Toon Zone Talkback - "Thundercats": A Critical Retrospective

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This is the talkback thread for "Thundercats": A Critical Retrospective.

Thunder, Thunder, Thunder! ThunderCats, HO!

splash-thundercats-lg.jpg
 
Now's as good a time as any to publicly welcome Toon Zone News' newest reviewer JerryvonKramer, who totally nails all the good stuff and bad stuff about what I remember about Thundercats.

Also worth mentioning that Thundercats is available as free, legal, streaming online video from AOL's In2TV service. Plus an amusing sing-along music video of the theme song.

-- Ed
 
The 80's was designed to get kids to spend their/and their parents, money....no doubt about it.

But apart from the voice acting and writing, Tcats was the best animated series of the 80's, apart from the first season of Real Ghostbusters. These two have held up pretty darn well, I think.

Circus Train is where the series jumped the shark for me. I could take the fact that Thundera Reformed. Mumm-Ra used his magic, changed a little of this and that to get the sword, and boom. Thundera is back. I can take the new Thundercats. I can even take the fact that even though we saw all the ships destroyed in the opening, the Thundercats WHERE a space farring species, so some had to of been off planet when it exploded. Hence all of the new cat characters in the final few episodes.

But Circus Train.. all of the enemies that where such a threat and so fearsome where reduced to being caught in 2 minutes per character. Ugh, and double ugh. I do like Return to Thundera 4, however, if only because the mutants get a second chance...

And I agree. Mandora COULD have been an interesting character, but the voice(Cheetara on steroids) makes any episode with her a chore to watch.
 
Thundercats is the 80's toon that is just as good as I remember it. Something about Thundercats it just clicks and feels right. Everything works the writing, the artwork, everything works for. Maybe it's the blend of sci-fi, fantasy and action. I don't know, he series just works.

Great review, it was very honest addressing both the pros and cons of the series.
 
Thanks for feed-back folks. :) I was a little worried that I'd been a bit harsh to one the sacred cows of my youth.

I should point out that my claim that Thundercats was outsourced to Studio Ghibli needs a little qualification: whilst the personnel were largely the same, the show is officially animated by Topcraft, which went on to found Studio Ghibli.

This mistake came about through a mix of misinformed sources and the fact that Studio Ghibli formed in 1985, around the time Thundercats first aired. But since writing the article, I've found out that Thundercats was actually produced in 1983 and 1984, before Studio Ghibli was established. Sorry for this mistake - although they are the same people - technically at least, Topcraft were a different company and deserve the credit.
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I always found it hilarious that after the Circus Train episode, which was equivalent to dropping a train on all the sub-villains came "The Last Day", an episode with an utterly epic plotline to send out Mumm-Ra. If only that had been the last episode.
 
The Last Day is actually my favorite episode of the entire series, only because of the pure power Mumm-Ra had (of course they had another plothole where the Tower of Omens was rebuilt in the next episode - Return to Thundera Part 1). In fact, some of the best fights were when they went and bulked up Mumm-Ra more than his normal design.
 
Never even knew there was TF wallpaper available back in the 80's. If there had been, my brother's room would've had it.

Here's a memory flogger for you, Jerry. Dug this up through Google images:

http://tanuki.org.uk/photos/housepic/bed1b4.jpg

Nice review too. It just supports my argument that impulse buying DVDs based on feelings of nostalgia is sometimes regrettable. But even I could justify buying Thundercats because the show still *looks* cool after all these years, and it's nice to own just to pop a disc in every now and then and relive some pleasant childhood TV-watching memories.

I'd like to have seen more bonus materials offered for the box sets too, but it's nice to at least have the series on DVD. It's more than a lot of other less-popular but still entertaining 80's cartoons will ever get.
 
It is sometimes hard to see past the nostalgia, but you did a very good job of that. The show definitely had its share of flaws, of which you documented well. Despite some of its plot holes, it fared better than some other 80s cartoons driven by its toy line (He-Man did have some substance, if not the best animation of its time). I was always a little disappointed by the characterization, as it had so much unused potential. While I didn't mind the New Thundercats, the influx of new enemies never really met the quality of Mumm-Ra and the Mutants.

It's a shame the DVD release of Thundercats wasn't handled better, but I'm glad it got a release at all. The amazing work BCI and ER has done with all of the He-Man properties shows what Thundercats could have had.
 
The Raccoons was Canadian.

And what is Orson and Friends? If you mean Garfield and Friends, and you're calling it cynically formulaic and mediocre, that's extremely wrong.
 
I'm also wondering if Turtles refers to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Because even though the 80s Ninja Turtles had a lot of flaws it was still way better than Thundercats.
 
I'm a hard core Turtles fan, and even I have to say...waahhh?

In terms of ranking toward 100%..

He-Man ranks at 20 (only because of over used animation)

Turtles at 50

and Thundercats at 70....


I just wish that turtles had as much well done/fluid animation as Thundercats did. But that's what we've got the new show for :)..
 
Well, yeah, in terms of animation Thundercats is better, but Ninja Turtles was better in every other way. Better characters, better music, better plots(for the first few seasons anyway).
 
Wow, that's the exact one I had on my wall! :anime:

Shouldn't be surprised though, almost everything almost all my favourite things from childhood were mass produced. :shrug:



I'm actually referring to Orson's Farm - it did appear on the Garfield cartoon but, from what I remember, it was a different show with a different tone. And it was pretty darn formulaic ...

They had all those plots you got in every single 80s toon:

- One of the characters encounters an exact twin of themselves, with hilarious consequences.
- One of the characters feels underloved and mopes off only to find later that his friends need him and actually do love him
- One of the characters suddenly gets aspirations to do something bigger and better, becomes obsessed with it and in doing so loses sight of what is truly important: his family and friends.

Any of these sounding familiar?

These were all plots recycled by Orson's Farm, He-Man, Turtles and countless others.

Anyway, I've ammended the article to list the proper titles for Orson's Farm and Turtles.

I've also added a line about how the show was animated by Topcraft who went on to form Studio Ghlibi.
 
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