Uh-oh!

Uh-oh, looks like I ran out of time this week! Tune in next Tuesday for a double review for Season 1, Episodes 4 &5.

Season 1, Episode 3

Oh, my God, you guys. Here come the Robear Berbils.

I'd actually watched this episode a long time ago, when my husband first got this show on DVD. Since then, they've haunted my nightmares and mocked me from the media shelf. But I guess it's time to suck it up and make it through this episode.

Okay, here we go.

I'm going to press play now.

I'm for-real going to press play now.

OH GOD I DID IT WHAT AM I DOING??

Okay, we're starting off with good ol' Mumm-Ra, coming out of his crypt and gazing into that weird pool that's there and shows him stuff. It's a very dramatic opener, because you get outside shots of the pyramid, and there are sparks coming out of the surround obelisks and some kind of storm happening. Mumm-Ra, it seems, has come out of his slumber to spy on the Thundercats and talk out loud about them to no one in particular. Seriously, he's the only one in the room right now, and there he is, just chattering away about what he sees in the pool.

So he's watching the Thundercats, babbling a little about the Eye of Thundera, and notices that Lion-O isn't with the other Thundercats, which maybe makes him a little like the creepy old guy on Family Guy.

Then we get to get away from Mumm-Ra and his crypt that surely smells at least a little funny, and we get to see what the Thundercats, minus Lion-O because he's probably always wandering off or something, hanging around a tank that Panthro built from parts taken from the old spaceship. Then Cheetara, with her super feline senses, notices that there's a storm coming because it starts to thunder and rain.

This is no ordinary storm, kids! It's raining rocks! The Wily twins whine about for a minute, and then after everyone gets tired of being pelted with sky-rocks, they go and hide inside the ship. Instead of joining the others in the ship, Pathro hops into the tank. I can't blame him, because I wouldn't want to be cooped up with those other assholes any longer than I'd have to be, especially when you've got those weird Wily twins running around. I assume that Wily Kat, being a male feline on the verge of puberty, probably does a lot of marking.

The storm gets so bad that it ends up burying the tank and the ship in dirt and rocks. This actually happens so quickly that I'm not really sure if it was the storm or some kind of mudslide. Anyway, the tank manages to claw its way out.

Then Panthro sticks his head out of the tank, says, "Blasted rocks buried the spaceship, too!" and, hile awesome synthesized electric guitars shred the airwaves, makes the tank go underground and PUSH THE BIG HONKING SPACESHIP OUT OF THE GROUND.

Maybe I don't give Panthro enough credit.

 The other Thundercats climb out of the ship and puzzle over the storm. Tygra says "It wasn't anything natural, that's certain." And it's the most wooden line reading I've heard on this show yet. Seriously, the guy voicing Tygra (yeah, I know I spelled his name wrong all over the last post) makes Shatner's performances in the original Star Trek series seem positively Oscar-worthy.

Finally we get to see what Lion-O and Snarf are up to. You know what it is? Snarf whines about being too far in the woods, and Lion-O tells him to suck it up. Then Snarf is startled by his own shadow, mocked, and says "Snarf snarf."

Ugh.

Then Snarf says he keeps hearing things. As much as I'd like to believe that Snarf is experiencing symptoms of schizophrenia and they'll eventually have to send him to some asylum planet, we do in fact get to see that something has taken an interest in Lion-O and Snarf.

Lion-O mocks Snarf some more, and then this thing that looks like a rhinoceros with wooly mammoth tusks comes blundering through the jungle. Snarf attacks it and, instead of goring Snarf, the animal merely looks a little annoyed and trips over Snarf. It falls against a tree, BREAKS THE TREE, and lumbers off.

Lion-O asks Snarf what his fucking problem is, and Snarf whines about not being taken seriously. For some reason, Lion-O feels bad for him and agrees to start heading back to camp after seeing where their current trail leads. And then of course he falls down into a deep hole and can't speak in complete sentences anymore.

Snarf does something surprisingly useful here and runs back into the jungle and cuts down a vine. Then he immediately fucks it up by throwing one end of the vine into the hole and trying to hold it when Lion-O tries to climb up it. Snarf is, of course, dragged forward, because Lion-O probably weighs four of five times what he does.

And then, lassos!

