Wastelands Radio Show - Snack-Size Episode 57 - Thundarr the Barbarian

WASTELANDS - An Australian B-grade, Punk Rock, Street Trash online radio show hosted by long time partners in slime Adam (085c3n3) Obscene and Mark-O-Mark, pondering punk oddities, b grade movies and trashy treasures.

Snack-Size Episode 57

Thundarr the Barbarian

In this snack size episode, Adam and Mark travel to a future where civilisation is cast into ruin when a runaway planet speeds between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction. where just one fights to spread peace throughout the land: He is Thundarr the Barbarian.

 Thundarr the Barbarian series hit screens in 1980 from Ruby-Spears. The Production was very similar to the old Hanna-Barbera shows, but it wasn’t one. In fact Joe Ruby and Ken Spears were long time Hanna-Barbera writers of shows like Space Ghost, The Herculoids, and Scooby-Doo. By 1979, the pair had branched off to create their own studio; their first series was the highly Scooby-derivative Fangface. They followed that with The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show and Heathcliff and Dingbat.

The premise for Thundarr is great :Civilization is cast into ruin when a runaway planet speeds between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction. Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn from the ashes with a savage landscape, strange creatures and a primitive sense of justice. But, one man fights to spread peace throughout the land:

Thundarr and his companions Ookla the Mok and sorceress Princess Ariel used their strength, courage and wits, plus Thundarr’s magical Sunsword, as they journeyed from village to village, liberating slaves and battling all kinds of beasts, mutants, wizards, thieves and robots.

Though the official story is that Mattel had been in development of the toy line that eventually became He Man and the Masters of the Universe since the mid-70s, there’s no denying, to my mind anyway, how much the 1983 Filmation TV series cribbed directly from Thundarr. Mattel began a comic book series prior to the cartoon…in 1981. Conan the Barbarian the movie is usually the agreed upon antecedent, but that movie came out in 1982, and there’s a lot more alien and technology in He-Man than in Conan. I’m just saying, it might be a mix.

In any case, Thundarr enjoyed only a 13 episode first season in 1980 and an 8 episode second season in 1981. 21 glorious episodes which mixed adventure, sci-fi, fantasy, and horror into a strange mélange of magic. One of the few series of the era to attempt more complex storytelling than teenaged antics and talking dogs. And only just barely did it miss the window where action-adventure cartoons sold toys by the truckload. 

Thundarr the Barbarian,  Episode - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_4HBH6Z-Iw

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