Cartoon Network unceremoniously dumps Thundercats Roar online, TV airing occurred in February 2020. No one was happy.

[Jman]

Such is the fate of the franchise that’s been with Toonami since the beginning.

https://www.cartoonnetwork.com/video/thundercats-roar/exodus-part-1-episode.html
 

https://www.cartoonnetwork.com/video/thundercats-roar/exodus-part-2-episode.html
 

The Bean Mouth trend is on its way out, mostly because these shows don’t make money and don’t draw product.  I feel like this is the equivalent of the old Friday Night Death Slot.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Jman

[Distinct Lunatic]

the video on that page won't load.

is this supposed to be a continuation of that 2011 series, or is it that one series with shitty Steven Universe art style

[Daos]

Loaded fine for me. It's honestly not any worse than anything else the network shows. And they get points for using the original 80's themes. 

 

[The1gairon]

YES!!! YES HAHAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

[The1gairon]

I wonder what the hell this is doing in the Toonami section though.

[Jman]

4 minutes ago, elfie said:

I wonder what the hell this is doing in the Toonami section though.

Thundercats is a Toonami vet, so I post direct sequel/spinoffs here.

[katt_goddess]

The 'bean mouth' trend isn't a bad thing per se. As long as it's being applied to original characters / shows, it has a chance because then it's part of that particular show feel.

When you apply it to something like 'ThunderCats' which already existed, has a certain style associated with it that doesn't allow for this weird chibi-fail downgrade animation, and still has living fans of the original series from the 80's, it's going to hit a wall. And this hit a wall with a very audible splat. 

[Daos]

I give the show 1 out of 10 just for having Tygra's theme

 

[Gyaos]

I see this as a good thing. The character design itself is super fucking lazy, as it mimics about three or four cartoons I can name off the top of my head.

[Sketch]

14 hours ago, Jman said:

Such is the fate of the franchise that’s been with Toonami since the beginning.

https://www.cartoonnetwork.com/video/thundercats-roar/exodus-part-1-episode.html
 

https://www.cartoonnetwork.com/video/thundercats-roar/exodus-part-2-episode.html
 

The Bean Mouth trend is on its way out, mostly because these shows don’t make money and don’t draw product.  I feel like this is the equivalent of the old Friday Night Death Slot.

It probably will still air on CN at some point but I expect it to move to HBO Max eventually.

[ben0119]

Oh man, I totally forgot about this!

Well, got about what it deserves, I guess.

One thing I remember was trying to find Youtube videos shitting on it and mostly all I could find were idiots ranting about SJW nonsense.  Not sure how they managed to pull that out of this, but okay.

But yeah, canceled the awesome 2011 series (holy shit it's that old now I feel old,) but then make this crap?!

[OwlChemist81]

Were they TRYING to distract people with this crap and get them to miss the finale of Infinity Train Book 2!?

[mochi]

On 1/10/2020 at 8:09 AM, Jman said:

Such is the fate of the franchise that’s been with Toonami since the beginning.

https://www.cartoonnetwork.com/video/thundercats-roar/exodus-part-1-episode.html
 

https://www.cartoonnetwork.com/video/thundercats-roar/exodus-part-2-episode.html
 

The Bean Mouth trend is on its way out, mostly because these shows don’t make money and don’t draw product.  I feel like this is the equivalent of the old Friday Night Death Slot.

they did the same to the new Megaman cartoon

 

I feel really bad for Thundercats as a franchise

[mochi]

as an aside I feel mixed about this show

 

the team making it clearly had knowledge of the original and were trying to pay homage to it (considering they're using the original OST) and the animation is actually top budget.....but the art is some of the ugliest I've ever seen even, and the writing is very clearly "see Generation Z kids we made this show for you Lol we're Randum!, dank memes brah!" to the point that it's painful to watch

Edited January 11, 2020 by mochi

[Blatch]

I have no horse in this race, but... LOL. I wonder if they deathslotted it because they were actually scared by the bean mouth controversy.

11 hours ago, Sketch said:

It probably will still air on CN at some point but I expect it to move to HBO Max eventually.