A bunch of lassos pull Lion-O out of his hole, and they are accompanied by weird, creepy robot voices. Lion-O demands that they let him go because he is Lion-O, and this is the first time we get to see the lasso-users.

GARGH! WHAT HORROR THOUGHT OF THESE ABOMINATIONS?

Not only do they stand around being creepy, they keep repeating, "Lion, berbil, berbil, lion," and various combinations of those two words in their monotone robot voices. They they start laughing, and Lion-O gets all pissed because he thinks they're making fun of him.

Now that Lion-O has used the word "Thundercats" in front of the robots, they now have a new word to repeat with "berbil," and that is "thunder." At the end of the new round of repeating words uselessly, one of them draws out a long word that, to me, just sounds like a weird noise. The robots, which are the robear berbils, gesticulate to show that they think Lion-O fell from the sky, and he confirms this. So they leave him tied off and lead him and Snarf away into the woods, because that's not creepy or weird.

We get a few seconds of the adult Thundercats talking about whether or not they should be worried about the fact that Lion-O hasn't returned to camp yet, and decide that they shouldn't have worried because they haven't seen the Cat Signal in the sky. Personally, I think they all just wanted to stay at camp and play with the tank.

Now we are thrust back to Lion-O and Snarf, who are still stuck with the berbils and tied to trees like virgin sacrifices waiting for some monster to come out of its cave and gobble them up. The berbils approach, and what appears to be the Grand Poobah Berbil approaches. Lion-O mocks him by saying, "Erble derbly berbil erbil."

This is how the Grand Poobah responds:

I would love to say that here the Grand Poobah tells Lion-O to shut his smart mouth or he'll get his tongue cut out, but instead he uses the knife to cut Lion-O and Snarf free, probably because this is a children's show. The Grand Poobah tells Lion-O that they are Robear Berbils from planet Robear, because no one is actually from Third Earth, apparently.

Then the berbils lead Lion-O and Snarf back to their village, where a whole bunch more berbils come running out to meet them.

 The berbils, it turns out, are gracious hosts and give their guests some food. You can tell the one offering the food is a girl because she had a flower tucked behind one ear and has probably spent the entire damn day in the kitchen.

The food turns out to be some kind of fruit that the berbils grow. It turns out the the Grand Poobah's name is actually Robear Bill, which is kind of heard to pick out over the weird robot voice effect, and he shows Lion-O where they grow and harvest "berbil fruit" that grows in convenient, colorful stripes.

Apparently the fruit comes in bread, veggie, and candy varieties. I don't even know what to say about this, aside from THAT'S NOT HOW FRUIT WORKS. But this is a cartoon, so it doesn't really matter, does it?

But there's no time to explore it, because some creatures called Trollogs attack. At least, it sounded like Robear Bill said "Trollogs." He's kind of hard to understand because he's a creepy robot teddy bear.

Apparently these things come in and bully the berbils around and maybe take their fruit. Robear Bill and Lion-O get into an argument about it, and I can only understand Lion-O's side of it because I can't understand a damn word the robot is saying. I don't understand why they couldn't have made these things easier to understand. If you shove a wad of of paper towel into your mouth and try and talk through a fan, then you can kind of hear what Robear Bill here sounds like. And try not to gag on the paper towel while you're at it, because then everyone else around you will gag in sympathy and next think you know you've got a bunch of people trying not to throw up.

I'm really off topic here. Anyway. Trollogs. Right.

So Lion-O gets all pissed off that the berbils will only fight these things with little stun darts and jumps in to help out. He does a weird circle thing with his sword which forms some kind of shield that the Trollogs bounce off of, and this scares them away. The berbils are impressed.

The berbils also feel sorry for the Trollogs, who apparently raid the village to steal fruit to give to some giants at the top of some mountain where their food grows. The giants apparently won't let the Trollogs eat unless they bring berbil fruit. So it's complicated. They're, I don't know, bringing the conflict in the Middle East down to a kid's level here, only instead of Israelis and Palestinians, you have weird dog-things and giants. And also it's not like the Israelis and Palestinians at all.

