I was thinking maybe some of us could express and chat about our memories of growing up with Thundercats cartoon, like how we discovered it and our fondest memories of the show.
Speaking for myself I still recall the first time I seen it on TV. If I remember correctly as my Dad was reading what was on he told me about a new cartoon that was coming on, on Saturday. That morning I tuned in and seen Exodus on BBC 1 during Going Live. Ever since that I watched every Saturday morning along with Defenders of the Earth. Some Saturdays my Dad would even leave the video on recorder to tape it for me if I wasn’t up in time to tape it.
I always regretted not having recorded Exodus, so I only had vague memories of it until I found an official video in early 2004 which cost about £25…money well spent. 
If I recall correctly in the late 80’s when it was being shown on a Saturday they only seemed to show the first half of season one. I remember they showed the second half of season one on a Monday after school. When they stopped showing it on a Saturday I thought that was it but then one day by surprise my Mum called on me and said Thundercats was on. The Trial Of Speed. Every week after that I started recording it again.
I could be wrong on this but I believe they finished off this run with the final episode of the Anointment Trials. Either way that episode also really sticks out in my mind as I had been looking forward to it so much, then on the day when I was to watch it when my Mum and Dad were collecting me from school I noticed my Aunt sitting in the back seat and I was informed they had to give her a lift somewhere…needless to say we were not back in time and I missed it. However over Easter in 94 BBC showed some episodes every morning of the holidays. I was unaware of this and just managed to catch the last couple minutes of The Trial; Of Evil. The next day the last episode they showed was The Rock Giant, but I had already seen and recorded it.
I had also seen the movie which introduced the new Thundercats, but I thought that was it and I had seen all the episodes.
In 2003 when we got a computer and got online it was a rally nice surprising discovering there were lots more episodes (3 seasons) I hadn’t seen yet. Of course as nice as that was it was annoying have to wait a few more years until they were released on DVD.
Of course I have equally fond memories of the toys. I can remember every shop everyone came from.:liono
I liked other shows like Transformers, TMNT, Bravestarr, He-Man etc but I think the reason I still have such love and fondness for Thundercats over all the other TV shows and toys I grew up with is because of all the memories I have associated with it.
Love this idea!
Can’t post right now (I’m at work), but will definitely try to do so over the weekend 
My fondest memory of “ThunderCats” is owning the pilot episode on VHS and watching it over and over.
The only Thundercats VHS I owned when I was young was ‘The Terror of Hammerhand’. It’s one of my top 5 favourite episodes. It was a set that came with a colouring book and some colouring pens. I also had a He-Man (The Cat and the Spider) and Dangermouse (Dangermouse on the Orient Express) video from the same series.
That’s cool!
Wasn’t a fan of episodes in which some TCs were absent (Tygra and the kittens in this one).
The episodes where some were missing didn’t really bother me. To me they were busy working on something at the Lair or off on their own adventure.
That’s smotthing i think the NS handled better: it dedictaed some eps to show what the others were doing while Lion-o and his companions in turn were somewhere else. Because, in the OS, the TCs were supposed to leave aside their own adventures when Lion-o summoned them.
Some of my earliest memories are actually of Thundercats. I was born in '83 so i was a youngin when Thundercats came out. I can still remember exactly how the living was set up and exactly where I would sit to watch Thundercats when it came on. Right in front and way too close!! The way it should be!!
I don’t remember this exactly but my mom still tells the story of how when I was young she was so happy the VCR came out when it did because as soon as Thundercats was over, i would jump up and down and say “More Thundercat! More Thundercats!!” She thought it was hysterical because she would ask me if I wanted to watch Sesame Street or tell me she would put that on and all I would say was “NO!! Thundercats!!!” I never had any actual VHS releases but I had a few episodes that she had recorded so I would be able to watch them. That tape with the few episodes on it definitely had a lot of views until one day my brother had used that tape to record a football game. He didn’t tell anyone and even left the Thundercats label on it. I found out one day when I went to put it on years later when I was probably about 13 or so and needless to say I was pretty angry.
I also clearly remember running around the same room with my Sword of Omens (the dagger form because I never had the full length one) and playing with it. I always had it with me when watching the episodes. Nothing was more exciting than when the Thundercats theme came on. I would get so excited. You would have thought it was christmas morning with how excited I was.
ohhh, the good ole’ days…
Same here, well except for sitting really close.
A really odd memory I have from watching Thundercats one morning, I believe it was on TV and not a video, was that while it was on or just ended there was a commotion out in the kitchen between my Mum and Dad as there was a mouse in the kitchen.
