Western Animation / ThunderCats Roar

It's time to roar once more!

Their planet exploded (thunder, thundercats!)
They crashed on Third Earth (thunder, thundercrash!)
They defeated some bad guys (mummies, mutants!)
And made some new friends! (unicorns, robots!)
They built a big base with a cat-shaped face and now they’re ready to go!
There’s Wilykit, Wilykat, Tygra, Panthro, Cheetara, Snarf, Lion-O!
A brand-new lord with a magic sword
Thunder, thunder, thunder, Thundercats, roar!

— Opening Tune

ThunderCats Roar was an animated television series based on the 1985 ThunderCats cartoon and the second franchise Reboot after the 2011 cartoon. Produced by Warner Bros. Animation for Cartoon Network, the series first debuted online on January 10, 2020, followed by a linear premiere in February of 2020. Only one season was produced; "Grune" was the last episode produced and "Mandora Saves Christmas", held over for the holiday season, was the last episode to air in broadcast order on December 5, 2020.

The ThunderCats, sole survivors of the destruction of their home planet, Thundera, crash land on Third Earth and make a new home there, where they become its new protectors and take on its evil overlord, Mumm-Ra. Unlike previous incarnations, Roar is a fast-paced Affectionate Parody emphasizing some of the absurdities of the series' setting and premise.

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ThunderCats Roar provides examples of:

• Accidental Hero: In "Exodus Part 1", Mumm-Ra sends the Mutants flying to the horizon when they were about to blast Lion-O, but it turns out he wasn't aware Lion-O was there and attacked the Mutants because they were trespassing on his property.
• Accidental Misnaming: When they first meet, Lion-O mishears Mumm-Ra's name as "Bumm-Ra". He similarly mishears Jaga's name as "Jillian".
• Adaptational Badass:
  • In previous incarnations, Snarf was the Team Pet who wasn't much use in a fight, though he did have the occasional Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass moment. Here, the "crouching moron" part has been done away with, leaving only the badass — when all the ThunderCats are presented via trading cards in "Exodus Part 1", Snarf's card shows him with maxed-out stats and his skill set as "all". The episode later reveals him to be a robot equipped with loads of weaponry.
  • While the original version of Safari Joe was no slouch, the version featured in "Safari Joe" is a Trap Master beyond compare, having been regularly catching the ThunderCats in his traps since the day they first arrived on Third Earth.
• Adaptational Dumbass:
  • Lion-O could certainly be naive and a little stupid in the original incarnations, but he generally knew his way around things and learned fast, plus he had the excuse of still mentally being young and was certainly trying to act his physical age. This Lion-O, by contrast, is an Idiot Hero through and through who still acts like a child and it's impressive he hasn't gotten himself killed during one of his stunts, outside of sheer luck and his more competent teammates.
  • Jackalman is less bright than his original incarnation, from breaking the mutant's ship, getting to the ThunderCats vehicle by mistake and thinks the ThunderCats think is he a ThunderCat when the former thinks that the latter thinks he is a ThunderCat.
  • The Ancient Spirits of Evil are a lot dumber, mistaking the ThunderCats' impressions of Mumm-Ra for the real deal and even granting them powers! Mumm-Ra then lampshades their new stupidity:
    Mumm-Ra: Now I remember why I unplugged you! You guys are total dum-dums!
  • Ssslithe has more cartoonish and less reliable plans, and while he has some level of intelligence in regards to not shrinking the planet and being aware of Jackalman's stupidity, Vultureman as well as Ratar-O are the only mutants who are aware of how dumb Ssslithe's plans are.
  • Zigzagged with Jaga; while Jaga made the mistake of sending the Sword of Plun-Darr into a volcano on Thundera in the original version, he also came off as dumb but wise in his other appearances, but he suggested the same mistake of sending the Sword of Plun-Darr into Third Earth's volcano until Tygra called him out on it.
• Adaptational Heroism:
  • Driller is not an enemy to the ThunderCats and becomes their ally by the end of his debut episode.
  • Instead of using slaves to build Castle Plun-Darr, the Mutants get help from people doing it out of their own free will.
  • The Nether-Witch is not an alter ego of Mumm-Ra and while she starts out as an antagonist, she became a friend to the ThunderCats by the end of her debut episode.
