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.
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