There were few cartoons in the last few decades on Saturday mornings that had the ambition, the high adventure and outright cool factor of Thundarr the Barbarian.  Admittedly, it’s a thinly veiled amalgam of such properties as Conan The Barbarian, Flash Gordon, Kamandi and Star Wars among others.  Nevertheless, it’s still one of my all time favorite toons.  Thundarr was fairly heady stuff for its time, taking place in a post apocalyptic Earth, and incorporating some pretty adult themes, most notably slavery.  In one episode, “Fortress of Fear,” even sexual slavery for Ariel is implied.  Then there’s also the near extinction of mankind and continued endangerment of humans in a very dystopian future.

The opening credits show the Earth of 1994 being utterly decimated by proximity to a rogue planet (more like a comet actually) that splits the moon in two and wipes out the worldwide civilization with earthquakes, tidal waves and volcanoes.  Although you don’t see people running for their lives or being consumed by the elements run amok or anything of the like, it isn’t a very big leap that billions of people were wiped out in one fell swoop…on a kid’s show.  Subsequently, the world still has yet to fully recover from this global cataclysm, 2,000 years later.  The landscape features the ruins of many notable cities and landmarks, including Hollywood, Las Vegas, New York, London and others. 

Humans are scattered, tattered refugees, frequent prey of the various
mutated lifeforms, such as Man Apes, Carocs (Croc Men), werewolves, Hawk
people, and others.  Moreover, they’re at the whim of powerful wizards,
the show’s primary antagonists, who frequently use the humans as slave
labor and playthings.  Thundarr has appointed himself their protector,
and he uses the Sunsword, a magical, lightsaber-meets-torch weapon that
evens the odds for him against any evil sorcerer.  Ariel, the beautiful
and powerful young sorceress, and Ookla, essentially Thundarr’s Wookiee,
are his allies. 

Thundarr was eminently fun because he just
didn’t give a shit about any challenge or threat.  Giant crab, giant
snake, dragon, gigantic reanimated mechanical King Kong relic, army of
mutants, deadly wizard?  Fuck it.  Peel off the Sunsword and get in its
ass, whatever it is.  The fact that he didn’t have much book learning
(“moo-vie?”) only added to his appeal.  This guy was no thinking man’s
hero.  He fucked shit up and there was no arguing with him about it, as
Ariel frequently found out. 

Ariel herself was a worthy equal to
Thundarr.  She was probably a bit overly sexy as well (her weakness was bondage after all), but I wasn’t complaining.  I love the fact that she was an exotic beauty, possibly descended from Chinese, as she states in one episode.  That just wasn’t
seen a lot in cartoons of the time.  And whereas Thundarr only had one
speed, full-tilt-boogie-on-overdrive, Ariel was more cerebral and had a
sense of humor.  Her knowledge of old Earth civilization and customs
often put the show in context.  Her magic was varied and interesting,
usually forming shapes of solid light. 

Ookla was very much
Thundarr’s Chewbacca…as if he had spent his entire life bench pressing
Buicks or something.  He didn’t have a weapon as badass as the
Sunsword (he had an energy bow and arrow he used sometimes).  Whenever
he needed something more than his fists, he’d just rip up a tree or a
boulder or honkin’ piece of metal or a derelict vehicle or something to
club somebody with.  The hairball was crazy strong and a loyal and fun
sidekick.

The variety of the storytelling was also good.  One
episode, “Challenge of the Wizards,” featured a Death Race 2000-style
race between Thundarr and the minions of other wizards for the lives of
some humans.  “Stalker From the Stars” featured the trio going up
against a space vampire alien, “Fortress of Fear” was about Thundarr,
Ariel and Ookla escaping the citadel of an evil wizard, Lord Argoth, and
“Island of the Body Snatchers” was a body swapping adventure with Ariel
and an evil old witch in London.  There were also two good adventures,
“Secret of the Black Pearl” and “Last Train To Doomsday,” where they
combated Gemini, a Darkseid-type of wizard with two faces, one benign
and one evil. 

Jack Kirby even worked on this toon.  While
fellow artist Alex Toth designed most of the primary characters, Kirby
did work on a lot of the design for the reast of the show, including
most of the wizards.  Thundarr and his friends went up against
everything from wizards to mutants to robots.  The show was pure
adventure for every one of the 21 installments.  I only wish, back then
and to this day, that there were more episodes produced. 

The Short History: