What are you currently watching?

[GC Brad]

Started Dragon's Lair and didn't get far.

Pretty boring setup, not much character work (even by '80s standards) and the animation/action were just okay... not as lush as the arcade game it was based on.

The big hook seemed to be stopping the action every so often and offering a choice, then pausing to let kids mull it over. For example, Dirk the Daring comes into a clearing and on the left are wolves and on the right are trees filled with snakes. Everything stops and then the narrator says "What should Dirk do? What would YOU do?"

(If you've never played the Dragon's Lair arcade game, it featured GORGEOUS animation that showed brief cutscenes and then placed Dirk at various decision points. the player then chose from between two choices. get it right and continue, get it wrong and lose a life.)

Not a bad gimmick and it reminds me a bit of how later TV shows tried to incorporate viewers, the best example might be Dora the Explorer looking to the audience and waiting to "hear" from them.

Unfortunately, the writers refuse to lean into it and basically cheat it every time by generally having Dirk do something that wasn't mentioned or even shown. With the wolves/snakes, Dirk chooses neither, instead opting to jump into a pit that wasn't a choice. In another part, he's trapped on a little island surrounded by lava, with the choice to walk a fragile bridge or... just die? The answer was, again, something not offered to the viewer at home.

So IMO the only real appeal here was the choice gimmick and it's not done well, and the action/animation isn't fun enough to devote the time.

I'm OUT!

Revisiting Jayce & the Wheeled Warriors next....

[Time Traveller]

The more I think back on it, you're right. I guess I never gave it a thought to the fact that the show actually pre-dated MOTU, but yeah, they really did refine the formula with that show, even though they didn't have an ongoing plot or overarching developments.

We finished Blackstar because it was short enough to binge, and I wanted to see how many of those obscure toys they crammed into such a short show.

[GC Brad]

out of curiosity, how many of the toys DID appear on the show?

[Time Traveller]

The figures that WEREN'T were the pack-in gremlins/demons, White Knight, Warlock w/ Yellow Wings, and Battle Wagon.

[GC Brad]

Not sure if I brought it up before, but i'm maybe 15 eps into Wheeled Warriors.

it's a pretty huge divergence from the toyline, but for the better. The cast of characters (none of whom ever had toys made - how insane is that??) are appealing and the premise is good.

essentially, main hero Jayce's father vanishes after accidentally creating a race of evil sentient plants. Jayce goes after him, trying to locate him while having random adventures throughout space.

it's all fine, but the series lapses into a formula pretty quickly and so far they haven't varied from it -- Jayce gets a call/finds a clue/has a feeling and goes to Planet X to look for his dad. Dad is never there, but he instead finds an injustice to be righted. He and the crew fight, and head back into space to continue the search.

I think the biggest problem with this is that they're just doing single episodes the whole time and there's no progression or sense of advancing the story. And in fact, other people have told me that Jayce’s dad is never found by the time the series ends, so viewers get left hanging.
They're also hamstrung by the fact that there is a huge gulf between what you see on the show and what you got on the shelves.

We have this interstellar adventure on a spacefaring ship on the cartoon, featuring car-oriented combat when they land and meet some people who need defending. In the toy shelves we get the action vehicles (and nothing else) with super generic characters that don't resemble anything you see on TV.

Sure, the cars are the same on the shelf and on the show, but beyond the cars there's nothing else that connects the two properties. So, it seems like the people who were making the cartoon don't really ever have a chance to bring in anything that kids might see on the shelves, no new cars or new characters come out and they have avoided having recurring characters (so far anyway) so they don't really spend a lot of time on world building or building up the team itself.

Personally, I think they also really missed a huge opportunity by not leaning into the cars. On the cartoon, each car can accept voice commands and seems to have limited robotic intelligence as they are able to operate autonomously after being told what to do. Each of the cars even has a name. So with this in mind, I think they should have made the cars characters themselves, doubling the opportunities for dialogue and character building on the show and giving each one more appeal.

Out of the 80s series I've been rewatching over the last couple of years, I'm not sure I’ve seen one that has more untapped potential than Wheeled Warriors… Something seriously wrong must have happened between the people who were making the toys and the people who were making the show. It's like they didn't even talk to each other and didn't coordinate on anything and didn't really have a plan in the same way that GI Joe or Transformers or He-Man did.

The whole situation is just really bizarre, and out of the few YouTube videos I've seen that try to delve into the history of Wheeled Warriors, none of them address why there’s such a huge disparity between the TV and the toys. I'd love to know more about this.

[GC Brad]

Started Watching Galaxy High (School)...

Didn't realize the first ep was written by John Hughes and the series was apparently created by Chris Columbus... Those were big surprises!

Only 2 eps in right now. The animation is a step above its contemporaries, but that first episode was rough. I didn't notice at the time back in the day, but a lot of Hughes' stuff is extremely problematic in retrospect, and some of that yucky vibe comes through pretty strongly in ep 1. it was a huge turnoff, TBFH.

