http://www.thundercatslair.org/animated-series/original-series/articles-features/thundercats-intro/
Super super cool
This is really cool. Thanks Grizzlor!
I especialy like the frames of Lion-O at the CatsLair entrance and the TCs getting to him, just before Jaga and Mumm-Ra appear.
That title sequence is amazingly animated so.
I was big into He-Man in the 80s. When my classmates started talking about Thundercats, I shrugged it off, thinking it would never be as good as He-Man.
Then I saw the intro. Wow. This was not He-Man. He-Man never had animation this cool. To this day, it remains one of the coolest openings of any cartoon. Cheetara’s scene is the best.
Despite having watched the opening sequence of “Thundercats” countless times, I always find myself awestruck at the sheer beauty of it every time I see it. The incredibly detailed drawing, the shaded coloring, the fluid animation, the perspective angles, the zooming in of the camera and following the characters. Everything is top-notch. And what is even more amazing is that it was made in the 80’s when there were no computers to assist the animators.
I have watched a LOT of cartoons and cartoon series. From the 1940’s all the way up to the most recent ones and I have yet to come across any animated sequence which can top or even come close to the “Thundercats” intro. Even animation giants like “Disney” haven’t been able to do it.
That is cool and the pictures are so clear. They’re not so clear when I do a screen capture.:liono
So awesome. The sequence where the Thundercats all line up infront of cats lair is just superb.
Possibly the best Cartoon Intro of all time. (Biased fan:liono)
I am not saying this out of bias but without a doubt Thundercats has to be the best intro of all cartoons. Threat music, excellent animation, shows all the main characters and their bases and you can basically tell the story of the Thundercats just from the animation.
The animation for the opening was done by Masayuki Yamaguchi, who sometimes goes by just “Masayuki.”
Interesting, he worked on Neon Genesis Evangelion…I don’t like that show and that’s putting it mildly. Regardless his work on Thundercats was amazing.
I know, right? :liono
The animation for the opening was done by Masayuki Yamaguchi, who sometimes goes by just “Masayuki.”
This credit might refer to Masayuki being a director who worked on the intro and not necessarily as the artist. There’s a much greater chance that Tsuguyuki Kubo (Master Character Artist) and Minoru Nishida (Master Background Artist) actually drew the intro.
The two guys from Pacific Animation Corporation? Sweet!
Masayuki was the key animator, it was done in the Kanada´s style of animation and that’s the reason why you never saw that kind of stuff before in American shows. Masayuki was in his early 20s when he worked in it and at that time Kanada was like a super star for young animators, Ichiro Itano was also a huge influence for all them in Gainax.
Japan always had great talent, this was a pilot for the film Little Nemo from 1983, in the beginning Tomonaga and Yoshifumi Kondo were involved in this project but things didn’t work that well for them in the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIS2JhWli_A
Ichiro Itano is the animator behind the “Macross Missile Massacre” or “Itano Circus” and things evolved to a point where you can see this kind of stuff now in TV episodes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlNNvHb3oJY
I think Redline is what the Kanada style has evolved to. It´s like the Thundercats intro for 97 minutes :), it was animated totally in 2D BTW.
Does anybody know why the opening animation was not done for all 130 episodes? I mean certain episodes were animated so poorly like “The Sixth Sense” and “Terror of Hammerhand”? Then a few episodes later we get “The Ghost Warrior” which is animated way better?
Three episodes came close to the opening titles’ style – “Mechanical Plague,” “ThunderCats, Ho!” Part 3, and “The Sound Stones.”