  • Grune is far more noble than his other two counterparts and actually rebels against the tyranny of King Claudus, before being sealed away.
• Adaptational Modesty: Unlike the original series, Lion-O's outfit covers his belly and his thighs.
• Adaptational Ugliness:
  • Tygra looks less attractive then his other two incarnations.
  • Cheetara, normally the Ms. Fanservice of the group, is now flat chested and shlubby looking, and could be easily mistaken for a man.
• Adaptation Species Change: Within the prior two series, Snarf was a Snarf; in Roar he's a robot, though whether he's a Cyborg or just a Ridiculously Human Robot is unclear.
• Adaptational Villainy: King Claudus is not a good and just ruler in this version, and is portrayed as a tyrannical jerk to his people.
• Affectionate Parody: Of the original series. The story set-up is similar, but the show emphasizes the absurdities of the original cartoon while greatly exaggerating the personalities of the ThunderCats for comedic effect.
• Age Lift:
  • Lion-O is close to age of the adult ThunderCats by the start and never starts out as a child with the Cryonics Failure of having his body age without his mind, but he is a Manchild who still considers himself to be a kid, despite being naturally aged.
  • Tygra is older than he looks and is in his 30's.
• Air Vent Escape: In "Warrior Maiden Invasion", the ThunderCats need to escape from the Thunder Brig, but the only way out is a small air vent. The Kittens are the only ones small enough to crawl through the vent, so they make their way to the control room to open the brig from there.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Just as the Mutants are about to blast Lion-O at the end of "Exodus Part 1", they are swatted away by Mumm-Ra.
• Amazon Brigade: The Warrior Maidens from the original show reappear in "Warrior Maiden Invasion". This show takes the trope up to eleven by making them muscular and huge.
• Answer Cut: When Lion-S takes the Sword of Vengeance at the end of "Sword Heist", Lion-O asks who she could possibly want to take vengeance on. Cut to Lion-S with the sword, which has Mandora's image on it.
• Art Shift:
  • Jaga's stories in "Jaga History" and, later, "Grune" are done as Cut Out Animation with crayon drawings.
  • The ThunderCats are briefly drawn in a more realistic style in "Telethon" when talking about Cheetara's telepathic powers, and when Lion-O confronts Cheetara in her own mind by reading boring poetry.
• Bait-and-Switch Time Skip: In "Working Grrl", Cheetara joins a company and is shown getting promoted until she becomes CEO. Cut to the other ThunderCats talking about how it's been three hours since she started her first day of work.
• Batman Can Breathe in Space: When the ThunderCats and Mutants are outside Ratar-O's ship, they are holding their breath. When they exhale, this exchange occurs:
  Tygra: So much easier to breathe now that we're in space.
  Panthro: Yep, that's how it works.
• Beach Episode: "Summer Fun Day!" involves the ThunderCats heading to the beach to take a break from fighting the Mutants every day.
• Big Ball of Violence: Happens in "The Space Beam" when the Mutants fight each other over who gets to put a beacon to Plun-Darr on top of the ThunderCats' base.
• Big "WHAT?!": The ThunderCats (minus Panthro, who is out of the room) do one in "Grune" after Jaga reveals that Grune the Destroyer used to be his best friend. Complete with their tongues forming the letters W, H, A and T.
• BFS:
  • As in the original show, the Sword of Omens grows bigger everytime Lion-O chants "Thunder, thunder, thunder!" Exaggerated in "Mumm-Ra of Plun-Darr" when Lion-O makes the sword so big he can't hold it anymore. But the ThunderCats Base mecha can.
  • The Sword of Plun-Darr also becomes bigger when its holder chants "Plun-Darr, Plun-Darr, Plun-Darr!"
• Blink-and-You-Miss-It: Due to Roar's breakneck pace, you may miss the odd time the Thundertank launches out of the mouth of the Cats' Lair despite the usual right-paw exit being open.
• Boredom Montage: "Summer Fun Day!" starts with the ThunderCats attacking the Mutants over and over, and each time everyone except for Lion-O is losing interest.
• Brawn Hilda: The Warrior Maidens are depicted as large, musclebound barbarians who mostly grunt.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Lion-O trying to rationalize Lion-S not being the criminal Mandora is hunting for:
  Lion-O: She could have a twin, or a clone, or her clone could have a twin.
