Dennis J. Woodyard - Journeyman Artist -Dragonfly Views: Thundercats Tuesday - TC 124 -126, Ma-Mutt's Confusion, Shadowmaster, and Swan Song.

This week's Thundercats Tuesday, features TC# 124 - 126, and includes a personal milestone and highlight of mine. TC # 125, Shadowmaster was my first scriptwriting assignment. Plus, I got to design the new characters for the episode, including, of course the Shadowmaster character. My original plot outline for the story was totally overwritten. (I'll touch on that, later in this post) Only the smart editing of the talented Peter Lawrence, story editor, saved me from embarrassing myself. I'm eternally indebted to producer, Lee Dannacher, and Peter for giving me the chance to write for the Thundercats.

Let's start with TC# 124 - "Ma-Mutt's Confusion.

The Babylonian Barbarian Boiler is my all time favorite Thundercat prop design. The scene of Mum-Ra running back and forth with the bucket reminds me of the famous Disney's Sorcerer's Apprentice scene from Fantasia.

TC # 125 - "Shadowmaster"

The original plot for the Shadowmaster had enough story elements for three shows. I introduced a parallel group of Thundercats-like heroes, in the ShadowRealm, called LightLancers. The LightLancers were defeated, and disbanded by the Shadowmaster, and their world plunged into darkness. The lone dispirited LightLancer at first challenged Lion-O, but Lion-O enlisted him to defeat the Shadowmaster. In doing so, The Lion-O helped the LightLancer regain his power to regroup his companions and restore the land. This sub-plot was in addition to the main Claudus storyline. So, yeah, there was no way this could fit in a 1/2 hour show. Thanks goodness for Peter's editing.

Brute the Shadow beast was an example of over designing a character. The multiple heads was a little much for the time the Beast was on the screen. I'm happy the animation team give it a shot.

I always wondered if many Thundercats fans caught my homage to Star Wars with the final scene of the episode with Claudus and Jaga, just like the Darth Vader and Obi Wan shot at end of The Return of the Jedi.