aurelio Jaro attached. It did not arrive.
What Holds Up and What Does Not
The good news first. ThunderCats has a premise with real weight, a hero whose central problem is his own body, and a villain who is genuinely grotesque. Mumm-Ra is a mummified sorcerer who is centuries old and embodies evil. That is a strong design and a strong idea, and Earl Hammond’s voice sells it.
The voice cast is the best argument for the show. Six actors, 65 episodes, every female character in a season from one performer. That is craft under constraint, and it shows.
The bad news is the reset. Mumm-Ra and the Mutants are a constant threat, which means they are a constant defeat. The five-part stories in later seasons are the fix.
The 8.2 is fair. ThunderCats is not a great animated series by the standard of what came after it. It is a great premise, executed with a small cast and a Japanese studio doing more than the budget should have allowed. The show’s best idea — a child leading adults on a planet that is not home — is the one it returns to least.
The film adaptation announced in 2007 never materialized. ThunderCats works as 130 episodes of a war that never ends.
8.2 of 10.
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