Episode 12: Battle of the Barbarians

Episode 12: Battle of the Barbarians.

WARNING: this episode depicts outdated racial stereotypes!

An incredibly racially insensitive Fu Manchu inspired wizard named Kublai searches the ruins of a cartoonishly depicted Chinatown for “the Golden scepter of the Yangtzee”, disintegrating Chinese restaurants with his mind gem laser and menacing the local Asians with samurai robots. Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla arrive to help and Ariel recognizes her own Asian ancestry in the locale as Thundarr makes short work of the samuraibots. With Ookla and Ariel’s help Kublai is driven to retreat, and the heroes are welcomed to a Chinese dinner by the unfortunately stereotypical Asian village elder. The elder tells the heroes of Kublai’s intention to destroy the Chinatown village in order to find the Golden scepter rumored to be hidden there, and Thundarr vows to ride out and surprise attack Kublai despite Ariel’s sound advice to simply wait for the wizard to attack again.

Kublai figures he needs a barbarian of his own to fight Thundarr, so he goes to a backwoods diner and finds a claw-handed barbarian named Zogar who is kicking the asses of all the other mutant barbarians and Moks in the joint. Kublai appeals to Zogar’s vanity by challenging him to best the world’s greatest barbarian — Thundarr— and offers him a lot of treasure to sweeten the deal. As the heroes ride by night Zogar attacks them from the trees with his pet sabertooth tiger, and Ariel finds herself the victim of her own magic when Zogar’s claw directs it back on her. Ookla leaps at Zogar and misses, hitting Thundarr instead, and they both go tumbling off a cliff, which spares them, at least temporarily, from Zogar’s wrath. Zogar takes the unconscious Ariel captive as a way of leading Thundarr and Ookla into a slime pit trap and soon things look very dire indeed for our heroes.

Impatient Zogar stupidly throws a boulder to Ookla as a way of making the heroes sink faster into the slime then goes off to collect his reward from Kublai instead of making sure the heroes actually die. This allows Ookla to knock down a tree with the boulder and assure their escape, and the heroes hastily give chase without bothering to fully untie Ariel. Thundarr catches up with Zogar and nearly bests him, but Kublai, who has been watching this all transpire via magic mirror, teleports Zogar to the safety of his lair. Kublai chastises Zogar for failing to kill Thundarr and makes him dance to lasers shot from his mind gem, but Zogar convinces Kublai to grant him a weapon to match Thundarr’s sun sword, so Koblai busts out a magic trident for the barbarian to wield.

The heroes return to the Chinatown village but Zogar appears via magic portal and engages Thundarr in battle with his sweet new trident. Kublai shows up via hoversled and magically transforms one of the local buildings into a Chinese dragon and instructs it to uncover the Golden scepter of Yangtzee by destroying the village with fire. The heroes face off against the dragon but during the battle hidden tunnels under the village are revealed and Kublai surmises that there is where the Golden scepter will be found. Ariel imbues Thundarr’s sun sword with magic and directs him to throw it at the dragon, which inexplicably turns the dragon back into a piece of classic Chinese architecture. Kublai finds the Golden scepter in an abandoned sewer station but Ariel knocks it from his hand with magic and Thundarr gets hold of it, using its magic to defeat Kublai.

The heroes and the grateful Asian stereotypes celebrate with a Chinese meal, ending with Ookla getting a fortune cookie that says his melodious voice and sweet disposition is the envy of others, which is hilariously ironic as Ookla only growls and is violent. Everyone laughs and Ookla smashes the table ruining the meal, which everyone thinks is even more hilarious.

If you can look past the outdated and harmful cultural attitudes this one is a real hoot that keeps you guessing at every turn, and the Kirby-heavy design of Zogar helps ease the sting of racism that permeates nearly every frame. 5 stars.

Ookla discovers the ancient art of eating with chopsticks!

Well this is rather unfortunate.

Our heroes battle a dragon in the ruins of Chinatown USA.

Episode 11: Portal Into Time

Episode 11: Portal Into Time. Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla are enjoying a nice wizard-free campfire when they are attacked by toad Vikings in laser mounted tanks who are making for the nearby mountains where there lies a human fort, the Alamo. Drones emerge from the Alamo to fend off the attackers but the drones ultimately fail, forcing the heroes to join in the Alamo’s defense. The heroes destroy the toad Vikings tanks and drive them away, Ariel issuing a pithy “remember the Alamo” with her magic, and cowboys emerge from the fort to thank them for their help. The cowboy leader, Cardath, explains that their “guardian”, a giant computer of some sort that controls the drones, was stolen from a wizard named Crom (a name shamelessly lifted from Conan mythos) and has never failed them before this attack. Ariel determines that the computer failed due to a burnt out circuit and that they’d have to travel back in time 2000 years to replace it. Thankfully evil wizard Crom has a “moon dial” that allows him to travel back in time to steal weapons, so naturally the heroes elect to infiltrate Crom’s fortress to use this time portal and get the spare part.