Lion-O's sword starts flashing, and he says it's some kind of warning. He peeps through his sword-holes and sees the giants coming. This is where I learned that they're called Giantors. That's some clever naming there. Yeah. He decides he can fight them off himself, and Snarf throws a hissy fit and does this:

He is actually in the air, balancing on the tip of his tail. I don't think Third Earth physics hold true to what modern science actually knows about physics. Anyway, Snarf wants Lion-O to call the other Thundercats and finally falls on his ass. Lion-O actually takes his advice and calls the other Thundercats.

Now, we finally get the big fight of the episode as Lion-O takes on the Giantors before the other Thundercats arrive. But they do arrive before their leader can get pounded into so much tender vittles by the Giantors' clubs.

Know what finally scares them away? That stupid shield trick. Apparently the denizens of Third Earth are scared of things that glow.

Lion-O introduces the Thundercats to the berbils, who all kind of rock back and forth like they're having seizures or something and makes stupid noises.

Now we're back where we started the episode: in Mumm-Ra's crypt, where apparently he's been watching the day's events in his pool. He very quickly sums up the episode, again talking to no one in particular. He's upset that the the Thundercats and the berbils are friends now, and he turns into this:

I don't know if he's a grasshopper or a locust just yet. Gut feeling is saying locust, because of the whole association with pestilence there.

OH, then he multiplies into a ton of them! I'm going with locust now, and I'm pretty sure where this is heading.

And then the best thing happened. As Mumm-Ra descends onto Robear Berbilville, some of the berbils wave torches around, yelling, "Plague! Plague!" in that weird robot voice.

Lion-O deduces that there's something weird about the swarm of locusts, and the bugs all come together and make one giant locust. Then he jumps up on the locust, grabs it by the antennae, stays on it for eight seconds, and wins the rodeo!

Actually, he rides away on the giant locust, which flies him over the mouth of a smoking volcano, turns back into a bunch of regular-sized locusts, and drops him into the volcano. This is one of those times where I actually wished this wasn't a kids' show, because then there would be a glimmer of hope that Lion-O would be incinerated and not magically saved, probably by that stupid sword he's always carrying around.

So the sword slips out of its carrier as Lion-O is plummeting to his death, and Ghost Jaga appears and tells him to call to the sword. LAME. Of course it works, and Lion-O flies out of the volcano by holding on to the sword.

No, I'm NOT making that up. Look!

So, instead of eating up the crops while Lion-O is flying out of the volcano, Mumm-Ra flies back to his crypt and tells himself that he needs to do better next time while possibly laughing evilly at himself and his failed efforts.

I'm not making that up, either. It really happens.

Then the berbils bring some fruit to the Thundercat camp. Robear Bill sees the "blueprints" for the new Thundercat stronghold. They are super detailed. Check this out:

Huh. I thought being an architect was a little more complicated than that, but apparently it's not.

Robear Bill asks some stilted questions. It comes out that building the new place will take a while, and then all the berbils chatter at each other in Robot and say they will help with the building. The episode ends with everyone eating and laughing, because this was the 80’s.

No Snarf wisdom this time, kids. We can only hope to get it once again in the next episode.

Season 1, Episode 2

Season 1, Episode 2: The Unholy Alliance

Okay, so I have come back for more punishment to review the second episode of Thundercats, "The Unholy Alliance." According to the Wikipedia episode guide I've been referencing, this is actually part two of the pilot, where Snarf was first unleashed onto an unsuspecting, innocent world. Those were different times, my friends. Different, Snarf-free times indeed.

Jesus Christ, the episode actually starts with Snarf saying "Snarf!" and then some other crap. While he and Lion-o are being generally useless and hanging out under a tree, the other Thundercats are plundering their ship for various supplies to help them survive on Third Earth, which Snarf observes is not much like Thundera.

Well, no shit, Snarf. Third Earth isn't in the middle of EXPLODING.

So Panthro takes a bunch of junk out of the ship and bemoans various problems that involve nonsense words with no real world meaning, and then says its important to stay calm during an emergency. The Wily twins scrounge up some food, and Wily Kat taunts Snarf with it. It's kind of awesome, really.

Tigra tells the Wilys to stop playing with their food and help haul some more crap. Unfortunately, this does not mean that they are going to eat Snarf.

Now we see an ugly green spaceship flying over head. Uh-oh, it's the mutants, and they think Third Earth is dull! Silly mutants!

