Hi, Spideristic.
Thanks for bringing the broken link to my attention. Looks like the directory got dragged and dropped into another folder in ftp, but I’ve fixed it now.
http://www.thundercatsfans.org/tcfans/petition/index.php should work now, thanks.
Right now, it says we have 264 signatures, but some of those recent ones might be spammers or unconfirmed folks I’ll have to purge. I try to keep up on it, but it’s been over a week since I last checked.
The only way I could see the Thundercats soundtrack being released is alongside the DVD’s or the movie - but I’d love to see it released. There’s alot of real good music there 
Cool… that’s a nice looking petition page.
Although it’s mentioned that there are total 265 signatures, the ID count is above 350. So were the rest deleted as spam/unconfirmed? Also what is the order of those signatures, if I go to page 2 there are signatures dated from 2008 whereas the rest is from 2007. Are they not in the chronological order (date wise)? I went to the last page to see if my signature got counted, but my name didn’t show up. Do you think there might be some glitch there?
Hi again
You know, I always thought it just went in chronological order, but you’re right. Some are a bit mixed up. I’ll have to look into that.
Did you get a confirmation email when you signed up? If you did and responded, I’m sure you’re on there somewhere. The count went up by one anyway.
And yeah, there were a lot of spammers/unconfirmed folks a while back I purged, so the tally as total records is the actual number. The ID numbers simply do not re-adjust in the database.
Hope that helps.
Yeah I responded to the confirmation email. And since the count did go up, I assumed my signature did get registered, I also confirmed it by browsing through the pages. I guess the Larry Kenney petition on this site is done using a different script, cause there the signatures are in the proper order. I hope you can somehow correct that order, since it would be good for users to see an instant confirmation by visiting the last page. In the mean time, I am also looking at the Script Petition’s forum to see if they have any solutions to that glitch.
I will also spread the word of the petition by posting it on the various Thundercats groups across various social networking sites. I have started a thread on the FSM forums. It’s slowly generating talks there. FSM is our most ideal label, cause they recently released a masssive Superman score set, so they obviously have a good relationship with WB studios.
http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=49297&forumID=1&archive=0
Yeah, sorry again about that but thanks for bringing it to my attention. Glad you were able to figure out that you’re on the list, but I haven’t had a chance to look over the code or db to try to figure out why it’ s getting scrambled like that. Maybe I’ll be able to this weekend
Actually, that petition and TCL’s LK one use the same script (some little bit of freeware I stumbled upon!) - at least last I knew. That deepens the mystery quite a bit.
Maybe they haven’t purged spammers and/or unconfirmed sigs yet? Perhaps doing that somehow makes the script screwy afterward. I could live with the ID numbers skipping, but agree it’s just annoying not to be able to see new sigs appear in the order they should.
Will definitely look into that. Thanks again, and thanks for signing/spreading the word
thundercat music
The music in thundercats was awsome, but it was the brief backlground music and indicidual charactern music that I liked best. I just purchased the thundercats season 2 dvd (the one with lion-o’s annoinment trials). I love the music where panthro and lion-o start wrestling and tigra’s music. Its kinda disco/rock. Pity the duration of those music scores didnt last long in the actual episodes. I also like the music that was played near the end of each episode where they had just defated an enemy and some moral message would be relayed, it was so relaxing. I’m definatly signing that partition!
Truely is excellent music
La-La Land Records recently released these soundtracks from the DC animated films.
Justice League: The New Frontier
http://www.lalalandrecords.com/JusticeLeague.html
Superman Doomsday
http://www.lalalandrecords.com/SupermanDD.html
These two titles are also due for release.
Batman: Gotham Knight (July 22)
Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo (July 22)
Of course most of these being new films will definitely have more demand and sales. Still La-La Land’s existing strong ties with WB studios will be helpful in securing a license to release the Thundercats soundtrack.
FSM forum is one of the most active forums when it comes to movie scores, most record label guys visit that forum frequently.. announcing their titles and giving clue to their release titles months in advance. LLL is also releasing a expanded score from the live action movie “Masters of the Universe” in July, they also posted some clues about their other upcoming releases.
