Word is the next episode is going to be about the Robear Berbils. So lets start a discussion on them. What do you want to see done with our little robotic fruit eating friends?
I think it might be interesting to go into their society a little more. In the OS they were technological beings, yet they lived in a completely non-technological village. Would be interesting to see that juxtaposed with the magic vs tech themes on the new series.
Yeah I want to know what the hell is the point of cyborg bears anyway. Who made them? In TOS they were just kind of there on Third Earth. No explanation of their origins or purpose for being there whatsoever was ever attempted.
Later in Thundercats Ho! it becomes apparent that they are a spacefaring race that travels to distant glaxies when one of their ships just so happend to be passing by Thundera as it explodes and they end up saving the new Thunderians.
I always thought that they were neat in concept as characters but weak in execution. They helped the TCs out all the time but no explanation was ever given about where they came from and why they were on Third Earth in the first place.
I think in one of the episodes it was explained they had crash landed on Third Earth a long time ago. They were from the planet Ro-bear. Forget which episode it was though.
It was “Berbils” After Ro-Bear-Bill cuts Lion-O and Snarf free, he explains they are “Berbils, from the planet Ro-Bear. Been here for Berbil Years.”
I believe that is also the episode where it is explained that the planet Ro-Bear is very small and they must travel to other planets to survive. But no real reason why was explained that I know of.
Also I always found it odd that robot bears with glowing synthesizer mouths needed to be farmers and mass cultivaters of Candy Fruit.
Why and how would they eat anyway? Am I thinking about this too much? 
Maybe the same way Bender on Futurama drinks stuff. His mouth is like a monitor or something, but it can slide open to put stuff inside.
I always secretly thought that Berbils were the ultimate Puppet masters, and the real power behind Third Earth 
MGP
It was the “Berbils” episode. 
That’s one of the reasons why I think the Berbils worked so well in TOS. Due to the lack of background information on them they had a sort of mystery to them, which definitely helped to up the “cool factor”. Not too mention the synthetic voices were awesome. That’s something I hope they keep true to form for the new series.
I’d also like to know more about their origins, mostly with regards to their planet of Ro-Bear. How did they come to be? How do they populate their species? Are the other inhabitants of Ro-Bear robotic in form? Things like that.
*Now that I think of it: it would also be cool if they added some type of internal conflict to the Berbils, much like with Data on Star Trek where despite the Berbils obviously being robotic in form, they believe themselves to be “alive”.
The original Berbils had obviously been there for a long time. They had the superstition about the Arietta bird, which always made me wonder how it was tied in.
As to how they’ll fit in here? Perhaps they were menial labour for Mumm-Ra, doing cleaning or tending to feeding. shrugs
I like that idea! Perhaps they were used as farmers and cooks, to grow and cook the food for Mumm-Ra’s army. Mumm-Ra could have found they are useless as fighters due to their kind and gentle nature, so found the slavery use for them.
I don’t see a reason that every sentient species on Third Earth needs to be a former slave race of Mumm-Ra’s.
While we’re discussing our favorite ursine cyborgs: Would you rather the Berbils have the same type of synthesized voice from the OS, a Stephen Hawking type of voice, or some other type of robotic-sounding voice?
Personally speaking, I would have been ok if they left out the Berbils. I really don’t feel a desire to know more about them.
I’d like to see the new show turn the Berbils into replicators like the replicators in Stargate SG-1 and become a plague to the ThunderCats - or maybe they could bring about Mumm-Ra’s downfall since he’s so big into technology and the Cats know how to exist without it.
The berbils..
As some have mentioned, there is the food thing. Being robots, why the need to eat? My guess is that they are designed to extract energy from biomatter, much like living beings.
I think the OS origin is a great starting point… Their planet is over populated so they spread out to new planets. Now lets explore why they were created and by whome. How did they come to be sentient, or were they made that way? How any why did their planet become over populated?
Until an official explaination comes out, I have my own… They were created to be service robots, but became self-aware. Their creators were not evil, and when they realized their creations had become a life form of their own, they helped the berbils to further achieve their independance, teaching the berbils how to re-produce. the berbils went nuts with the reproducing, resulting in over-population. In order to not over-whelm their creators they chose to explore the stars and settle on new planets.
A nice, clean, non-violent start for our robot bears who don’t come to know violence and treachory until Mumm-Ra’s ship crash-lands on their adopted home world. Even then, the berbils remain in seclusion until the Thundercats show up, with Mumm-Ra and his allies close behind. The berbils must now choose a side in a conflict they are unprepared for and uncertain how to deal with.
Maybe they’re cyborgs. They do grow fur.
And then Mumm-Ra gets hold of them and turns them into replicators.
I’ve always assumed they’re cyborgs. They have fur and they eat.
And please No on the Mumm-Ra turning them into replicators. I don’t care if you don’t like them you don’t just go turning characters that were good in the OS to bad guys. That’s like saying “lets have Slithe grow flowers and give them to little children!”
I’m looking forward to seeing the Berbils again, if for no other reason than they were cool, even if their entire existence seems improbable. I and others have had some joke-theories on their origins; namely that they were created by either the Cybermen, the classic BSG Cylons, or Davros (the creator of the Daleks) as a disarmingly cuddly, yet lethal new variant. And when it didn’t work out and they found that they were inherently benevolent and harmless, they just abandoned them all on a planet somewhere.
The other reason I liked them was of course their voices, which sounded very old school Cylon-like. I’ve wondered how they achieved the effect, and I figured they might have used a talk box, like the kind used by such artists as Stevie Wonder and Peter Frampton in the 1970’s. Which makes me wonder, if they used a talk box then, would they be using Autotune now?
Oh God I hadn’t even considered that. They just might. :eek:
I knew there was a third alternative I had forgotten…
They don’t have to be evil replicators. They can be good replicators who destroy Mumm-Ra. 
And not the same to compare turning Berbils into Replicators to turning Slithe into a creep who preys on children. shudder