Just as soon as we have a taste of the mutants, because we can't forget that there is evil and danger lurking nearby, we are swept back to the scope and drama of the Thundercats continuing to unpack, which is about as interesting as it sounds. Pathro tries to get Lion-O to help, but Lion-O shirks his duty by saying that he needs to check the place out. Stupid Tigra helps him get out of it by telling Panthro that it's Lion-O's duty to "reconnoiter" the area. And he TOTALLY used the word "reconnoiter," because that belongs in a children's cartoon.

Lion-O is pleased to get out of the boring, dull task of hauling crap out of the ship. Snarf jumps in and says that he'll go help Lion-O,and Lion-O bluntly tells him that he doesn't need a nurse maid anymore.

Wait, wait, hold on. Snarf was a nurse maid? How the hell would that even work? Isn't Snarf male, and possibly a different species? I...but...gross.

Okay, back to the plot, where I don't have to think about that any more. Oh, God, it's creeping back into my brain. Get out of my brain!!!

Where was I? Oh, yeah, Lion-O is going to reconnoiter the area.  Tigra tells Snarf to hang back, and at first I thought this meant that Tigra actually wanted Lion-O to wander off into the woods and get maimed because maybe he's second in line to the Thundercats throne, but then he gave Lion-O that stupid Sword of Omens and this paw-looking thing called the Claw Shield, which I totally don't remember seeing in the first episode, but will probably be important later and become a toy that all the kids wanted for their birthday so they could smack the crap out of their younger siblings with it. Anyway, for some reason, the Claw Shield magically sticks to Lion-O's leg without any kind of fastener or adhesive.

As Lion-O wanders into the woods, Cheetara totally brings up that it's bullshit that Lion-O can get out of the hard work of getting a living area set up. Tigra totally points out that while Lion-O might have aged "galacto-years" in his pod, he is basically still just a creepy man-boy.

Now we're back to the mutants, who are scanning the planet, looking for any signs of habitation. They discover old ruins that look a little...familiar.

Slythe, the lizard/frog mutants whose name is spelled eight different ways across the Internet, gets pissy and talks about finding a site to build Castle Plundarr, so they can, you know, live in it and stuff. The mutants come across a pyramid surrounded by four pillars shooting out weird sparks and determine with their sharp detective skills that it was not built by some primitive civilization.

The sparks draw in the mutant's ship, and they can't get away! Oh, no! They crash, and then this weird shit happens:

They determine that this is the source of their problems. Slythe gets all pissy and decides to storm the pyramid. His friends Jackalman and Monkian show some trepidation, but Slythe lays the shame on thick.

Turns out there was someone in there waiting for them, and a disembodied voice tells them to just come on in. There's even a floaty ball of light to guide them and everything. The floaty ball guides them through weird-looking beetles and clouds of bats into this chamber:

The mutants puzzle of the the room for an inordinate amount of time, describing weird, animalistic, Egyptian-based statues that we can clearly see, as well as the sarcophagus hanging out in the mouth of that other carving at the end of the room. Dumbasses. Then they puzzle over where the disembodied voice was coming from.

Who is it, you ask? It's MUMM-MOTHERFUCKING-RA!

I suspect he's going to be a major villain in the upcoming episodes. The voice actor for this particular character is a bit more enthusiastic than the others I've heard so far, so I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy Mumm-Ra very much. However, I am really coming to hate these stupid hyphenated names. That's one thing I've never much liked about high fantasy novels: weird hyphens and apostrophes in made-up words and names. But that's neither here nor there. Let's get back to the evil  of all evils with the most tolerable bit of voice acting attached to him.

Well, shit, my husband just told me that the guy who voiced Mumm-Ra, Earl Hammond, is dead. I'm a little sad now. Let's all take a moment of silence for him. Apparently, at one point in the '90s, Earl Hammond was peronally selected by Pope John Paul II to voice him in some audio book. That's pretty neat.

But I'm supposed to be reviewing a Thundercats episode here, so it's time to digress. It turns out that, like everyone else in the damn galaxy, Mumm-Ra has a hard-on for the Eye of Thundera. He claims he's known about it for a thousand years, which was way before anyone ELSE thought it was cool, so he's kind of like a villanous hipster.

