there aren’t too many things i remember from my childhood, but 1 thing i distinctly remember is when i 1st saw thundercats.
i remember:
– i was 8 / in the 3rd grade (so i think this was in 1985?),
– it was winter because it was threatening to snow,
– it was a weeknite, around 7pm, because my mom was preparing my bath so i could go to bed soon to get up for school the next day.
rt before i jumped in the tub, i saw an ad for the next show coming up on tv, THUNDERCATS! i remember thinking it was odd that a cartoon was being shown @ nite when usu. stuff like “murder, she wrote” / “cheers” was coming on. but i knew that i didn’t wanna miss this, so i took the quickest bath of my life!
i remember thinking how cool the opening sequence was, introducing all the characters, how slick the animation was, how catchy the theme song was…& then i remember that they were all NEKKID for @ least the 1st 20 minutes of the show hahahaha!!! ok ok aside from that, i also remembered how cinematic the show was; to me, it really WAS a movie.
& the channel that aired it was such a tease because after that airing, the thundercats didn’t come back on till i started school in the fall of that yr.
Wow, it sounds to me like what you remember seeing was an airing of the ThunderCats pilot, which was “Exodus” and “The Unholy Alliance” cut together - that did indeed air some time before the series started up properly. That’s an amazing memory to have!
I can remember exactly how I first became exposed to ThunderCats. I was aged five, and we went out to Kent (here in the UK) for the day to visit my Mum’s half-sister and her family, including my three young cousins. One of my cousins was just a baby, but the other two were both heavily into ThunderCats, about which they didn’t stop talking. My curiosity was sufficiently piqued that my Uncle Steve put on the home video release of “Exodus” and I remember vividly asking questions about the series and being enthralled by what I was seeing!
I know at first, believe it or not, it took me a while to get used to the concept of good characters battling evil characters, as this was the very first show of its kind I was ever exposed to - however, once I got my head round that, I was away! I can remember my cousins and I playing with the action figures that day, where I had the savvy to pick Lion-O as my figure of choice, LOL!
My other favourite memory is when the same Auntie & Uncle copied their VHS copy of “Exodus” for me, and sent it down to us - I’d been watching ThunderCats on Children’s BBC from that moment on (although sadly had missed a fair number of episodes that had aired prior to my introduction to the series), and was very sad when it went off the over the summer. However, I remember one night just before bed my Mum told me that she had a surprise for me, and I came downstairs to find the “movie” version of “Exodus” playing - I was so happy! From then on, that tape would be played at least three times a day every day for several weeks, and would journey with me on holiday, to my Grandmother’s house, all over the place! In the end the tape just completely wore out and had to be thrown away, such was the extent that I’d watched it!
God, I miss those days of carefree happiness, when all it took to make me happy and contented was a tape with basically four cartoon episodes on - I’d give literally anything to be a kid again…
The very first episode of “ThunderCats” that I saw was “The Astral Prison” in either 1985 or 1986. I was quite blown away by it. I don’t know when I started watching it regularly, but it must have been a short time later. I also don’t recall when I first saw “Exodus”, but I wasn’t at all shocked when I saw the Cats butt-naked, except of course Jaga. I love the big hunting cats and, hey, they don’t wear any clothes either! But what really caught my attention (and still does) was the ThunderCat insignia. It’s the heart and soul of the series, and to this day I have yet to see a design as beautifully rendered as that one. I now have two chrome belt buckles with the T-Cat insignia enameled on them. I’m happy!:cheetaraveryhappy:
for me it came on right after heman i gave it a shot and now its one of my all time fave toons ever cause it had great animation storytelling and it was fun to watch
I had just finished my first day in the 7th grade at a new school…and it was terrible. That new school was a sewer for human sewage.
I came home to expecting to watch G.I. Joe, the Transformers; He-Man and Scooby Doo. But guess what came on instead of Scooby Doo?
The episode was Exodus. I watched up til the point where those mutants were trashing the room when my mother yelled for me to come do my homework.
I collected the Marvel Comics and videotaped all my favorite episodes. You have no idea how happy I was when I found out TC was coming to DVD! My only disappointment is that WB released the BROADCAST version of Exodus instead of the one which had extra footage.
excatly!!! i didn’t even realize the dvd’s had edited parts out till i was watching “exodus” on youtube. then it all came back to me…how snotty wilykat was…how wilykit was crying because jaga wasn’t gonna complete the journey w/ them… it seems like lil stuff, but i still i felt cheated!!!
The only thing I’d say is that the version of “Exodus” that’s available on DVD is the same as the stand-alone version of the episode that’s been broadcast over many, many years in a variety of places - I doubt the “pilot” version of “Exodus” cut together with “The Unholy Alliance” has been broadcast for many years now!
Believe it or not, I can still remember when Thundercats debuted on UK TV back in 1987!
I know at the time He-Man and She-Ra wasn’t airing and me and my brother were really disapointed because we loved those shows. It was just after christmas 1986 in the new year (probably around 2nd Jan 1987) and I believe it was a few days before we were back at school and a day before my dad was back at work.
My dad spotted a new ‘Feature length cartoon’ in the TV guide called Thundercats At the time we didn’t fully embrace it because we were still hooked on MOTU, but I remember we enjoyed it. After that I don’t think we caught the full series itself until it’s repeat showing (could be wrong though!)
As for the Toys, I was introduced to the toyline during summer 1988, while on holiday in Blackpool. Me and my brother both got a Lion-o figure each from Woolworths. That was the start of many fond memories visiting Woolworths stores and getting a figure every so many weeks when we had saved up our pocket money!