So if Sonia or anybody else wants… can use the following id to email them. Besides mentioning the petition link, perhaps you even mention the link to the Thundercats thread I created on the FSM forum and let them know that not only Thundercats fans, but even film score fans will definitely be interested to buy it.
info@lalaland-ent.com
On March 19 the signature count was 265, now after almost 2 months it is 434, hopefully it will cross 500 in couple of more months.
Hi Spideristic,
Hi, there :D! Sorry I haven’t been around on the forums for awhile/MONTHS. I think my scalp problems took hold of most of my outside thoughts since the psoriasis started acting up again in late December.
Wow, THANK YOU for posting on the Film Score Monthly board about the petition! I greatly appreciate it! I actually buy quite a bit of Film Score Monthly’s productions, including that whopping huge [i]Superman[/i] collection they put out a few months back. I think I tried contacting them about the Thundercats too but to no avail. Bernie isn’t that well known among movie composers, which is why I suspect I can buy a copy of Chuck Norris’ Invasion USA soundtrack on CD more easily than find anything for the Thundercats. For you Thundercats fans, YES, you can really buy a soundtrack CD for Chuck Norris’ [i]Invasion USA[/i] :eek:!
Actually, I think I tried e-mailing La-La-Land Records awhile back as well when I was doing my limited-edition-soundtrack-producers round of inquiries (with Intrada, Film Score Monthly, etc.). Someone from one of the now defunct soundtrack forums suggested I try asking them. Anyway, at the time, they said they weren’t interested :(. I’m surprised they’re the ones producing that Justice League: The New Frontier soundtrack which I have seen in a few places. I thought Warner was doing it themselves, again. Warner has the tendency to have weird spurts of soundtrack releases, some which seem very natural and others not so much so (i.e. There seem to be a ton of Looney Tune related soundtracks for many direct-to-DVD movie releases, some of which I’ve never even heard about.). I have no idea how Warner determines what is soundtrack release worthy or not.
It’s nice to see La-La-Land Records is branching out a bit more than from when I tried e-mailing them. Maybe if they’re successful with other older releases like the Masters of the Universe soundtrack, they might re-consider Thundercats. Right now, I’m SO jealous that [i]Voltron[/i] is getting a soundtrack release soon! If Voltron fans can have a soundtrack for the American music cues for the show, why not Thundercats?!
Sonia :o
Hi Everyone, sorry I haven’t been over here for a while and only just seen this thread. I am the chap who knows Bernie a little and wrote the interview that I think can still be found over at Perrsia’s site. As Sonia says I did take on a search (on behalf of Bernie) which allowed me to get through the various amounts of red tape as it was literally an employed composer trying to retrieve library copies of his music. For record, he has all of the series 1 cues, as well as premixes of some of the audio tape compilations whereby some of the music was manually altered to allow for abridged sections (but including dialogue). He also has a wealth of fascinating documentation from the show. As well as all of the sheet music manuscripts which are a delight to see. Sadly, he has none of the series 2 music, nor any cues from Silverhawks or any of the other ‘comic format’ shows for RB.
The search to track down the music was a pretty exhaustive one, taking about 2 years in all. First stop was Lee Dannacher (a great and very helpful lady - wonderfully remembered by her colleagues). She remembered seeing the last recorded sightings of the music in an airport storage depot around 20 years ago. After that I contacted countless members of the sound and music department. All great chaps, with great memories. In fact I plan one day to write a sequel essay about how the music was actually implemented within the show. Something Bernie is always very enthusiastic about.
One of the really nice effects of this – which I’m sure fellow fans will appreciate was that many of the sound team had not had any contact with each other since they’d packed up the last time when the shows wrapped, and I was able to put them all in contact with each other, and I believe they held a mini-reunion.
Finally after knocking on every door I found the music. Although it literally looked like they might not have survived for a while. Quite likely when you consider some of the gaps in early television show archives in the UK/US. But Kudos to Warner archives who had found that old depot and recovered their assets. However, it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Warner hold literally hundreds of tapes for Thundercats. A mixture of 1 and 2 inch tape recordings. These hold everything from Music Cues (the raw music we would have been after) and voice recordings, mixes, extended takes, foreign dubs, with and without audio effects. Hundreds, if not thousands of separate tapes. Given the expense of replaying these defunct-format recordings Warner simply shelved everything with the Rankin Bass name on it. They sent me the pdf listings for the contents and it seemed impossible to work out which tapes were which; the cost could have been hundreds of thousands. Fortunately, my prior contacts came in useful. Warner had only transcribed what was written on the tape boxes. And, low and behold it was Larry Franke that had sealed those same tapes twenty years ago. From his memory of the listings we pretty much narrowed down the tapes (Which all have a similar amount of cues for them). I think it’s about 150 ques on 13 tapes per series.