The next ep was better immediately with a change in writers, so the wife & i will give it a few more eps and see how it goes... it seems to promise flipping the tropes of the time by putting the (earth nerd) aimee as the cool one in space, and positioning (earth jock) doyle as a loser compared to his fellow alien students, but that hasn't fully materialized yet.

i remember liking this one a lot back in the day but not sure the nostalgia is there. we'll see!

[Roar]

Okay, I talked up Primal season three and I just was left wondering what in the world. I mean I enjoyed it, but I just didn't get into it as I did the first two seasons. The animation was beautiful and the "silent" storytelling was again perfect. It wasn't outright terrible, but it was kind of everywhere but nowhere all at the same time- it's kind of like the programming people at CN had a meeting specifically to say, "Oh boogers, people are actually watching this! We better come up with something to fix this!"

And season three was "something".

I would go into specifics, but I don't want to spoil for anyone. If you thought the first two seasons were blood-soaked violence, you could air those episodes in a day care on movie day compared to season three.

Been watching M.A.S.K. on Internet Archive, it's free and I'm too cheap to buy the series and not into the franchise enough to buy any toys.

https://archive.org/details/mask-season ... he+Sky.mkv

I forgot how good the series actually was, it's not Transformers, or any of the Rankin-Bass offerings of the day, but it has a rich mythology all its' own. Even if you don't like the cartoon, at least being an 80's 'toon, you were at least treated to a theme song and soundtrack with high production value.

If whomever owns DIC animation's catalogue had someone worth their salt, they'd try to find a director who truly loves the franchise and make either a live action movie or at least make something for Netflix as they have for MOTU, Avatar The Last Airbender and a few other shows-especially since there are toys based on M.A.S.K made by The Loyal Subjects.

Hoping that Loyal Subjects will make a full-sized electronic lights and sound helmet for Matt Trakker's character as other companies have such as the Marvel franchise.

[GC Brad]

I'll have to have you fill me in on that Primal S3... Curious what it was that sort of cooled you off on it!

As for me, one of the people I follow on Instagram has started making 3D models of the characters from Dinosaucers and they are so awesome. The show was on my list to rewatch but seeing those figures got me fired up again so I'll probably start watching that pretty soon.

In the meantime, I was working my way through Beverly Hills Teens which is honestly pretty problematic in a lot of ways these days, but I put a pause on that to jump over to C.O.P.S.

I restarted C.O.P.S. a couple months ago and honestly felt a little bit bored by it with the first couple of episodes but I decided to give it another shot and I've been watching at least one or two a day, I'm up to episode 22 or 23 now. It's like, on the one hand I can see a lot of potential here and in my mind I think I'm making it better than it is, but when I'm actually watching it it's really just not very good.

I think one of the biggest issues is the character design. The visuals are honestly pretty bland. Everybody knows Bulletproof and he looks fairly cool and sports the series' two memorable lines (It's crimefighting time and Fighting crime in a future time, from the intro), but the rest of the good guys are basically nondescript except maybe for the canine guy and his robot dog.

There's like a cowboy guy who just has a hat, there's a guy with heavier armor, come up there's a computer hacker lady, there's a lady cop and there's a couple of regular uniform cops. They don't stand out as unique individuals and they're not visually distinct enough to be a memorable.

The bad guys are a little bit more noteworthy in terms of visuals, but honestly, not by much. Big Boss is a giant plus-size man with a metal hand so that checks out, and we have Doctor Badvibes who is notably nonbinary with a glass head showing off the brain so that's good, but the rest of the villains are basically just people? They don't even have special powers or anything like that, so I think the creators played the whole thing a little bit too realistic, if the term can even apply.

And when it comes to getting to know the characters, there's not much to hang on to. For the villains, Berserko comes up probably the most, and he's just a white guy wearing pretty normal clothes and he screams a lot -- but besides that there's nothing really special about him? There's the driving guy who doesn't really spend a lot of time driving and doesn't have a special car, there's a guy wearing prison stripes who is essentially just another meathead who punches stuff in a normal-guy way.

It's like, the people behind the show did not even understand on a fundamental level how to make these characters unique and appealing and to make them stand out, or to give them personalities. We almost never get any episodes that focus on either any specific cop or any specific bad guy, so the whole thing is just this big vat of murky blandness.

And honestly, it's a shame. With more striking character design, there would be a lot here to attach to, it could be pretty similar to something like the original run of GI Joe or something along those lines. If the motorcycle cop's motorcycle was more special and he had a better outfit, if the cop who breaks down doors had better gear and had a catch phrase, if berserko had some sort of a rage mode that he could "hulk out" into where he looked different… the women on the show also get very little play.

Mainframe (the lady computer hacker cop) just has a vest and a hat and she'll be seen at the keyboard once in awhile, but it's not like she's even really hacking or doing anything super special, she's just watching camera footage and doing data entry. The other female cop, her name is Mirage, I don't even know what she does. I don't think she even has a power or a specialty, she's just female.