The heroes find the fortress at the bottom of a stone quarry and after a brief tussle with a simian roof guard gain easy access to the lair. They find the moon dial chamber conveniently deserted and Ariel uses her magic to fire up the time machine. They are about to ride their steeds into the past when Crom shows up and fires some magic at them, but it doesn’t stop the heroes from entering the portal and ending up in a busy intersection of a non-apocalyptic city of the ancient past, presumably 1980. A traffic cop gives the time travelers a hard time as motorists gawk in amazement at them, but things get even crazier when Crom comes through the portal and uses magic to turn a city bus into a giant, Thundarr-eating monster at the pulse-pounding commercial break.

Crom foolishly teleports away leaving Thundarr to escape the jaws of the bus beast, and the heroes rally to save hapless pedestrians, including a blonde teenage girl, from the mecha monster. Ookla has shenanigans with a working fire hydrant to remind us that Moks hate water and Thundarr guts the bus beast by jumping on it from a rooftop and riding down its length with his sun sword. The teenage girl, Samantha, takes the time travelers back to her suburban home for milk and cookies and helps them find a spare circuit by locating a computer factory — which really blows Thundarr’s mind — in the phone book. Ookla enjoys a children’s television program hosted by a dubious character named Koo Koo the Clown, Thundarr struggles with the front door lock, and the heroes and Samantha set off on horseback to the Guardian computer factory. They gain access to the abandoned factory and after Thundarr and Ookla are perplexed by an escalator they find the same Guardian computer that will be defending the Alamo in 2000 years, which causes Thundarr to struggle with the concept of time paradoxes. Ariel locates the circuit they need which triggers an alarm and draws the attention of security guards, but Ookla scares them off by threatening to crush them with the Guardian computer. The heroes rush back to the time portal, drop Samantha off with the harried crossing guard despite her appeals to go with them, and travel through time back to their beloved post apocalyptic hellscape.

They find Crom’s fortress deserted as he is no doubt off attacking the undefended Alamo, and Thundarr destroys the moon dial so Crom can no longer steal weapons from the past. The heroes race to the Alamo to find that the cowardly cowboys have already surrendered to Crom and his soldiers, but Thundarr tackles Crom and Ariel puts the new circuit into the Guardian computer, reactivating it. Thundarr makes the pinned down Crom watch as his forces are defeated easily by the drones, and Ariel sends Crom away with her magic. With peace restored Thundarr is anxious to be on their way, but Ariel suggests they rest — after all, she says, they just won the battle of the Alamo.

Who doesn’t love a rollicking, fish out of water time travel adventure? And who doesn’t remember the Alamo? An enjoyably comedic entry that delivers laffs along with the thrills. 5 stars.

Ariel fires up the time machine!

Thundarr runs afoul of Crom’s bus beast!

Ookla discovers the ancient pleasures of cookies and milk.

Episode 10: Stalker from the Stars

Episode 10: Stalker from the Stars. Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla are traveling a snowy and treacherous mountain range when a flaming object falls from the sky and melts the ice bridge they were crossing, sending Ookla, who was already suffering a cold, tumbling down to a mountain ledge. Thundarr brachiates down some icicles to help Ookla, having to face off with an “ice tiger” that emerges suddenly from a cave. Thundarr inhumanely cuts off the ice tiger’s claws with his sun sword and sends the poor animal tumbling off the mountain, and Ariel pulls them back up to the pass with a lasso made from magic. They seek shelter from the cold, the mystery of what fell from the sky haunting Ariel.

Miraculously surviving the fall, the ice tiger approaches the sky-fallen object — some sort of alien spaceship — and is snared in a cocoon that shoots from it and a giant salamander-like alien burrows away from the ship into the ice (I think). Meanwhile the heroes come upon an abandoned weather station which is manned by an Eskimo girl in a parka named Mina, and when Ookla sneezes so hard that his snot breaks down the station door, the Eskimo girl agrees to take them to her village which is an old amusement park buried in an ice cave. Ookla is served nourishing soup from the kindly village elder, but the hospitality is ruined when the alien creature breaks through the ground and cocoons the elder. Thundarr and Ariel try to free the elder but neither magic nor sun sword have any affect on the alien’s cocoon and it absconds with the elder back into the frozen ground.

