Radar / ThunderCats (1985)

• The perceived symbolism of Lion-o's elongating sword has been discussed to death (although the fact that the sword "cannot be used for evil" likely negates any Power Perversion Potential like the kind seen in every parody...).
• The first episode reveals that clothes apparently weren't a part of Thunderian culture, as all the main characters spend the first few minutes of the episode completely naked except for some pairs of boots. Yes, Animals Lack Attributes, but watching four humanoid adults and three kids prance around naked feels as odd as if they didn't, especially the scene of a naked woman going into the bedroom of a naked boy. (The radar evidently caught on after this slip up, since subsequent flashbacks to Thundera show the citizens wearing clothes.)
• In "Berbils", Lion-O tells Snarf their captors call themselves "Ro-Bear Berbils". Snarf's response?
  "That's not what I've been calling them."
• The show contains rare but unambiguous moments of Ship Tease between Lion-o and Cheetara — very few and far between, but they do exist (ex. the ends of "The Exodus," "All That Glitters," and "Sixth Sense"; the beginning of "Lord of the Snows"). Nothing special until you remember that they only physically look the same age due to a Cryonics Failure; before they were Human Popsicles, Cheetara was a fully grown adult, but Lion-o was 12-years-old! (And, as Tygra reminds them in the second episode, he still mostly has the mentality of a pre-pubescent boy.)
• Lion-o befriends a unicorn in "The Terror of Hammerhand," who gives him a magic ring that later saves his life. Her keepers are stunned when they see him with it, gasping, "No man has ever worn that ring!" (emphasis in the original). Of course, they don't know that he was a 12-year-old Human Popsicle and only recently emerged a fully grown man, without much opportunity for, er, courting since then. So it's unsurprising that Lion-o apparently meets the criteria for befriending a unicorn that stereotypically only women can supposedly meet.
• "The Trouble With Time" opens with the mutants deciding they "need a woman's touch" in their new base and trying to kidnap specifically a female slave. Hey, Martians need women! (Obligatory lines about wanting a woman to do the cooking and cleaning do nothing to make it less creepy.)
• Lion-o learns in his fifth Anointment Trial that Mumm-Ra used to be a "devil priest." How many times do you hear that term in American children's animation?
• In "The Circus Train," Captain Bragg lures the mutants into his trap by advertising what sounds like a "female mutant" strip show! The mutants react like dogs panting and slobbering after their owner opens the bag of food!
• In the midst of his Evil Gloating about capturing the Lord of the Thundercats in "Crystal Canyon," Alluro casually plans to give him to Chilla as a "pet." Yes, he actually uses that word. And now every one of his numerous Mind Control scenes can be read "that way."
• There's no word on how successful "The Garden of Delights" and "Crystal Canyon" were at deterring drug use... but they get full points for how realistically they depict the effects of First Earth drugs! Not something children's cartoons can typically do.

---