Hi everyone - as ever I’m turning to you good people to help me build a list of countries that broadcast Thundercats.
The following list is available on Wikipedia:
United Kingdom - BBC1
Canada - Teletoon Retro
Greece - ERT-2 (1987–1990), Mega (1991–1993)
Turkey - Star TV (Turkey) (1999–2004)
Brazil - Globo (1986–1992)
Bangladesh - BTV
India - Cartoon Network (India)
Indonesia - TVRI, SCTV, Hanna-Barbera Channel Southeast Asia
Israel - Kids Channel (formerly known as ‘Channel 6’).
Peru - América Televisión.
France - Antenne 2 (1985-1986).
Pakistan - Network Television Marketing
Guatemala - Canal 3 (1988)
Mexico - Televisa Canal 5
Thailand - Channel 9
Sweden - TV4
Iceland - Stöð 2
Italy - RAI 2 (1985–1990)
Venezuela - Radio Caracas Televisión (Known as ‘Los Felinos Cósmicos’)
Gibraltar - GBCTV (late 1980s Sundays 7pm)
Kuwait - KTV 2 (Saturdays 7pm)
Uruguay - Televisora Canal 12
Portugal - RTP
Notable exceptions include Australasian countries like Australia and New Zealand so I’m keen to know if the series ever reached there? I also understand the series was broadcast in China. Please can everyone confirm the list above if they watched in that country and, of course, please add any that are missing.
I’m in the UK and I used to watch ThunderCats on BBC1, once a week on a weekday evening at roughly 4:35pm - the show was part of Children’s BBC, a block of programs for children of various ages, that would air from (usually) 3:50pm - 5:35pm.
Later on, in 1988 and on into early 1989, the show was also repeated on Saturday mornings as part of a magazine show called Going Live!, and then subsequent magazine shows such as UP2U and On the Waterfront also kept showing it. Towards the end of 1989 and on into early 1990 it was also repeated again on a Saturday morning, this time as a “run-in” to the aforementioned Going Live! magazine show.
This is probably far more information than you actually wanted, but hey, a trip down memory lane is always good, right?!
USA - don’t remember the channel, but had to use a satellite dish to get it. It was one of the giant sized ones that the dish moved to get different signals, not like the DirectTV/Dish Network ones of today.
Thundercats were originally debuted in Greece in 1987, two years after the American release. At that time, i had just turned 3 years old. The first time i watched Thundercats was in the summer of 1989. They were broadcasted by the Greek state-owned public television called ERT, which can be translated into Hellenic Broadcasting Corporaration. I was living at my grandparents’ house because i grew up without my parents and the show was aired late in the afternoon. There was no Greek dubbing and as far as i can remember neither subtitles,But i did’t care… i was enchanted by the magic of this show from day one, i can’t tell you precisely how many days per week it was aired but i think it was more than one.
Later,in 1991 the show was broadcasted by another station for 2-3 years, i hardly remember which seasons were shown, but i think emphasis was laid with many repeats in Season 1,the remaining 65 episodes, just like it happened in UK, might never had made it on TV, but i wouldn’t take a vow about that!
Around 1995 it was aired by a new network in Greece, the STAR channel. I was much older then and i clearly remember the Greek dubbing which was pathetic by the way and the episodes started from Exodus reaching to the last ,Book of Omens.
I grew up watching ThunderCats during the late 80s through the VHS tapes rented from the video store. Me and my sister rented those tapes umteen number of times, eventually the video store guy told my Dad that we should instead just buy or make copies of those tapes for us. Although we didn’t buy or make any copies of the Season 1 episodes, later on we did make a copy of the ThunderCats Ho 5 part movie.
We had seen most of Season 1 and the ThunderCats Ho movie through those tapes and we actually assumed that it was the end of the series. There were no tapes available of Season 2 in that video store and we didn’t realize we were missing so many episodes. It was not until we checked the internet in early 2000 that we realized there were more episodes.
But to answer your question, yes Cartoon Network in India did air the series during the late 90s and early 2000.
Also wanted to mention that India didn’t have various cable channels till the early 90s. So until then we had a single national broadcast channel. All through the 80s we had only one channel and cartoons were aired only during Sunday mornings. And ThunderCats never aired on that national channel during that time. But the original He-Man MOTU did air through the mid 80s. So most kids in India who grew up during the 80s, know all about He-Man but very few know about ThunderCats.
