Letters from the ThunderCat Staff

As you can see from the date I received each email, I have been successful locating all of these people first. The only exception is Peter Lawrence who found us. :-) Here are some of the emails I thought most ThunderCat fans would find interesting.

My goal in looking for these people was to find out once and for all if there were hints of something between Lion-O and Cheetara. You can read the responses and decide for yourself how to answer that question. Heh heh heh! ::shrugs:: I guess I am a purist, after all, if the definition of a purist is someone who wants to see L&C together because of the OVERWHELMING evidence in all four seasons of episodes. :-P

January 25, 2002 (Note: Mr. Peter Lawrence means Pumyra when he writes Pumm-Ra. This email means more to me than I can put into words, since Peter is my favorite ThunderCat writer.)

You asked about Tygra, Pumm-ra and possible romance ... Tough questions - for
you have to remember that I wrote and edited this show 15-odd years ago. Not
only that but we worked at such a frenetic pace - 3, 4, sometimes 5 scripts a
week ... editing with scissors and tape because the studio was too mean to
gear up to computers!* Plus, while we were storming through ThunderCats, we
were developing SilverHawks, and I had a whole other career as a
screenwriter.

It was insane.

*I managed to get them onto PC's when we fired up SilverHawks, so that means
the first 65 T/Cats were all typewriters and tape. Even then, you'd be amazed at
how many writers resisted computers. Never mind bulletin boards
and electronic transfers. Those were Mumm-ra's evil work.

Remember, too, that I came into ThunderCats at about Episode #4, though Len
Starr and his guys had written a few more which I later edited, rewrote and
so on. So, Len had already set many of the basic ideas. I could - and did -
develop them, but the groundwork was in place. And, in truth, some of the
original team were initially resistant. Who was this new guy who appeared in
the office and began telling them what and how to write?! Fortunately, once
I'd won Bill Overgard's confidence, they fell in line. Muttered and moaned a
bit, but worked pretty well.

Also, I was extraordinarily naive. I knew nothing about the Merchandising
and Licensing, and the pressure which would be brought to bear on us to
invent new characters, situations, creatures and vehicles to be marketed.

I thought I was simply trying to write a quasi-mythological action adventure,
hopefully with some good story-telling and - wherever possible - original
dialogue. By and large, I must admit, in the early days, we were able to
keep it that way. But, over time, other factors entered the equation.

We all owe Lee Dannacher for her efforts. She was a kind of ThunderCat
Guardian - very protective of the material, the characters, the concept; and
particularly protective of Cheetara.

So ... keep this in mind when I try to answer your specific
questions.

1. I never really liked Tygra. The concept for his character was OK, but it
was tough to use him in any interesting way. And how in Thundera are you
supposed to write action for someone who can turn himself invisible ... I
mean, what on Third Earth is happening while he's invisible? How can you
convey that to the audience?

In short, he was tough to warm up to and I was happy to strand him for a
while.

2. Pumm-ra. Sadly, he was conceived in toyworld - and, really, we needed
another ThunderCat like Mumm-ra needs an iPod. It was hard enough keeping
the man cast all involved, giving them all significant roles, without adding
characters left, right and center. And that touches on another interesting -
at least, I hope it's interesting - point. Every time I commissioned a
writer, his or her first move was to invent a new character - because, of
course, it's easier to write about someone you invent than to figure out how
to take existing characters to new dramatic places. It was fine when
wonderful Bill Overgard ... my late, great friend ... came up with new
personalities. He had so much imagination that it worked, and we could use
those characters again. But some of the other additions weren't so
successful. Poor Pumm-ra. I can't remember a single defining characteristic.

3. Romance and Cheetara. Man, I could be headed for dangerous waters, but
here goes. First of all, I can't stand and don't believe the conventional
network/TV exec. wisdom that there are Boys' Shows and Girls' Shows. In my
opinion - never quite as humble as it should be, no doubt - the reason that
so-called Boys' Shows don't work for girls is that the writers are too lazy
to figure out a good story and interesting characters. They rely on
wall-to-wall action - which, in recent years, has become wall-to-wall
violence. Most girls of this audience age are smarter, more demanding, or at
least more mature, than the boys and they are turned off by the mindless
action.

On the other hand, if you come up with an interesting story and write your
characters and dialogue so that they have more than one dimension, you'll win
over the girl audience. Now throw in the action - not meaningless punch and
kick, but something dramatic and, hopefully, original in choreography and
concept - and you'll get the boys, too.

Whatever anyone says, I still believe this general theory is true - and we
proved it on ThunderCats. SilverHawks, Peter Pan & the Pirates and The Real
Adventures Of Jonny Quest. They all had a strong girls' audience. I hope,
too, this approach will be vindicated in our latest projects. I guess we'll
see.

So, if you're dealing with men and women ... young or old ... kids or teens
... surely there is always an overtone of romance, or possible romance? It
may only be the feeling that, one day ... down the line ... long after the
show is over ... but the hint that there may be something there is intriguing.

Originally, Cheetara and Tygra might have had something going but, as we've
seen Tygra was a pretty boring cat. Wouldn't Lion-o have been more
interesting to her? The question you might ask, of course, is what about the
age difference? Tygra, Panthro and Cheetara were fully adult. Lion-o was on
the threshold of adulthood. Hmmmmmmmmmm. I'll leave these observations at
that - but I think you should address the same question to Lee Dannacher and
see what she says. In so many ways, Cheetara was her alter ego.

