Monday, April 5, 2010
5-8PM PST; 6-9PM MST; 7-10PM CST; 8-11PM EST
1-4AM GMT (April 6, 2010)
Studio Reps In Attendance
Amit Desai – Vice President, Family, Animation and Partner Brands Marketing
Rosemary Markson – Vice President, TV and Special Interest Marketing
Melissa Hufjay McAlevey, Vice President, Publicity
Read the guidelines carefully, one of the following points is very important.
“8. As in the forum we want people to know who you are. We don’t want bogus usernames being used and if used will be banned from the rest of the chat.”
Everyone I know this is a short notice, but I hope many can come up with some good valid questions regarding the Thundercats franchise.
Maybe fans can discuss first what questions they plan on asking, so that we don’t repeat ourselves there in the chat.
Fantastic find Vivek, I will try to attend… I think two obvious questions are:
What are your plans for the revival of the ThunderCats cartoon? We may want to preface this question by mentioning that CartoonRetro in Canada has just started re-airing the original episodes and that WB has had a flurry of activity with the property.
Should ask whether they are aware of any pending licensing agreements on the property… hint at the toy line
I think we could also ask about Silverhawks and Tigersharks
Good ones Mark, those two are indeed the key questions. I hope they give us satisfactory answers.
I still haven’t framed my questions yet, but I am planning to bring attention to the Thundercats soundtrack and petition.
And although this is a chat for WB TV and Animation I will try to ask if they are/were using the cartoon as a source material for the concept of the movie’s design.
Really interesting interview. It might finally clear up the much anticipated Thundercats issue. We should keep in mind as the guidelines stress out, films related questions will not be addressed and the topic is going to be Television and Animation generally,not Thundercats exclusively, so i guess they wouldn’t give us any answers about an upcoming Thundercats movie or delve completely into the Thundercats franchise.
All the faithfull fans are eager to learn the official answer to the one million dollar question that has been going around for some years:
“When are we going to see and what are your plans for the next Thundercats project”
Of course this simple question can be formed in many ways like:
-After 25 years when do you expect to please the fans?
How come Thundercats is the only 80’s cartoon which has been left intact for so many years?
-CGI-Avatar style or Cartoon graphics?
-The Japanese animation how much is it going to influence or be involved in a new Thundercats series given that the original designs were made by Japanese studios and much of the success was owing to that. (This question is very important to me)
What went wrong and you abandoned Paul Sopocy’s script and the director Jerry O’Flaherty was put on hold?
-Are you thinking of bringing on board any of the old and much beloved creation stuff like the voice of Larry Kenney?
-If a new series comes up, the target group will be older die hard fans mainly or the younger and not familiar with Thundercats generation?
The overall content and style would be on a par with the original show or will you try to bring in totally new ideas?
The list above can go on and on, but the only question i would make is the first because i believe they don’t even know the details of the new Thundercats project yet.
It’s been years since I chatted on IRC and though they have recommended IRC I’m sticking with the chat browser that is being integrated on their page. Still later on I will download a IRC client and keep it as a backup option. The problem with IRC client is many of the usernames are taken and as default option the IRC client will assign me a random numeric username and I don’t want that to happen when I enter this chat room. To get my desired username I have to register my unique username with a password and hopefully that username isn’t already taken.
Grune, I feel your first question will get covered when Mark (Grizz) asks his two questions. I will try and get your second question answered.
Since everyone gets to ask one question at a time, it will be awhile until everyone’s first questions gets answered and then they move to everyone’s second question and so on.
To clarify: I won’t even be at my computer until 5pm today. I don’t have an IRC client nor do I know how to use one. Also I’m not registered at the forum, so I don’t think I will have time to register, download an IRC client, and learn how to use it in time to get on. So, can someone please try to get my questions in? Perhaps they can either be adopted by someone with an identical question, or combined into a similar one from someone else.
We’ve yet to see any marketing whatsoever for the 25th anniversary of the Thundercats show. Can they comment on if there is anything in the pipeline specifically to commemorate this historic year for the show and if so: a) when can we expect to hear news about it? b) can you discuss or give hints to specifics such as a new show and/or new or commemorative action figure line?
With the new partnership of WB! and Shout Factory, what is the likelyhood of finally seeing the 2nd volume and/or a complete box set of Silverhawks and also a release of the Comic Strip (which includes TigerSharks) on DVD, possibly (and hopefully) put together by Shout Factory? Also any chance of a 25th anniversary remastered DVD box set re-release of Thundercats by Shout?
Also, can someone post a tutorial for one of the recommended IRC clients for this chat so perhaps we can download the client and learn to use it prior to this chat and/or for future ones?
Merged Post:
Any updates?
Oh boy.. traveled back in time :D, looks like I answered Grune’s question before it even got posted :p.
Well my post was held up due to a board glitch and was awaiting moderator approval. After Grune posted another consecutive post his posts merged, leaving my post back with the original time stamp. I think I have confused things enough :eek:, I will stop now.
I remember a few years back WB did one of these and not one single person asked a Thundercats related question. It was all other more recent cartoon related if I remember right…
Hopefully someone will get a Thundercats related question in this time around
Though I’d advise folks not to get their hopes up as chances are, the same thing will happen again
: When can we expect a second volume to SilverHawks?
