Tigersharks Promo Package

Community Other Cartoons & Collectables
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Dennis Woodyard posted a Tigersharks promo package in case anyone is interested

http://dragonflyent.blogspot.com/2016/04/thundercats-tuesday-day-late-rankinbass.html?m=1

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Thanks a lot for sharing, adssse! I never watched the show but I really am digging the artwork and the character designs posted on the site! :thumbsup

Funny how Dennis describes Tigersharks as “the Thundercat clones in water”. Is that what the show really was?

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From what I seen of the show that is a very generous tagline. The show was worse than Silverhawks.

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That is sad. It is unfortunate that Rankin/Bass could not repeat the success of ThunderCats with any other of their shows. In my opinion, instead of doing SilverHawks or TigerSharks, they should have just continued with more seasons of ThunderCats. They already had a successful series and one that was well known. They could continue making more episodes, introducing new characters and vehicles, making toys of those new characters and vehicles and continued to generate money via merchandise sales. It might not have been as successful as the earlier seasons but it certainly would have been more profitable than SilverHawks or TigerSharks. Then maybe in the future shows t hey could have slowly introduced the SH or TS characters into TCats and then slowly segued into a stand-alone SH and TS series.

I think Rankin/Bass really didn’t know how to make the most of their ThunderCats property. They gave up on it too quickly. It is only natural that as a series ages, the quality of its writing and the viewership will drop. But that does not necessarily mean they should scrap it off so quickly. Look at TMNT. That show went on forever!

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Yes but believe it or not TMNT didn’t have that many episodes more than Thundercats. Only 193 episodes.
The thing with TMNT was they knew fans liked it and toys old so they kept going. And when the original show ended they took a break and tried new things to reinvent the shows to new audiences.
TigerSharks had fun animation designs for a cartoon but not designs that transition well to 3D plastic form. Far too cartoony looking compared to other toys of the time.
Silverhawks had some interesting character designs but the show was such a mess. Characters and ideas from both shows would have served better as guest characters on Thundercats. The guy in charge of the Silverhawks could have worked as Mandorras boss and the Silverhaks as some cyborg race. The villains would have done well a one episode characters. Maybe even Monstar could have been an updated design for Mumm-Ra.
Even the idea of Tigersharks could have been mixed in to an episode with the Thundercats helping Dr Dometone or Turmagar on some unexplored part of New Thundera or Third Earth with them turning into fish people etc.
Rankin Bass’ biggest problem was the writers they had that worked on Thundercats, SilverHawks and TigerSharks. It was just the same people doing the story by numbers formula. Filmation and Sunbow and DIC had some of the best writers in television and comics writing their shows. Paul Dini, Flint Dile, J. Michael Stracynski, Larry Ditillio, Michael Reaves and David Wise etc. If Rankin Bass had got some of these guys in to write more episodes Thundercats would have been a lot better for it.

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You hit the nail on the head there! Yes, R/B’s choice of writers was terrible at times. Most of the writers of the later seasons had no idea what ThunderCats was about or how to write for it (many said so themselves in interviews that they gave in “Hear the Roar!”). Their previous work included writing one or two episodes of Smurfs or My Little Pony or Strawberry Shortcake. Hence some of the later season TCats episodes are extremely childish.

In contrast, someone like Leonard Starr had worked for a long time doing superhero comics for Marvel and DC. He knew how to handle superhero stories and that they needed some amount of seriousness and not slapstick comedy. I think he got a raw deal when R/B very gently kicked him off the show that he pretty much single-handedly developed from a rough concept and few illustrations. I think they didn’t want to pay him as much as he deserved and instead opted to hire cheap freelance writers with little to zero experience.

I have not seen all of the MOTU episodes but the many that I have seen all had a consistent tone. They never went for over-the-top comedy like say “Ma-Mutt’s Confusion”. That really felt like an episode of “Dick Dastardly and Muttley”! LOL! :biggrin

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Completely agree. I will give Filmation credit for the consistency of the writing for their cartoons. In fact I would say the same for a lot of 80’s cartoons compared to Thundercats. Don’t get me wrong I love Thundercats but the second half of the episodes were really hit and miss. I think in a conversation with Liam one day I said there was only about 9 episodes form the second half that were any good. The rest were just weird and nowhere near the level of the first batch of episodes.
Sadly inconsistent writing is the same fault the 2011 series also suffered from.

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Wilycub and Mark,
I agree with many of your sentiments. I would have been thrilled to see Thundercats continue on for future seasons. I feel like there was so much more that could have been explored! I can only wonder swallowing their pride and asking Mr Starr to come back would have brought about at that point.

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Would swallowing their pride have been enough though. Maybe even if they had asked Starr back he still might not have come back. After the direction Lawrence took the series with New Thundera etc I really don’t think I would have cared for more seasons under the same team.
A bigger shame is that even though the cartoon ended LJN should have kept the toy line going. When the Filmation He-Man cartoon ended Mattel still kept making toys because they were still selling. More to the point the last couple years of MOTU toys produced some of the finest figures and vehicles the line ever had like Blast-Attack, Flying Fist He-Man, Extendar, Eternia etc. Judging by the LJN prototypes LJN had planned for Thundercats with the Luna Lasher etc I think it would also have produced some great items. :rolleyes

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As long as reruns were being aired I really think LJN could have continued as well. Look no further than these forums and we can find a solid list of figures we would have all been thrilled to get.

I do disagree on the cartoon series though. They had so much they could have gone into. Not only new Thundera but Third Earth still had limitless storylines, the moons of Plundarr, planet of Snarfs, mutants home etc etc

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I agree about the possibilities of Third Earth and New Thundera and Plundarr etc. I just meant it would have been nice for better writers to write those episodes instead of the eclectic mix RB seemed to hire.

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Wasn’t there another similar cartoon show about a guy that turns into a hero under water from the early 90’s?

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This is most intriguing! Thank you for sharing! :smiley:

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I should have said it was great you shared this. It has given us some good conversation.

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You know, the SilverHawks and TigerSharks characters probably would’ve benifited more as guests in the ThunderCats universe. Maybe then they wouldn’t have felt so disconnected. LJN’s scrapped ThunderForce line was an indication of merging the three universes together.