Only hipsters generally can't do this:

Monkian, the monkey-looking mutant, threatens Mumm-Ra with calling in the other mutants, and Mumm-Ra tells him he's stupid because the mutant ship has sunk into some quicksand or something. It's really not that clear. Mumm-Ra points out that the three mutants are now forever separated from their own kind, and they have to be completely dependent on him forever and forever, which is kind of creepy, but I guess that's the point of being a villain. So the mutants agree to play along, and Mumm-Ra, clearly needing minions to do his bidding, conjures up an image in that big bubbling cauldron showing them Lion-O walking through the woods, all by his man-boy self. Then an inner monologue of Mumm-Ra's reveals that he has to pay some kind of "price" to leave his tomb. I suspect there will be more on that later.

Rather than answer uncomfortable questions, Mumm-Ra just teleports the mutants to wherever the hell it is Lion-O is wandering around so they can get the Eye of Thundera for him.

It turns out that Lion-O is just dicking around in the woods, swinging the Sword of Omens around like it's nothing.

Lion-O spots some cattle-like animals and goes running toward them. The Sword of Omens gets magically yanked from his hand and embedded in the ground, and he can't pull it out of the earth because he's not King Arthur or something.

Ghost Jaga shows up and tell Lion-O that the sword will not obey him because the sword will "never obey an order to destroy wantonly." Lion-O acts all shocked to see Ghost Jaga, even though this has totally happened before. He's just not that bright. I'm going to blame all the Snarf milk he was force-fed as an infant.

Ugh. God. It's just so...wrong.

Anyway. Ghost Jaga lays down some hippie stuff about how those cattle dealies have just as much a right to live as Lion-O does as long as their food sources back at the wrecked ship are plentiful, and that the sword will only combat evil. What is this, a lesson? Embedded in a children's cartoon show, no less! How devious!

Anyway, the sword starts acting up and getting all glowy, and Lion-O asks it if there's danger, like it's Lassie or something. He does that Sight Beyond Sight thing and sees the mutants through his magic sword viewer. When he takes the sword away from his face, the mutants are right there, in front of him. I'm pretty sure he would have gotten sight of them faster if he hadn't been waving a sword around in front of his face.

Slythe yells to the other mutants to seize the sword. Time for a fight!

Lion-O holds up the sword to do that "Thundercats Ho!" thing, but before he can finish saying "ho," Slythe puts once gross, grimy hand over his mouth to stop him.

There's more of a struggle, and Lion-O gets his mouth free without licking Slythe's hand and manages to summon the other Thundercats. Pathro sees the signal and asks the Wily twins where Cheetara and Tigra are, and they answer that the missing two are searching for a build site by Wily Kat starting the sentence and Wily Kit finishing it, which is REALLY annoying. Seriously, if someone did that in front of you in real life, you would be seriously tempted to punch all parties square in the face.

So apparently it's just Panthro and the Wilys coming to Lion-O's aid, because Cheetara and Tigra won't be able to see a giant Thundercats signal projected into the air like they did?

Pathro and the Wilys run through the woods, find Lion-O, and Lion-O tells them he's doing fine and to please leave him alone. He doesn't even thank them for leaving Snarf behind. What a turd. They ignore him and help out anyway, quickly defeating the mutants through the joyous advantage of team work!

The mutants magically disappear, probably because Mumm-Ra can see them getting their asses handed to them by Grandpa Huxtable and the Freakazoid Twins. The Thundercats puzzle over this, as there was no spaceship to pick the mutants up. Lion-O demands to know why Cheetara and Tigra didn't come running, and Panthro does not publicly denounce them as dicks, but instead also puzzles over their absence.

Mumm-Ra has in fact teleported the mutants back to his tomb and shames them for not being able to take on a creepy man-boy. Jackalman offers up the lame excuse of Lion-O having help. The mutants tell Mumm-Ra that if he doesn't like what they can and can't do, he should go out and do his own damn dirty work, thank you very much. Slythe observes that they've heard a lot of Mumm-Ra's talk, but they haven't seen him pony up to any of his claims.

That's when Mumm-Ra bellows, "YOU DARE TO TAUNT MUMM-RA?!" Then he does some kind of incantation, and this happens:

Turns out Mumm-Ra can transform from a mummy into some muscled-out dude. And he has a cape, because of course he does. Then he FLIES OUT OF THE TOMB.