Now that I think of it, I wouldn't be shocked if this happens to High Guardian Spice as well. I wouldn't hate that one either, but there's no good reason to stick it on Crunchyroll.

[Sketch]

It's airing in February apparently. Not an official source but they're very reliable.

https://twitter.com/CNschedules/status/1216068188695339008?s=20

[Jman]

It’s not confirmed, but it seems everyone involved is looking for work, which means this is probably a one and done.  
 

Have fun being squeezed between TT Go reruns.

[Sketch]

I watched the first two episodes and I found it decent if not a little too obnoxious at points. If you think highly of Lion-O or Mumm-ra then these versions will be a tough pill. Lion-O is a well-meaning overly enthusiastic buffoon and Mumm-ra is played off as quite a joke despite also being shown as an intimidating threat to be reckoned with. Tygra is the den mother and the butt of most of the abuse, Panthro was "the cool one", Snarf seems to be a random plot device and there's not much else to be said about Cheetara and the twins so far. It abridges the "apslotion" of Thunderra, the escape of the ThunderCats and the pursuit of the mutants. It both drenches itself in the 80s source material while also showing it not amount of reverence. The tone was decidedly goofy even when discussing serious things.The Berbils voiced by Dana (Master Shake) Snyder were my favorite part, they were pretty funny. Patrick (Dio, Franky) Seitz' Mumm-ra was entertaining to me at least. The animation is well done for the zany style that they were going for. It reminded me a lot of the Henry and June segments from KaBlaam as well as O.K. K.O. but the animation is arguably more fluid than those.

[rpgamer]

On 1/11/2020 at 1:29 AM, OwlChemist81 said:

Were they TRYING to distract people with this crap and get them to miss the finale of Infinity Train Book 2!?

Y'know, I only just learned about this show as this second season started. Admittedly haven't paid a whole lot of attention to CN for a bit. But it seemed pretty decent (by CN standards), from what I saw. Bit of a shame it'll probably never get much attention.

[Jman]

Something I’ve noticed and it speaks to how badly the Western animation industry has fallen off, is that the only people defending the show claim to know people who worked on it, or are clearly angling for a job. 

It’s nepotism of the worst sort.

[katt_goddess]

10 hours ago, Jman said:

Something I’ve noticed and it speaks to how badly the Western animation industry has fallen off, is that the only people defending the show claim to know people who worked on it, or are clearly angling for a job. 

It’s nepotism of the worst sort.

In a general defense of this, no one wants to see their friends' project fail or their friends be unemployed because of a project failing. 

Even chibi-fail animation with a script that was already basically written ~30 years ago still takes time and energy. That's time and energy that has no returns unless the project succeeds. When in the midst of a project, having cheerleaders on your side can be the little boost you need to keep going. I can't fault the cheerleaders wanting to be cheerleaders even if I question their public rational [ is it so wrong to just say you want your friend to succeed instead of making up something stupid like 'this is the show I would have wanted to watch rather than the original version that I hate...because it turns out I was only 3 at the time it was on' ? Like people aren't going to find out about that ] . 

As for the angling angle, that's why I hate the whole idea of 'networking' - it's not enough to have talent for a job, you are expected to coat-tail ride on someone else just to get a chance at all. -.-;

[Blatch]

11 hours ago, Jman said:

Something I’ve noticed and it speaks to how badly the Western animation industry has fallen off, is that the only people defending the show claim to know people who worked on it, or are clearly angling for a job. 

It’s nepotism of the worst sort.

The only people I'm seeing promote it are a few English dub VAs who actually worked on the show. They haven't come off too badly.

[Daos]

2 hours ago, katt_goddess said:

In a general defense of this, no one wants to see their friends' project fail or their friends be unemployed because of a project failing. 

Even chibi-fail animation with a script that was already basically written ~30 years ago still takes time and energy. That's time and energy that has no returns unless the project succeeds. When in the midst of a project, having cheerleaders on your side can be the little boost you need to keep going. I can't fault the cheerleaders wanting to be cheerleaders even if I question their public rational [ is it so wrong to just say you want your friend to succeed instead of making up something stupid like 'this is the show I would have wanted to watch rather than the original version that I hate...because it turns out I was only 3 at the time it was on' ? Like people aren't going to find out about that ] . 