• Bull Seeing Red: In this case, a bull hawk, which the Kittens have to fight in "The First Thundsgiving". WilyKit discovers that the bull hawk hates the red lights of her hoverboard, so she takes off the light covers and places them over its eyes, making everything look red. She tries to attack the sun, while the Kittens go after her eggs, but the lenses fall off and the bull hawk returns and goes after them.
• Cannot Tell a Joke: Played for laughs in "Mumm-Ra the Ever Living". Whenever Tygra tries to impersonate Mumm-Ra, he’s met with stunned silence from his teammates.
• Canon Character All Along: Mrs. Gristidi from "Snarf’s Day Off" is presented as a character made for the series until it is revealed that she is this series' version of Mumm-Rana.
• Cassandra Truth: No one believes Tygra when he claims he was brain washed by Silky into marrying her in "Tygra's Garden"; they just assume he was genuinely in love.
• Catchphrase: Like in the original, Safari Joe says, "Safari Joe does it again!" all the time. Lampshaded by Lion-O sampling it and turning it into a club tune.
• Colony Drop: Panthro threatens to drop the moon on Vultureman just to get him to admit that he stole his invention idea in "Panthro Plagiarized".
• Companion Cube: Ratar-O really loves the Sword of Plun-Darr and constantly talks to it like it is his best friend or lover.
• Composite Character:
  • Mumm-Ra took the role of the Berbil's oppressor from the Trollogs and the Giantors.
  • The Berbils took the Beast Men's role as the people who built Castle Plun-Darr.
  • Ratar-O is given his ancestor, Ratilla's role of being the wielder of the Sword of Plun-Darr and being defeated by Jaga.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: In "The First Thundsgiving", the ThunderCats are after ingredients for a Thundarian brunch — eggs from a bull hawk, honey from ocean hornets, and fruits from fruit bears. The various animals chase the ThunderCats to the base, and Tygra finds them fighting. When Lion-O tells Tygra why, the animals are revealed to be able to talk all along, and would have gladly given them the ingredients if they had just asked.
• Crossover: Had one with Teen Titans Go! on their show via the episode "Teen Titans Roar". What's odd was that this episode was entirely written by the crew of the former show, exclusively reuses footage from the first episode, and never gets called back to, making it a Fake Crossover.
• Credit Card Plot: "Corporate Buyout" opens on Junn-Junn recklessly spending with the Cheetara Corp. company card, leading to the company going bankrupt and getting bought out by Karnor. In the end, Cheetara gives her a new card, this time with a $10 limit.
• Cue O'Clock: "Cookie O'Clock" in "The Legend of Boggy Ben". Revisited in "Tygra's Garden".
• Dagwood Sandwich: Panthro makes himself one in "Grune".
• A Day in the Limelight: "Snarf's Day Off" follows Snarf on his monthly day off, in which he pretends to be Mister Bottom Dollar, a normal cat who acts as Mrs. Gristidi's pet.
• Decomposite Character: In the original show, the Nether-Witch was one of Mumm-Ra's disguises. In "Study Time", she shows up as her own character.
• Demoted to Extra: Jaga has a far less prominent role here than he did in the previous shows.
• Denser and Wackier: While previous incarnations of the franchise have been fairly serious ordeals, this show is a fast-paced Affectionate Parody of the franchise that rarely ever takes itself seriously.
• De-Power Zone: "Warrior Maiden Invasion" reveals that the "Thunder Brig" in the ThunderCats' headquarters neutralizes the powers (and even weapons) of those imprisoned within it.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: In the original series, Jaga dies inside the ThunderCats' spaceship during their journey to Third Earth. In this series, he was caught by the explosion that destroyed Thundera.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • In "Panthro Plagiarized", Panthro is willing to destroy the planet by dropping the moon on it just to get Vultureman to confess to stealing his invention. He even pretends to lose control of the moon just to twist the knife.
  • In "Safari Joe", Cheetara is captured by Safari Joe and is so angry about it (mainly because she was live streaming at the time) that she wants to send him into space. The others, who have been captured by Joe before, have already given up on trying to stop him, and point out that he just leaves after capturing them anyway.
