1st two episodes on the CN app.

Cartoons ThunderCats Roar (2019)
1

The first two episodes are on the Cartoon Network app. It has some good points and horrible.

To be fair I’ll start with the good:

  1. The music. They use the music from the original show. I’m trying to figure out why the 2011 creators said the old music was too expensive if this show can use it though.

  2. The voices (with the exception of Cheetara sounding WAY too young) seemed to be decently cast.

  3. The Berbils actually got a laugh out of me (the lightning thing was over done though).

  4. Callbacks. The show is almost exactly the plot from the original premiere (just skipping how Jaga dies and any time spent on Thundera). The people making the show have obviously at least WATCHED the original.

The bad:

  1. Lion-O. He’s a raging moron. Picture the most annoyingly dumb character you can think of and multiply it by 10. Lion-O, by himself, makes me feel like it’s making fun of ThunderCats rather than just trying to be a comedic version.

  2. Snarf. He’s a robot for some reason. Nuff said.

  3. The whole visual style. I’m sorry, but it just looks horrible to me.

  4. Mumm-Ra being 100 feet tall. He literally sits on top of his sarcophagus. Why?

Heck the entire tone of the show rubs me the wrong way. I would’ve been happy with more Teen Titans and less Teen Titans Go. They couldve made a more comedic version, staying as faithful to the original, even with a simpler art style, without doing pointless and stupid things and changing a character’s entire personality.

2 Likes
2

I won’t go into detail but I’m surprised to see that they’re using the original soundtrack and background music of the original show.

However, music is solely credited to another musician than Bernard Hoffer! This is almost scandalous…

https://i.ibb.co/wwmJV36/tc-music.jpg

1 Like
3

Wow. I did not notice that. It didn’t even seem like they rerecorded the music, but used old sound files. That’s horrible.

4

Maybe he did re-arrangements/re-recordings but they’re pretty much indistinguishable from the original tracks. Even if that’s the case, excluding the original composer is truly not acceptable.

5

I absolutely Love the new show! Can’t wait for new Thundercats toys based on the show, maybe we’ll see something at Toy Fair 2020!

:panthro

6

This show might get merchandise, but the designs don’t seem very toy friendly at all to me.

7

I saw the first two episodes of ThunderCats Roar. I wasn’t very impressed with it. Aside from its tone, its biggest offender is using the old ThunderCats music, which is pretty memorable in an of itself. Why this show couldn’t make a suitable new score is beyond me.

8

Saw it…bleck.

Lets separate my love of the Thundercats property for just a minute. This show, to me, represented everything I hate about modern US animation: It has an art style that is too similar to everything else out there today (That CalArts look that people have called out) and has that zany nonsense humor that is nonstop which comes across as annoying and reeks of desperation to get a laugh. I see it too much now (Teen Titans Go, Steven Universe, etc.). I thought Adventure Time was a solid and creative cartoon, but it feels like so many others are trying to piggy back off of its success by filling their show with weirdness and nonsense, completely forgetting that AT had its own style, had a somewhat well thought out world and lore, and had plenty of moments of quiet and subtlety.

This just feels like they’ve adopted the formula of Bright Colors + Fast Dialogue + Noise Noise Noise Constant Noise = Funny. The entire thing felt like I watched the original Exodus with a two year old and then that same kid explained it to back to me while on a sugar rush. The best example was probably when Snarf was revealed to be a robot. That totally felt like a non-sequitur a kid would just throw into the middle of an explanation.

Now, let me step back into my Thundercat fan mode here and say that this is just insulting on every level. Yes, the original show is drenched in 80s cheese, but for its time, that was about as awesome as a US made cartoon could get. Animated shows for children always got hit with a ton of restrictions, so when shows like Thundercats, GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man and She-Ra, and (a personal favorite of mine) Inhumanoids could craft something that was a little bit more intense to my kid like sensibilities, it was all the more impressive. I mean, I remember the first time I saw Mumm-Ra and I was both terrified and enthralled…I wanted to watch more.

