ThunderCats (1985 series)

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"Thunder! Thunder! Thunder! Thundercats! HOOOOOOO!"

This Animated Show from Rankin/Bass Productions was one of the most popular Merchandise-Driven cartoons of The Eighties.

Somewhere in the depths of space, a group of aliens with feline-patterned skin/80s glam rock stars with a cat-like theme flee their doomed homeworld of Thundera. Pursued by their enemies, the Mutants, their ship crash-lands on the planet of Third Earth.

The series chronicled the Thundercats as they adapted to their new home, making allies and enemies with the natives, and battling the machinations of the series' Big Bad, a mummified sorcerer named Mumm-Ra who usually cowed the Mutants into doing his bidding. The show's second season chronicled their return to Thundera and their attempts to re-stabilize it, with an expansion of the cast of other refugee Thunderans.

The 2011 reboot of the same name can be found here.

Tropes used in ThunderCats (1985 series) include:

• Action Girl - Cheetara. Remarkably, in several episodes she gets to save the day, on her own, when all the rest of the team has been defeated.
• Action-Hogging Opening
• Achilles' Heel – Mumm-Ra's reflection instantly defeats him. Averted in later seasons season 2.
  • Doubles as Weaksauce Weakness.
• Adult Child - Lion-O, especially in the earliest episodes.
• After the End – The Thundercats' original homeworld blows up during the Premiere.
  • There are also hints that Third Earth is the future of our world, but what happened to the human race is not revealed.
    • A few human-looking populations are shown (the warrior maidens, Professor Dometome and his associates). Also, there are some stray humans such as Hachiman, Mandora and Safari Joe.
• Amazon Brigade – The Warrior Maidens.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: Obviously, they're all cat-based.
• Animation Bump – The Title Sequence, "Crystal Canyon", "The Telepathy Beam" and "The Wild Workout".
• Applied Phlebotinum – Both Thundrillium and Thundrainium fall into this category.)
• Artifact of Attraction
• As Long as There Is Evil – "And wherever evil exists… Mumm-Ra lives!"
• Bald of Awesome - Panthro and Lynx-O.
  • Bald of Evil - Safari Joe.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space – The Thundercats universe blatantly disregards many physical facts, but none are as jarring as the fact that apparently everyone can breathe and speak in outer space just fine, thank you.
• Bat Signal – The Sword of Omens can do this when Lion-O invokes "Thundercats, HOOOOOOOOO!"
• Beary Cute: The Ro-Bear Berbils, which are small robotic bears who help the ThunderCats and other people on Third Earth.
• Beauty Equals Goodness – The episode "Good and Ugly" subverted it: the beautiful alien was the evil one, the ugly one good. From the good alien's perspective, Lion-O and Snarf were ugly.
  • Played straight when comparing Mumm-Ra to Mumm-Rana.
  • Arguable played straight with the ugly-looking mutants, too.
  • Also, the only evil Thunderian, Grune The Destroyer, don't look very pretty...
• Big Bad – Mumm-Ra
• Bigger Bad - The Ancient Spirits of Evil.
• Brother Chuck – All the mutants besides Ssslithe, Monkian, and Jackylman disappear after their first few appearances. It's possible they were still on the ship when Mum-Ra destroyed it in the second episode.
  • They're out in space. When Mumm-Ra destroys the ship, he tells Ssslithe and the others that now they have no way of contacting their fellow mutants.
  • They were featured in the episode "Fireballs of Plun-darr".
• Bully Bulldog - Ma-Mutt
• By the Power of Greyskull:
  • "Thunder, Thunder, Thunder, Thundercats, Hoooooooooo!"
  • "Sword of Omens, give me sight beyond sight!"
  • "Ancient Spirits of Evil...transform this decayed form...to Mumm-Ra...THE EVER-LIVING!!!"
• Canon Foreigner – Lynxana, an exiled Thundercat rebel from the Marvel comics
• The Caretaker – Snarf, especially in the early episodes
• Catfolk - They were supposed to be this, but most of the Thunder Cats didn't really look so much like animals, but more like 80's glam rockstars with a cat-theme.
  • The designs for the new series look more cat-like when paired up next to the originals, though.
• Catch Phrase – Both the caption, and Mumm-Ra's transformation spiel. Panthro often says "If we're gonna do it, let's do it."
• Christmas Cake - Cheetara. She appeared to be in her late teens/early twenties in the first episode, when Lion-O was still a cub. Then again, nobody ever seems to age in this show.
• The Code - The Code of Thundera: "Justice, Truth, Honor, and Loyalty."
• Cool Sword - The Sword of Omens not only provides Lion-O with "sight beyond sight"; it can seemingly do pretty much anything he commands it to, including (but not limited to) levitation, shooting energy blasts, and creating force fields.
• Cosmic Keystone – The Treasures of Thundera
  • Not to mention a powerful relic actually CALLED the Keystone which makes a one-episode appearance in Season 3.
• Cute Machines – Robear Berbils
• Darker and Edgier – The Return comic series, and its sequel Dogs Of War. Not kid-friendly, folks.
• Deal with the Devil – In "Monkian's Bargain", Monkian agrees to allow Mumm-Ra to make him powerful enough to defeat the Thundercats and rule Third Earth. He's so impatient that he leaves without hearing what the price is, and he's too Genre Blind to question why Mumm-Ra is giving him the power and not using it himself. After he manages to defeat the Thundercats, what happens to him is pretty scary, even if he does recover.

