How Thundercats touched your life

Cartoons ThunderCats (1985)
1

I’ve heard all these stories about Thundercats touched various peoples’ lives as kids. How watching Thundercats got them through a difficult time in their lives – divorce, abuse, poverty, bullying… etc. Let me tell you, I was one of those kids.

Third grade was one of the hardest times in my life. My home life was fine, but school was torture. I had just discovered I was different from everybody else but I had no idea why. I was bullied not only by other kids, but by my teacher as well. I struggled with my schoolwork, but I couldn’t ask for help – partly due to my undiagnosed autism and partly because I was scared to death of my teacher (whose shrill voice could make Luna cringe). Needless to say, I came home every single day feeling frustrated, abused, and totally alone, and my parents had no idea what to do with me.

But after school, there was always Thundercats. After a day of being dumped head-first in the garbage yet again, struggling to understand the math assignment that it seemed everybody else could easily get, being taunted because I’d spent recess in a corner of the playground talking to myself, and enduring my teacher’s shrieks while having my nose pressed against the brick wall because I’d broken out in tears in absolute frustration, I’d come home, turn on Thundercats, and forget all my problems of that day. They were the heroes I really needed, especially Lion-O. Seeing him, a boy who was learning and growing and making mistakes just like I was, made me feel better about myself. It was like Lion-O was telling me personally that it would be all right; that even though things seemed tough now I would get through it, and that the Thundercats would always be there for me no matter what. I wished I was Lion-O; he always seemed so fearless. He’d know how to handle the torment I was going through – he’d even fight back. I knew he wouldn’t really just jump out of the TV and defend me, but at least he was there for me on TV. I suppose that’s why I stopped watching the show when I got to fourth grade – I still loved the show, but things were going better for me and I didn’t need them anymore.

What about you? Anybody else have stories like this?

2

That’s a nice story.

Thundercats never quite effected me like that. For me, it was a source of entertainment that provided action, adventure, & comedy. It was also a series of great morality tales for me to learn from.

3

I think that was one of the intended purposes of Thundercats regarding kids. I’m glad things got better and even though they were hard times, Thundercats helped you through it and now you can appreciate the material for that much more. To me Thundercats was my very personal favorite. Most of the 80’s cartoons were very appealing and entertaining but Thundercats was my absolute favorite cartoon. We had just arrived from Transylvania and were poor but lived comfortably. My dad was a bike messenger in NYC and I was about 5 or 6 years old. My mom would wake me from napping around 1:30 for afternoon cartoons and this one day… All I remember was a roar and the whole room turning red, then the flashes of light and Lion-O’s eyes emerging behind the crossbars of the Sword of Omens. Ever since then I can watch the intro over and over and over. Each time I fall right back into that moment as a kid. Sadly, I never actually owned any thundercats toys. I once found mummra’s head piece and I think I might have had the Thundertank sharpener but that was it. I did however actually hold a Lion-O for a quarter of a day (family friends kid let me barrow it) but that was it. So to this day Thundercats is my most cherished cartoon, the rest of the 80’s toons follow but Thundercats will always be #1.

4

Wow that’s a pretty deep story right there. I can’t say I have anything remotly like that happen to me but it’s nice to see that it helped you out in that way! For me it was just like PKELL said a source of entertainment etc.

5

The show helped me forget my troubles if only for 30 minutes a day. :slight_smile:

6

thundercats is one of my fave all time 80s toons and i love watchin it which is cause of the heroes villains and most of the storylines, all together a great story:D

7

What kind of troubles did you have, Leppardra? Hopefully nothing as dramatic as mine. :slight_smile:

8

Some nice stories here.

I guess, for me, it all started with my father. He used to tape all the cartoons off the television as he was a big fan of them and loved to collect them himself. In fact, there are several videotapes still around of marathons of Tom & Jerry, Batman: Animated Series and other stuff. There were several things I loved as a child - WWF wrestling, ThunderCats, Batman: Animated Series and videogames. All of those somehow had a profound effect on me - but it was ThunderCats that had the biggest effect.

I had some mild learning difficulties when I was a child - nothing particually major but it was to do with my speech in that I never, ever spoke and it became a bit of a problem. It was apparently when I was 4 or 5 years old that my first word occured when, sitting in front of the television, I was watching Mumm-Ra transform (as always) and I randomly shouted out “MUUUMMMM-RRRRRAAAAA!”. For me, that moment still makes me smile. I don’t remember it but I do remember watching, regularly, ThunderCats along with watching Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart wrestle via old videotapes.

In fact, I used to regularly buy the video’s from carboot sales and buy action figures (one of Tygra and the other of Grune the Destroyer). I even had a plastic sword. As a child, there was something about that show that was so loveable. I think there was something that you could identify with the show - although I always loved Mumm-Ra. Mumm-Ra was the man - and you knew that sometimes, he deserved it. Those plans were legendary. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ve never stopped loving that show. It’s always somehow stayed with me - I throw a few episodes on every now and again just for entertainment and find it more hilarious with some of the ‘cheesy’ dialogue - my personal favourite is when Lion-O apparently nearly drowns due to ‘cramp’ ["SNARF! I’VE GOT… CRAMP!] and the crisis music plays.

I connected back with the show about three years ago when I came to the end of my radio course - and I had to pick a project. I had three idea’s; one was a documentary on ThunderCats, the other was a Resident Evil parody and the last one was something about the Mafia. I picked the ThunderCats project because I felt like it was more of a challenge - the pleasure of it is all is that my very first interview was with Larry Kenney, the voice-actor of Lion-O! I’ve done nearly 20 interviews (including both my podcast and this website) and the biggest honours are having interviewed Tim Roth, Kevin Conroy from the Batman cartoon, Walton Goggins [who plays Shane Vendrell from ‘The Shield’] and Larry Kenney.

Larry was my very first interview - I was absolutely nervous as hell and he was nothing but gracious, kind and generally a very good guy. It was so amazing to interview him - and is still an honour and a pleasure to have done that. I ended up interviewing the entire original voice-cast for ThunderCats - but Larry’s still the number one guy. If it weren’t for ThunderCats, I never would have began my podcast (after doing my interviews for this website) and never would have done half the interviews I’ve done had it not been for the cartoon and this website.