Thundarr the Barbarian (1980-1981) – Review

Created by Marvel Comics writer Steve Gerber and produced by animation house Ruby-Spears Productions the Saturday morning cartoon Thundarr the Barbarian may have only thrilled children for two years but forty years later and you will still find many fans of this animated classic, a series that could be considered the precursor to shows like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.

In the history of Saturday Morning Cartoons, one title stands apart as an example of a show striving to give something more challenging to audiences than what was the norm and with Thundarr the Barbarian the people at Ruby-Spears Productions did just that as not only did they make an exciting adventure series they also targeted a more mature audience, and to paraphrase Joe Ruby who once stated, “Shoot high, what kind of kid wants to be talked down to?” this is exactly what they did, but this then prompted the question, “What kind of mature stories are we going to tell?” Well, during the 1970s fantasy was on an upswing with the likes of Frank Frazetta’s amazing paintings of Conan the Barbarian creating a renewed interest in the genre among teens and with the blockbuster hit that was Star Wars the idea of cartoon series dealing with science-fiction and fantasy must have seemed quite obvious, well, at least obvious to these guys. Enter one of the greatest openings to a television series ever, live-action or otherwise.

“Hey, kids, how about we start off with the end of the world?”

“The year, 1994. From out of space, comes a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the moon, unleashing cosmic destruction. Man’s civilization is cast in ruin. Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn. A strange new world rises from the old. A world of savagery, super-science, and sorcery. But one man bursts his bonds to fight for justice. With his companions, Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel, he pits his strength, his courage, and his fabulous Sunsword, against the forces of evil. He is Thundarr, the Barbarian!”

“Now that you are all completely traumatized, on with the show!”

As mentioned in that amazing intro, the hero of this show was a barbarian named Thundarr (Robert Ridgely) who along with his companions, the powerful sorceress Princess Ariel (Nellie Bellflower) and the mighty leonine humanoid Ookla the Mok (Henry Corden), this noble barbarian vowed to free humanity from their enslavement by a variety of evil wizards – it should be noted that we never do come across any good wizards – and this trio travels across a post-apocalyptic world to help whoever and whenever they can. For twenty-one episodes, viewers were treated to some truly stunning locations as Thundarr and company would come across awesome remnants of a now-lost civilization that were so well designed that background artists for this show were all deserving of Emmys as the ruins depicted here were perfect settings for these action-filled adventures.

“Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!”

In their travels, our heroes would encounter a variety of mutants, monsters and wizards that were clearly inspired by Greek mythology, with them fighting off sci-fi interpretations of Janus, Argus, Circe, the cyclops and the Amazons, which added some nice scholarly spice for older viewers who could play “Spot that mythological reference” while watching the show.  Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla would not only fight across North America as they’d also venture down into Mexico and even battled under the shadow of Big Ben in London, England – that our heroes travelled all that distance via horseback makes this feat pretty damn impressive – but as impressive as their travel itinerary was their skills in battle were equally remarkable. Thundarr had his all-powerful Sunsword, a blade made of pure energy that could cut through most materials, and with it, he could also deflect energy attacks from those pesky evil wizards.

Note: The energy blade extends out of the hilt much in the way a certain lightsabre would in a popular space saga film.

If Thundarr’s primary weapon was borrowed from Luke Skywalker his basic persona was more in keeping with the likes of Conan the Barbarian as he pretty much charged into battle against monsters and wizards with a certain amount of savagery, often bellowing out such war cries as “Demon dogs!” or “By the Lords of Light” before opening a can of whoop-ass on his enemies. To balance out this rage-fueled machismo we had Princess Ariel, a sorceress with incredible magical powers. Her backstory is that she was the stepdaughter of an evil wizard and that she learned knowledge of magic and the Earth’s history from his library – this gives her the ability to point out ancient landmarks and technology to Thundarr and Ookla – and it was she who saved her two companions from a life of slavery. In fact, she is easily the more powerful member of this trio as her magic could be used to fire energy bolts to stun people, create magical spheres to imprison her enemies, use light constructs to form bridges or slides to provide access or escape for her and her friends, she also has the power to hypnotize people and can re-animate ancient machinery, hell, at one time she even teleported directly into the lair of an enemy wizard, and that is only a fraction of what we see her magic accomplish.

Why wasn’t this show called Princess Ariel, Sorceress Supreme?

Well, it turns out she has to have her hands free to activate her spells so at one point in a battle we would often hear her cry out “Thundarr, I cannot move” when she finds herself bound by the villain of the day. Sure, the Damsel in Distress trope is a little disappointing here but without it, the two male members of the trio would be pretty much unnecessary and Thundarr himself would be relegated to being Ariel’s boy toy. It should also be noted that this show does try and sneak in a little romance to offset all the action, depicting a bit of unrequited love between Ariel and Thundarr, with the Princess trying to coax Thundarr into admitting that he finds her beautiful while the big dolt acts totally oblivious to this…or is he? One can’t expect much of a “Will they or won’t they” relationship on a Saturday morning cartoon but the one developed between Thundarr and Ariel was rather charming because Thundarr wasn’t this big dumb brute he appeared to be, despite his tendencies to charge into combat without a plan, he’s actually rather charming and witty at times and the fun sarcastic banter between the two of them was a nice counterpoint to all the action and violence found throughout the show. Now, speaking of action and violence this brings us to the third member of the trio, Chewbacca, sorry, I mean Ookla the Mok.