Thundarr organizes a search party of torch-wielding villagers to search for the alien, but it only results in the poor villagers being captured at various carnival attractions. The heroes and Mina search the Tunnel of Love attraction and Ariel remarks that it must have been a very romantic place in ancient times, but old softie Thundarr only sees darkness and evil. The alien appears and captures Mina, so the heroes follow its burrowing tracks to the Funhouse attraction. Ookla is attacked by the alien in the room of mirrors but manages to escape via his powerful sneeze, only to rejoin his friends and be attacked again in a room full of monster statues. All seems lost for the heroes as they struggle against the alien’s cocoon and we go to a commercial break.

Ookla breaks Thundarr free of the alien’s cocoon by throwing a mummy statue at it, and Ariel frees herself and Ookla with magic. Thundarr dodges the alien’s eye lasers and Ookla goes to smash it with a Wolfman statue, but he sneezes on the alien which proves more effective in driving it away. Thundarr questions why the alien is stealing live humans, and Ariel uses a Dracula statue to illustrate her belief that the alien is vampiric by nature. They go to warn the villagers but find they are all gone, and Ariel, after admonishing Ookla for sneezing loudly, is ensnared by the alien and lifted up on to a roller coaster. Thundarr and Ookla ride the roller coaster to battle the alien, but it escapes with Ariel into an ice tunnel.

The alien brings Ariel back to its ship and deposits her in a chamber with the cocooned villagers, but Ariel uses her magic to free herself from the cocoon which you think she would have done earlier. The alien chases Ariel around the ship but she finds a portal, managing to escape the ship right as Thundarr and Ookla miraculously arrive via their trusty steeds. The ship starts to fly off and Thundarr jumps on to it to save the villagers, getting inside and battling the weakened alien as Ariel and Ookla watch frustrated from the ground. The ship crashes back down to earth and Thundarr and the alien tumble out, and the alien uses its lasers to somehow animate an old snow plow and make it attack Thundarr. That proves ineffective against Thundarr’s sun sword and the heroes manage to trap the alien in an old phone booth, and Ariel surmises the alien was weakened when it caught Ookla’s cold.

The heroes free the villagers from their cocoons and Ariel uses her magic to send the alien and its ship back in to space which seems a tad irresponsible. Thundarr suggests they get going for more adventures but newly infected Ariel sneezes, feeling in no condition to travel.

Shades of both the Thing and my favorite movie of all time Alien here, which added to the amusement park and classic monster elements make this one for the history books. 5 stars.

Thundarr faces the Ice Tiger!

Ookla enjoys some hot nourishment and the promise of popcorn.

Ookla employs a mummy for an unusual purpose!

Ariel references the Prince of Darkness!

Episode 9 Valley of the Man-Apes

Episode 9 Valley of the Man-Apes

Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla’s view of a peaceful valley is ruined by the sight of a group of ditch-digging Man-apes, who have successfully recovered the hand of a giant robotic gorilla. The Man-ape leader Simias orders the apes to attack the spying heroes, and Ookla is thrown into a river gorge. Thundarr and Ariel go down into the gorge to save Ookla, and Simias orders his apes to forget about the humans and get back to the task of making “the Mighty One” whole again.

In the river gorge Thundarr and Ariel build a raft to follow after Ookla, eventually finding him being held prisoner in a walled-off city populated by Jack Kirby designed little people who have mistaken the Mok for a Man-ape. After this mistake is cleared up by Thundarr Zet, the leader of the little people, explains that they are at war with the Man-apes and fear the resurrection of the Mighty One who will surely be used to crush them. The heroes agree to help the village as per usual and go after the Man-apes, finding a group of them unearthing more of the Mighty One near the wreckage of a bi-plane. They follow the apes back to the ancient ruins of a “moo-vie” studio, and engage in battle with Simias and his apes in an old time western saloon to hilarious effect. But the apes best the heroes with some skillfully deployed lasso work, and a gloating Simias taunts them with a sneak peak at the headless but otherwise complete body of the Mighty One, a giant robotic gorilla — likely, but not explicitly, the one used in the 76 version of King Kong. Simias and his apes go to presumably find the Mighty One’s head leaving the tied up heroes to face a fire-breathing dragon that dwells in the ruins of the studio.