That’s when it all crumbles. Warner were happy to supply library copies to Bernie (subject to contract) but quoted $7,300 USD in 2004. They were going to pass the music to Bernie for cost only (ie not trying to make a profit) but needed him to foot the cash. The quote was about 6,000 for manually transferring the music in real-time with the remainder being thermal stabilizing of the stock which may have deteriorated over time to allow best playback.
As Bernie wanted TCats Series 2 and Silverhawks the total cost would have been $14,000 which was simply too much for us to pay. Although I have had the Series 1 cues transferred from the Cassette format Bernie holds them on (and the tracks sound wonderful) you would really need to get hold of Series 1 cues also, therefore you’re still looking at the $14,000 mark (assuming costs haven’t inflated). Therefore at the current rate of 256 signatures you would need to fork out fifty bucks to offset the outlay from Warner. I’d therefore suggest you would need to increase that number to make inroads.
The best hope is probably that at some point Warner will initiate an automatic digital archiving programme for its shows and property. Most studios are starting to do this for preservation. In which case that would all be paid for by its archive retention budgets.
Ultimately, the reason I stopped badgering was that Warner have shut the doors on anything to do with Thundercats. I was on the verge of getting licensing for a book (in the same vein as my interview) on the show, as I am in touch with many of the classic series production staff. But until the movie/TV show is resolved (and licensing approved to various companies) they aren’t discussing things at Warner licensing.
I think it’s a shame the DVDs are all out now. I would have thought the best-bet would have been to use the budget of the discs to get the music (with a view to increased sales) but alas not.
Hopefully it will see the light of day one day. I’m sure a small soundtrack press would happily pay the transfer fees, and make a modest (though likely not superb profit selling to fans like us) but it all boils down to whether Warner will grant the license.
Only time will tell. At least, if it’s any comfort, we now know the tracks do exist. And are safe until needed, something we certainly can’t say about many shows from the same era.
Thanks
Dave
Thanks for the update Dave. Keep us in the know.
Hi Dave,
Yay, glad you found your way here :D! I tried e-mailing you when Purrsia put up the petition, but I never got a reply. I assumed you must have changed e-mail addresses or something by then.
I actually have some good or prospective news, I think and hope! Jim Lee, head of DC Wildstorm Comics, which as we all know did the Thundercats comics miniseries, is going to be a guest at the local comic book shop I frequent in August! My comic book shop had ‘won’ Lee in an auction at San Diego Comic Con for charity last year. I plan on ‘bombarding’ his ears with Bernie’s music tracks in hope that he will help nudge Warner Bros. some more via DC Wildstorm. Supposedly, that same comic book shop has an owner who’s friends with a DC Comics VP who tried looking up that license awhile back, so I hope Lee will help. At the time my friend asked the DC Comics VP, AOL was dragging down Time Warner with their financial woes and pretty much shut down any new projects that people were vying for, so let’s hope this time, with the movie in the works, Warner will be more open to the idea.
Sonia
From May 11, 2008
As of July 6, from 434 the petition has now reached 541 
. After the unconfirmed ids gets purged by Angie, I am sure it’ll be still over 500. I guess whenever the TCL team or Sonia or Dave plan to present a proposal for the soundtrack, they can now submit this petition to the guys at WB. But as Dave mentioned before, until all the licensing gets approved from various parties, we probably won’t be seeing any new Thundercats products anytime soon. Still it’s good to know the petition is crossing numbers rapidly.
Hi Dave,
I have no idea how to ‘present’ the petition to Warner Bros., but hopefully, they will be more open to the idea soon, especially considering the fact that Silverhawks will be coming out on DVD via Warner Bros. in October. Bernie does NOT have any of the music tracks he composed for that show whatsoever, so it would be nice if Warner could dig through their archives for him someday.