On the bad guy team, we have Nightshade the cat burglar who (so far) has stolen one thing and been in disguise one time. She could easily be an analogue to the Baroness where she pops up behind enemy lines all the time and causes chaos.

There's also Miss Demeanor whose only defining characteristics are that she has a really weird nose and brow line and that she wears kind of a fancy suit? I'm not even sure if she's extra strong or what she does. Either way, they almost never pop up and when they do they don't have any central role or any featured action.

I'm not quitting the series, I'll still probably watch maybe one or two eps a day and just get through the whole thing just so I can say I've seen it, but the biggest takeaway from this whole show is just that it's just missed opportunity after missed opportunity. Poor characterization, poor character design, and scripts that fail to capture any meaningful character moments. I definitely remember it being a lot more exciting than it really is.

[Roar]

I'll have to have you fill me in on that Primal S3... Curious what it was that sort of cooled you off on it!

Well, I really can't get into the bare bones about it because if I did with the series' season two end, I would be spoiling for people who may have not seen the series yet. If you want to know, I would be glad to PM etc. but I don't want to be disrespectful to the show by spoiling details for people who might want to give it a whirl. It truly is a good show, it's just the last season was somewhat lacking, and for the first time, contrived seeming? I don't know how to articulate it properly without coming off as "one of those" because I truly do love the franchise and I was happy at the end for the main characters.

It's kind of as I mentioned earlier, the season two ending was just something that the main character could not possibly come back from, I mean it was cut and dry, moonstar of limbo, ancient spirits of evil- done, and then he came back. I do have to say that a plausible precedent was set in season one to account for the ability of the main character to return, but it was more like the boardroom said, Boy howdy, we really messed up! ThunderCats 2011 cancellation messed up! I think we can make more money from this , and "this" is how they fixed it.

I'm not saying Primal season three was horrendously bad, it truly wasn't, it's just obvious that I think season two was supposed to be "the end" and they cleverly constructed a way to bring the main back.

The closest thing I can compare it to is The Legend of Korra. Bryan Konietzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, and Nickelodeon intended for the show to be a one season sequel to Avatar the Last Airbender. LOK, by the end of season one, had every loophole sewn up, the main character "got the boy", she recovered from a trauma the main villain inflicted against her and other benders in that world, and all was right.

Howeverrrrr..........the show was so popular, Nickelodeon put in an order for another season, the fans clamored for a more mature storyline, they absolutely got it with an incredible amount of history as to how the Avatar was even "born", and then the majority of the fanbase complained, and to an obscene amount.

I do have to cede that If Nickelodeon had greenlit the entire four-season storyline that "Bryke" (merged fandom name for the ATLA and LOK creators) had in mind for the series in the first place, season one would have ended differently, even MORE and better worldbuilding would have taken place, and the show would have had more wriggling room/episodes (time) for the ending finale of the series, but instead Nickelodeon cheaped out on them on the budget, and a hasty bam, bam, bang is what we got, with a third to last episode clip show that is notorious in the fandom.

As far as the ending goes, I do support it, but I can understand the incredulity that the fans of the show treated the culmination of the four seasons the last minute of the final episode, and how Nickelodeon took one of its' greatest potential programming assets and flushed it down the toilet.

I myself had to rewind it and watch the last two minutes of the season finale and think, Did what just happen really just happen? I mean, that was how subtle it was.

Then of course afterwards-you have your shipping wars and angry rants disguised as fan fiction, but that's another kettle of space fish there.

Nickelodeon was once known for its' rich and rather diverse offering of programming, they were not afraid to take chances, but now they are playing it safe by squeezing the sponge that ran out of fresh ideas thirty million seasons ago because that's what sells Lego sets and keychains.

As for me, one of the people I follow on Instagram has started making 3D models of the characters from Dinosaucers and they are so awesome. The show was on my list to rewatch but seeing those figures got me fired up again so I'll probably start watching that pretty soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60bkPA_BgHY

Synth rock with a heroic brass section, like the cartoon or not, the theme song for Dinosaucers is slammin'! I used to tune in to USA cartoon express to crank up the volume to 11, listen to the theme, and then go about my business because I just couldn't get into the cartoon itself.

I do respect the premise though, and honestly, I don't understand why Dinosaucers wasn't a huge phenomenon in North America, it has everything that would lend to its' success because of the kid friendly theme.

1. Good guy dinosaurs- that somehow speak English

2. Bad guy dinosaurs-who also somehow......speak English too

3. The requisite Earthling "teenagers" in on "the secret" with "magic/technologically advanced" rings that give them powers to help the good dinosaurs in their mission.

I am not sure, but I believe that in South America a small official Dinosaucers toy line was released, wasn't it? A few years ago in the auction website a seller had the prototype figures for one of them, and if memory serves, I think it went for a thousand dollars or so.

There are lots of bootleg figures, though, down there you can get bootlegs of bootlegs if you don't look too hard enough.

I hope that Dinosaucers can make a resurgence of some sort, because it has a strong following- and even though it is not the holy trinity- Transformers, G.I.Joe, and Masters of the Universe, I think there's enough fans out there to justify giving it another chance.