Thundarr breaks free of his bonds and gives the dragon a taste of his sun sword, and following an awkward moment with Ookla Ariel humanely cages the dragon with magic. As the heroes race to warn the little people the Man-Apes complete reconstruction of the Mighty One, who comes to life via Simias’ control console and steps on a movie camera on his way to destroy the village.

The heroes arrive in time to help defend the walled city but they prove ineffective against the giant robot ape and it knocks down the high walls and drives the villagers into the woods. As Simias and his apes take the village the heroes retreat to the ancient bi-plane and drag it to a clearing where Ariel brings it to life with magic. Despite the chauvinistic reservations of her companions Ariel successfully pilots the bi-plane back to the village, and Thundarr cuts off one of the Mighty One’s hands with his sun sword from the wing of the plane. The plane is swatted down and Ariel and Ookla escape via parachute as Thundarr climbs up the Mighty One’s fur and stabs him in the chest, causing the giant ape bot to smoke, spark and collapse. Simias and his apes are driven from the village and Zet of the little people gives Thundarr all the credit for vanquishing the Mighty One to Ookla’s amusement and Ariel’s chagrin.

To merely call this a masterpiece is frankly an insult to this towering artistic work. This one literally has it all, from Kirby designs to ripping off the Planet of the Apes to the fact that it’s built around an homage to the Dino De Laurentis King Kong. 5 stars.

Episode 8: Challenge of the Wizards

Episode 8: Challenge of the Wizards

Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla arrive at the ruins of a great "pleasure city" once known as Las Vegas, but find only the remnants of a hastily abandoned human village. Ookla wins big on slots but the windfall of coins is of little use for a Mok, so he repurposes the broken slot machine as a projectile against an attacking trio of robot drones. The drones best the heroes, capturing and bringing them via tractor beam to the casino stronghold of the Darth Vader wanna-be wizard Sholo. The gamblin' wizard is running a race against his evil wizard pals Scorpo, Mazam and Chom, and he wants the heroes to race as his champions to win him the Helmet of Power, which grants its wearer ultimate magic power. Thundarr rightly refuses, but when Sholo threatens to kill the missing villagers, who are hanging in a suspended cage, Thundarr reconsiders with Ariel's support.

The following day at dawn the heroes and their trusty steeds find themselves facing off in the desert against the other wizards' champions, who are all driving monstrous vehicles that thematically tie-in to their sponsors' villainous predilections. The lagging heroes are first attacked by Scorpos' scorpion vehicle, but it inadvertently summons a giant Grizzly Snake from underground, forcing Thundarr to contend with it, which he does by tossing it into a canyon. Chom gets the next shot at them with his giant spiked wheel vehicle, but Thundarr makes short work of it with his sun sword. Mazam proves herself a real contender when she deploys her manta ray vehicle to summon an acid rain "death storm", which forces the heroes to seek shelter in an abandoned mine shaft, which promptly begins to collapse.

Thundarr and Ookla's combined efforts allay the cave-in long enough for the heroes to escape, and Ariel shields them from the acid rain with a magic umbrella, which she maybe should have tried from the get go. They seek shelter under an outcropping but are besieged by fireballs, and when Thundarr deflects them with his sun sword he unearths an ancient dune buggy from the rocks. Ariel uses magic to fire up the dune buggy, and the heroes strive to catch up to the other racers, finding them battling attop the ruins of the Hoover Dam, which is where the Helmet of Power resides. The heroes let the riders fight among themselves and sneak inside the dam, but Mazam’s robot driven manta ray gets wise to them and attacks only to be defeated by a rope-swinging Thundarr. The heroes win the helmet and return to the casino foolishly expecting Sholo to hold up his end of the deal.

Of course once Sholo gets his greedy hands on the helmet he betrays them, and after wisely depriving Thundarr of his sun sword (though the animators forget to remove it from his gauntlet in the next scene) the wizard has his drones take the heroes to the prison on the casino roof. Thundarr and the heroes escape the roof and defeat the drones from the safety of a giant shoe. They attack Sholo on the casino floor and a battle ensues involving roulette wheels and other gambling implements, and Ariel noticed that the helmet has no power over silver slot machine coins. She uses her magic to make the heroes giant coin shields, and after regaining his sun sword Thundarr uses it to damage the helmet. This doesn’t discourage Sholo from using it however, and the malfunctioning magic turns on him, transforming him into a symbol in a slot machine. Ookla tries his hand at the Sholo slot machine, and the caged humans are harmlessly lowered to the ground.