As for the angling angle, that's why I hate the whole idea of 'networking' - it's not enough to have talent for a job, you are expected to coat-tail ride on someone else just to get a chance at all. -.-;

Ain't nothin wrong with a little dick ridin

 

[Jman]

11 hours ago, katt_goddess said:

In a general defense of this, no one wants to see their friends' project fail or their friends be unemployed because of a project failing. 

Even chibi-fail animation with a script that was already basically written ~30 years ago still takes time and energy. That's time and energy that has no returns unless the project succeeds. When in the midst of a project, having cheerleaders on your side can be the little boost you need to keep going. I can't fault the cheerleaders wanting to be cheerleaders even if I question their public rational [ is it so wrong to just say you want your friend to succeed instead of making up something stupid like 'this is the show I would have wanted to watch rather than the original version that I hate...because it turns out I was only 3 at the time it was on' ? Like people aren't going to find out about that ] . 

As for the angling angle, that's why I hate the whole idea of 'networking' - it's not enough to have talent for a job, you are expected to coat-tail ride on someone else just to get a chance at all. -.-;

I could rant for hours about the issues with nepotism and insular industries, but you see it in the fact that everything looks the same unless you outsource to Japan, Dungeons and Dragons jokes that no one in the age demo gets because the writers all play it while no one else does, and what is often framed online as veiled threats saying “don’t make fun of our show or you will NEVER get a job in animation.”

And yeah, hindsight is 20/20 and all because 2011 Cats was getting ripped into for its unlikable cast and non-ending.  But people saw this serious show that didn’t get an ending replaced with the overdone Western bean mouth shows which all use the same jokes, have the same people defending it, and then they wonder why everyone is so mean.  It’s gotten to the point where the Teen Titans Go people are going to make an episode entirely about defending Roar from fans of the original and the 2011 remake.

https://heroichollywood.com/teen-titans-go-roasts-thundercats/

When Netflix released its top 10 lists for most viewed shows, absolutely none of the CalArts remakes or Avatar clones made it in any category.  No She-Ra, no Dragon Prince, (but Boss Baby made it, so yeah), etc.  Meanwhile the Colossal Titan mural still greets people leaving Penn Station and Madison Square Garden two months after Anime NYC.

This era of cheap western parodies is coming to an end, and I feel like Thundercats Roar will be the tail end of the trend.  Especially with WarnerMedia now clamping down on their purse strings and Netflix essentially being All Hands on Deck for their originals.

[OwlChemist81]

This is gonna be an absolutely glorious shitshow!

I predict Roar will replace Bakugan: Battle Planet on Sunday mornings at 7 AM...

[rpgamer]

In a surprising turn of events, Jman is wrong. /s

 

No but really. It's actually going to air this weekend.

Still pretty shit, tho.

[Daos]

It aired tonight actually.

[OwlChemist81]

1 hour ago, Daos said:

It aired tonight actually.

Yeah, and it was pretty awful, huh?

[Jman]

4 hours ago, Daos said:

It aired tonight actually.

They didn’t announce a TV airing till a week after the internet launch.  Title updated to reflect that.

[katt_goddess]

Just saw a commercial for it this morning. 

Blech. I'm almost cheering for Mumm-rah to win to just put it out of it's misery.  

[CorbeauKarasu]

wow. that was terrible. i feel like they fundamentally misunderstood the nature of a show like this. i wanted it to be good because i feel like shows like this can work if you can hit a certain mark, but this missed that mark completely. you start in medias res, for one. the exposition was horrendously out of place. a shame, really. id kind of hoped they could find a way to do a new TMNT show like this, sort of like the ninja turtles shorts nickelodeon put out online. meanwhile, TTG is still on the air. sigh.

i would find that palatable if they weren't constantly assassinating robin's character and if absolutely everything about beast boy ween't glaringly offensive.

[Jman]

Western cartoon writers remain the most butthurt, pussyish, sad sack thin skinned egomaniacs in any field I’ve ever seen, and that includes law and politics with a few exceptions.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Jman

[PokeNirvash]

And that's why I stick to anime.

