Reviewed by Michael Edwards
Stars Larry Kenney, Bob McFadden, Earle Hyman, Lynne Lipton,
Peter Newman, Doug Preis, Gerrianne Raphael, Victor Trujillo
UK certification U | UK RRP £26.99 per volume | DVD Region 2
Runtime Vol. 1 724 minutes | Runtime Vol. 2 664 minutes | Directed by Katsuhito Akiyama
Critic's Disclaimer This review will be significantly biased because I have never in my life felt a love so pure as my childhood love for Thundercats. The simplicity of the good vs evil premise, the violent–yet–fair approach of the noble Thundercats, the many weapons and vehicles, the constant skirmishes, the inexplicably rapid space travel to absurdly named planets and the unnecessarily frequent introductions of new characters all formed part of a tapestry of joy that make 80s cartoons so superior to their overthought and oversanitised descendants we see today.
For those of you who weren't kids of the 80s, the Thundercats were a noble race forced to flee their dying planet Thundera. On board the only ship to make it away from the exploding planet were the Panthro, Cheetara, Tygra, Wilykit, Wilykat, Jaga, the noble young lord Lion-O and of course little Snarf (a strange and cowardly cat–like creature who served as Lion–O's guardian). The Thundercats land on Third Earth and set up a new civilization, but are constantly pursued by their arch-enemy Mumm-Ra who seeks to appropriate the power of the Sword of Omens, the ancient sword controlled by the lord of the Thundercats. Has there been anything so cool since this? I think not.
Volume 1 This volume begins with the episodes from the dismantled 'Thundercats–Ho!' movie where it turns out that other citizens had escaped from Thundera along with the Thundercats, and had been marooned on an island along with some Ro-Bear Berbils (a kind of robotic teddy bear). When Mumm-Ra also learns of these survivors and enlists the help of some odd quasi-mechanical pirates called Berserkers to help him it becomes clear the Thundercats have a long battle ahead of them. The series continues with inexplicable and totally unbelievable twists, punctuated with crazy animated battle scenes in much the predicted manner.
Volume 2 Contains episodes never before seen on British televisions! How exciting! (Although we may tacitly note between ourselves, as friends, that many Thundercat nerds may have downloaded said episodes from some devilish electronic information transfer mechanism I've heard of called the 'interweb'). Mumm-Ra is of course back, and a large chunk of this volume sees him travel back in time to reach Thundera before it was destroyed. The Thundercats pursue him but there's a strange quirk of fate when several of their number are turned back into children — the Thundercubs — and are rendered useless in the battle.
Refreshingly inane, full of increasingly odd and cool-looking enemies to battle, and never straying from the much–cherished good vs evil dichotomy no matter how aggressive the Thundercats are when maintaining law and order on Third Earth, each and every episode of this retro classic is a reminder of what kids and merchandise hungry media executives want from a good cartoon. No I'm off to an internet auction site to purchase a ThunderTank... no, wait... a Sword of Omens... oooh, oooh, maybe a Thunderstrike....
EXTRAS [Volume 1] ** A featurette on the series composer Bernie Hoffner, who is awesome but I'm not sure why he needed a featurette, and a music video of the theme song performed by aging American pop-rockers The Rembrandts which is absolutely hilarious.
EXTRAS [Volume 2] Nothing. Which is bitterly disappointing.