THUNDERCATS ROAR on Cartoon Network

Producers Victor Courtright and Marly Halpern-Graser

Chris Jai Alex - Panthro

Erica Lindbeck - Cheetara/Wilykit

Patrick Seitz - Tygra/Mumm-Ra

Max Mittelman - Lion-O/Wilykat

How did you get involved with THUNDERCATS ROAR and a fan?

Victor: I was absolutely a huge fan and I watched the original Thundercats as a kid. I studied it for action and technique and it’s been part of my animation career and life. So, in 2016 I heard that Warner Bros. was interested in bringing the series back and all the ideas came rushing out. I started talking to people at Warner Bros. and they liked the style and a few months later I finished the pitch episodes which became "Lost Sword".

Marly: I got into Thundercats a little later because I was doing the Thundercats 2011 show and I grabbed the old DVD's and started watching them and thought it was so cool. A bunch of years later I was in a Warner's office and Sam Register came in with a big stack of Victor's Thundercats art and I distinctly remember wanting to work on that. I jealous and wanted to work on the show, a few months later they introduced me to Victor, and they said would you like to be the head writer or this Thundercats show? I said - absolutely!

Chris: I grew up around Ninja Turtles and Comic books and my Mom was a huge comic book collector so obviously I loved Thundercats and I had the toys. I had everything. I couldn't do the voices because my voice was so high. I had mish-mashed toys, so I had the lair with GI Joe. I had an imagination to create a story of my own.

Erica: I am sure I did watch Thundercats, I mean who is not aware of that. I remember when I got the audition, I wasn't booking a ton of animation at that time. I went into the booth and said okay, and I basically did myself and thought I'd throw spaghetti at the wall and see if it sticks. Being part of the reboot is a dream come true though.

Max: I did know about the series because I had an older brother. Networks would rerun the shows and I was aware of the series. I was aware of it when I got the audition and stoked that I could try out for Lion-O.

Patrick: I watched it all but I don't have a real strong memory of the specifics. I feel like my memories are the intro and Mumm-Ra being scary and cool. I thought how cool it was that I got to utter the words of Mumm-Ra and the incantation.

Thundercat is a producer and music person, how did you choose your name?

Thundercat: When you are a kid you have a lot of energy and I was always into illustration and music. Nobody ever believes when I tell them I played a bass since five years old. My mom has pictures of me ding that. Thundercats was in syndication when I was five and watching reruns and my Mom would have to pull me back from the television. From He-Man to Thundercats she would have to pull me away from the screen because I got closer and closer. As soon as the cats got on the screen I said 'wow, cat people' and I had an infinity for cats. I was a cat person. It started there and my Mom wouldn't buy me the toys because she thought I would worship them. It became a bit of an infatuation so that's the child version. It stays with you, but it changes then it was Dragon Ball and such going into different things. When it came back around for me when I was in jazz band with friends around the city, my friend wore a shirt and it triggered it again for me. I started with DVD's and Comic Con's and anyplace there would be toys and the first tattoo I got was Thundercats. For the longest time I was like showing it off and when I would be working with people like Erica Badu I always had a Thundercat shirt on and it was because it made me feel comfortable in my skin, my identity. It became a name given to me because if anyone wanted to find me it would be look for the guy in a Thundercat shirt. My friends started referring to me as Thundercat. I was like I am Thundercat so when this moment happened it was overwhelming to me. It felt like wow, this is all I've ever wanted to do.

You take on a specific identity.

Thundercat: I play Grune the Destroyer who is an exiled Thundercat, he put the thunder behind Thundercat and had to dip out. (play his song video)

Victor: It was awesome, we knew about Thundercat before connecting on the actual show. I thought it would be really cool to work with Thundercat on Thundercats and I didn't follow up on it. Then he reached out to us and I thought 'oh my gawd, is this real? Is this real?' but it’s so frikken awesome. He's the most passionate Thundercat person on the planet. He is as completely obsessed as I am and its magical that we can come together and celebrate this insanely wonderful show together.

Why bring it back?

Victor: I don't think there is really anything like Thundercats, there isn't a perfect a blend of sci fi action comedy with spaceships and mummy's. Chris was talking about this a little bit, there are all these different toys and here is a show that wants to play with every single show in the toybox. It’s perfect.

Chris: When you have comedy and action come together you have something really special. It's like Thor Ragnorok. That's why I love what Victor and Marly have done with it.

Thundercat: You literally do not skimp on the fights and the fight lasts with action. It's so imperative that those things are connected.

Marly: There are hundreds of episodes of 80's Thundercats are great, they hold up with the animation and the storylines. We can't make Thundercats any better than they did in the 80's, that's show is awesome because it’s cool. There was no reason to do a new Thundercats show, we can't replace it. We would fail if we tried. That's why doing it in Victor's style means they don't compete but complement each other.

In the booth, are you thinking about the comedy as well as the action?

Erika: Well, I think my character is the straight man to Lion-o's not straight man. I think the comedy is written in the script. I think if he tried to make it wacky it wouldn't work. Especially since the world is so zany so we need to keep it as earnest as we can.

Max: The toggling is fun and something I've wanted to do for a while now. Ever since I saw the interviews will Billy West and he says we don't cut we just go between the characters back and forth. It's super fun. I balance that for Lion-O when I first got the breakdown for him, I was borrowing from the original character. My character started very serious and heroic but then you start to add this goof ball aspect, it's in the writing and I get how they want me to play this guy.

Victor: It was a great cast, but you are all solid gold.