• Earth-Shattering Kaboom: In "The Space Beam", Plun-Darr fires a beam to blow up Third Earth. Vultureman turns it back towards Plun-Darr, causing it to be blown up isntead.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Ratar-O returns in his debut episode to lead the Mutants in defeating the ThunderCats, but is dismissive of his underlings and only cares for the Sword of Plun-Darr. So the Mutants free the ThunderCats and join forces with them to depose Ratar-O.
  • Panthro and Vultureman team up in "Thunder Road" after realizing that the shipment of spare Swords of Omens would render their weapon crafting skills obsolete. In the end, they take all the swords and dump them in the ocean.
  • Panthro and Vultureman again team up in "Berb-Cules" to build a robot strong enough to defeat the titular mech.
• Episode Title Card: Some quite elaborate ones.
• Evil Counterpart: Ratar-O can be considered as Lion-O's Plun-Darr counterpart as aside from having the O on the end of each of their names, Ratar-O is what Lion-O might be like if he was a Bad Boss who abused the authority of having a magical sword.
• Evil Is Bigger: Mumm-Ra is the evil overlord of Third Earth, and he is introduced as a giant towering over everyone that can fling the Mutants' ship away with the swipe of his hand. His giant size is the result of his staff, which makes him four times bigger than he usually is; his normal form is a little shorter than Lion-O.
• Exactly What I Aimed At: In "Ratar-O", Lion-O hurls his Claw Shield at Ratar-O, who ducks and says he missed. The Claw Shield hits the lever that opens the airlock on Ratar-O's ship, sucking him into space.
• Extremely Short Intro Sequence: The normal intro is twenty-six seconds long, which, while longer than the 2011 series, is especially short when compared to the 1985 intro. Exaggerated in both parts of "Exodus", where the intro is replaced with a simple jingle and title card, lasting only a few seconds.
• Failed a Spot Check: When the ThunderCats crash land on Third Earth, Cheetara inspects her surroundings and doesn't see anyone else. The Berbils' village is later shown to be next to the spot where the ship landed and, when asked why Cheetara said there wasn't anybody other than the ThunderCats in the area, she says she forgot to look behind her.
• Female Gaze: The show likes to show off Lion-O's butt.
• Flock of Wolves: In "Snarf's Day Off", Snarf pretends to be a normal cat named Bottom Dollar for an elderly lady who makes calendars of him and sells them at the craft fair. Her competitor turns out to be Mumm-Ra in disguise, and when he finds out, he warns Snarf that if he reveals himself by fighting him, the old lady and the others at the fair will never forgive him. Eventually, both are revealed, and the old lady reveals herself to be Mumm-Rana, Mumm-Ra's good counterpart, who knew Snarf's identity all the time. Furthermore, the donkey the other ThunderCats are looking for claims to be Mumm-Randall, the neutral version of Mumm-Ra and Mumm-Rana.
• Foreshadowing: When Jaga gets to talking about Snarf, he doesn't actually know how to describe him, while the onscreen trading card shows his stats as maxed out and his skills as "all" with a Arm Cannon next to it. Near the end of "Exodus Part 1", Snarf is revealed to be a robot with tons of tools and weaponry jammed inside him.
  • Jaga initially skims over the destruction of the ThunderCats’ home planet, stating that "everything explodes someday!". In "Jaga History", this is revealed to be because Jaga was directly responsible for it and didn’t want them to know.
• Fountain of Youth:
  • In "Time Switch," Lion-O is exposed to gases from a Suspension Capsule that make him grow younger over the course of the episode. This is reveresed by entering the Cave of Time, where you age many times faster than normal.
  • In "Thundercubs," Panthro, Cheetara, Tygra, Snarf, and Snarfer wander into the Canyon of Youth, were they are regressed to children. As before, this is remedied using the Cave of Time. In "Return of the Thundercubs," Panthro, Cheetara and Tygra fall victim to the Valley of Youth again, but this time are restored by the Mirror of Truth.
• Fun with Acronyms: Parodied when Mandora calls Lion-O an oaf. He doesn't realize he's being insulted because he thinks oaf stands for "Officially Awesome Friend".
• Fun with Flushing: In "Dr. Dometome", Lion-O finds a giant plug under the ocean and pulls on it, sending all the water on Third Earth underground. He and Dr. Dometome follow the drain and discover that the water has flooded an underground city of mushroom people, who declare war on them once they find out it was Lion-O's fault. Lion-O fixes things by finding a "reverse plug" that sends all the water back to the surface.