Considering the limitations that were around in the 80s, and how shows in the 90s like X-Men, Batman: TAS, and Gargoyles were able to push the boundaries even further, I am absolutely stunned that in 2020, the modern cartoon is a complete joke made for toddlers, and the 80s show actually looks and feels way more awesome by comparison.

Now that’s not to say that it isn’t possible to make a strictly comical Thundercats show. CN actually has experience with transforming an old action/adventure cartoon into something comical. Space Ghost is the prime example to me, as well as Birdman. Both shows were fairly typical action/adventure fare from the Hanna Barbera library, and fun shows for kids. Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law take completely different routes with these characters and creates really funny scenarios with them, and even uses fans’ knowledge of the old cartoons for comedic effect. It never felt disrespectful or like CN was dumping on the old 60s cartoons. They just did something different and new with them. Heck, Sealab 2021 is actually more respectful towards the original cartoon it was based on, and the old show was a boring toon no one liked. But the makers said “Hey, what if the people on this Sealab were there for a year and they all went crazy?”, and boom, there’s your show. They actually developed the original characters! And a show like Venture Brothers pokes fun at Johnny Quest and every other action cartoon from the 60s to the 80s, and its fantastic.

I am also a huge Mel Brooks fan and he taught me that it is okay to laugh at things that you love, and if anything, his parodies of the Universal Monster Movies and Star Wars only made me love those things even more and appreciate them in new ways. So parody is fine. Comedy is fine. But, if you’re going to go that route, it has to be funny, and it has to be funny in a way that doesn’t alienate people, and again, this offered nothing of value to anyone above the age of 3. I mean, who actually thinks this new Lion-O is funny? Or any of the characters for that matter? They are all just screeching and yelling doofuses. The funniest characters in the entire thing were the Berbils, and even they got bogged down with running gags that went way too long (Rule of 3 guys…its not an absolutely rule, but most of the time it is advisable to follow it).

This whole thing feels like an April Fool’s Joke that went way too far. I’m not even sure who this cartoon is even for. Its not for fans. They called us toxic and said it wasn’t for us. It might be for kids, but good grief, would they even like this, especially when in a world that already has Teen Titans Go?

And yes, I find it disrespectful that they used the original music (which really does clash with a wacky and comedic show like this) and didn’t credit Bernard Hoffer. I chalk that up to an oversight, but it really stinks to hear his classic music in this tripe, and then have someone else get credited for his work.

1 Like
9

Saw it…bleck.

Lets separate my love of the Thundercats property for just a minute. This show, to me, represented everything I hate about modern US animation: It has an art style that is too similar to everything else out there today (That CalArts look that people have called out) and has that zany nonsense humor that is nonstop which comes across as annoying and reeks of desperation to get a laugh. I see it too much now (Teen Titans Go, Steven Universe, etc.). I thought Adventure Time was a solid and creative cartoon, but it feels like so many others are trying to piggy back off of its success by filling their show with weirdness and nonsense, completely forgetting that AT had its own style, had a somewhat well thought out world and lore, and had plenty of moments of quiet and subtlety.

This just feels like they’ve adopted the formula of Bright Colors + Fast Dialogue + Noise Noise Noise Constant Noise = Funny. The entire thing felt like I watched the original Exodus with a two year old and then that same kid explained it to back to me while on a sugar rush. The best example was probably when Snarf was revealed to be a robot. That totally felt like a non-sequitur a kid would just throw into the middle of an explanation.

Now, let me step back into my Thundercat fan mode here and say that this is just insulting on every level. Yes, the original show is drenched in 80s cheese, but for its time, that was about as awesome as a US made cartoon could get. Animated shows for children always got hit with a ton of restrictions, so when shows like Thundercats, GI Joe, Transformers, He-Man and She-Ra, and (a personal favorite of mine) Inhumanoids could craft something that was a little bit more intense to my kid like sensibilities, it was all the more impressive. I mean, I remember the first time I saw Mumm-Ra and I was both terrified and enthralled…I wanted to watch more.

