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.