• Giant Spider:
  • In "The Horror of Hook Mountain", the ThunderCats end up facing five giant spiders that are camouflaged and well adapted to the snow.
  • In "Schnorp", the ThunderCats are caught by a giant spider queen in the woods and her children.
• Good All Along:
  • In "Warrior Maidens Invasion", the Warrior Maidens at first seem to be creating chaos wherever they go, setting fires, attacking the Berbils with locusts and throwing stones at a cute little cottage. Later, WilyKat discovers that the Maidens were actually the planet's defenders and were stopping the fires and locusts; and the cottage was Mumm-Ra's summer house.
  • The Terrators in "Swampy Johnny". Johnny claims that they are after him because they’re against everything that's cool, but when the ThunderCats defeat them, the Terrators reveal that they were after Johnny because he flooded their planet, and is in the midst of doing the same to Third Earth.
• Hard-Work Montage: Parodied in "Working Grrl". Cheetara goes to work at a company and quickly rises to CEO. It then cuts to the other ThunderCats talking about how she just started working three hours ago.
• Hates Being Alone: Mongor, the fear demon, actually shows some psychological trauma from being a Sealed Evil in a Can and can easily be made fearful when the idea of being alone is imposed upon him.
• The Heist: "Sword Heist", in which Lion-O asks Lion-S to break into the sword store and steal the Sword of Vengeance before Ratar-O buys it in the morning.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Lion-O goes into an incredibly over-the-top one in "The Legend of Boggy Ben" shortly after he's unable to open the jar of Thunder Snaps.
  • Played straight in "Driller", where after realizing that Driller’s sole, recursive purpose is to drill for diamonds that allow him to keep drilling, Panthro suffers a similar epiphany because he has to fix everything that the other ThunderCats break.
  • Gwen goes through one during the first half of "Secret of the Unicorn", shortly after the Mutants steal the other unicorns.
  • Lion-O again in "Mumm-Ra of Plun-Darr" after his bungling leads to Mumm-Ra and the Mutants taking over their base.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In "Grune", the ghost of Grune the Destroyer returns to get revenge on the ThunderCats, specifically Lion-O, for getting exiled by King Claudus. Just as he's about to destroy them all, Lion-O gives himself up, in exchange for Grune sparing the others. Grune is touched by this selfless gesture, concludes that Lion-O won't be the bad ruler that Claudus was, and forgives the ThunderCats.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • In "Exodus Part 2", the Berbils exploit Mumm-Ra's curse on his own name by latching onto his head and saying his name several times. This results in Mumm-Ra repeatedly getting struck by lightning.
  • In "Mall-Ra", Mumm-Ra builds an evil labyrinth disguised as a shopping mall to trap the ThunderCats. When he finds the ThunderCats aren't being Driven to Madness by the mall, he goes inside to move things along, and ends up unable to get out and going mad, while the ThunderCats exit the mall somehow.
• Honor Before Reason: In "The Legend of Boggy Ben", Lion-O refuses to call the others for help, believing that true heroes get things done on their own. His teammates end up teaching him that true heroes work together.
• Hostile Terraforming:
  • The Mutants’ plot in "Adopt-A-Jackal" is to plant the Seeds of Plun-Darr, which will turn Third Earth into a replica of Plun-Darr. Panthro ruins their plan by genetically altering the seeds so they only sprout one tiny tree.
  • Swampy Johnny goes around with a rain machine turning planets into swamps.
• Humongous Mecha:
  • In "Mumm-Ra of Plun-Darr Part 2", Panthro turns the base into one to fight an ultra-large Mumm-Ra.
  • The Berbils build a giant Berbil named Ber-Cules to stand up for them and take back all the buildings the Berbils built (including the ThunderCats' base), but goes too far and declares himself emperor of the Berbils. To defeat him, Panthro and Vultureman reluctantly join forces to build a giant robot, Bird-Cat-Man-Bot.
• Hypocritical Humor: Panthro calls Safari Joe bald, despite also having a bald head.
• I Fell for Hours: In "Hachiman", Lion-O and Hachiman both fall down a chasm that is explicitly said to be a four-day fall. They spend the fall trying to look cool in front of each other, doing things like lying in place and playing solitaire.