My mom recorded some “ThunderCats” episodes for me to watch on videotape when I was little.
That’s something I agree with whole-heartedly. I’ve said many times that the Lion-O-centric format was one of the biggest problems the original had. For instance:
Safari Joe - if Tygra had turned invisible, he’d have beaten the big game hunter hands down. But the format demanded Lion-O be victorious at the end, so no. (Similarly if he’d turned invisible in “The Mumm-Ra Berbil”, he would have been able to escape along with Snarf.)
Mechanical Plague - all the other Thundercats are up to their necks in serious do-do, suddenly Lion-O summons them, and suddenly they magically extricate themselves from their own problems (similarly “Return To Thundera” and “The Superpower Potion”, they’ve been frozen and magically come to “life” again, and several others).
This is why I champion episodes like “Divide And Conquer”. On the surface, there’s nothing in that episode that you can point to and say, “it’s the one with . . .” and everyone will instantly go “oh yes, I remember that”, BUT it has arguably the best break with the Lion-O-centric format in the whole show. It’s the most even-handed episode there is in terms of who needs rescuing and who can rescue him/herself:
The Kittens are trapped in the Vortex and free themselves.
Tygra is trapped with a Giantaur and frees himself.
Cheetara is trapped in the beehive and is rescued by Tygra
Panthro is imprisoned in Castle Plun-darr and rescued by everyone (mainly Lion-O).
Lion-O is saved by the Kittens at the very end after rescuing Panthro.
The remake, as has already been acknowledged, handles things a bit more evenly, and every character gets their moment in the spotlight (“Journey To The Tower Of Omens” handles this particularly well, every character has their moment). And yes, there’s a couple of episodes that Lion-O is completely absent from, where we follow what the Kittens are doing.
I agree with you 100%
In the OS, there were motre than a copuple of eps when -being a Tygra fan-, I thought “Why didn’t Tygra turn invisible?”. It bothered me the most because all the other TCs had their turn to save the day, except for Tygra, even when he was the most proable choice due to his invisibility to do so.
Also, I agree with you about “Divide and Conquer”; loved that ep and that the TC had the opportunity to show themselves. Something similar, but in a lower degree, happened with “The Wolfrat”.
I remember liking, for example, “Mycrits” until its very end, when it disappointed me. I was expecting the TCs to save themselves… and without their weapons! That woudl have been an incredible ep. Just think of it: the TCs leaderless, working as a team, with no weapons other than their special powers (speed, mental power/invisibility, strenght, cunning), and being able to fight for themselves. That would have been way a better plot than Lion-o saving the day at the end.
My very first memory is of sitting in front of the TV knowing that TC was about to show, and being so overjoyed when it began that I had the whole household in uproar. My sister, who was 4 at the time (I was not even 6 yet) still remembers it today! I remember the episode so vividly. For some reason, I think they showed the entire first 5 episodes as an hour long show or so. Because when I saw it again on DVD years later, I was surprised at the split. I remember it as one long show. I don’t remember many of the other episodes apart from those that were used in the Panini sticker album. I still have my original album from way back then, so those episodes used in their were kept alive by it. I don’t remember ever seeing the new TC on TV. Saw them on DVD for the first time. I think it might have ended with the episode Trial of Evil here in South Africa, but I might be wrong, however, that’s my very last memory of it airing here. Plus, I think they showed the trial episodes one after the other. Unless I just forgot the others showed in between!
Merged Post:
My cousin also had an episode on Beta. I so badly wanted to watch it as a kid, but we had a VHS machine, and her mother never wanted me to watch it. Kinda depressing. I think it was the Exodus episode that was on there. Never owned any of the videos myself. But can proudly say I have all the DVDs! :liono
Good call! Defenders Of The Earth was always one of my favourites too. My “big three” back in the 80s were
Thundercats
Defenders
Visionaries: Knights Of The Magical Light
This last one only ran for 13 episodes, and was only ever shown at weekends here in England (initially on Going Live on saturdays, then they were repeated on sundays a year or two later), but it captured my imagination.
Visionaries was never one of my big favourites, I only ever saw it on TV twice, but I really liked it. Oddly enough in the 80’s I had almost all the toys except for Cindar and Mortredd and his Skyclaw.
I always mentally associate Thundercats with Defenders of the earth as they were the two cartoons I would always record or get recorded on a Saturday. It was a really good cartoon. The toys were pretty cool too, I had the 6 figures, the copter and Mongor. Mongor was really cool, he was huge, battery operated walking action and flashing lights. You could use him as an evil creature with any toyline. 