This one is a real jackpot of crazy ideas. The other wizards just sort of disappear from the story once the race is won, but hopefully they’ll return to fight another day. Sholo was a real hoot and his absurd fate makes this well worth the gamble. 5 stars.

Episode 7: The Brotherhood of Night

Episode 7: The Brotherhood of Night

Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla are riding through the haunted forest of Washington DC when they hear the sound of people in peril along with the howling of wolves. Turns out that the people, who live in the ruins of the Capitol building (too soon?) are being menaced by a werewolf pack who are culling the tribe to add to their numbers, but the heroes manage to drive the werewolf pack into retreat. At Dawn the werewolf pack transform back into humans, and their leader, Lord Zeeban, reveals his intention to bring the wizard Infernus into their fold, which according to him will make them invincible.

The heroes arrive at a village not realizing that the villagers that greet them are actually the werewolves, and a fiery phallus known as a lava worm erupts from the ground, prompting our heroes into battle. Thundarr tricks the lava worm into destroying itself by cutting a hole in a nearby bridge with his sun sword, and the worm’s master Infernus appears on his sky sled and admonishes the heroes for defending the secret werewolf villagers. Infernus makes a halfhearted attack on Thundarr before fucking off on his sled, and Thundarr, being an idiot wizard bigot, pledges allegiance to the duplicitous Zeeban and his pack. But after a day of traveling night falls and the pack changes into werewolves literally behind the heroes’ backs, and during a quick battle Thundarr is scratched, transforming into a werewolf at the shocking commercial break.

The admittedly badass Thundarrwolf attacks Ariel but Ookla intervenes, and Ookla chases Thundarrwolf across a fallen Washington Monument and into the cleansing waters of the National Mall pool. Thundarr is transformed back to a human and Ariel posits that the water is somehow magical — with the spirit of America? — and is the key to reversing the werewolf curse. They track the pack to Infernus’ robot fortified volcano lair, and seeing it under attack they side with Infernus to help him fight off the werewolves. But Infernus is an ingrate and betrays them with a magic staff, trapping them in the stronghold as it sinks into molten lava. Thundarr frees them with the sun sword and the heroes race to their horses, who appear to be hovering in mid air for no reason, and escape the volcanic death trap.

Infernus retreats to the Smithsonian, but the pack follows him and attacks him near the dinosaur display, turning him into one of the pack. The heroes arrive and battle the now “invincible” pack, utilizing questionable Smithsonian attractions such as a blue whale display, to their advantage. Werewolf Infernus uses his magic staff to re-animate a dinosaur skeleton that attacks Thundarr, but the boastful if dim-witted barbarian climbs on top of it and severs its skull with his sword. Infernus then fires a fireball at Thundarr, but Thundarr deflects the fireball back into the magic staff, stripping the werewolf wizard of his power and ending the battle.

The heroes cure the werewolf pack in the magic waters of the National Mall pool but Infernus remains an ingrate, though now a powerless one. Lord Zeeban transforms back into his original form — that of a snarling wolf — and Ariel remarks that he must have been the werewolf originator. Thundarr is just relieved that the nightmare is over, and the heroes leave our nation’s capital in a better place than when they found it.

Post apocalyptic werewolves in Washington, what’s not to love? Only drawback is that the Thundarr as werewolf segment was too brief for my liking, there was more drama to be minded there. 5 stars.

Episode 6: Attack of the Amazon Women

Episode 6: Attack of the Amazon Women

Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla are headed for a relaxing day at the beach when they come across two tribes of blue-skinned Amazon women fighting with laser-shooting tridents. One tribe is trying to get the other to rejoin them under the rule of a female wizard named Strya, but the other tribe refuses so naturally the wizard-hating heroes join in with the resistance. With Thundarr’s manly assistance the wizard positive tribe is driven back, and they dive off the cliff to their shark steeds waiting in the ocean below. Ariel surmises that the Amazons must be aquatic beings, and the heroes are invited back to the land lubbing Amazons’ base of operations, Mount Rushmore.