While this is happening, Lion-O is still looking for Tigra and Cheetara and comes across a tar pit. He just sticks the Sword of Omens, which has a very valuable jewel in it that everyone seems to want, into the trunk of the nearest tree to bend over and get a better look at what he calls the "black lake." He sticks his finger into the tar and notes that it is hot, sticky, and won't come off.

That's because it's TAR, Lion-O. I realize that this is your time to learn and explore, but jeez. Come on. Surely there was tar on Thundera.

The sword does its glowy thing again, and Lion-O grabs it and ends up face-to-face with Mumm-Ra. He didn't even have to look through his sword viewer this time. Lion-O decides he has to take on Mumm-Ra alone, because he's Lord of the Thundercats. It goes badly.

The sword, of course, sinks into the tar, but Lion-O grabs it out while Mumm-Ra is still cackling like a crazed hobo. Of course, a fight ensues, and it turns out that Mumm-Ra is pretty good at dodging when Lion-O just runs at him, waving the sword around uselessly. It's not looking good for Lion-O right now, folks.

Lion-O decides that it's finally time to call for help. He does the "Thundercats, ho!" thing, and nothing happens because the sword is covered in tar. Mumm-Ra just keeps laughing, because apparently he's evil, but has a strong enough sense of fairness not to kick an opponent while he's down? Instead of attacking, he takes a few moments to taunt Lion-O about his tar-covered sword.

There's some more fighting now.

Mumm-Ra gets Lion-O pinned down, and finally we get to see what the big deal with that stupid Claw Shield is. Lion-O holds it up and it starts to glow. Mumm-Ra sees his corpsey face reflected back at him, and he freaks out a little.

Before we find out what really happens, though, we get to see Cheetara and Tigra checking out a cave in the face of a mountain. Cheetara says she thought she heard the "Thundercat Roar," whatever the hell that is, and pulls Tigra away from the mountain to go check things out.

Now, we go back to Mumm-Ra freaking out over his reflection, and the stupid Thundercats song starts to play, which gives me hope that this episode is practically over. Somehow, the Claw Shield made Mumm-Ra fly away? It's not really clear. He just started grabbing his head and gagging and thrashing, and then he was just...gone. That's all we get. Then everyone else finally shows up to "help."

Mumm-Ra gets back to his tomb and freaks out a little more. He shrinks back down into his mummy form, and the mutants want to know if he was successful, probably because they just want to rub it in that he couldn't get the Eye of Thundera, either. Rather than answer their questions, Mumm-Ra just backs himself into his sarcophagus and shuts the door, because he's Mumm-Ra and he doesn't have to answer their stupid questions.

The mutants are kind of dicks about it, and Mumm-Ra grumbles something about doing it again later.

Lion-O and the Thundercats discuss what scared Mumm-Ra off, and scold/praise him for taking on Mumm-Ra by himself. Cheetara even tells him that it was kind of "courageous."

As always, we end the episode with a bit of Snarf wisdom: "Snarf, snarf. Never had any use for courage myself. It just gets them as has it into trouble."

UGH. Shut up, Snarf! You can't even use grammar correctly.

Anyway. Next week, we meet the terrifying Robear Berbils. I'm scared already.

Season 1, Episode 1

Welcome to my blog where I review Thundercats episodes.

To be perfectly honest, I did not watch Thundercats as a child for two reasons: I was a girl (still am, actually) and I was a little too young to pay attention to what show was on at what time in 1985-1989. Also, in 1985, I was four and probably shouldn't have been watching Thundercats anyway.

I am actually doing this at the suggestion of my husband, who did watch the show in syndication as a child and liked it, and reviewing it also seemed like fun. He has fun reviewing the Dukes of Hazzard, a show he enjoys. Be sure to check out his blog: http://dukesofhazzardreviewed.blogspot.com/

I have no deep-seated love of this show, and if it's something sacred to you, navigate away now, because it's not sacred to me. I am watching this with the eyes of an adult, and part of the fun is pointing out the idiosyncrasies and lapses in logic and continuity. If that's going to ruin your childhood memories, well...I'm a little worried about you, and maybe we should take you to that doctor that lets you draw pictures of your feelings.

