Episode 006 – The Terror of Hammerhand

Cartoons ThunderCats (1985)
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Episode 006 – The Terror of Hammerhand

New characters introduced:

The Berzerkers – a band of pirates that look a lot like [FONT=&quot]Vikings[/FONT]

Hammerhand – Leader of the Berzerkers (in this episode, Hammerhand’s metal arm/hand is his left, but I thought it was his right in the later episodes)

The Unicorn Keepers – peaceful humanoids who protect the unicorn herd

As the episode starts, we see a glimpse of the Berzerkers’ deck with at least 10 people on deck. All appear to be completely human, other than Hammerhand (due to his big metal hand). None of the other Berzerkers are named in this episode.

Snarf isn’t known for his bravery, courage, or other noble qualities. However, here we see him approaching a strange animal and doing everything in his power to save it from the Berzerkers, including using himself as a decoy.

The two Berzerkers that are with Hammerhand when they capture Snarf appear to be the original forms of Cruncher and Ram Bam (as seen in later episodes).

When the giant bird took the Sword of Omens, why didn’t Lion-O obey Sword Rule #3 (call to it and it will obey)? But if he had done that, he would have no reason to take the unicorn’s ring.

Animation mistake as Lion-O puts the sword back in the claw shield, he put it in against the inside of his arm, not on the backside, oops!

Sword Rule #7: Sight beyond sight can be used to show others events from the past.

If the fight between Lion-O and Hammerhand on the ship would have gone on much longer, Hammerhand would have sunk his own ship. But Lion-O wasn’t doing a bad job of inflicting damage to it as well.

How do you make a modification to the ThunderTank to make it turn into a submarine? Panthro is one heck of a mechanic.

Why did the ThunderCats sink the Berzerkers’ boat? They had already disabled most of the lasers and cannons on it, plus someone could have gotten hurt or worse. This is a very “dark side” moment for the ThunderCats, usually once they have rescued everyone/thing from the danger, they just leave and head home. In fact, if it were not for comments about slowing them down made afterward, it could have implied that the Berzerkers drowned.

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I always wished the unicorn keepers had names. I remember a later episode where the female referred to the male as “my husband the unicorn keeper” which sounded awkward.

Unrelated, but I wish the ancient spirits of evil were all named also. A member on here named aewsmith has a script that was never produced called “beasts of mummra” where the asoe of evil turn into beasts and attack the Thundercats. Question I have for aewsmith is if the asoe are referred to by names in this episode since they would have played a large role. Unrelated to this initial post, but inquiring minds want to know.

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Well, in Spitting Image, Mumm-Ra calls upon Hammerhand, Leader of the Berserkers, to rise from his watery grave (if memory serves me right) So, I think they in fact did drown..

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Hammerhand had the metal arm at his left hand in ‘The Terror of Hammerhand’ as well as in the episode 18, ‘Spitting Image’, where he appeared in ghost form, however in Thundercats Ho’ the characteristic metal arm was at his right hand.
The LJN figure has it at his right side too.

Beats me why.:liono No explanation is given

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Later on, in “The Ghost Warrior”, we learn that the Eye has no psychic powers and can’t look far back in time. So maybe this instance of Sight Beyond Sight (Lion-O showing the Unicorn Keepers his rescue of their missing unicorn) hinges on it being the recent past? Or, perhaps because the Eye was present at the time, it remembers, and can replay it, as opposed to past events where it wasn’t present.

This is made darker by Panthro shouting to the crew, “Get below, or hang on!” Wouldn’t going below decks be more dangerous if the boat’s about to sink? Lion-O then says, “It worked, Panthro. They’re gone,” followed by Snarf’s “That oughta keep them from trying any more raids for a while.” A while, Snarf? I think drowning is usually rather permanent. It seems almost karmic that Panthro, who perpetrated the sinking of the ship, would see his reputation almost ruined by Hammerhand’s ghost in “Spitting Image”.

As for the whole left-hand right-hand Hammerhand confusion, that discussion might be better left to “Spitting Image”, but my impression has always been that, after he destroyed the mold and vanished in that tornado, Hammerhand remade himself, assembling a new crew, building a new ship, and apparently swapping out his hammerhand for a new one…on the other arm.

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Yeah, it is hard to rise from your watery grave if you are still alive. That really seems to go against the Code of ThunDera…

I was referring to the fact that the Sword could be used to show other people things, as opposed to just showing stuff to the Lord of the ThunderCats. Although its inability to see some historical events is odd too.

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Whoops. I misread “show others events” as “show other events”. Sword Rule #7, intact. :slight_smile:

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I never realized that but yes, it did seem a little dark for the T-Cats to inflict so much damage on the Berserkers’ ship & sink the damn thing. Maybe they thought they needed to make sure The Unicorn Guardians were completely safe or something. Who knows? Anyways, This episode is very special in the sense that it was the first one to take the T-Cats away from Mumm-Ra & The Mutants. Other episodes would do this more successfully, but it was nice to see that the writers were willing to break from the norm so early into the series. With MOTU, it took them 30 episodes to realize they were using Skeletor too much, lol.

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The million dollar question concerning Hammerhand’s presence in the Thundercats Series is how did he come back from the dead to do Mumm-Ra’s bidding and capture the New Thundercats in Thundercats HO part 1. We witness in the end of the"Terror of Hamerhand’', Hammerhand’s ship being capsized and sunk to the bottom of the sea along with all the Berserkers, and then in Spitting image, Hammerhand resurrected in Ghost form.
Also, i was wondering, as aero mentioned about the original form of Cruncher and Ram Bam, if the Berserkers we see in this episode were the exact same pirate-crew as in the later episodes but in enhanced and improved shape ?

It’s worth mentioning here, that the Unicorn Keepers were the first intelligent natives of Third Earth that the Thundercats run across. The Trologs, Giantors and Brute-men we saw in the previous episodes were rather growling than being able to communicate properly. Berbils don’t count since they were from another planet and landed in Third Earth some time ago.
This druid like and peaceful race called Unicorn Keepers must have been living for a long period in the planet and were pretty cautious about the sudden changes taking place, i wonder if they were referring to Mumm-Ra’s first appearance in their home planet when they said: ‘’ it is becoming once again a dangerous place for Unicorns’'.
Too bad we do not see them more often in the whole series like the Warrior Maidens, they seemed a very interesting tribe, experienced in practicing magic.