Fiona, leader of the good Amazons, explains that she was once queen of the aquatic tribe until Strya came along to build an Amazon army capable of attacking land as well as sea. Proving himself a chauvinist pig Mok Ookla laughs off this suggestion, but Ariel suitably reprimands him for underestimating women. Fiona asks Ariel to be their wizard to combat Strya, and Ariel graciously accepts, with Thundarr and Oolka signing on as Ariel’s personal guard. The heroes are given masks that will allow them to breathe underwater and despite Ookla’s protest they dive into the ocean to attack Strya’s undersea stronghold. Strya sends her shark riders to attack them but when they fall to Thundarr’s somehow still functional sun sword she calls to release the Kraken — using that exact phrase from Clash of the Titans — which is a giant mutant octopus that shoots lasers from its tentacles. Ariel is wounded but saved by Fiona’s Amazons, and Thundarr and Ookla drive the Kraken back into its holding tank but are taken prisoner by Strya’s magic and, after refusing to divulge the location of Fiona’s Mount Rushmore base, are lowered into a “jaws of steel” death trap. And that’s all before the first commercial break!

Strya, who reveals herself as a shark-toothed monster, learns of a weapon in a nearby abandoned military base and leaves Thundarr and Ookla, giving them the opportunity to escape the death trap. After an extended chase through Strya’s lair the heroes escape and hightail it back to Mount Rushmore, and after a sexy welcome home from Ariel they warn Fiona of Strya’s mysterious secret weapon. The heroes and Fiona go back underwater to find the weapon, and after Ariel interrogates a captured shark rider with her magic they find the weapon — a 2,000 year old nuclear missile — in an airtight sunken hangar sealed by encrusted barnacles. They somehow gain entrance to the hangar without flooding it (not explained) but find it guarded by a giant spider, and Thundarr vanquishes it by crushing it under a webbed up jet fighter he cuts loose with the sun sword.

They return to Mount Rushmore with the missile to disarm it but in a shocking twist it is revealed to be a Trojan horse carrying Strya and her Amazons who attack on flying vehicles. Ariel and Strya face off on a one-on-one wizard battle, and when sexist Thundarr steps in to fight Ariel tells him that only her magic can save the day, which it does by repelling Strya’s magic back on her. Defeated Strya falls off Mount Rushmore into the sea, Fiona regains her crown as Queen of the Amazons and Ariel jokingly thanks Thundarr and Ookla for their help in a humorous diminishing of their contributions to this insane adventure.

Phew, this one was packed! Not the tightest storyline and possibly one giant monster too many (if such a thing can be said) but the awkward sexual politics made it a wild ride well worth taking. 5 stars.

Episode 5: Treasure of the Moks

Episode 5: Treasure of the Moks

Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla come upon a Mok chieftain who is being chased by scuba gear-wearing goons in the employ of Cordon, Queen of the River pirates. Cordon’s clumsy pirates prove no match for our heroes, but the cackling pirate queen catapults bee hives at them from her ship, which is an aircraft carrier built on top of river logs. Ariel suggests they hide from the attacking bees by jumping in the water, but Thundarr reminds her of a fact we know well after 4 episodes and that’s that Moks hate water. Thundarr uses his sun sword to start a blaze that drives the bees away, but Cordon and her pirates escape.

The Mok chieftain informs the heroes through guttural growls that the pirates were after treasure found in a Mok village upstream. On the way there Thundarr comments that Cordon is as evil as she is beautiful, and Ariel fishes for a compliment from Thundarr but gets only silence.

They pursue Cordon to a battleship graveyard where she is gathering “fire lances”, aka missles, to use on the Moks. Thundarr foolishly cuts a roped missile down and it explodes, knocking out the heroes and allowing them to be captured. Cordon has them thrown in an abandoned submarine, and after inexplicably allowing Thundarr to keep his sun sword she summons a lobster monster with a whistle and sends it into the sub to eat them, which is ironic as the lobstrosity is red and ready to eat. Ariel and Ookla escape the sub by being shot out of torpedo tubes and Thundarr vanquishes the lobstrosity by sinking the sub.

The heroes beat Cordon and her pirates to the village, which is in the shadow of a dam despite Moks hating water, and Ookla catches the eye of a very attractive lady Mok. Cordon attacks and hijinx ensue, including a comical walk the plank moment between Ookla and a pirate. Cordon launches a catapult of missiles at the dam destroying it, and the Mok village is flooded. The Moks seek higher ground as the pirates attack the treasure stronghold, conveniently still above water atop a dirt mound, and Thundarr saves Ookla from drowning while trapped under a missile. The heroes battle the pirates in the stronghold and best them with Errol Flynn style theatrics, but Cordon accesses the treasure chamber. The joke is on her though cuz there is no treasure, and the heroes round up the pirates and lock them in the empty treasure chamber.