Back to the reviews, though. We were just watching the special feature on the DVD, which includes interviews with a couple of "superfans" and Wil Wheaton. Let me tell you, Wheaton's clips are waaaaaay more entertaining that the ones with the superfans. Now I'm a little worried about all of the messed-up things they're going to put on this show, and I already know that Snarf might be the most annoying thing ever drawn by overseas animators and given an even more annoying voice.

Season 1, Episode 1: "Exodus"

Wow, that theme song is definitely from the eighties. Holy crap. It comes across as a bit of a mish-mash of stuff when you're unfamiliar with the characters, but I'm sure that, in time, the epilepsy-inducing opening sequence will make a little more sense.

Now that we're past the opening sequence, we get a nice shot of the home planet of the Thundercats, creatively named "Thundera," breaking up, and most of the thundercats are naked. In case you don't already know, they are all anthropomorphized types of cats. Despite the fact that they are completely covered in fur, the whole naked thing makes me extremely uncomfortable.

Lion-O, a little cat-person child and a member of the feline royalty, watches his home planet explode with only minimal grief. In fact, he handles it with the grace and aplomb of Princess Leia watching Alderaan turn into space dust after a hit from the Death Star.

Then Jaga, the only clothed Thundercat and some kind of feline Jedi, tells Lion-O he's Lord of the Thundercats now and shows him the Sword of Omens, which has the Eye of Thundera embedded in the hilt. Don't worry, it's not a literal eyeball, and I'm sure this will be important and explained later. Especially this "sight beyond sight" mystic mumbo jumbo the old man's going on about. Apparently Lion-O will be able to look through the handguard of the sword and see stuff.

Then Jaga tells all the other Thundercats that they're going to some strange new home where they'll finally have to put some damn clothes on and beat people with the fancy new weapons he just magicked into their hands.

Suddenly the Thundercats are attacked by mutants from Plundarr, and Jaga locks Lion-O up in the room with the sword. He is just a little kid after all, so why not leave him alone in a room with a deadly weapon and the most annoying of all companions: Snarf?

Why is Snarf annoying? Because he whines when he talks and says "Snarf, Snarf" after just about everything.

It would appear the mutants, who are not based on cats but on all manner of other animals to distinguish them from the protagonists, all have spaceships that look like Klingon Birds of Prey.

The mutants shoot down other cat-folk and go after the Thundercat flagship containing the characters we've met. Apparently this Eye of Thundera thing is kind of a big deal. Let's remember that, at this point in the show, it's currently being guarded by a little kid and his freaky little companion.

Right. So the mutants get to the flagship and manage to get on board. Tygra (a tiger dude) and Cheetara (a cheetah chick) run off to go fight them. Panthro (a panther-looking dude voiced by Earle Hyman, the guy who played the grandfather on the Cosby Show) also runs away to beat on some mutants. Wily Kat and Wily Kit, a juvenile brother and sister pair who are of some kind of generic species of feline, are also somehow involved in the action, probably just to prove that they are somehow useful and maybe not all that annoying.

Meanwhile, some lizard-frog mutant named Slithe and canine-looking guy called Jackalman find the sword room while searching for the Eye of Thundera and find Lion-O in there. Strangely, he has not used the sword to murder Snarf.

Snarf threatens the mutant, and Slithe makes fun of Snarf to his face. Snarf's feelings are hurt and he leaps at the mutants in what was maybe supposed to be a valiant offensive attack, but is quickly felled by a net gun, which Jackalman apparently just carries around. You know, in case of an emergency fishing situation, or wrangling doves at the weddings of people with too much money on their hands and had to have live doves that consequently flew off and shit on everyone's cars. Slithe demands the sword, and Lion-O responds, "You shall not have it while I live!" I have now decided that's a phrase I'm going to use whenever I don't want to share something.

Lion-O then tries to brandish the Sword of Omens at the big, mean mutants. He struggles with the sword for a bit, because it's a heavy, metal weapon. Then that stupid Eye of Thundera starts glowing, which would scared the shit out of me if this was a sword I was trying to handle, so it's a good thing this is only a cartoon, because I do not want to drop a big, heavy sword on my foot. That would hurt. Then the Eye shoots out this big, red Bat signal, only instead of a bat, it has the Thundercats logo projected into the air.

It's not even projected onto the wall. Just up into the air. I'm not even sure how that would work. Is there a lot of smoke in the room or something? Is that what makes the mutants so evil--they're avid smokers, and the real threat they pose to the Thundercats is giving them lung cancer, emphysema, or a host of other respiratory diseases acquired through inhaling second-hand smoke?

