Thundarr the Barbarian

The year 1980, from out of the void of Saturday morning tv comes a runaway show, hurtling between the Superfriends and the latest Scooby Doo revamp. It's a show of savagery, super science, and sorcery. But this show burst its bonds to fight for freedom. With his companions Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel, he pits his strength, his courage and his fabulous Sun Sword against the forces of boring cartoons. He is Thundarr the Barbarian!

Thundarr was the greatest adventure cartoon of its day. Combining great characters with an imaginative setting and incorporating designs from such masters as Alex Toth and Jack Kirby, it transcended the usual Saturday morning fare. It boasted writing from comic book greats Steve Gerber and Martin Pasko, and direction from Doug Wildey, creator of Jonny Quest. The only strike against it was the strict guidelines from network censors tended to hamstring the action; but, the creators found interesting ways to deal with the handicap.

Thundarr is the big dumb barbarian who punches first and asks questions later. Ookla is the leonine biped who growls and smashes things. Ariel is the Asian sorceress with a knowledge of the lost past and is the voice of wisdom and reason.

The world is a post-cataclysmic Earth, with long dead cities and devastated lands. It is populated by humans, mutants and evil sorcerers/scientists. There are giant, savage beasts and monstrous war machines. What's not to like?

The late 70's/early 80's cartoon adventure shows were a pretty tame lot. The Superfriends had moments, particularly Challenge of the Superfriends, and Filmation's Tarzan and Batman shows were pretty entertaining; but nothing could hold a candle to Thundarr. It was so imaginative and so much fun you had to watch it. Sure it borrowed/stole from every sci-fi idea under the sun, but so did Star Wars and other works of print and celluloid sci-fi. There are no original stories; just retellings. Yes, the Sun Sword looked like a lightsabre and many of the villains conjured up Darth Vader, but Flash Gordon had flaming swords in the 30's and Vader bore close resemblance to the Lightning, from the serial Fighting Devil Dogs.

One of my great pleasures is watching the episodes on tape, along with Jonny Quest and Batman, the Animated series. All are great adventures, put together by master craftsmen. Too bad all cartoons, and even live shows, don't reach this level of quality. Now where's the DVD collection?

....even if it did borrow a lot of concepts from the popular Star Wars movies. Thundarr with his Sun Sword (lightsaber), wise cracking Princess Ariel (Princess Leia) and a large hairy, growling companion, Ookla the Mok (Chewbacca).

All these aside, it was still a great series. I liked how the items that are so common in our world, become totally new things in the Devastated Future World. It was also kind of interesting to see the new landscapes and realize that they were actually standing in ruined Los Angeles, Washington D.C., etc.

It was somewhat hampered by the cheap animation common to Cartoon Series of the day. I would love to see the series re-made with today's animation techniques. I'm sure it would be even more astonishing.

This had to be one of the best animated shows of the early 1980's. The plot was pretty simple; a barbarian, a witch and a mutant creature known as a mock travel across the United States a thousand years after a disaster destroys most of the world. They go around fighting wizards and other assorted creatures in hopes of bringing order back to the world. This main thing I loved about this show was the fact that it wasn't like most of the animated shows at the time that felt they had to give a weekly ethics lesson. This show was just pure action from start to finish and it was just great entertainment without any hidden messages. I think this show will always stand the test of time and will always be recognized as a great action/adventure series.

Ahh, another Saturday morning gem. I liked (and still like) cartoons from my childhood like this one because they never talked down to kids. This series was a post-apocalyptic sword-and-sorcery epic, and it was treated exactly as such. There was some great animation and the post-apocalyptic backgrounds were just amazing. And Thundarr had the ultimate weapon--a sunsword! I really like the fact that there were no cute sidekicks here. There was Ariel, the sorceress, who was the smartest in the bunch. And then there was Ookla the Mok, one of the most awesome sidekicks ever to fight for the cause of good. You just had to admire his "horse" as well! Cartoon Network aired this one for a while, and I wish they would air it again.

I'll never forget the first time I saw Thundarr. My mom actually watched it with me out of fear it my be some new wave of cartoon that would prove too mature for my still immature sensibilities. I won out and got to keep watching as the action proved not to much for me to indulge in. Thundarr was a fresh landscape for me. I hadn't really immersed myself in the "Post-Apocalptic" genre of scifi but this and a little Mad Max soon got me on my way. The stories were fantastic and though I am an animation snob now in my adulthood, back then I could really care less about the nuances in quality. It was just good ole fashion fun. I will say this though I remember very few of the actual episode story lines I remember a sense of sadness for the characters after the show ends. The idea that these rag tag warriors would be forever traversing the Earth, fighting for their lives and the lives of others and with the possibility of never knowing peace or true joy seemed very likely. I guess I was still too much the idealistic scifi dreamer to realize this was the only world Thundarr knew and would live in until society advanced beyond the means they existed in.