Afterwards the heroes ask the chieftain where the treasure is hidden, and he reveals that the dirt mound the stronghold is built on is actually made out of gold. Thundarr enjoys the irony that Cordon is trapped inside that which she covets, and wishes the chieftain a long life as the heroes ride out.

Definitely noticing some recurring themes and ideas here but still a gangbusters episode. Sad Ookla didn’t make time on screen with the lady Mok. 5 stars.

Episode 4: Raiders of the Abyss

Episode 4: Raiders of the Abyss

Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla are riding through the badlands when they see a squadron of hooded beings carrying glowing staffs and riding on giant bats (freakin awesome). The bat riders are attacking a human stronghold that is a beached luxury cruise ship stuck on the side of a mountain (also awesome), stunning the humans with their staffs and capturing them in nets. The heroes rush to the human’s defense, driving away the bat riders. To thank them the leader of the humans, a sea cap’n, invites the heroes to dinner in his captain’s quarters, pictured. He tells them that they are routinely attacked by the bat riding “Raiders” who capture their numbers and abscond to the local abyss. After Ariel points out that the Raiders’ staffs are powered by sorcery, an angered Thundarr (he really hates wizards) agrees to go to the abyss and attack the Raiders.

This requires the heroes to swim in via a river much to Ookla’s chagrin, and Ariel uses her magic to send a pair of Raiders away in a bubble. We learn that the Raiders are actually shriveled beings who use a magic cauldron of vapor in baffling concert with a jet to syphon the life force from people and restore themselves into non-wrinkled beings who resemble Star Trek Vulcans. The heroes attack the Raiders underground lair but Ariel is captured and her life force drained, turning her to a wrinkled purple horror at the commercial break.

Thundarr cuts Ariel down from the jet and a shrunken down human ushers the heroes to safety in an underground city right next door to the abyss. Ariel restores herself and the humans, victims of the Raiders magic, tell the heroes of a local wizard who has the cure for their shrunken condition. The heroes travel to find the wizard which they do easily, and Ariel convinces Thundarr to allow her to teleport into the wizard’s clearly Satanic lair alone to reason with him. She materializes in the crotchety old wizard’s devil sanctum and convinces him to give her the cure after animating his demonic throne statue against him.

The heroes return with the cure but the Raiders, led by a dude who I think is named Vorag, attack on their bat steeds. The heroes fight the Raiders back and Thundarr squares off with Vorag, resisting the urge to kill the whiny villain and instead leaving him bound and hanging on a rope. Ariel uses the cure to unshrink the humans and they all return home to the cruise ship. The grateful cap’n offers the heroes a tasty flagon of questionable drink and they all toast to freedom.

Another stellar offering, I was sold within 20 seconds when I saw the bat riders. Plus the Satanic wizard side quest was aces and I wish more stories had one. 5 stars.

Episode 3: Mindok the Mind Menace

Episode 3: Mindok the Mind Menace

A lot to cover in this alliterative episode. The evil General Zoa and his lieutenants come upon the ruins of a NASA space center in their amphibious war vehicle and enter in search of the “ice people” their leader, Mindok the all-powerful wizard, has tasked them with finding. Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla see them entering the center and go after them, thwarting their mission despite Zoa’s magic gem staff, which Thundarr breaks. With Zoa and his goons in retreat the heroes discover the “ice people” who are really NASA scientists who have been frozen in suspended animation presumably for a space mission that was waylaid by the apocalypse. Thundarr cuts them out of the ice with this sun sword and after waking like napping children the scientists are horrified at the sight of Ookla as well as their nightmarish new reality. Things only get worse when Mindok himself arrives, and having punished Zoa and his men by shrinking them and inprisoning them in what appears to be a snow globe, absconds with the scientists to his island stronghold. Determined to save the scientists for some reason, Thundarr cuts an old space capsule in half and they use it as a raft to travel to Mindok’s stronghold. Unfortunately the island is guarded by “firewhales”, horned whales that shoot fire from their horns, one of whom swallows Ariel at the commercial break cliffhanger.

Thundarr rescues Ariel from the whale’s mouth and Ookla headbutts another whale and swimming to shore Ariel grouses about Moks smelling bad when wet (Ariel’s got jokes). We learn that Mindok’s reason for wanting the 2,000 year old scientists is that he was once a NASA scientist like them — hence his cool astronaut helmet — whose body was destroyed in the cataclysm. But thankfully his brain survived through wizardry and now he needs them to build him a kickass robot body, which for some reason he needs to fly the war machine space ship he has built. As they are working on that the heroes invade the stronghold but Mindok captures them with magic snakes, pictured, and shrinks them down to be imprisoned in a snow globe. The scientists complete the robot body and implants Mindok’s living brain into it.

