Thundarr the Barbarian

 

I haven't had time to blog very much, but there a good number of other adventure-oriented Saturday morning shows in the sixities and seventies which are of note.

It was the sixties, slightly before my time, that were the heyday of the action-adenture cartoon, it seems, starting with Jonny Quest, and following through with HB's Space Ghost, Dino Boy, Herculoids, Mightor, Filmation's Journey to the Center of the Earth, not to mention the numerous super-hero shows Filmation and HB produced.

I f I'd know them them then, many of them would have been among my all-time favorites. Space Ghost and Herculoids did have re-runs in 1977, and brand-new episodes on the Space-Stars show in 1981, but more about all this in a later post.

The sometimes violent nature of these shows apparently resuted in the their censorship, and the studios drifted toward comedic shows

The seventies did have their share of action adventure, fortunately for me.

But was during the eighties that the above show premeired, on ABC, and produced by Ruby-Spears, former workers at HB. They also scripted the Scooby-esque teen mystery series Fangface, and Kroft's teen farce Magic Mongo. Did they also script Kroft's Wonder Bug, a live action take off on HB's Speed Buggy? Maybe, as the theme of he intrpid group of teens and their hunorous mascot certainly had become a staple by then.

But Thundarr the Barbarian was a different type of show, something that looked and felt like it belonged back in the raw, primal world of sixties action-adventure. I was almost to the point of not watching Saurday Morning shows regularly at the time, and it was not, as remember, the one show I was determined not to miss every weekend; as I recall that honor migh have belonged to Filmation's Blackstar. But this was the cartoon, that, in hindsite, was more innovative, and whose plots were more of the serious sci-fi/fantasy varity, and seemed geared more toward older teens and adults. In fact, Alex Toth, who had done the production art for some of the fantsy adventure toons of sixties also worked on the character designs for Thundarr.

Thundarr took place, not in the mist-shrouded past, like Conan's Hyborian age, as one might have expected, but in a post-apocalyptic future. The series intro informed viewers that in Thundarr's universe, a meteor had passed between the earth and the moon in the year 1994, unleashing a world-wide cataclysm. Humanity survived however, as a thousand years later, ''a strange new world rises from the old.'' This new world was overrun by wizards who employed a strange hybrid of sorcery and super-science, mutant monsters, weird races, and warring human tribes. While cruelty and injustice dominated this strange world, ''one man bursts his bonds to fight for freedom.'' The series chronicled the adventures of this man, Thundarr, who appeared rather like a blond Conan, and who wielded his  flaming ''sun-sword' against the forces of evil. His companions were Princess Arial, and Ookla the Moch, a member of a race of peacable sentient creatures with fur and fangs. Arial, a skilled magic user, and educated in the history of the anicients, was able to pit her brains and sorcery against the numerous bizarre menaces the trio faced. They crossed paths with many evil wizards.


 One semi-recocuring for as the wizard Gemini, who was literally two faced; the villains cyberbetic head could swivel to alter his contenance at will. The esign of Gemini was based on the work of famed comic artist Jack Kirby, and it showed. Other foes included inhuman races like the rat-like Groundlings and the reptilian Carocs, monsters such as furred and spotted serpents with butterfly antenue, and giant crustaceans. On one accasion, Thundarr and company ran afoul of a monster from another world.

The adventuring trio  often encountered remnants of twentieh-century culture, and the educated Arial would need to explain to Thundarr the ways of the ancients, and how to pronounce certain twentieth-century words. Upon encountering the ruins of New York City, Thundarr remarks that the ancient humans must have had wings.

At first glance, the chief inspirations for Thundarr appear to have been Robert E. Howard's Conan, and perhaps the other barbarians like Thongor and Brakk, invented by Howard's imitators. The sixties and seventies had seen a boom in barbarian-themed literature and comics.

However, there is a far more likely source to have directly inspired this series, one that I don't think many viewers were aware of.

This is a realtively obscure comic book title put out by Gold Key during the early seventies entitled Mighty Samson. If you've never heard of it, then no, it's not the Biblical character. Samson was another barbarian-type hero, but instead of inhabiting some long ago sorcerous age, his adventures took place, much like Thundarr's, in a post-apocalyptic future overrun by mutant monsters and warring tribes. Samson's companion were also and educated young woman, as well as a doctor/scientist, and they lived among the remnants of New York--now called N'Yark, centuries after the world had been devestated by a nuclear holacaust. They, too, frequently referred to the people of our own time as ''the ancients.'' And the learned young woman would have explain the ancient words' pronunciation to Samson. The covers of Samson typically featured the barbarian locked in combat with some hideously muted monstrosity.

 

Coincidence--to did Thundarr owe his existence to this earlier comic series?

 

 

Fortunately for its fans, the Thundarr series was reently released on DVD, and action figures have been produced of the leading trio of characters.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhAobPugvsk

above is the link to Thundarr's intro. The pic of one of the Samson covers was in the wrong place, and tried to delete it, but it didn't work, then it posted twice. Can't repair the damage, sorry about that.