I have some more good news! The Thundercats soundtrack petition is going to SAN DIEGO COMIC CON :D! Source, the local comic book store I frequent, is graciously going to be handing out fliers, designed by Dillon Avery, for the petition at their booth at Comic Con! I HOPE this will garner some much needed publicity for the cause, especially from the people who run Warner Bros’ booth! Wish them luck and stop by the say, “Hi,” to my friends at Source!
Sonia
Hey y’all. I plan to take some time this weekend to purge and backup the petition database. I never did figure why the order got so wacky, but I suppose, as long as confirmed sigs are there it doesn’t matter the order huh?
Thanks for everyone’s support!
I’m really glad some progress is being made and it’s getting out there.
Speaking to Bernie, he told me that Warner Bros. are looking into it and, with Silverhawks coming out on DVD, they talked to him about using his music. From the information I gathered from Sonia’s petition, Bernie doesn’t have that and it’s in some big library or something. So if Warner goes and digs out the Silverhawks stuff, they should dig out the Thundercats stuff whilst they’re at it. There is an audience for it.. 500 signatures isn’t peanuts, y’know! And with the boxsets and t-shirts remaining popular merchandise and a movie coming out soon, it would be mad to ignore the original soundtrack entirely.
I’m quite envious of you, Sonia. You own a CD with them! jealous 
Ok, purged all the unconfirmed sigs, and as of this posting we’re at 535 confirmed signatures.
Unfortunately, many of the purged ids seemed legit (unlike a few of the obvious spam entires with names like ‘cialis’ haha), they just weren’t confirmed. I gotta purge those, folks. The only exceptions I made tonight were the unconfirmed sigs from the last few days, hoping to give those people a chance to reply to the email that goes out upon signing to confirm.
So let me take this chance to remind people how very important it is to look for that confirmation email and respond to it. If you’re having problems, let me know, but usually if no email is forthcoming it probably got flagged for spam, so be sure to check your filters.
At any rate, feels good to be above 500 officially, and I have the db backed up. Here’s hoping we get our soundtrack
I just wanted to jump in and add that if any of us (or know someone who will) be putting up any Thundercats items on eBay, you can add a small blurb about this petition along with a link at the bottom of your listing. It’s a great way to “spread the word”, and eBay is ok with it. (I put a link for the Larry Kenney petition on my own Tcats eBay listing a while back.) Every little bit helps.
Hi Nick,
Excellent news 
! I’m glad Warner might be thinking or doing something about getting Bernie his missing music tracks for Silverhawks. I loved the compositions he did for that as well along with The Comic Strip’s Tigersharks. Bluegrass’ theme and The Copper Kid’s theme were my favorites from Silverhawks.
I recently bought the Voltron soundtrack CD from WEP’s website. I must say, if Warner were to release Bernie’s stuff for a soundtrack, it would TOTALLY blow that soundtrack out of the water! Why? All the music cues on the Voltron soundtrack are VERY short, lasting for only 1-2 minutes each. Bernie’s theme tracks, on the other hand, are full compositions that last 5-6 minutes each! There are a few mood tracks which are 30 seconds each, but those were meant for looping over and over again. It was difficult for me to listen to the Voltron soundtrack in the background while reading the newspaper because each track is short and choppy, but I can definitely imagine putting Bernie’s work on for a very enjoyable listen!
I also hope Warner does NOT outsource the extras for the Silverhawks DVD set as they did for Thundercats. If they do, they should hire the guys that did the extras for BCI’s Filmation stuff instead.
Sonia
P.S. EDIT: After actually listening to your interview, from what I heard, it didn’t seem as if Warner asked Bernie about using or digging up any Silverhawks music cues :(. They just said they would look into the idea of a soundtrack for Thundercats, but that’s it and nothing else.
P.S. EDIT: After actually listening to your interview, from what I heard, it didn’t seem as if Warner asked Bernie about using or digging up any Silverhawks music cues . They just said they would look into the idea of a soundtrack for Thundercats, but that’s it and nothing else.
He said they contacted him about Silverhawks but didn’t really specify. I apologise for the strange wording of my post - I assumed that they might have contacted him about the music cues for Silverhawks to include on the DVD. Sorry. 