Mumm-Ra: You rule Third Earth. But it is a kingdom you will never see! Because you can never leave my pyramid!

• Death World – Visit beautiful Third Earth, home to locales such as the Field of Daggers, the Crumbling Cliffs of Vertigo, and the Burning Sands of the Phosphorus Desert, and that's just for starters! No wonder most of humanity seems to have died out.
• Defeat Means Friendship - Lion-O's theory in challenging Snowman.
• Descriptive Ville – Their home planet, Thundera
• Did Not Do the Research - Tigers are one of the few felines that don't hate water. Guess which Thundercat can't swim...
• Distracted by the Sexy – Lion-O versus Tashi in the episode "The Doomgaze." And this is before she uses her titular Hypnotic Eyes against him. Lucky for him that Cheetara was there to intervene.

Lion-O: She's... so beautiful... Snarf: Lion-O... Lion-O: I-In a kind of evil way, of course.

• Does Not Like Shoes – The Warrior Maidens go barefoot.
  • So does Tygra, Wilykit, and Lynx-O. Sort of.
• Doomy Dooms of Doom – The Doom Gaze
• Eighties Hair: Good Grief. Every character who has hair qualifies.
• Empathic Weapon – The Sword of Omens
• Episode Title Card
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending – Normally at something Snarf says.
• Evil Is Not Well Lit – Mumm-Ra's pyramid
• Evil Minions – The Mutants
• Evil Sorcerer – Mumm-Ra
• Fantasy Kitchen Sink
• Fashionable Asymmetry – Wilykit and Jackalman get this treatment.
  • And Grune the Destroyer, who only has one saber tooth.
• Five-Man Band
  • The Hero: Lion-O
  • The Lancer: Tygra
  • The Big Guy: Panthero
  • The Chick: Cheetara
  • The Tagalong Kids: Wilykat and Wilykit
• For the Evulz – Mumm-Ra could just ignore the Thundercats and wait for them all to die (since he's, y'know, immortal), but where's the fun in that?
  • This trope does still apply with him, but leaving the Thundercats alone, in his viewpoint, does let them build up. His immortality doesn't help him all that much when he has at least 2 weaknesses, so this wouldn't be wise if he plans to oppose them. Better to deal with them when they're still vulnerable.
• Full Set Bonus: The gems Mumm-Ra is after.
• Gender Bender – Several of Mumm-Ra's plots involved him transforming into a female of some form to trap or trick the Thundercats.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar:
  • In the pilot, the members of the main cast are naked until Jaga gives them clothes; fortunately, they have Barbie Doll Anatomy.
  • In "Crystal Canyon". when Alluro gets the Keystone and has control over Lion-O and Lynx-O, he says some... interesting stuff.

Alluro: If you're good, I may even give you to Chilla. What a wonderful pet you'd make.

• • In "Exile Isle", we get this from Captain Cracker when he chases Snarfer.

Capt. Cracker: Come back here, you pussylover!