Also Defenders and Thundercats both had a character called Mongor.
Late in the 1985-86 season, the end credits of “ThunderCats” season one had these words:
“CLOSED CAPTIONED
FOR THE HEARING-IMPAIRED
WITH FUNDS PROVIDED BY
TELEPICTURES CORPORATION
AND
LJN TOYS, LTD.”
Sometimes they were phrased another way:
“CLOSED CAPTIONED FOR
THE HEARING IMPAIRED
WITH FUNDS PROVIDED BY
TELEPICTURES CORPORATION
AND LJN TOYS LIMITED”
“ThunderCats, Ho!: The Movie” had this variation:
“CLOSED CAPTIONED
FOR THE HEARING IMPAIRED
WITH FUNDS PROVIDED BY
LORIMAR-TELEPICTURES
AND
LJN TOYS, LTD.”
I had all the toys apart from Reekon and the Dagger Assault - it was the only one I could never find in the shops.
I always mentally associate Thundercats with Defenders of the earth as they were the two cartoons I would always record or get recorded on a Saturday. It was a really good cartoon. The toys were pretty cool too, I had the 6 figures, the copter and Mongor. Mongor was really cool, he was huge, battery operated walking action and flashing lights. You could use him as an evil creature with any toyline.
I only had Flash, Lothar and Ming from Defenders Of The Earth, along with Flash’s swordship and a claw-copter.
Also Defenders and Thundercats both had a character called Mongor.
I remember, the first time I saw the episode “Mongor”, I instantly thought of DotE. Of course, the two characters were nothing alike.
Actually, speaking of Defenders Of The Earth, if anyone else wants to help me assemble a continuity order for that show, I’ll start a thread in the general section of this board.
I first discovered ThunderCats when I was three years old in 1988. Some of my earliest memories involve going to video stores and renting the videos. I remember scouring the shelves for ones I hadn’t seen yet, and I remember being disappointed when I’d seen them all. My mom somehow managed to convince a few video stores to sell their copies, which is how I wound up with “Exodus”, “Trouble with Time”, and “Spaceship Beneath the Sands” on VHS. It didn’t take long, though, for my parents to start recording the broadcast episodes, and it took even less time for three-year-old me to figure out how to use the VCR and do it myself!
So between 1989 and 1992, I was always taping episodes. My family moved around a lot during those years, and the first thing I would do in a new house was figure out which station ThunderCats would be airing on so that I could tape it. There was a brief period in 1991 when I couldn’t figure out which station was airing it, until one morning my dad was flipping through channels and he caught the end of “Garden of Delights”, an episode that for years, until the Internet set me straight, I would refer to as the “Have some more apples [sic], Tygra!” episode.
All told, I had four recorded VHS tapes, meticulously catalogued on a sheet of blue legal paper, plus the home videos I mentioned earlier—75 episodes total. I deduced the existence of a few more (Anointment Trials that I was missing, the discovery of the New ThunderCats and burying of Mumm-Ra under Fire Rock Mountain, episodes to explain all the Treasures that Snarf names in “The Last Day”) but figured that I must have had most of them, and I foolishly assumed that “Screwloose” was the series finale! :duh:
And then there was a dark period. Between 1992 and 1997, ThunderCats stopped airing entirely where I lived. I watched my tapes over and over, because I had no other choice. And I became a ThunderCats missionary. I would take the tapes with me to friends’ houses and proselytize, often to disappointing results. I would dream about opening the TV guide and spotting a listing, or going to a video store and finding undiscovered home video releases. I would have those dreams so often that sometimes I still have them, 20+ years later.
I think one of the reasons I remain so into the show, so obsessed with it, it because during this period of moving house repeatedly and trying to make new friends, those video tapes were a constant. I could always pop them in and watch them, and far from the schedule of one televised episode per day, it would be marathon viewing on a daily basis. When my new friends failed to obsess the same way I did, I would give up and compartmentalize the friendship as something separate from my ThunderCats obsession, which in turn only got stronger in isolation.
I remember a time in the waiting room at a doctor’s office—I was four or five—when another little boy and I were playing with the shared bucket of toys that the office made available. I found a decayed form Mumm-Ra in the bucket, which got me all excited. But the other kid found a Shredder, and proceeded to tell me how hard his Shredder would kick that mummy’s butt. I looked at the kid, stone-faced, held up the Mumm-Ra, and said, “Do you know who this is? This is Mumm-Ra the Everliving! Shredder’s just a guy with a mask.” That was the end of our ephemeral friendship: I decided this kid was an idiot, because he didn’t know who Mumm-Ra was.
