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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2016 19:09:52 GMT -5
Found this while exploring youtube...
I'd love to see someone pick up the license and do a Thundarr comic! If I could turn back the clock I would want Alex Toth and Jack Kirby, who worked on developing the look of the series, to produce a Thundarr comic. It would have been glorious!
-M
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Post by Randle-El on May 5, 2016 23:06:37 GMT -5
I have vague memories of this show. I think it caught by eye back in the day because the lead character had what appeared to be a lightsaber.
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Post by Deleted on May 5, 2016 23:14:26 GMT -5
I have vague memories of this show. I think it caught by eye back in the day because the lead character had what appeared to be a lightsaber. The Sunsword I believe it was called, was certainly inspired by the lightsabers from Star Wars which had come out the year before the cartoon. -M |
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Post by Bronze Age Brian on May 5, 2016 23:55:13 GMT -5
Great documentary, I watched it when it came out a few years ago. Thundarr is one of my favorite cartoons. Although it's never been officially released, I bought the Amazon produced 4-disc DVD-R set of the cartoon to watch and loved it all over again. It's one of the best post-apocalyptic cartoons ever made.
The intro always pumps me up:
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Post by String on May 6, 2016 17:43:29 GMT -5
Fantastic cartoon, loved it.
It amazes me that with all these 80s cartoons having a resurgence today that no one has picked up this license for a comic. With Thundarr's backstory and world milieu, this is screaming for an expansion!
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Post by wildfire2099 on May 7, 2016 10:52:35 GMT -5
I LOVED Thundarr as a kid... one of my fondest childhood memories was watching it and Heathcliff (I always hated Garfield.. Heathcliff was the man!) on Saturday mornings with my dad.
Thundarr is this strange mix of Conan and Star Wars that is obviously a rip off of both, but since it takes equal parts of both can't get in trouble for either.. good stuff.
I modern indy comic treating would be pretty amazing... maybe the guy that did Godland, or some other Kirby-ish writer/artist?
Edit: I had no idea who was who when I was watching as a kid, but I just looked at the credits posted... Mark Evanier, Steve Gerber and Martin Pasko all with Story credits (among others)... who knew?
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Post by realjla on May 7, 2016 11:31:24 GMT -5
"Voices by Bob Ridgewater, Nellie Bellflower, and Henry Corden"...that last name was the second voice of Fred Flintstone, after Alan Reed's death(covering everything done from the late '70s through the early '90s TV-movies on ABC). Not familiar with the other two.
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Post by Bronze Age Brian on May 7, 2016 11:44:12 GMT -5
I LOVED Thundarr as a kid... one of my fondest childhood memories was watching it and Heathcliff (I always hated Garfield.. Heathcliff was the man!) on Saturday mornings with my dad. Thundarr is this strange mix of Conan and Star Wars that is obviously a rip off of both, but since it takes equal parts of both can't get in trouble for either.. good stuff. I modern indy comic treating would be pretty amazing... maybe the guy that did Godland, or some other Kirby-ish writer/artist?Edit: I had no idea who was who when I was watching as a kid, but I just looked at the credits posted... Mark Evanier, Steve Gerber and Martin Pasko all with Story credits (among others)... who knew? Tom Scioli would be an amazing choice and I bet he would love to do a Thundarr comic if the opportunity presented itself. |
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Post by rom on Sept 2, 2016 20:35:55 GMT -5
Great thread! As a kid at the time, I really enjoyed the vastly underrated early '80's cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian - this took place on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and obviously was "inspired" to a great extent by Star Wars, Conan the Barbarian, Dungeons & Dragons, etc. This cartoon definitely stood out among most of the other Saturday morning cartoon wasteland.
A while back, I saw all 4 DVD's of the entire series, and these brought back a lot of great memories; I liked how the show explored the remains of various U.S. cities - the fantasy element was strong as well. It was interesting to see all of the aliens/mutants & both advanced/primitive tech. It's also worth noting that Thundarr was one of the first sci-fi post-apocalytpic (PA) TV shows out there, and one of the only cartoons. Though since then we've seen a lot of PA TV shows since that time, Thundarr was definitely a fore-runner.
One of the most interesting aspects of the show was seeing Thundarr & his group (Ookla the Mok, Princess Ariel) go to a ruined U.S. city and being able to recognize which one it was; i.e., in one of the first episodes they went to "Manhat", which was obviously Manhattan (with the statue of liberty in the background, the subways, etc.). IIRC, in another episode they went to the ruins of Las Vegas, etc.
The show was actually better than I remember, much of which was because, via the DVD's, I was able to see all of the episodes in chronological order - and, the cleaned up/remastered picture & sound was amazing - this was obviously much better than seeing the show on an old, pre-cable CRT TV set back in the day.
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kellyg
Junior Member
Posts: 23 
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Post by kellyg on Sept 4, 2016 16:31:29 GMT -5
Loved Thundarr.
Missed those old narrations that shows like this or the Incredible Hulk or Buck Rogers had for their intros.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2016 22:00:34 GMT -5
Well I just broke down and ordered the DVD set from Amazon (as well as the FIlmation Tarzan series) with an Amazon giftcard we had. Looking forward to digging in to these episodes again.
-M
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Post by rom on Sept 6, 2016 18:38:45 GMT -5
I'm sure you'll enjoy the Thundarr DVD's. I'm currently re-watching my set, and love this series. Again, I think I'm appreciating it more now than I did watching it as a kid many years ago.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2016 19:19:02 GMT -5
Oh I loved it as a kid and watched them again when Boomerang ran them in the late night block several years back, so I know I'll like them, and I have been contemplating getting the DVDs since they were legally released (I even contemplated a bootleg beforehand), I just never pulled the trigger on it until now.
-M
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Post by thwhtguardian on Sept 7, 2016 10:38:49 GMT -5
In my head a Thundar comic written by Jeff Parker with art by say Chris Samnee or Mike Mignola would be one of the greatest comics of all time.
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Post by brutalis on Sept 7, 2016 15:44:20 GMT -5
The cartoon was pure 80's craziness of the best kind with every episode stealing in the best way from science fiction and fantasy of the past and present. Ookla to me is even better than Chewbacca design wise who is supposed to emulate. Thundarr the lead hero himself was interesting in that he was rather dense and focused too much on the immediate moment and truly was the heroic ideal of jump in with everything you got without any kind of plan and improvise and figure it all out as you go and in the end be triumphant if only out of stubborn determination and perseverance that good wins.
Think Francesco Francavilla would make a spectacular Thundarr comic for us to enjoy. Bring back Steve Englehart to do his thing and make the stories fun and i am there immediately for every issue!
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