• Idiot Hero: "Exodus" starts off by showing off the "Stats" of the cast. Lion-O has a Strength stat of 20, but a Wisdom stat of 3. Every other character has stats ranging in the teens to indicate more rounded competence. As the "chosen" successor of the ThunderCats, his priorities upon landing on Third Earth are to go off on adventures with complete disregard for his surroundings.
• Immune to Mind Control: In "Telethon", it's revealed that Lion-O is immune to Cheetara's psychic attacks due to his brain being so small it fits between the waves of psychic energy she emits.
• Impossible Pickle Jar: Kickstarts the plot in "The Legend of Boggy Ben", where Lion-O is unable to open a jar of Thunder Snaps and goes on a quest to retrieve "jar juice" to open it by himself.
  Lion-O: No cookies. Only darkness remains.
• "Kick Me" Prank: In "Lion-S", Lion-O uses the Sword of Omens to shave a "Kick Me" onto Vultureman's back, which encourages the Bolkins that Vultureman was just bullying to gang up and start kicking him.
• Lightning Bruiser: Snarf's stat card at the start of "Exodus" reveals that he's fully proficient in all skills, and has stats maxed out at 20 across the board.
• Loophole Abuse: In "Mandora's Law", Tygra finds out that there are no laws on Third Earth, so he starts writing some. Unfortunately, not only do the Mutants find a way to get around the laws, they also use them against the ThunderCats, eventually becoming rulers of Third Earth.
• Malicious Misnaming: In "Prank Call", WilyKit calls Mumm-Ra "Dumb-Ra".
• Make My Monster Grow: The fear demon Mongor from "Mini Mongor" gets bigger by feeding on fear. Unfortunately, he's so small no one is afraid of him. Turns out that his own fear of being alone makes him bigger, and soon he's a giant going around crushing others. The Kittens exploit this by invoking his fear again, making him grow uncontrollably until he falls off the planet and becomes a constellation.
• Manchild: Oh, Lion-O. So, so Lion-O. His demonstrations of this might need their own page.
• Market-Based Title: The show is called Thundercats RRRRRRR in France.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: In a rash attempt to save their own lives, the Mutants managed to reverse the planet-destroying space beam from Plun-Darr that threatened Third Earth, resulting in the destruction of their homeworld.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Snack time in "The Legend of Boggy Ben" is announced as "Cookie O' Clock!"
  • "Corporate Buyout" depicts Cheetara and Junn-Junn becoming workplace-themed heroes, complete with Transformation Sequence.
  • Lion-O saves the day and restores Cheetara’s mental state in "Telethon" by reading Tygra’s boring poetry.
• Mundane Utility: In "Lost Sword", Lion-O uses the Sword of Omens to eat breakfast cereal.
• Neat Freak: Tygra in "Thunderslobs". He's revealed to be the one who cleans up after the other ThunderCats, and after stopping Mumm-Ra's latest plot, he stays behind cleaning up the mess. Mumm-Ra makes him his maid, with Tygra playing along because he doesn't feel appreciated at the base.
• Never Say "Die": Lampshaded in "The Legend of Boggy Ben", where shortly after a frog tells Lion-O that he's "going to croak out here", a TV-Y7-FV ratings bug appears in the corner of the screen with a hit flash.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In "Prank Call", Lion-O finds a cave with warning signs saying to keep out because something evil is inside. He goes inside when the Thunderkittens dare him to. As a result, he ends up leading Mumm-Ra to a powerful crystal that amplifies his powers.
• Noodle Incident: "Prank Call" includes a bit where Lion-O is explaining to WilyKit and WilyKat that he acquired a time machine from a caveman.
• No-Sell:
  • In "Prank Call", after Mumm-Ra powers up on a crystal, the Sword of Omens' blade bounces off his chest.
  • Tygra's bolo is ineffective in combat more often than not, leading to him being used as a paddleball by Boggy Ben and getting caught up in Driller's drill.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: In "Lion-S", Lion-O says this when he gets arrested by Mandora again.
• Only Sane Man:
  • In the first couple of episodes, Tygra seems to be the only one with his head on completely straight among the ThunderCats, trying to reel in the others when they get a little too off track from their personal quirks. Later episodes show that he's Not So Above It All, it's just that's he's a Comically Serious Control Freak whose quirks tend to be less destructive.