In the meantime, I was working my way through Beverly Hills Teens which is honestly pretty problematic in a lot of ways these days, but I put a pause on that to jump over to C.O.P.S.

I love the little synthesized dun dun dun dun dun dun in the bridge to the theme where the robot dog is tracking. You know what I'm talking about, when you watch the beginning credits.

I'm up to episode 22 or 23 now. It's like, on the one hand I can see a lot of potential here and in my mind I think I'm making it better than it is, but when I'm actually watching it it's really just not very good.

Sounds like one of my mother's bologna sandwiches with Cheetos on it. It's good, she cared enough to make it for me, and it really was made with love, but then you remember it's still just warm bologna and the Cheetos are soggy but you eat it because you don't want to hurt her feelings.

So, you're watching the show with an adult's eyes but with the child's heart beating in your chest because you don't want to hurt the child's feelings. It was a golden time for all of us, and we all want just one or two things we remember fondly from childhood, later in life as an adult, without the cynicism of adulthood and its' sometimes inconvenient life experiences.

I think one of the biggest issues is the character design.

The action figures were not on model, and let's face it, the cartoon was truly a toy commercial.

The visuals are honestly pretty bland. Everybody knows Bulletproof and he looks fairly cool and sports the series' two memorable lines (It's crimefighting time and Fighting crime in a future time, from the intro), but the rest of the good guys are basically nondescript except maybe for the canine guy and his robot dog.

There's like a cowboy guy who just has a hat, there's a guy with heavier armor, come up there's a computer hacker lady, there's a lady cop and there's a couple of regular uniform cops. They don't stand out as unique individuals and they're not visually distinct enough to be a memorable.

The bad guys are a little bit more noteworthy in terms of visuals, but honestly, not by much. Big Boss is a giant plus-size man with a metal hand so that checks out, and we have Doctor Badvibes who is notably nonbinary with a glass head showing off the brain so that's good, but the rest of the villains are basically just people? They don't even have special powers or anything like that, so I think the creators played the whole thing a little bit too realistic, if the term can even apply.

And when it comes to getting to know the characters, there's not much to hang on to. For the villains, Berserko comes up probably the most, and he's just a white guy wearing pretty normal clothes and he screams a lot -- but besides that there's nothing really special about him? There's the driving guy who doesn't really spend a lot of time driving and doesn't have a special car, there's a guy wearing prison stripes who is essentially just another meathead who punches stuff in a normal-guy way.

It's like, the people behind the show did not even understand on a fundamental level how to make these characters unique and appealing and to make them stand out, or to give them personalities. We almost never get any episodes that focus on either any specific cop or any specific bad guy, so the whole thing is just this big vat of murky blandness.

I think that there are a lot of people who would disagree with me on this, and some effort was made to make these characters different and to have interesting episodes for them, but I think that this show truly was made to mainly sell toys, it shows, and it's not the usual fare that DIC Animation was known for. There wasn't a lot of Inspector Gadget, The Littles, or other toys on offer. M.A.S.K did have tons of product revolving around their cartoon, but it also had excellent writing and a feature score/main theme that amped up the viewer and told them exactly what the franchise was about and delivered quite well.

I agree with you when you say that there really wasn't anything for kids to latch onto as far as individual characters and it came down to who you thought looked more cool, and that's the toy you wanted to buy. I also think that DIC was spreading itself a little thin during that time frame, as they had a TON of features that they were working on during that time frame. Maxie's World, Dennis the Menace, Dinosaucers, Hello Kitty, Beverly Hills Teens, Karate Kid, Kissyfur, Rainbow Bright, ALF, Beanie and Cecil to name a few. You know if it wasn't Hanna-Barbera or Ruby-Spears on Saturday and the weekdays, it was animated by DIC, and I think that they just had too many irons in the fire with so many properties, so they didn't spend as much time on C.O.P.S and so many other shows because the staff was churning out so many other properties. Filmation, Sunbow, and Rankin-Bass I think had the better idea, yes, produce programming, do less but better.

And honestly, it's a shame.

Absolutely it is. I promise I am not poop mouthing any of the shows you're discussing.
With more striking character design, there would be a lot here to attach to, it could be pretty similar to something like the original run of GI Joe or something along those lines.

DIC did G.I.Joe too, but it wasn't like Sunbow's stewardship of the franchise. It had a few memorable and really good episodes, but it just didn't have the same magic, but then again, it couldn't because DIC didn't have the Marvel bullpen writing episodes for them.

If the motorcycle cop's motorcycle was more special and he had a better outfit, if the cop who breaks down doors had better gear and had a catch phrase, if berserko had some sort of a rage mode that he could "hulk out" into where he looked different…

You're right, but one of the bigger elements to the show crashing is the toyline, so many action figures back then had a movement gimmick or special accessories. I think the off-model molding/styling of the toyline married with the unenthusiastic portrayal of those characters in the animated show was just a recipe for the doom of the entire franchise.

the women on the show also get very little play.