The mutants are amazed by the appearance of the logo. Now we have a shot of Lion-O holding up the sword. Let's look at this for a moment:

He sure looks a lot more muscular than he did a moment ago! Now, I realize that when animation studios are cranking out the episodes, they are probably going to have to re-use footage, especially if it's going to be something that happens a lot. And I have no doubt that we're going to see Lion-O holding up that sword a lot in the future. It just seems like, just this time, they could have had it look like a not 'roided-up dude is wielding a sword for that moment.

Then the sword GROWS and the mutants run away, scared, and get back onto their own ships.

We're only halfway into this, folks.

Lion-O checks up on Snarf and is actually concerned about whether or not he's all right. Jaga seems pleased that the sword did some super weird shit when Lion-O touched it.

Then the Thundercats pick a planet to go to. It turns out that the new planet is the third one away from its sun. Freaky. Jaga orders everyone into the suspension capsules, because the planet is light years away. Apparently these capsules are kind of like cryogenic freezers which will "slow down the aging process tremendously." Jaga says he'll stay out and pilot the ship manually as long as he can, but really I think he just wants to die to get away from Snarf. They all say their teary good-byes to Jaga, because when they get out of the capsules, he'll be dead.

When Jaga is depicted in the last moments of his life, he's putting the ship on autopilot and then dies. His body fades away in true Jedi fashion, leaving behind his clothes on the chair. Only it's less exciting, because there's no preceding lightsaber duel.

The ship somehow lands itself on the Thundercats' new planet without exploding, but it does have a rough landing, sending the suspension capsules everywhere. Snarf is the first to get up, and he starts searching for Lion-O, who must be the Thundercat least likely to punch him in the face after such a rude wake-up call. And oh snap Lion-O looks different!

Oh, shit, Lion-O's capsule let him grow up! His voice has deepened and he has grown considerably. He even turned down an old teddy bear Snarf offered him because he's too old for that shit now! But what's really strange is that Lion-O spent years and years in that capsule, just lying around and not doing anything, and when he gets out of the thing he's all fit and super muscular. I'm pretty sure that's not how biology works, but hey, it's a cartoon.

A big, ugly green spaceship appears out of nowhere and beams down some mutants. Snarf stumbles across the Sword and takes it to Lion-O, who pays little attention to it, thinking it's a toy. The mutants, it turns out, are still looking for the Eye of Thundera and start breaking into the other suspension capsules.

Lion-O jumps in to stop them and suddenly knows martial arts. Snarf throws him the sword, and it seems to electrocute him the moment he catches it.

Ouch.


He seems to have trouble remembering it for some reason. Then Ghost Jaga appears, because as we all know, Jedis become ghosts that just kind of lurk around and watch you shower and stuff. Of course, Lion-O is amazed to see Jaga, because he's supposed to be dead and all.

Jaga spouts some mystic shit about the Eye of Thundera as the "source of the Thundercats' power." Lion-O puts the sword up to his face and psychically sees the other Thundercats sleeping in their capsules. Then he does the famous "Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats, ho!" thing, where the sword grows. This somehow makes the other Thundercats wake up, pop out of their capsules, and start fighting all those crazy mutants while the show's theme song plays. You know, just in case you forgot what you were watching. When Lion-O shows up, no one seems terribly worried that he has aged more than they have and is basically a child in the body of man, which makes it really fucking creepy when Cheetara kind of hits on him.

The episode ends with Lion-O declaring, "We will survive and create a mighty new empire! I, Lion-O, Lord of the Thundercats, proclaim it!" Then everyone gives him a dirty look until he admits he'll need the help of the other Thundercats.

The episode ends with Snarf's ominous words of doubt: "Maybe it'll turn out all right, and maybe it won't."

Great way to end the episode on a positive note, Thundercats writers. Maybe everything will turn out all right, and maybe they'll all die horribly of some weird feline disease that didn't exist on Thundera and to which they have no immunity. Just imagine what this show would have been if Wily Kat had to struggle with the horrors of feline AIDS after losing his virginity by rolling in the hay with some local floozy.

Tune in next week, kids, and let's see what kind of trouble our feline heroes get into next week.