Well, this is probably way more information than you ever wanted or needed -


Adios,

Peter L

February 25, 2002 (Lee Dannacher - producer of ThunderCats)

Once again its taken me a bit of time to respond to your last email and I
apologize. I've had some traveling to do -- and other, well, things have
gotten in the way. So:

First of all, congratulations on having a baby! That is wonderful news (and
selfish, I guess, because I immediately thought to myself - oh good, sure to
be another great little ThunderCat fan! Seems you're getting me hooked on my
own show again!).

Yes, yes - I loved your exposition of all the impressions CHEETARA has made
on you and why. It's been a long time since I've thought about her
individually and I've been hit with some fond memories of first bringing her
to life and then continually molding her character as the series progressed.
Peter is right in a way, I did become Cheetara's "guardian" -- but that falls
far short of actually thinking of her as my alter-ego (I only wish I
exhibited all of the strong character points you listed so well!).

Cutting to the chase for this email, I believe there may be a strong chance
-- should we have continued the series -- that Cheetara and LION-O would have
had a romantic "interlude", of sorts. It would have been great fun to
develop that idea and I can honestly tell you, until Peter and I, along with
our team, actually got into something like that, I would be hard pressed to
say right now exactly where we would have gone with it. I can say,
unequivocally though, that I would never have imagined Cheetara and Tygra
becoming "involved". Their personalities and strengths just don't mesh for
any sort of relationship other than as colleagues. So, I'm going to have to
do a bit more "memory lane" exercises before responding further-- and I'm
afraid you definately have the advantage on me here, since I haven't seen any
of the episodes for probably 10 years....isn't that sad?

Oh - you were right, too (sorry for the confusion). There were just the 130
episodes...the last 5, I believe, were a continuing storyline ( or was it the
first 5 of the second series of 65??) and I had been thinking of those as
"extra". Sorry.

By the way: could you give me any TCats websites I may visit to refresh my
memory?

Thanks. Again - I'm really appreciative of your liking our work so
much! And, of course, now you've got me thinking of bringing them all back
to life.....

Take care -
All best, Lee.

December 1, 2001 - Kimberly Morris (email to Lady Thundera - I lost my emails from her when my computer crashed back in March. ARGH!!)

Thanks for writing. I can only answer your questions based on my own
experiences as a writer for the series - and remember - it's been many years.
But as I recall, even though there was nothing specific in the writer's bible
regarding a romance between Cheetara and Lion-O - it always seemed to find
its way into the scripts as subtext. Perhaps because of all the "mythic"
themes that were woven into the series - the "boy becomes a man", the "man
becomes a king", the "king becomes a leader," etc. Classic story telling
tradition would seem to dictate that the narrative arc of a coming of age
story would include romance and since the only female in the cast was
Cheetara, romantic allusions seemed almost unavoidable.

Re: Goodbye Jaga - I was commissioned to write the script as an ending to the
series. In my script, Lion-O faces some final test of strength, leadership,
wisdom, etc. and acquits himself with honor. Thus, Jaga tells him it is time
for him to assume the full mantle of leadership and let Jaga return to the
spirit world to rest. However, the production company decided they didn't
want to end the series that way and went with a different script. I still
like my script, though, so I list it on my credit page.

Hope I've answered all your questions and I'm so glad you are still enjoying
the series. I'm always interested in where people are and how they found me.
If you are a student, please send your school librarian to my web page and
let her know that I am available as a school speaker.

Thanks again for your interest and your thoughtful questions,
Sincerely,
www.kimberlymorris.com

Kimberly Morris

July 2, 2002 - J. Larry Carroll (this email has nothing to do with L&C but is interesting. I have since asked Mr. Carroll about my fave couple. Yellow lines are my comments.)

I wanted to let you know how much I LOVE the episodes you wrote for ThunderCats. "Totem of Dera", "The Last Day", and "Leah" are some of my favorite storylines.

Thanks! It is always great to hear from a fan. And especially great that the show still speaks to an audience after all these years.

Do you remember your general opinions on the characters of ThunderCats? I know it's been around 15 years since you worked on them.

I enjoyed writing all the characters -- and writing within the Thundercat universe. I remember being particularly fond of Panthro, Wilykit and Wilycat. We also had really great guest stars -- and terrific villains.

My first contact with the show's producers was writing for their Comic Strip series. (I wrote a number of Camp Mini-Mon and Tigershark episodes.) I remember being very pleased that Peter Lawrence thought enough of my work to ask me to write for Thundercats as well.

Do you have any of your original scripts from the show?

I'm sure I probably do... knowing exactly where I have them, well, that's another matter.

What projects are you working on currently?

I have a new screenplay making the rounds. Plus I am currently writing a pilot script for a potential new show. As well as pitching series concepts to various studios. All are live action, crime dramas. I haven't worked in animation in some years. (But I did love it while I was doing it.)

And one last question: Do you mind if I post your response on my ThunderCat site?

Not at all. And, again, thanks for all the support and enthusiasm.

-- J. Larry Carroll

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