• Good Samaritan – What the Thundercats typically are, much to the advantage of Mumm-Ra
• G-Rated Drug – In "Crystal Canyon" and "The Garden of Delights"
• Grows on Trees – The "fruit" trees include bread trees, candy trees, eggplant trees, cabbage trees, etc.
• Hey, It's That Voice! – Panthro is voiced by Earle Hyman, aka Granddad Huxtable from The Cosby Show. Makes those outtakes even more hilarious now, doesn't it?
• Hilarious Outtakes – The infamous blooper reel, often referred to as BlunderCats.
• Human Popsicle – How the Thundercats made the trip from Thundera to Third Earth; Lion-O undergoes a Plot-Relevant Age-Up because of a faulty cryogenic pod
• Idiot Ball – Apparently being in cryogenic stasis not only gives you outrageous muscles and martial prowess, it also makes you retarded.
  • Lion-O is basically a ten-year-old (or however old he was before stasis) in a buff adult body. If there was an Idiot Manchild trope, he'd qualify.
• James Bondage – Tygra, and the fandom runs away with it
• Kryptonite Factor – Thundrainium to the Thundercats
• Leotard of Power – Cheetara
• Leitmotif – Every adult Thundercat had one (Lion-O's was based on the main theme), the kittens share one, Snarf had a Comic Relief Leitmotif, and Mumm-Ra had his own scary theme.
• Let's You and Him Fight - Interestingly enough, used by the heroes more often than the villains.
• Light Is Good / Dark Is Evil – The evil Mumm-Ra is in a dark, dreary pyramid and everything is shades of black or dark blue. The good Mumm-Rana is in a bright pyramid where everything is white and golden.
• Master of Disguise and Master of Illusion – Mumm-Ra. A great many plots revolved around him disguising himself as an innocent or ally to sabotage the Thundercats. In one episode it's revealed that Tygra's also a master of illusion, not just invisibility. It puts a severe strain on him, though, and takes tremendous concentration and meditation to do (which also provides the necessary handwave as to why he had never used it before – he was saving it up for Lion-O's Anointment Trials.)
• Merchandise-Driven
• Mirror Match - In "Fond Memories", Mumm-Ra merges himself with a statue of Lion-O to match his physical appearance, abilities and weapons before dueling against him.
  • Color-Coded for Your Convenience - Mumm-Ra's armor suit (a copy of Lion-O's) is colored red, in contrast with Lion-O's blue.
• Mushroom Samba – Tygra in "Garden of Delights"
• New Powers as the Plot Demands - Cheetara's psychic powers, Tygra's illusion abilities, the list goes on.
  • One time when Snarf was injured some distance away, Lion-O drew the Sword of Omens and kept saying "Thunder" (No, it's not going where you are thinking) until it was about 15 feet long, then it took off like a rocket with Lion-O hanging on to the handle.
    • To add to it, when he got there, Lion-O used never before seen strength to lift rubble off of Snarf.
• Never Say "Die" – As per the usual, but Wilykit's cry of "He… isn't alive!" is the apex of this.
  • On the other hand, Panthro did say the word "dead" once... when referring to the ThunderTank's controls not working. And Mumm-Ra was mentioned as being "deadly" at one point.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero - The reason that Thundera blew up in the first place is because in the past, Jaga threw the evil Sword of Plundar into the planet's core in order to destroy it and keep it from ever being used for evil. The evil energies apparently caused the seismic catastrophe.
  • In "The Last Day", the Ancient Spirits of Evil give Mumm-Ra one last chance to defeat the Thundercats. He naturally fails and is banished forever - until the very next episode. As they're about to leave Third Earth for New Thundera, the Thundercats level the black pyramid. The Ancient Spirits of Evil were not happy, so Mumm-Ra was freed and sent to New Thundera to fight the Thundercats again.
• Non-Human Sidekick – Snarf
• The Obi-Wan – Jaga, on occasion
  • He even glowed blue...
• Oh, Cisco
• One-Sided Arm Wrestling - Lion-O vs a Caveman
• One-Winged Angel – "ANCIENT SPIRITS OF EVIL!!! TRANSFORM THIS DECAYED FORM TO... MUMM-RA, THE EVER LIVING!!!"
  • And he does this nearly every time he appears in an episode. Admittedly, the transformation is not as monstrous as some, but the differences between "decayed form" and "MUMM-RA THE EVER LIVING" are pretty severe.
    • But it should be noted that the ability to become "Mumm-Ra" is not a natural ability he possesses, but it's quite literally the Ancient Spirits of Evil giving him a power up. And it's not restricted to Mumm-Ra: Snarf demonstrated in one episode that ANYONE who invokes the Ancient Spirits of Evil in his chamber will temporarily become super-powered. - This explains why he only leaves his tomb to fight the Thundercats, and spends the rest of his time in a coffin in the main chamber: if he didn't, then anyone who wanted to could take that power and use it against him, and he'd be unable to stop it.