I know my 2nd figure was Monkian and my brothers was Tygra. I was a bit jealous at the time because I really wanted Tygra and couldn’t get him because the one my brother picked was the last Tygra on the shelf Ah the memories
Yeah, the beginning of the love affair…
I was about 6 or 7 and I can’t remember if it was Fall or January (I know it was fairly cold, though), but I saw an ad for a cartoon that was going to be on Primetime! I couldn’t believe it! A cartoon after dinner! I was blown away. Needless to say, I watched it. I don’t think I’ll ever know why I took to it, but Thundercats became the best cartoon in the world to me from that day on… I think it was just a little bit of everything that hooked me. my first figures were birthday presents that year, from my Dad. I got Panthro and Tygra … pretty amazing, huh? Two of my very favorites! Thundercats are still and always will be my favorite cartoon ever.
Honestly, I can’t quite remember my first Thundercats memory. Just bits and pieces, maybe I was too young. I remember wrestling with this huge sofa pillow (the best wrestling buddy ever!) and the Thundercats theme came onto our tiny 13 inch TV. The red glow the roar instantly cought my attention. Thats what hooked me right there.
The only toy I had was Mummra’s head piece which I found on the street. Sadly they were too expensive for my parents as we just moved here from transylvania. I do remember seeing LionO at the local Stevens store and just fantasizing about the way it looked, how it really looked like LionO and his eyes would GLOW!!! Just like in the cartoon, that was the kicker for me!
My first memories were the hand me down toys that I got from an older cousin. At the time, I was hooked on MOTU, and I did watch the show pretty religiously, but not until I got all of those second-hand toys, did I really get into it.
My first memory of ThunderCats was back to before the very first episode…They kept showing trailers of the title sequence on CBBC here in the UK and the moment I saw the trailer, I knew that it would be a show I would love! So one Thursday afternoon, I went round to my friend Natalie’s house (she’d already circled it in her newspaper!) and we sat together to watch it. It was on at 4.35 one Thursday in September. I remember being completely hooked, and both of us being crazy for the show. When we arrived at school the following morning, there were already fights breaking out about who was going to be Lion-O (for the boys) and who was going to be Cheetara (for the girls) in the playground! Me? I always ended up being :wilykit: …
I cant remember the first time I seen it on TV but I do remember the first time I seen the figures. Me my brother and my parents went to a store called Brendles every Friday. The look on my face had to be priceless when I turned the corner and seen Lion O and Mumm ra figures. There was probably a 6 foot wide by 5 feet tall wall of just Lion O and Mumm Ra for some reason. Needless to say I had to have them both!
Well, I caught on late into the 2nd season. That’s because at first I hated thundercats. I thought the song was way too cheesy and that lion-o was too childish for a superhero. But then one night (4th grade), I watched “exodus” and I was hooked!!! I loved the storyline, the character development of Lion-o over the series, Mumm-ra, Jaga, etc. To be honest and bias (i’ll admit), I like the Spanish translation over the original English version. That’s because in the spanish translation, the characters voices are more serious. Jaga and Mumm-ra sound too old in English where as in Spanish, Jaga sounds kinda like a mix between James Earl Jones and Patrick Stewart. Mumm-ra sounds possessed (there is even a faint echo whenever he talks). I like what they did with Lion-o’s voice too as he sounds more mature and confident as the series progressed.
English or Spanish, sometimes the storyline would get a bit too serious for a kid's show (e.g. Lion-o and his father, Jaga dying, etc), so Snarf was a good comic relief. All in all, this was my favorite childhood TV show. Great x-mas memories, I'll never forget getting Lion-o for x-mas! I'm yet too see a kid's show with a wide range of story telling as this one. Of course, I could be wrong. Those surely were the best of times. Now if I can only find the series both in English and Spanish.
P.S. Mumm-ra still freaks me out after all these years.:bengali:
The first memory I have of Thundercats is a visit to my aunts. I have no idea how old I was. My cousins had Exodus on VHS playing as we arrived. I remember staring at the video case cover art for a while, marvelling at it’s awesomeness. I was mesmerised by the cartoon. I’d never seen such high quality animaton before.
Mumm-Ra has the honour of being the only cartoon villian to ever give me nightmares. And I can still see why after all these years.
I think I was about 10 or 11 the first time I saw Thundercats. There had been a lot of commercial hype about it and my brothers and I were pretty excited. When it debuted I remember us kids sitting on the floor in front of the TV while my mom and dad were on the couch.
During the flight from Thundera, my mom started laughing and going on about how they were naked while dad did what he always did; smoked his cigar and used the F word in about every sentence.
Hmm, looking back, I think I should have down played my love for the show cause my mother soon learned that to get me to behave, all she had to do was threaten me with no Thundercats.
Well, I can’t really remember that, I do remember when my toys were trown through the window by my enraged mother, but before that there was this Birthday in 1987, when I turned 6!
Check the hats on my hand! That’s one blast from the past! And that’s me and my two grandmothers!
Aww, what a sweet picture. What a cute little boy you were, Vintage. And the Lion-O hat is darling! Why did your mom get angry enough to throw your toys out a window? Were you able to go outside and get them back? :bengali:
Well, you know how kids are, and I kept using the living room as “Third Earth Battleground” and kept forgetting to store the toys after play. That makes any mom mad! I believe she was in a “bad day” and when she got home and saw all that in the ground when all she wanted was to rest, she lost her patience!
Fortunately I got them back, 7 floors down, but they were broken. The only one that did not get destroyed was Mumm-Ra. The others I managed to fix last year (you can see them in the first page of my toy collection here at TLC).
So this is a warning to every mother in the forum: Don’t throw your kids toys through the window. That may cause him to become a toy collector.
