Not many know it, but this is the third chance at marquee success that the 1980s franchise ThunderCats is being given. This time it is under the umbrella of Warner Bros which acquired the IP from Lorimar Telepictures when it merged the studio with itself. This time the series has been called Thundercats Roar while in the eighties and during its relaunch in 2011, it was simply called ThunderCats. In its first edition, it was a super success and ran for four years, while it ran for only one season of 26 episodes on its return in 2011, despite being given a commission of 52 episodes.
The original ThunderCats show followed the adventures of catlike humanoid aliens with swords Lion-O—Cheetara, Panthro, Tygra, Snarf, and WilyKit and WilyKat—the residents of the planet Thundera taking refuge on the Third Earth.The characters were created by Tobin “Ted” Wolf and was animated by Japanese studio Pacific Animation Corporation, and co-produced by Rankin-Bass Animated Entertainment.
In its 2
019 incarnation, it will air on Cartoon Network and go back to the original story with Lion-O leading the team of refugees to make the planet their home. The difference that the show’s developers Victor Courtright and Marly Halpern Graser have brought in this time is that they have sprinkled the on screen hyper action with comedy. According to Courtright, he grew up watching the show and he believed that the world that was built around ThunderCats lent itself to comedy, considering how outlandish, silly and crazy those ideas. “People came back to ThunderCats for the super cool action elements,” he says in the making of the ThunderCats Roar video. “For every step we are taking towards comedy in the new show, we are taking two steps towards really cool action scenes, explosions, laser effects.”
Courtight and team have worked on the intro to the show, which he says in the original, “was animation history, gold. Thus the team was challenged to make it exceptionally good. Hence, we concentrated on the back story of the ThunderCats, right from the explosion of Thundera to their chase through space, through their crash landing on third earth which was captured in one big sweeping camera move.
“Everything pivots around the music and for that I chose from my library Shinsei Kamattechan’s Thunder Nickle, a song which has the right energy. ,” he adds. “Nothing could compete with it.”
A talented voice-cast team of Max Mittelman (Justice League Action) as Lion-O and Wilykat Erica Lindbeck (DC Super Hero Girls) as Cheetara and Wilykit, Patrick Seitz (Justice League Action) as Tygra and Mumma-R Chris Jai Alex (Start Wars: Battlefront II) as Panthro has been roped in.
Work is on at full swing at Warner Brothers Animation under Courtright’s supervision to meet the 2019 premier deadline. But the show has already generated moans from fans of the original Japanese anime type characters and animation, who have said that the franchise should not sway from pure action.