If you saw a female character in a lot of the 80's animated shows, much less a developed one and especially a toy made for that character- it truly was rare. As many of the animated offerings of the day, they were targeted towards and seen as a "boys' show" and the prevailing thoughts on a show like C.O.P.S. is that it wouldn't appeal to girls, boys that age don't like girls, so why would boys want to play with a toy of a female character?

That's one of the things that really drew me to G.I.Joe ARAH and a lot of the other Sunbow shows, the women in the cartoons were self-sufficient, had skills on par with the men, and their recruitment wasn't gender based, they were brough in for their abilities. Sure, the Joes had to rescue Cover Girl, Scarlett, Lady Jaye, or Jinx every once in awhile, but it was because the Joes were a team and a family of people that cared about one another, not just a helpless woman needing rescuing for the sake of rescuing. I also liked that Cobra had their own capable femme fatales like The Baroness and Zarana- even had female nameless Cobra agents that gave the Joes a run for their money in character highlight episodes, or at least showed them in roles of responsibility, however misguided and wrong they were.

Mainframe (the lady computer hacker cop) just has a vest and a hat and she'll be seen at the keyboard once in awhile, but it's not like she's even really hacking or doing anything super special, she's just watching camera footage and doing data entry.

It was the strangest kitchen I have ever seen in my life, and she still didn't manage to make one sandwich. (I knew you'd like the trash talking while gaming reference)

The other female cop, her name is Mirage, I don't even know what she does. I don't think she even has a power or a specialty, she's just female.

She stayed and watched the base........... with Hot Rod and Wheelie.

On the bad guy team, we have Nightshade the cat burglar who (so far) has stolen one thing and been in disguise one time. She could easily be an analogue to the Baroness where she pops up behind enemy lines all the time and causes chaos.

And I can respect that, I also specialize in the elegant chaos I create in the form of "no no's".

There's also Miss Demeanor

She gets respect just for the name.

whose only defining characteristics are that she has a really weird nose and brow line and that she wears kind of a fancy suit?

Mrs. Potato Head's in it?

I'm not even sure if she's extra strong or what she does. Either way, they almost never pop up and when they do they don't have any central role or any featured action.

LJN was guilty as all get out of this in Thundercats in regards to their contact with Rankin-Bass. As the show progressed into its' second season and the toy line was running out of characters and playsets to produce, LJN went to Rankin-Bass' writers begging them to introduce some new character or monster- something they could manufacture and get some toy sales rolling as the line had dropped off. Couldn't make a Black Widow Shark, Snow Meow, Willa, Nayda, Mumm-Rana/her pyramid fortress, or most importantly-an Officer Mandora figure, all of those characters had actually been in the show more than once, nope, let's make a monster that's literally going to show up one time- and THAT'S where we got the Tongue-A Saurus from.

I'm not quitting the series, I'll still probably watch maybe one or two eps a day and just get through the whole thing just so I can say I've seen it, but the biggest takeaway from this whole show is just that it's just missed opportunity after missed opportunity. Poor characterization, poor character design, and scripts that fail to capture any meaningful character moments. I definitely remember it being a lot more exciting than it really is.

You know, at least you're being fair to the show, telling the tings that you like, dislike and would change given the opportunity. a lot of people would blanket describe it in one sentence and be done. It's a shame that people such as you don't have the ear of writers and series designers. As you've said, a LOT of shows that have come, gone and fizzled out have not done so because of a lack of imagination and heart behind it, but a problem of execution, and maybe a rush to hasten something out into the market before an ultimate/better thought out incarnation is finalized. I know that deadlines and contracts have to be met, but time restraints, unless done within reason, kill imagination and the natural flow of ideas

All being said.............

I'm really enjoying your takes on shows. It is truly a breath of fresh air to read someone respectfully say what they like and don't like about something instead of saying "Well, this is garbage and you should think it is garbage too because I don't like it!"

[Sideways]

I am in the process of ripping the 80's Thundercats cartoon to my PC. Have all of season 1 so far and working on the rest of the discs in the collection. I've gotten a few episodes into the first season actually watched so far.

[GC Brad]

Nice!

Would love to get your impressions when you get further into it, I just watched the whole run last year.

IMO Season 1 is pretty grrrrrrrreat. (You can imagine that in the Tony the Tiger voice if you wish!) Fun action, decent characterization, and it all basically wraps up at the end.

AND THEN WE GO TO SEASON TWO. Which TBH, I thought was pretty awful. Definitely some notable continuity issues and a lotta Dumb Stuff that just Isn't As Cool. A victim of its own success, I guess? Seems like the showrunners weren't expecting to have to make a second season...


Update on C.O.P.S. - still working on getting through the run. Season 1 was pretty dull all the way through, a textbook case of unused potential. Season 2 started and it was a visible jump in animation and the eps were a bit perkier. Ironically, the BEST episode so far was by guest writer Bob Forward, who is, of course, The Man. In that one episode he squeezed in way more character and fun and cleverness than all of S1 combined. It showed how low the writers had been aiming up to that point, and I was truly sad that he only did 1 ep so far. I have about 20-odd eps to go, we'll see what happens.