  • Ssslithe takes this role among the Mutants, the others firmly holding on to the Idiot Ball. Later subverted when Vultureman is revealed to be a fully competent inventor.
• Out-Gambitted: In "Safari Joe", the ThunderCats enter Safari Joe's lair, which turns out to be a mostly empty apartment. When he comes home, Joe starts crying that his dream of building a biosphere to house the endangered species of Third Earth will go unfulfilled. The ThunderCats take pity on him and help him build it, but once they do, Safari Joe traps them in individual pods inside it, saying that he had fooled them into building their own prison. Cheetara, however, had altered the original plans so that they are actually in escape pods while the rest of the biosphere blasts off into space, with Joe trapped inside.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • Played with in "Mumm-Ra of Plun-Darr Part 2" when the ThunderCats disguise themselves as Berbils to get into their base, now under the Mutants' control. The Berbil guards fall for their pathetic disguises easily, but the Mutants (or at least Ssslithe) aren't fooled so easily.
  • In "Pumm-Ra", Mumm-Ra plans to disguise himself as a Thundarian to infiltrate the ThunderCats, but since the Ancient Spirits of Evil won't use their magic on him for having failed so much, he has to improvise a poor cat disguise out of an old coat, a sock for a tail, and construction paper ears. The ThunderCats don't recognize him, but still find him weird, mainly because he insists on acting like a housecat. It's not until Tygra, who had been resting for most of the episode, sees him and instantly recognizes their mortal enemy that Mumm-Ra's plan fails.
• Pass the Popcorn: In "Thunderdogs", Mumm-Ra watches Tygra put up posters for dog adoption while eating popcorn. The Spirits of Evil criticize him for just lounging around, so Mumm-Ra claims to be planning to infiltrate the lair to get the Sword of Omens. Later, as the dog causes mayhem, Mumm-Ra watches from a high shelf while my eating popcorn again.
• Plagiarism in Fiction: "Panthro Plagiarized" depicts Vultureman stealing Panthro's latest invention, the gravity fork, and passing it off as his own.
• Power Nullifier: In "Warrior Maiden Invasion", the ThunderCats are placed in the Thunder Brig, which was designed to disable their technology and powers. When Tygra is questioned about why he had it built in the first place, he simply says "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
• Punch-Clock Villain: In "Corporate Buyout", Cheetara and Junn-Junn are battling the minions of Karnor Corp. when the clock strikes 5:00 PM. Not only do they stop attacking, they cheerfully direct our heroes to the entrance to the CEO.
• Rattling Off Legal: The ad for Thunder Snaps in "The Legend of Boggy Ben" ends with an announcer saying that they're "not available on this planet".
• Read the Fine Print: In "Working Grrl", Cheetara tricks Monkian into signing a contract that she claims will make him declared "cool", but really gives her his property and legally changes his name to "Stinko".
• Read the Freaking Manual: In "Prank Call", the TV is not working, and while Lion-O tries to use Percussive Maintenance, Tigra keeps insisting they use the manual. Later, when Lion-O, the kittens and Snarf are trapped by Mumm-Ra's crystal, they find the crystal's manual and use it to escape and disable all evil functionalities on Mumm-Ra's crystal.
• Real After All:
  • In "The Legend of Boggy Ben", Cheetara and Tygra make up a monster called Boggy Ben and Lion-O goes on a quest to face it. The Boggy Ben he faces turns out to be Tygra in a costume, as they were trying to teach Lion-O a lesson. Just as they explain this, the real Boggy Ben shows up and attacks them.
  • In "The Horror of Hook Mountain", Snowman rants about a monster called the Sparklemaw, but Tygra thinks he's making it up. It shows up at the end.
  • In "Plundmas", the ThunderCats dress Tygra as the Kramp-Borg, Plun-Darr's version of The Krampus, to cheer up the Mutants, but he's found out. Then the real Kramp-Borg appears and beats up the ThunderCats, which is what finally cheers up the Mutants.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: In "Study Time", they meet Jaga's ghost who offers to train Lion-O, but Tygra is disappointed when Jaga just teaches Lion-O to have fun and dance instead of study like he did with him. Eventually, Jaga explains to Tygra that no two students are alike and Lion-O learns things differently. The dances turn out to help Lion-O control the Sword of Omens better.