[The1gairon]

4 hours ago, Jman said:

Western cartoon writers remain the most butthurt, pussyish, sad sack thin skinned egomaniacs in any field I’ve ever seen, and that includes law and politics with a few exceptions.

NO!!!

NO!

THEY DID NOT!!

[Sketch]

4 hours ago, Jman said:

Western cartoon writers remain the most butthurt, pussyish, sad sack thin skinned egomaniacs in any field I’ve ever seen, and that includes law and politics with a few exceptions.

Here's the clip and that last joke twists the knife just a bit more.

 

This was from Teen Titan's Go as opposed to ThunderCats Roar. If you didn't know, Michael Jelenic who was the show runner for ThunderCats 2011 became the show runner for Teen Titans Go. So this TTG episode displays that the TTG writers have a better grasp of why people liked the old ThunderCats than the TC Roar writers do.

What floors me about this episode of TTG is many of the jokes would only be caught by people who saw the behind the scenes video for ThunderCats Roar and volatile fan reaction to it.

Also the TTG minus Starfire are mad that Roar isn't "cool" like the old cartoon. The TTG are angry that there is a comedic reboot of an action show. The irony there is certainly not lost on me.

If this was an attempt to win people over, it totally backfired. As amusing as this meta commentary is to me, it only makes Roar look worse and is yet another example of the TTG writers mocking haters. TTG is pretty much the only kids cartoon that repeatedly responds to criticism. I usually find it funny but it tends to come off as petty and childish. They occasionally also points out that TTG is stupid but it doesn't really balance things out. And they dare use Larry Kenny's Lion-O to call out "poopy mouths with poopy opinions"? That's just shitty.

 

 

[Sketch]

On 2/22/2020 at 8:23 PM, CorbeauKarasu said:

wow. that was terrible. i feel like they fundamentally misunderstood the nature of a show like this. i wanted it to be good because i feel like shows like this can work if you can hit a certain mark, but this missed that mark completely. you start in medias res, for one. the exposition was horrendously out of place. a shame, really. id kind of hoped they could find a way to do a new TMNT show like this, sort of like the ninja turtles shorts nickelodeon put out online. meanwhile, TTG is still on the air. sigh.

i would find that palatable if they weren't constantly assassinating robin's character and if absolutely everything about beast boy ween't glaringly offensive.

I did enjoy TMNT Team-Up. It was good nature ribbing of the 80s series and its characters. I just wish the voice cast was better.

[Jman]

24 minutes ago, Sketch said:

Here's the clip and that last joke twists the knife just a bit more.

 

This was from Teen Titan's Go as opposed to ThunderCats Roar. If you didn't know, Michael Jelenic who was the show runner for ThunderCats 2011 became the show runner for Teen Titans Go. So this TTG episode displays that the TTG writers have a better grasp of why people liked the old ThunderCats than the TC Roar writers do.

What floors me about this episode of TTG is many of the jokes would only be caught by people who saw the behind the scenes video for ThunderCats Roar and volatile fan reaction to it.

Also the TTG minus Starfire are mad that Roar isn't "cool" like the old cartoon. The TTG are angry that there is a comedic reboot of an action show. The irony there is certainly not lost on me.

If this was an attempt to win people over, it totally backfired. As amusing as this meta commentary is to me, it only makes Roar look worse and is yet another example of the TTG writers mocking haters. TTG is pretty much the only kids cartoon that repeatedly responds to criticism. I usually find it funny but it tends to come off as petty and childish. They occasionally also points out that TTG is stupid but it doesn't really balance things out. And they dare use Larry Kenny's Lion-O to call out "poopy mouths with poopy opinions"? That's just shitty.

 

 

To quote Jim Cornette, these people are pussies that need their pussies powdered!

[ben0119]

4 hours ago, Sketch said:

Here's the clip and that last joke twists the knife just a bit more.

 

This was from Teen Titan's Go as opposed to ThunderCats Roar. If you didn't know, Michael Jelenic who was the show runner for ThunderCats 2011 became the show runner for Teen Titans Go. So this TTG episode displays that the TTG writers have a better grasp of why people liked the old ThunderCats than the TC Roar writers do.