NOT VINTAGE but started watching StuGo (stupid name) on Disney Plus with the wife and it's sharp and hilarious. Big, big thumbs up... I laugh out loud nearly every episode. It reminds me a bit of Craig of the Creek (also awesome) but with a bit more sass and edge. Check it out if you're looking for a new watch!

[Roar]

IMO Season 1 is pretty grrrrrrrreat. (You can imagine that in the Tony the Tiger voice if you wish!) Fun action, decent characterization, and it all basically wraps up at the end.

You're right, the first season truly is a great watch, and to be honest, there were so many terrific choices to be made as far a viewing went during the 1985-1988 viewing years, it was difficult to choose what you wanted to see because so much of the programming ran concurrently with competing channels.

As you well know, unless you had a VCR, you had to catch shows when they aired or wait for repeats that may or may not have come.

The first season was simply good storytelling, and it was different! A technologically sophisticated group of people fleeing their doomed planet only to land on one that was not technologically developed with a leader who literally grew into his role. It was enjoyable to watch the worldbuilding that happened in the first season, and to see the friends and enemies that the 'Cats met and either befriended or had to battle for survival.

Not only that, but it was also some of, if not *the* first mainstream "American" made anime to be shown, of course it was animated by Pacific Animation Corporation in Japan (which later became Studio Ghibli), but it was an American production instead of an established franchise dubbed in English. Dynamic art that moved, it was nearly unheard of in the industry to have three and four layer cel animation for set-ups because it was so time consuming and costly to have people draw and paint them, but Rankin-Bass did it. Even the music was epic, Rankin-Bass knew what it was doing when it recruited Bernard Hoffer to compose and conduct it in house instead of using a library.

AND THEN WE GO TO SEASON TWO. Which TBH, I thought was pretty awful.


With the exception of ThunderCats Ho! The Movie, I have to wholeheartedly agree. TCH the Movie is a heartbreaker, because it was supposed to be released in America as an actual movie in theatres. After the failures of a lot of TV to cartoon movies such as Care Bears, Rainbow Brite, G.I. Joe ARAH, and the movie that started the fear- Transformers the Movie 1986, Rankin-Bass balked at the theatrical release fearful of how it would be received, (Killing Optimus Prime and quickly putting Duke into "a coma" didnt fly) so TCH! The movie was run straight to TV, making it the first five episodes of season 2, breaking the movie up into five parts, in the process cutting several scenes out of the original movie to make room for commercial time. (not so sure about content or where the lost footage is)

The Movie did get a theatrical release in several South American countries with a full tie in with Pepsi and other food companies and it was a smash hit. (They had lobby cards for Vector Sigma's sake!) so unfortunately, we never got to see what it could have done in the States.

Definitely some notable continuity issues and a lotta Dumb Stuff that just Isn't As Cool.

Breathing in space, I believe in suspension of belief, but come on......

A victim of its own success, I guess?

More like a victim of laziness and apathy, they had such success that they counted on kids and older fans to support whatever was put in front of them. Lion-O's growth from manchild to capable and respected leader was one of the focal points of the show's plot, and his mistakes on that "journey" as one of the teaching points and moral lessons of many of the stories. In the first season, you learned that sometimes even grown-ups make mistakes, and if you're a kid, it's okay to make mistakes-that no one is perfect, not to take things at face value, and many other "teachable moment" lessons that didn't beat you over the head with morality, but showed you gently what it looked like.

Unfortunately, the writers moved away from that, and Lion-O became Leonard Starr's perfect and nearly infallible Gary-Stu (and nearly was at the start, but was so well-written you forgave it at first), and the Sword of Omens became the uber tool during the second season, that is when it wasn't being broken by someone or thing and then reforged/rebuilt. (it happened four times at least, I think a couple times more).

Lion-O's in trouble, forget the teamwork of the ThunderCats-one of show's core moral principles of family and loyalty, that's all done because the sword will fix it now! Lion-O's hungry, it'll make him a pan of muffins, it slices, it dices, it heals people, it regenerates failed crops like a shiny member of the 4-H, oh doo doo-the planet's falling apart? Hey, no problem! The sword can also become a gyroscope and promote gravity for the entire planet. *sigh*

That's just lazy, contrived, thoughtless, convenient writing, and all it served to do was make all the episodes of season two cookie cutter garbage and even *I* got tired of it, and that's saying something.

I know the show's target demographic was children, but add in the absolutely ridiculous utterly STUPID filler episodes like "Circus Train", "The Wild Workout", "Helpless Laughter", and a few others, and you can well understand why the show failed, and it failed because they wanted it to and for no other reason! ThunderCats was able to bring in not only children, but teenaged fans and adults as well, I know you all know how extraordinary that is, and they had a golden opportunity to continue with that and they blew it by dumbing it down so hard. They forgot that just because you have a child watching, they should never had discounted their intelligence and ability to understand concepts though they may not have context.