: No plans at this time.
Guys we need support, there are over 120 users. Mark (Grizz) and I have been trying past one hour and not getting qualified in the selection of 7 users during each round. Wish more Thundercats fans from this board would log in, so that we have better chances.
Merged Post:
This was Mark’s planned question, but I got through the wait list and hence posted it.
: Thank you… my question is about ThunderCats, the 80s cartoon WB acquired from Rankin Bass. I’m interested about WBs plans for the property. Teletoon Retro in Canada has just picked up the original series and played a 12 hour marathon last night. There have been two licenses granted for a detailed line of collectible statues. What else is in store for the property, specifically is there a new animated show being considered… and is WB considering more licenses for a toyline and other collectibles?
: The original series is out on DVD and we continue to explore new product configurations.
: Thanks could you elaborate on Vivek’s question about ThunderCats.. what ‘product configurations’ are you evaluating and are there any licensing deals pending? Please provide as much detail as possible. Thanks, from the team at ThunderCatsLair.org
: We’ve told you as much as we are able at this point but we appreciate your interest.
Thanks guys for getting in something slightly related to both of my questions. I doubt my specifics would have been addressed anyways. Good find Spideristic and thanks to both you and Grizzlor for logging in.
Spideristic did you say there was a chat applet on the page itself? I’m going to go back and look over this and see about getting something up and running so I can join you guys.
Blackiecats, I’m with you on the SDCC reveal. It just would not make sense for them to not try to explore more options for reviving the franchise this year for commemorative purposes. They could cash in on that big time.
This year will go a long way in revealing WB’s level of interest in the franchise. Slight little trickles like the two flash games and two statue lines give me a glimmer of hope that maybe, finally, WB is getting around to giving this franchise its long overdue time to shine again.
I hope, hope, hope, hope, hope there’s a big time announcement at SDCC this year. Bigger than the Hard Hero unveiling last year.
Wow! That chat transcript shed some light on WB as a company. Looks like they have given SEVERAL of the series they own the shaft with partial DVD releases (not just Silverhawks). Seems pretty fortunate Thundercats got a complete release.
Its no wonder they have considered partnering with Shout! Factory. Based on so many incomplete series on DVD, this company doesn’t seem to have a clue on marketing anything non DC Universe related. Hopefully Max Headroom will sell well enough to warrant a much larger partnership and Silverhawks and partially released series will finally see a full release from Shout! (Side note - Shout! isn’t afraid to go to the well more than once, as evidence by the 2nd chance they’ve given the C.O.P.S. series after poor sales of volume 1. Volume 2 got released exclusively through their website March of this year after a 4 year hiatus).
One other thing. It seems like three out of every four responses was either “no plans at this time” or “we’re evaluating ”. It was a joke. What the heck is the point of even having a Q&A if you’re just going to give canned answers to 75% of the questions given? I understand some things companies hide from talking about behind “legality issues”, but either get some clearance from upper brass to give some credible answers about these shows, or provide a narrow list of shows up front which you’re willing to discuss so people who want answers to other shows don’t waste their time trying to get a question in. And if you have no further plans for a show, why not sell the rights outright at a discount to a DVD distributor who might be interested in seeing the full series released? There were more than a handful of shows in there that seemed just right for a company like Shout! Factory.
These guys are 100x worse than Mattel about giving canned answers to burning fan questions. Unbelievable. I feel sorry for Spideristic and Grizzlor for wasting their time in there.
I have to agree with what Grune said about canned and completely non committal answers. It was a bit of a waste of time.
One thing I could say though is that their answers do fall into the category of: yes, that is an important franchise that got the full DVD treatment (WB style) and that we’re still working on in some shape or form. That they couldn’t say more right now says that there is something in the cooker.
For many of the questions they would just say “no plans” or “not likely given poor performance” but ThunderCats is clearly still an active property.
I want to thank Vivek for giving us all the heads up about this and for logging in to post the question. The team here at TCL will chat about the best way to follow up with WB now that we have some names and titles of the folks involved.
It’s indeed a sad state of affairs with many studios that lot of their recent classic and vintage titles will never see the light of the day. And in the case of WB it’s worse with their rich library of animation programs not getting any quality treatment.
Totally agree, no idea why they won’t consider this if they plan to let the masters of those shows just rot away.
I am just glad at least we both got a opportunity to voice our support to the ThunderCats franchise.
Yep, it’s just matter of time. I am now very optimistic about it, a toyline is bound to happen in the span of 1 or 2 years among other things.
Grizzlor, please keep us informed of any ideas that come up as, I think my recent posts across the boards are evident that I want to get whatever ball we can rolling on some new and exciting Thundercats stuff (better DVD releases, new toyline, new show, etc).
I would say the number one thing we can all do as fans to convince WB to put out more ThunderCats products is to buy the ones that they’ve recently put out there. The statues are an obvious one but not something that is within all fan’s reach and most folks are toy fans so they’re clearly sitting on something that could be much bigger.
I echo Vivek’s thought that a toy line is just around the corner. I just hope they do it right!
We’ll keep everyone posted as always about any news and developments we hear about.
