Trivia / ThunderCats (1985)

• Acting for Two: Very common on this show, due to the small voice cast. Heck, the whole cast did multiple characters at one point or another. Specifically:
  • Larry Kenney voices Lion-O and Jackalman.
  • Tygra, Bengali, Wilykat and Monkian are all voiced by Peter Newman.
  • Cheetara, Wilykit and pretty much every female character were voiced by Lynne Lipton.
  • Earle Hyman plays both Panthro and one of the Ancient Spirits of Evil.
  • Earl Hammond voiced Jaga, Mumm-Ra, and Vultureman.
• Actor-Inspired Heroism: A mild case. Panthro was originally intended to be much more tempermental, but Earl Hyman's performance invested him with so much warmth that this trait was toned down considerably.
• Creator's Pest: Peter Lawrence, the head writer of the series, considered Tygra "boring" (and because of it, Lawrence reportedly shipped Cheetara with Lion-O rather than Tygra). Lawrence didn't think too highly of Pumyra either, which is why they both got Put on a Bus (or rather left behind) in the fourth and final season (with Tygra's final appearance forcing him to carry the Idiot Ball).
• Dawson Casting: The Thunderkittens are supposed to be 12, but their voice actors are grown adults, making both sound way too old (Wilykat, in particular, sounds like he's 17).
• Divorced Installment / Dolled-Up Installment: Wanting to have a Thundercats game released for British home computers in time for Christmas, publisher Elite took the mostly-finished Samurai Dawn and stuck Lion-O in the role of main character. This was AFTER Elite had both themselves and developer Paradise Software start developing their own Thundercats games, the latter being released as Beyond the Ice Palace (an Artifact Title from when it was being pitched as a sequel to Ghosts 'n Goblins), the former somehow becoming Bomb Jack II (which still has the show's theme song playing in the C64 port).
• Late Export for You: Though The BBC aired the series in the UK several times in the 1980s and 1990s, this only included episodes from the first season. "Thundercats - Ho!" did get a British VHS release, but as one feature-length episode, not five separate episodes. British fans did not have an officially licenced means of watching the five-part version of "Thundercats - Ho!", nor any of the following episodes, until the series was released on DVD in the 2000s.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Earl Hammond replaced Bob McFadden as Vultureman after a few appearances.
  • Brazilian dub: In later seasons, Ricardo Juarez replaced Francisco Barbosa as Tygra, while André Belizar replaced Sílvio Navas as Mumm-Ra.
• What Could Have Been:
  • At one point there was a script entitled "Goodbye Jaga" that would have been Jaga's final appearance after which his spirit could no longer help Lion-O, but it never materialized.
  • There was apparently talk of a fifth season but it too never materialized.
  • Maa-Mutt was originally going to be called Ravage. It was probably dropped to avoid association with a different evil pet from another 80's cartoon.
  • The sales pitch for the show indicated that the Thunder Cats would have crashed on regular Earth, not Third Earth, specifically in Africa with the series seeming to be set there and in Southwest Asia, with the cats specifically landing in the "African Jungle", no specific country mentioned. The titular characters would have had different names as well such as Lion-L, Jagu-R, Tige-R, Cheet-A, Panth-R and Wily-KT, with there being no indication that Wily Kit existed, with the only team member's name who remained the same being Snarf, portrayed as being like a sheepdog with horns and scaly feet. The Eye of Thundera was originally going to be called the Eye of Xanth and would have allowed the wielder to look into the future as well.

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