Mindok takes his war machine space ship to terrorize a ruined city which I have to assume is Orlando. Thundarr frees himself and his pals from the snow globe with the sun sword, which magically reverts them back to normal size. They go after the warship on horseback, jumping onto its hull via a toppled skyscraper and getting inside, horses included. They battle Mindok in the cockpit by and his ruined robot body causes the ships control into orbit, and the heroes, on horseback, jump free of the rocket and land in the water, somehow surviving the fall.

The scientists explain to our heroes that Mindok’s undying brain will now orbit the world forever, and that they are cool with their new life here in the apocalyptic wasteland and plan to use their ancient knowledge to maybe help people and do some exploring. Ariel hopes they’ll all meet again soon.

This one was a satisfying brain-boiler with many great WTF moments. I like to think it mostly took place in Titusville Florida, hometown of my wife Jennifer Yarbrough. 5 stars.

Episode 2: Harvest of Doom

Episode 2: Harvest of Doom

Our heroes spy an old west style train carrying a cargo of “death flowers” which Ariel knows are used not to induce death as the name might imply but to control minds. They are attacked by the crocodile humanoids working the train who also appear to wear green underpants, and the heroes are gassed unconscious. The leader of the crocodile people — called “carocks” (sp?) orders Ookla taken prisoner to work the death flower fields, but Thundarr and Ariel are thrown in a pit to be eaten by giant furry serpents. Thundarr uses one of the snakes as a rope to get them out of the pit but they are promptly attacked by a swamp monster.

It turns out that the swamp monster is friends with a blonde girl known as a “swamp urchin” and she agrees to help Thundarr and Ariel defeat the carocks — who are harvesting the flowers for an evil wizard (I’m sensing a theme here) provided the heroes will give her the train in exchange. She leads them via raft to a very cool partially submerged Aztec temple and Ariel uses her magic to take a carock prisoner to use as a guide. They come through the temple to the death flower field and Thundarr must fight Ookla who is still under the influence of the flower. The fields are set on fire (this is not explained) and Ariel uses magic to knock Ookla out and levitate him back to the raft.

Traveling back through the temple Ariel wakes Ookla from his trance and he gives them a big hug, pictured. The carocks are transporting what remains of the harvest to the wizard via train, but the heroes manage to stop it and Ariel destroys the flowers with magic, which she probably should have just done from the beginning. The heroes vanquish the carocks and make good on their promise to give the train to the swamp urchin, but Thundarr and Ookla must repair the train tracks they ruined in a humorous final gag.

A slight step down from ep 1 but solid nonetheless. A bit of a western vibe with a little Indiana Jones thrown in, which is notable as this predates Raiders of the Lost Ark. 5 stars.

Episode 1: Secret of the Black Pearl

Episode 1: Secret of the Black Pearl

We begin en media res as our heroes Thundarr Ookla and Ariel are riding through the swamps and find and old man being menaced by humanoid rats known as “Groundlings” (not to be confused with the comedy troupe). The heroes save the codger and he gives them a magical black pearl to take to the island of Manhat. But the groundlings are in the employ of a Man E Faces style wizard named Gemini who wants the pearl because it is the only thing that can resist his evil power.

The heroes are chased by groundlings on motorcycles and Thundarr goes to town on them with this sun sword which totally isn’t a ripoff of a lightsaber. Ariel uses her magic to ferry them to Manhat where Thundarr learns of “moo-vies” as depicted in the screenshot. Gemini’s robot knights kidnap Ariel, Thundarr very easily learns how to fly a helicopter, and Thundarr and Ookla save Ariel from Gemini’s conspicuously high tech tower. Gemini chases them on a cloud and uses his magic to animate the Statue of Liberty, which then blasts at the innocent people of Manhat with its now fully functional torch. But Thundarr stops lady Liberty with the black pearl and Gemini fucks off somewhere, presumably to return later. The people of Manhat celebrate the heroes before they are off to more adventures.

All in all a pretty spectacular first episode. The voice over work for Thundarr is hilariously cave man stilted, and Jack Kirby gets credit for character designs, which are great. Lots of bits of recycled animation as was the custom of the times. The 5 or so credited writers really earned their pay here though they failed to predict 9-11 as the twin towers are present 😢. 5 stars.