Ookla the Mok seen here doing a little rat-man bashing.

Series creator Steve Gerber wasn’t too keen on the character of Ookla the Mok, he was basically told by the higher-ups to create a Chewbacca-like character to be Thundarr’s faithful companion, and as the third member of the trio, his qualities were a little less decisive. As in the case of Chewbacca, only best pal Thundarr could understand Ookla’s grunts and growls but where Thundarr would often go charging into danger half-cocked our furry friend Ookla was even more apt to smash without thinking and much of that “animalistic fury” was used for comedy – he once smashed the controls of the helicopter out of frustration, but we’re left wondering why his friends would expect him to be able to fly a helicopter in the first place – and his strength ranged from “Hulk Smash” levels of carnage, with him tossing vehicles around like Tinker Toys, to him sometimes having trouble breaking free of simple rope bindings.

“Thundarr, getting out of these types of situations is why I have you and Ookla around.”

Stray Observations:

• In the show’s opening we see the Moon ripped in twain by the passing rogue planet but throughout the series, the Moon simply looks badly cracked to varying degrees, as if the force of gravity has pulled the pieces back together. That is pretty darn cool.
• In the ruins of Manhattan, Thundarr and friends come across a poster for Jaws 9 which was a bit optimistic as the Jaws franchise only made it as far as a fourth movie.
• Gemini and many of his wizard brethren had robotic goons which allowed the writers to skirt the “No killing rule” that hobbled many kid’s shows at the time, thus Thundarr could hack these metal minions apart without regard to Standards and Practices getting all up in their faces about the violence, well, up to a point.
• In the episode “Harvest of Doom” the villains have a red poppy-like flower that knocks a person unconscious, which was most likely inspired by the poppy field in The Wizard of Oz.
• The evil amphibious Amazon usurper commands “Release the Kraken” a line we’d hear a year later in the Ray Harryhausen classic Clash of the Titans.
• In “Valley of the Man-Apes” the remains of the robot Kong from the 1976 remake of King Kong is rebuilt and brought to life, which was a nice treat for film fans.
• River pirate captain Corden’s ship consists of log pontoons for a hull, the deck of an aircraft carrier and the superstructure of medieval castle battlements, how does that even work?  Cartoon physics, I guess?
• The evil sorcerer Gemini looks quite a bit like the DC comic book villain Darkseid, and he even shoots what looks like Omega Beams from his eyes.

Note: The evil wizard Gemini was also the only villain to reoccur, but only once at that, and he could easily have been this show’s Skeletor if the show had lasted.

When it came to creating this show Joe Ruby and Jack Spears took one of Marvel’s best writers Steve Gerber, the man behind such bizarre outing as Howard the Duck, and to aid him on his quest to create this post-apocalyptic fantasy world the legendary comic book writer-artist Jack Kirby and equally amazing Alex Toth were given jobs as production designers for the show. If there is any great takeaway from this series it’s on how simply gorgeous it all looked, almost every background painting is a bloody work of art that would look amazing hanging on anyone’s wall or really cool mural on the side of a van. Jack Kirby’s style is quite apparent in the designs of wizards, with mutants and secondary characters looking like they’d be at home in his “The Fourth World” comics on either New Genesis or Apokolips, which does explain why Gemini looked so much like Darkseid. On the other hand, Alex Toth brought a very pulp fantasy feel to the proceedings with not only nods to Conan the Barbarian but to the likes of Flash Gordon and John Carter of Mars as well, his and Kirby’s work here is what truly elevated the show far above its contemporaries.

A Titan to draw a titan!

In an era of limited animation Ruby-Spears Productions bucked the trend for Thundarr the Barbarian because even though it recycled animation, a cost-saving measure all animation houses used at the time, it also provided viewers with some truly dynamic action with Thundarr and his friends battling across a plethora of spectacular locals while blasting away at a variety of villains, and the studio even went so far as to use the rotoscoping technique to make the horseback riding sequences look even more realistic. Unfortunately, the action and violence of this show may have been a little too good as Standards and Practices at the time were quite hesitant to let characters even punch each other let alone kill a villain, something you would expect to see on any adventure show, and when you consider the ludicrousness of Batman not being allowed to throw a punch on Superfriends double that with the concerns they must have had with a sword-wielding barbarian, even if the minions he was fighting were robots and monsters. It was this issue, not its ratings, that saw Thundarr the Barbarian come to an untimely end after only two seasons, with Ruby-Spears Productions going on to produce cartoons like The Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo Show with Hanna-Barbera while relegating Thundarr to the dustbin of history. If a show ever deserved a revival it is this one and maybe someday a Netflix original series based on Thundarr the Barbarian will be born and a whole new generation will be reached and once again homes will ring out with the cry of “Demon dogs!”

Note: That this show didn’t get a plethora of cool action figures and amazing playsets is a crime all on its own, all kids of the time ended up with was three “action” figures and one bloody board game.