Considering the limitations that were around in the 80s, and how shows in the 90s like X-Men, Batman: TAS, and Gargoyles were able to push the boundaries even further, I am absolutely stunned that in 2020, the modern cartoon is a complete joke made for toddlers, and the 80s show actually looks and feels way more awesome by comparison.

Now that’s not to say that it isn’t possible to make a strictly comical Thundercats show. CN actually has experience with transforming an old action/adventure cartoon into something comical. Space Ghost is the prime example to me, as well as Birdman. Both shows were fairly typical action/adventure fare from the Hanna Barbera library, and fun shows for kids. Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law take completely different routes with these characters and creates really funny scenarios with them, and even uses fans’ knowledge of the old cartoons for comedic effect. It never felt disrespectful or like CN was dumping on the old 60s cartoons. They just did something different and new with them. Heck, Sealab 2021 is actually more respectful towards the original cartoon it was based on, and the old show was a boring toon no one liked. But the makers said “Hey, what if the people on this Sealab were there for a year and they all went crazy?”, and boom, there’s your show. They actually developed the original characters! And a show like Venture Brothers pokes fun at Johnny Quest and every other action cartoon from the 60s to the 80s, and its fantastic.

I am also a huge Mel Brooks fan and he taught me that it is okay to laugh at things that you love, and if anything, his parodies of the Universal Monster Movies and Star Wars only made me love those things even more and appreciate them in new ways. So parody is fine. Comedy is fine. But, if you’re going to go that route, it has to be funny, and it has to be funny in a way that doesn’t alienate people, and again, this offered nothing of value to anyone above the age of 3. I mean, who actually thinks this new Lion-O is funny? Or any of the characters for that matter? They are all just screeching and yelling doofuses. The funniest characters in the entire thing were the Berbils, and even they got bogged down with running gags that went way too long (Rule of 3 guys…its not an absolutely rule, but most of the time it is advisable to follow it).

This whole thing feels like an April Fool’s Joke that went way too far. I’m not even sure who this cartoon is even for. Its not for fans. They called us toxic and said it wasn’t for us. It might be for kids, but good grief, would they even like this, especially when in a world that already has Teen Titans Go?

And yes, I find it disrespectful that they used the original music (which really does clash with a wacky and comedic show like this) and didn’t credit Bernard Hoffer. I chalk that up to an oversight, but it really stinks to hear his classic music in this tripe, and then have someone else get credited for his work.

1 Like
10

Just watched the two episodes.
It’s better than I thought it would be.
Again it is aimed at children that likethe usual Cartoon Network Steven Universe type cartoons.
The animation/character design are designs are absolutely horrible looking.
Hopefully this will lead to a movie or a more serious Thundercats cartoon.
I hope children like this and it helps get Thundercats attention.
Having a cartoon for children and merchandise available at retail will do a lot more for the franchise than the Super 7 Ultimates line.

3 Likes
11

Finally someone who understands the bigger picture in all of this!

Again this show is amazing and witty! This show has potential for a new generation to adore! Kids will really dig this…:panthro

1 Like
12

Children will be confused. The setup and characters make little to no sense to a kid who’s not familiar with the original show. Then again, if the audience has watched and understood the old show (watching along with parents, uncles, etc), they’re already too mature to enjoy this. The target audience does not exist.

Without any intention to be a hater, this show is fine I guess for 4-6 year olds. There’s zero appeal to anyone older than that, it cannot make older children laugh. But I’m pretty sure children will pass for something that makes more sense to them, instead of a parody of a 1985 show. Who in the right mind in WB gave the green light?

I honestly expected it to be a spoof that would “piss” fans of the old show but it’s nothing like that. It’s literally toddler material.

13

After watching the first episodes it is obviously Thundercats in a whole new direction. I feel as though they went the more mature route with the 2-11 series and although I personally really enjoyed it, it appears WB considered it a failure and went in the opposite direction.