When reruns began airing on Cartoon Network, our cable company didn’t offer it. There was one family vacation in the late 90s when I saw “ThunderCats Ho!” for the first time—Part V—scrambled with no audio because the house we were staying in didn’t have CN either. I recognized moments from the flashbacks in “Mumm-Ra Lives!” and figured it must be the Fire Rock Mountain episode whose existence I’d deduced earlier. Later attempts to record new episodes during visits to CN-blessed friends or family members always resulted in episodes I already had. The dark period continued, frustratingly.
And then one spring morning at a friend’s house in 1998, I opened Netscape Navigator, went to yahoo.com, searched for “ThunderCats”, and found this. :jaw:
From here, you all know the story. The Internet, and the ThunderCats community that emerged and congregated at a few websites in the late 90s, breathed new life in the fandom, and into me as a fan. I found synopses and clips of dozens of episodes I never knew existed, and through this thing called eBay I was able to purchase VHS tapes of all 130!
I’ll leave you with this. One night in middle school, after making that eBay purchase, I stayed up late to finish watching the final tape—the final few episodes. I finished “Book of Omens”, I went back to my room, I stared at the few figures I had arranged on a bookshelf, and I felt this bizarre emptiness. Years of obsession and countless dreams of discovering more episodes—all that wonder was now gone. I had the answer. I’d seen every episode. There was no mystery left. Has anyone else felt this?
I got over it, that feeling of loss. I started digging for unanswered questions, and drafted idea after idea for stories to help fill in the gaps. Like many aspiring fanfic authors, little has come of all my scribblings, but at least my nostalgia and obsession live on. I’m here, after all. 
I think I’d have been about 3-4 as well when I first saw Thundercats, would have been in 1985-86 some time. I distinctly remember the first time I saw the title sequence, I mis-heard it as “Hanger Cats”.
I also remember being a bit fazed by it, as I was used to more gentle shows, so initially I shied away. The next week I decided to give it a try, and yes, it grabbed me. I don’t know what episode it was, some random one I guess. It was some weeks/months later, when they aired them on Going Live, from the beginning, that I started to really pay attention.
I know exactly what you mean about figuring out how to operate the VCR - we got one when I was 4, I wasn’t allowed to touch it, but of course I mastered it LONG before my parents ever did.
And yes, I used it for Thundercats, amongst other things. I don’t remember recording that many episodes onto the tapes I was eventually granted for my shows - I certainly didn’t, at that point, dedicate different tapes to particular shows, and so it was perfectly normal for me to have the week’s selection of my favourite shows all haphazardly arranged on the same tape.
I do remember setting space aside for Thundercats somewhere though, because I do remember having some of them in the same spot. I only ever recorded a few early episodes “for keeps” (like I said, I wasn’t allowed that many tapes), but I have distinct memories. “Exodus” was somewhere separate, but I recorded the next two episodes in the same place, then missed the start of “The Slaves Of Castle Plun-Darr”, and it was too late to hunt for the tape and record it. Well, maybe with hindsight, not that late, the Kittens were fleeing from Monkian when I tuned in.
I was ready the next week for “Trouble With Time”, but the rapid-ageing thing freaked me out and the next week I recorded “Pumm-Ra” over it (quite deliberately). Then somewhere along the line I must have recorded more stuff over all that, because when they repeated them from the beginning, again on saturdays (quite possibly also again on Going Live), I was ready, had more tapes this time, and recorded those first few episode with more dedication - albeit remembering what happened with “Trouble With Time” and deliberately NOT recording that one!
Actually, something similar happened with Defenders Of The Earth, I was freaked out the first time I saw the episode “The Mystery Of The Book”, the way they were mostly turned into statues (and even now, whenever I think of Stonehenge, I think of this episode!), and whenever that episode was going to be repeated, I would avoid watching it!
I don’t think my mother ever quite understood how in some cases I knew which episodes would be coming up next, even if they were repeats - my memory was phenomenal even then.
Oh yes - another funny thing with Defenders Of The Earth, I’ve told you already that I only had a limited number of tapes, and that the week’s shows would go on haphazardly, well, I remember with DotE on mondays, and later the saturday repeats, both times of recording the episode “Cold War”, the tape got to the end and started winding back to the beginning - the same episode both times! Weird coincidence, I guess.