There was supposed to be one last five-part set of episodes that showed the re-birth/reclaiming of New Thundera, but budgeting, time constraints, non-existent toy sales outside of a clearance bin, falling viewership, the sale of Lorimar-Telepictures to Warner Brothers (therefore the entire Rankin-Bass stable of properties), and over all just "we're over it" attitude were the final nails in the coffin for ThunderCats.

So, this is a little bit of a spoiler, but the 130th episode was a real letdown, and it ticked me off so much because one of the original seven, and one of the new ThunderCats didn't even make it into the final episode. You DON'T do that! When you have a series, you put all the original characters you started with in the final episode, unless they're dead.

However, unlike many cartoons of the era though, we did get a beginning, middle, and end, so that's something I guess. Sometimes it's best to stop with what you have lest it become worse.

Seems like the showrunners weren't expecting to have to make a second season...

Oh no, they definitely knew there was going to be more after the second season of ThunderCats, they were planning a third season and an even more ambitious creation by bringing the entire Rankin-Bass action cartoon stable together in a new concept called "ThunderForce" including ThunderCats, SilverHawks, and TigerSharks. (There is concept art all over the web for it, I thought it was fan art at first, but Rankin-Bass was really going to do it) Again, and I am not sure of this, but I theorize that the aforementiones sale of Rankin-Bass to Warner Brothers had a lot to do with the end of Thundercats and all the other animated properties. Why would Warner invest more time and development into a show when they have their own in-house established properties to grow and make money with, with such heavy competitors to battle against? By then Teenage Mutant Teenage Turtles was in the bully pulpit, and you couldn't swing a dead rat without seeing a TMNT related toy, food product, or visual media product.

Along the 1986 timeline for the second season of 'Cats, SilverHawks was airing and simultaneous production, and the writers were stretched pretty thin for both productions because a lot of the same writers and voice actors for Rankin-Bass worked for both shows.

LJN could not furnish what Rankin-Bass wanted for the 'Hawks, so Kenner was designated the toy line's manufacturer. Toy sales for that franchise were not great, and that was what determined that show being one season, albeit a nice number of shows with 65 episodes.

Rankin-Bass was also running out of storylines for the ThunderCats shows, they literally had an open script policy where any employee from the boardroom to the restroom could write a script for a show and it would be considered if it were interesting or good enough. Not that I am saying that a layman cannot write well, that is to just illustrate how desperate they had become for new material.

Jules Bass literally was walking out of the executive restroom one day and asked the janitor sweeping outside if he had any writing experience and would like to write an episode of ThunderCats or SilverHawks. I don't know if he did, but that's just an example.

The second season of ThunderCats did not even air in Great Britain, the BBC banned it for violent content, the first season was pretty good at it, but just as in South America and the rest of Europe, ThunderCats was a phenomenon even after it had run its' course in America in 1988. The show was still in syndication in the States then, but there were no plans for following through on the third season as the toy line was running on empty, and for the 1980's, it was rather uncommon for a series to run 130 episodes which ThunderCats did.

It wasn't until the first boxed sets of the show, seasons 1 and 2 from Warner Brothers did England finally get to see the second season of ThunderCats (Officially of course). In the late 90's I spoke to a man from England when I was scooping up as many of the European carded and boxed figures as I could, and he didn't even know that there had even been a second season of ThunderCats.

So um.........sorry about all of that. This show demonstrated and then had so much more potential and no one could harness it, and with each subsequent re-birth and failure, the grave gets dug down deeper and deeper.

Also..........just for the fun of it-as you go through the episodes, there's a KILLER easter egg in the episode "Snarf Takes Up The Challenge"!

When you get to the scene where Snarf finds Cat's lair empty and finds Ro Bear Bill in the control room, he informs Snarf the ThunderCats are missing. When he shows Snarf how to turn on the main viewing screen, pause the show and slowly go forward frame by frame as the Lair viewing screen boots.

I think you'll find it entertaining.

Oh, and in addition, the first four sets of ThunderCats on DVD, the ones with the lenticular covers from the late 1990's-early 2000's-don't bother buying them on the secondary market unless you just want them for the look. The plastics used in those initial sets' discs have decayed, and have fallen victim to the phenomenon known as "Warner rot". Some discs of my early box sets will not go past the menu selection or even boot to play. I had to buy a second complete series set to be able to watch the whole series again.

[Sideways]

Oh, i'm aware of disc rot. I'm thankful my newer complete collection does not have it, and I am pretty sure my Swat Kats collection is okay but I should check again..

[Roar]

Oh, i'm aware of disc rot. I'm thankful my newer complete collection does not have it, and I am pretty sure my Swat Kats collection is okay but I should check again..

There is an entire list that grows by the day online about the discs that are deteriorating. Of *COURSE* SilverHawks season 1 and the 'Cats discs 1-4 have issues, I am just waiting for my Justice League and Justice League Unlimited ones to go down the commode.