I really enjoyed the music and that it generally followed the original story and the berbils were nice. Snarf being a robot was completely out of nowhere and Vultureman being with the others seemed a bit odd but understandable. Mumm-ra being huge in his everliving form was also a new take…

Now from a different perspective. I watched this with my 5 year old son who is familiar with both of the previous versions and he loved TC Roar. He actually said it was his favorite so far and had me get out my original 80’s toys and wants to watch it again as soon as he wakes up in the morning. I venture to say this is the reaction that WB hopes for and if in fact kids get into this version I certainly see it as a positive for the franchise.

2 Likes
14

I love it. Went in cautiously. Laughed a lot. Funny. Surprised by the Snarf angle. Still waiting for him to say Snarf Snarf. Mumm-Ra is HUGE! And it was epic to see his staff in the cartoon at last. What a throwback! Wondering if the intro will be shown with episode 3. Using the original music was a twist - it worked in some places rather well. The Berbils were cute. Slithe was a nice copy, yessss? Lion-O is a bit of a strange character. Hopefully he grows a bit more. I’m all for this show. It’s a fresh take aimed at little ones but I’m sure parents who see it in the background will be drawn to the similarities of the story and the familiar soundtrack.

1 Like
15

I was glad that Vultureman was introduced here already and not just appeared like in the original. It makes sense to be part if the story from the beginning as a mutant.

16

I watched the two episodes again. It feels like a fanmade parody but without the slightest trace of adult humour, I still don’t get who it is for. And most of us who grew with the 1985 show are a bit too old to have toddlers.

Maybe it would make more sense if it was released 5 to 10 years ago. For now I can’t get over that it’s literally for a very, very young audience, while the setup and pace make no sense to such viewers.

17

Aweful, un-original and ugly. The ThunderCats universe is set-up wonderfully in the '85 series and could be expanded and grown. Just look at the Wildstorm comics, or the 2011 show… There is so much potential for both a continuation, and parallel story’s with new characters. This abomination is a waste of time. Warner Brother is really out of touch and completely oblivious if they believe this is the right direction to take the IP. If one really wants to do yet another cartoon in this “style”, fine, pull some silly story out of your @#$ and do it. But why, why mutilate an established and beloved IP by re-imagining it in the most lazy and bland way possible and reducing iconic characters to bumbling, one-note idiots… I really dont get it.
Also, they couldnt even be bothered, or muster the talent, to create their own score. Hoffer’s music is the only good thing about this dumpster fire.
0/10

2 Likes
18

when it was first announced I hated it at first sight. There was nothing to like. Hated how it looked but I thought I would give it a try. I went into it with an open mind. It was horrible. I did not enjoy that at all. It was just over 11 minutes and that was still too long. I do realize that we are not the target audience. I just don’t get why this sort of animation is liked. Most new cartoons are drawn this way lately.

I hated the fact that they are making Tygra the butt of all jokes. Nothing really worked for me.

The only reason I will entertain this TR is what may come of this. I just really hope that because if this turns out to be successful that they will keep making dumb cartoons like this. I really do hope that we get a much better cartoon in the future. If He-Man can have two cartoons coming up and a possible movie…why can’t the same happen with Thundercats.

1 Like
19

So, I’d typed out an entire review of this episode and then inadvertantly closed the tab (ironically while trying to copy paste the text.
I’ll re-type that once I am over being disgusted from losing it, but here is a summary:

Not horrible (I say this as someone who was fully prepared to hate this and have already ranted about what we’d seen).
The show reads as targeted to kids in the 6-10 range.
It’s pretty unsophisticated with the humor but the humor that it goes for is strong and lands.
The lore is there, with some slight mods. The characterization is fine for the most part (Tygra and Lion-O are going to be the sticking points, I predict).
The animation actually holds up better in practice although it’s still a little wonky and borrows everything.
I also think there’s a connection to a raunchy cartoon pilot I saw on Adult Swim once but I have to look into that more.
Lots of exposition in the first episode but handled better than you’d expect given the constraints.

My overall grade is somewhere between a B and a C, I expect, but I will need to type out all the stuff I did before, where I gave grades based on these categories:
Animation, Humor, Action, Lore, Characterization, Writing

20

I strongly disagree, I would place it around 4 to 8 years old maximum. A 10 year old will not find this show funny at all.