What floors me about this episode of TTG is many of the jokes would only be caught by people who saw the behind the scenes video for ThunderCats Roar and volatile fan reaction to it.

Also the TTG minus Starfire are mad that Roar isn't "cool" like the old cartoon. The TTG are angry that there is a comedic reboot of an action show. The irony there is certainly not lost on me.

If this was an attempt to win people over, it totally backfired. As amusing as this meta commentary is to me, it only makes Roar look worse and is yet another example of the TTG writers mocking haters. TTG is pretty much the only kids cartoon that repeatedly responds to criticism. I usually find it funny but it tends to come off as petty and childish. They occasionally also points out that TTG is stupid but it doesn't really balance things out. And they dare use Larry Kenny's Lion-O to call out "poopy mouths with poopy opinions"? That's just shitty.

Those bastards!

Wait, why would that Jelenic guy shit talk his own show?

Was that actually him doing the voice?

Edited March 15, 2020 by ben0119

[Sketch]

4 minutes ago, ben0119 said:

Those bastards!

Wait, why would that Jelenic guy shit talk his own show?

Was that actually him doing the voice?

I don't think he was shit talking his ThunderCats show so much as venting that "nobody cared" about it. Which is not true, plenty of people did care. That show got screwed by lack of toy sales and network schenanigans.

Yes that was Larry Kenney as Lion-O and Jelenic was Snarf. Not sure why they didn't have Kenney reprise Snarf as well but maybe Jelenic wanted to do the voice. Kenney also voices Jaga in ThunderCats Roar.

[ben0119]

2 minutes ago, Sketch said:

I don't think he was shit talking his ThunderCats show so much as venting that "nobody cared" about it. Which is not true, plenty of people did care. That show got screwed by lack of toy sales and network schenanigans.

Yes that was Larry Kenney as Lion-O and Jelenic was Snarf. Not sure why they didn't have Kenney reprise Snarf as well but maybe Jelenic wanted to do the voice. Kenney also voices Jaga in ThunderCats Roar.

Oh.  Yeah that was BS how that show got treated.

Oh ok.  I wonder if Larry Kenney has any idea what is going on with the whole controversy and if so how he feels about it.  And I wonder if maybe he agreed to do the voice just because it was his original character, regardless of what was being said.

[Jman]

8 hours ago, ben0119 said:

Oh.  Yeah that was BS how that show got treated.

Oh ok.  I wonder if Larry Kenney has any idea what is going on with the whole controversy and if so how he feels about it.  And I wonder if maybe he agreed to do the voice just because it was his original character, regardless of what was being said.

Most voice actors distance themselves from drama like this.  It’s the writers that are vindictive little pussies who need ass pats to function.  Fuck, this is why the comic book industry is in Goddamn free fall.

[Daos]

12 hours ago, Jman said:

Most voice actors distance themselves from drama like this.  It’s the writers that are vindictive little pussies who need ass pats to function.  Fuck, this is why the comic book industry is in Goddamn free fall.

I was never really into Comic Books so I just know about them from articles and youtube videos really.

My theory on why they went into freefall, other than the awful SJW stuff I keep hearing about them trying to shoehorn in (Superman renounces his US citizenship lulz we suck) is that they constantly write themselves into a corner and say FUCK IT and just reboot the entire thing with a slightly different origin story. It doesn't seem like any of them ever end. They just get boring and get rebooted. This cycle has been repeated for about 90 years now.

BTAS and STAS got it right. So did JLTAS. Not sure why comic books have so much trouble figuring things out now.

[OwlChemist81]

My theory is that the coronavirus is Nature's punishment for ThunderCats Roar!

[The1gairon]

My theory is that the coronavirus was supposed to be the actual end of times, but the old soothsayers didn't predict how far technology and medicine would advance at this point.

[PokeNirvash]

As to be expected from our resident pessimist.

[Jman]

This certainly took a turn.

And now back to forgetting this exists like the rest of the world.

[Jman]

Less than a year later, the show is dead -

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

[mochi]

On 11/26/2020 at 2:10 PM, Jman said:

Less than a year later, the show is dead -

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving.

it was absent from their 2020 network interstitials so this was not surprising