• The Other Darrin – Earl Hammond replaced Bob McFadden as Vultureman after a few appearances.
• Pet the Dog – Mumm-Ra, of all people. Not only is Maa-Mutt his pet, but Mumm-Ra actually shows it affection.
  • It can fly, and it's hideous. Of course he shows it affection.
• Phlegmings – Mumm-Ra, natch
• Plot-Relevant Age-Up – See Human Popsicle.
• Product Promotion Parade – The title sequence
• Psycho Serum – A crystal which made Tygra think he was smarter and more powerful, and was painfully addictive. Alluro stole it and was the worse off for it.
• Put on a Bus – The Luna-Taks and Mutants are put on a prison train near the end of season 3 and aside from one episode do not appear again.
• Reforged Blade: The Sword of Omens is broken and reforged not once, not twice, but three times over the course of the series.
• Remember the New Guy? – Vultureman, Maa-Mutt
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent – S-S-Slithe and the Reptillians
• Royals Who Actually Do Something – The Thundercats were the noble class of their people, with Lion-O as their ruler.
• Schizo-Tech – Hunter-gatherer robot bears.
• Seers – The Sword of Omens. Cheetara now and then when the plot calls for it.
• Shoulders of Doom – Tashi gets these in Enemy's Pride.
• Shout-Out – Snarf is basically a Super-Deformed Smaug.
• Sugar Bowl – The Berbils' village
  • Sugar Apocalypse – They often had said village burned or attacked; they were pretty much the designated Damsel in Distress of the series.
• Summon to Hand - the Sword of Omens can do this.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands – Both Mumm-Ra and Lion-O have this. Mumm-Ra from a fetid scrying pool and Lion-O from the Sword of Omens' "Sight Beyond Sight". Really good to find out who's in trouble and where, that.
• The Blade Always Lands Pointy End In: The Sword of Omens does this a lot.
• Talk to the Fist – In "Monkian's Bargain", Wilykit and Wilykat actually attacked Mumm-Ra while he was transforming.
• Team Mom – Cheetara, so damn much.
• Team Title
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics – Female Berbils? They had flowers on their ears.
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself – To prove himself worthy of leadership, Lion-O must vanquish Mumm-Ra unassisted. He succeeds(!), but Mumm-Ra is still back the next episode of course.
• Theme Music Power-Up – Despite the theme music playing at various dangery intervals, it would never be completed. It would go for a verse at most – or more often just a single line – then switch to some other background music.
• Verbal Tic – Snarf has this, snarf.
  • Ssslithe, yessssss?
  • And the Berserkers, Berserkers, Berserkers! They have a tic, tic, tic, too!
• We Come in Peace, Shoot to Kill – There was an episode of Thundercats that had Lion-o attack an innocent alien visitor, then out of embarrassment help the next alien he met, who turned out (of course) to be evil.
  • This was also an example of Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain, as Lion-O fired on the first alien because he was ugly and spoke gruffly, while the second was elegant and cultured. So Now You Know. And Knowing Is Half the Battle.
    • Episode: Good And Ugly.
• Whip It Good Tygra uses a bolo-whip, but when he uses it correctly, he can turn invisible.
• You Fail Physics Forever – Aside from breathing, speaking, and being generally fine in space (which has gravity!) while wearing normal(ish) clothes, a black hole is said to be a force field generated by a computer called Neptune which was created by a long-dead advanced society on Venus to suck in derelicts and other junk to keep the spaceways clear. It keeps any travelers in a rather nice prison cell by sucking them in with magnets (the people, not anything they're wearing/carrying) and the heroes escape when Captain Shiner reverses the magnet's charge to push them out again. Which causes the computer to die screaming and explode. And the nuclear engines of spaceships are powered by people pushing a wheel around in a circle, just next to a single switch labeled "Power Off." The one believable thing they said? "[A black hole is] possibly formed by a collapsing star... once something goes in, it never comes out." And they turn out to be completely wrong!
  • They called it a black hole because that's what they thought it was. Then they learned better.
  • Then there was the time someone literally pulled the plug out of the bottom of the ocean. And it all started to drain away...
    • Breathing in space is explained by 'force-fields' that are near-skin tight and allow for oxygen replenishment by alien means (it was actually in the new comic compendium a few years ago) but the gravity thing only got partial explanation.