If you are all interested or do not know of its' vast resources, Internet Archive has tons of old cartoons that can be viewed, *cough downloaded cough* as well as comic books, promotional art, in some cases soundtracks-etc.

https://archive.org/

Swat Kats the complete series link :

https://archive.org/details/swat-kats-moonsong

They have the complete M.A.S.K, series in there as well, and 3-B Productions digitally restored and uploaded the entire Tranzor Z series which I have been enjoying. I know it is a different animal than its' original source, Mazinger Z, but it's still good from a childhood nostalgia standpoint. Circuit City and other audio/appliance stores would tune into Voltron or Tranzor Z in their showrooms because those shows were some of the first to be broadcast in stereo, and salespersons would demonstrate the difference in sound quality between televisions that had stereo and did not have.

If you do a search for animation art or the series that you are interested in, all the media associated with that show will be displayed.

That is how I found the concept art/model sheets for SilverHawks.

https://archive.org/details/out043

The full run of the Star Comics SilverHawks comics by Marvel are in there too.

I've been kicking around the notion of uploading all of the ThunderCats magazines along with the posters that I have, but I need to look into copyright law a little better before I do that.

There's also a ginormous bank of Transformers media print, movie, series, you name it, and a glorious rabbit hole to fall into to explore.

https://archive.org/search?tab=all&quer ... rs&page=3

[Sideways]

Oh, I'm aware of the Internet Archive, it's a good site. It appears most of my box sets are OK, I have a sealed copy of Voltron that I have not opened yet, but that will be on my list soon.

[Roar]

Oh, I'm aware of the Internet Archive, it's a good site. It appears most of my box sets are OK, I have a sealed copy of Voltron that I have not opened yet, but that will be on my list soon.

The thing that angers me the most about the DVD integrity failures is that people who are honest go out and purchase these shows and series outright, in good faith, and legally are cheated. If one wanted to download a movie, program, music without having to pay the copyright/rights owning company for their media, I dare say 99.9% of it is out there for the taking if you look hard enough-or not so hard.

I'm not condoning theft, it's just that If they catch anyone downloading or reproducing material, even without monetary gain, the laws they lobbied/paid for will hold you legally culpable for theft which carries heavy fines not to mention a potential sentence for time up to and including federal prison.

As far as I see it, having faulty media legally purchased is just the same as theft from the consumer. It's true that Warner Brothers did try to rectify some of the issues with their DVD sets, but it shouldn't have been an issue in the first place. DVD production has all but stopped now, but when in its' prime, DVD sets should have been put on high quality archival media made to uphold its' integrity for no less than one hundred years, the natural life span of most human beings, i.e. the initial purchaser. Rewriting media such as that exists too and it's extremely affordable, it's the same quality that the Library of Congress uses to digitally master their film, VHS, and other original media acquisitions before they decay.

That's another post altogether.

As crooked as companies are, I can't help but wonder if it was a manufactured fault engineered to be a failsafe for future purchases of the same properties in other forms of media.

Of course, now you can't physically hold a disc, they want you to purchase digital content, pretty much the only way you can watch anything at home now, and even though you buy it, it isn't truly yours and the platform you buy it from can revoke your viewing rights whenever they please. (You agree to it when you download or stream it)

Sorry to derail the post so much.

I'm really enjoying Dragonball Z Kai that is airing on Cartoon Network in the mornings on the tail end of Adult Swim. I never could get into the original Dragonball series, but I love Kai! Kai undoes a little of the injustice done to Dragonball Z because Kai has all the blood, violent death, and (mild) profanity that was omitted from the primetime afterschool airings of the show on CN. Airings of the Cell saga were not reliable when I first got into it, and I missed quite a few episodes, so I just went on ahead and bought the DVD set to finish it, but I prefer to watch on television as the episodes air.

Even though I know how the series is going to turn out, it is written so well that I still worry about the characters being able to defeat the enemies they are fighting. The most surprising and rewarding aspect of the show is not the skill improvement of the main character Goku and his son Gohan, but the villain Vegeta's redemption arc. As the show progresses and his skill level rises, he keeps his dignity and pride, but he comes to learn the difference between the preservation of his heritage and foolhardy arrogance in the face of the same pride that drives him to improve.

[GC Brad]

I'm really enjoying Dragonball Z Kai that is airing on Cartoon Network in the mornings on the tail end of Adult Swim. I never could get into the original Dragonball series, but I love Kai! Kai undoes a little of the injustice done to Dragonball Z because Kai has all the blood, violent death, and (mild) profanity that was omitted from the primetime afterschool airings of the show on CN.

FULLY agree with your points about DVDs and consumers losing their rights to own things they purchase.

As for Dragonball, I find myself on the opposite side of the fence. I've never found an attach point for DBZ, but I really enjoyed the original Dragon Ball and ended up watching the entire run with my son. We really liked the humor and silliness of it! They got away with some pretty outrageous stuff, too.. I can recall several times when we were a bit shocked that one thing or another popped up. Good times. ^_^

[Sideways]

I've watched Dragonball, DBZ and DB:GT, even though nobody really talks about that series anymore, and that's ok.