The other show in my personal “big three” was Visionaries, and I can tell you exactly which four episodes I had recorded; “The Power Of The Wise”, “Horn Of Unicorn, Claw Of Dragon”, “The Trail Of Three Wizards” and “Honor Among Thieves”. Even back then, I had issues with the third of these episodes - mainly, if the knights could only be captured in their animal forms, where did the women (who both turned into sea creatures) vanish to? There was no water around! (And for that matter, the fact that not one of the male knights, in his animal form, was able to evade the zookeepers, was a bit iffy to me.)
Visionaries was the only one of these that I had any commercially released tapes of; a schoolfriend gave me his tape of the first two episodes, “The Age Of Magic Begins” and “The Dark Hand Of Treachery” (annoyingly, the story opened with a THREE-parter, and it was only 15yrs later that I finally saw the third part, “Quest For The Dragon’s Eye”!); and I got a tape of “The Power Of The Wise” and “Horn Of Unicorn, Claw Of Dragon” - I was in town with mum, and there were two tapes to choose from, it was either those two episodes (which I knew and liked - strangely, the ageing of Leoric in the former didn’t freak me out like “Trouble With Time”), or “The Price Of Freedom” and “Feryl Steps Out” on the other tape. I hadn’t seen either of those episodes (well, as I discovered in 2001, I caught the very end of the former on Going Live, and that was my first taste of the show itself, other than the dodgy theme tune, which I still don’t like - although the voiceover is amazing), so I played safe and got the tape of the episodes I knew and liked.
And of course, gradually, I grew out of kids’ shows for a time, but I never forgot them - indeed, I didn’t throw out the Visionaries tapes, and in 2000, I had another watch of them, and still loved them. So I transcribed the episodes I had, and later, when I had all 13 episodes, the others too. Of course the DVD of the show contains the ORIGINAL scripts, but apart from two episodes, they are dialogue and sound effects only, no descriptions of actions - and when I was in a Visionaries group for a time, my transcriptions were hailed as better! Visionaries was one of the very first things I got on DVD back in 2004; when I first got a DVD player, I bought four DVDs that same day, including that one.
As for getting back into the other two shows, that happened more slowly. I was having a browse in a charity shop in 2007, and happened across a video of Defenders Of The Earth. I remembered how much I loved the show as a kid, so I snapped it up. Somehow, someone had a recorded a few minutes of “Neighbours” over the start of the first episode. I can just imagine the poor boy quickly explaining to his mother that she was using the wrong tape, and hurriedly correcting the mistake! Anyhow, I watched the two-and-three-quarters episodes - Battleground, The Panther Peril, Fury Of The Deep - and wasn’t that thrilled. The middle one in particular was very dodgy. I thought, “and this used to be one of my favourites?” - but at the same time, I did remember these episodes from my youth (indeed, all three had been recorded by me), and remembered that none of them had particularly grabbed me back then either. So when the following year I happened across another video, this time of “the movie” - the Prince Kro-Tan 5-parter - I decided to give the show a second chance. Despite never having recorded any of the individual episodes that made up this “movie” adventure, I remembered the story well, and a lot of details from it. So I got it, watched it, and my faith the show was restored 100%! So I got what limited DVDs there were at the time, and hunted down old VHS online. Then in 2011 I downloaded the show off youtube, and then last year the region 2 DVD finally came out - I snapped it up!
My Thundercats revival happened in a similar, but slightly different way. First off, in 2007, when the DVD came out, it got a plug on the Paul O’Grady show. The clip they showed was the final scene of “Exodus” - I recognised it as such instantly because of Lion-O’s armour being ripped. Not exactly the most exciting scene they could have chosen. So I initially decided to pass. Then in 2008, in between the two DotE tapes. I happened across a tape in another charity shop, containing “Pumm-Ra” and “Spitting Image” - and braced myself for a disappointment. I was expecting to cringe at the theme tune (as I had initially with DotE, although I have recovered from that one), but surprisingly, I didn’t! It still worked! And the episodes were good. So when a friend copied the feature-length version of “Exodus” (the first four episodes edited together), for me, I was very happy at this. Then another friend got me the complete first season on DVD for my birthday that year, and I was even more happy. I remembered pretty much every one of those episodes. Of course, I don’t believe season 2 was ever shown here back in the 1980s, so when I saw that friend’s DVD of those episodes, it was all new to me (and to him as well!). And I decided, “there’s a reason why this season was never shown over here!” Oh well, you can’t have everything . . .