• Recycled Soundtrack: Roar's background music mostly consists of songs ripped directly from the original 1985 series.
• Regularly Scheduled Evil: In "Barbastella", the Mutants attack the ThunderCats base every Wednesday, which the ThunderCats have gotten bored of by now. Barbastella tells Panthro that the Mutants attack her every Thursday, and they decide to make a date out of it.
• Remember the New Guy?: In "Safari Joe". The ThunderCats are all already aware of the eponymous villain, pointing out that he has been regularly capturing them in his traps since the day they arrived on Third Earth.
• Reset Button: Invoked in "Mumm-Ra of Plun-Darr Part 1" with Lion-O pointing out that things always go back to normal after their adventures. After Mumm-Ra and the Mutants take over their base and the ThunderCats are exiled at the end of part 1, Lion-O loses faith in things going back to the way they were. Played straight in part 2, however, with the ThunderCats taking back their base and defeating evil once again.
• Ring-Ring-CRUNCH!: In "Mumm-Ra of Plun-Darr Part 1", Lion-O crushes his alarm clock thinking it had gone off, when in reality it was the intruder alarm. He later comments on how his alarm clock always magically reassembles itself the next day, only it was Panthro fixing it.
• Robot Buddy: Surprisingly, Snarf is revealed to be a Do-Anything Robot in "Exodus Part 1". Lion-O didn't see it coming either.
  "Wow, Snarf! It looks like you're a robot!"
• Robotic Reveal: When the Mutants have Lion-O cornered in "Exodus Part 1", Snarf suddenly produces a plasma cannon from his back, revealing to the audience — and Lion-O, apparently — that he's a robot.
• Running Gag: Typically relegated to specific episodes.
  • "Exodus Part 2": Characters being struck by lightning every time they say Mumm-Ra's name.
  • "Prank Call": Everything having a manual, from Tygra’s TV at the start to Mumm-Ra's evil crystal within a crystal.
  • "Study Time": Characters mistaking Jaga’s name as Jillian, complete with a fake epitaph at the very end.
  • Across several episodes, villages being destroyed with text saying "TRASHED!" overlaid on it.
• Saving Christmas: The Christmas Episode "Mandora Saves Christmas", which has a Non-Indicative Title: Mandora is actually trying to arrest Santa Claus for speeding, and it's up to the ThunderCats to help Santa deliver all the presents to Third Earth after he crashed his sleigh. Right after they deliver the last present, Mandora arrests them all, but has a Pet the Dog moment and lets Santa and the ThunderCats have a tree and a radio playing carols. Lion-O declares that Mandora saved Christmas for them after all, even though Tygra points out it's not what happened.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Certain sound effects are replaced with an intentionally cheesy recording of somebody saying them; for example, the Audible Gleam Panthro's spikes make in one scene of "The Legend of Boggy Ben" is obviously somebody saying "pwing".
• The Scottish Trope: In "Exodus Part 2", Mumm-Ra cursed his own name so anyone except himself who says it gets struck by lightning. The curse seems to have been lifted in future episodes, perhaps after the Berbils exploited it to force the lightning to strike Mumm-Ra's head before it could strike the Berbils themselves.
• Selfless Wish: In "Secret of the Unicorn", the unicorns offer to grant Lion-O one wish. Lion-O decides to wish for Tygra to have earmuffs so everybody can party without disturbing him, which makes everybody happy.
• Sequel Hook: "Jaga History" ends with Ratar-O finding the Sword of Plun-Darr and vowing revenge on the ThunderCats… and then a rock knocks it out of his hands and he chases after it.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story:
  • In "Jaga History", Jaga's ghost tells the story of how Thundera exploded. It climaxes with him fighting Ratar-O with the Sword of Plun-Darr, and everyone thinks this is when it happened, but instead Jaga defeats Ratar-O and throws the Sword of Plun-Darr down a volcano, where it fell into the planet's core and eventually destroyed it. All of this is from the original series, but Jaga states it so matter-of-factly that it comes off as this. Everyone is fine with this, except for Tygra, who is both gobsmacked by the reveal that Jaga himself is responsible for Thundera's demise and worried that the Sword of Plun-Darr might still be out there.
  • In "Wizz-Ra", the titular wizard, who is trapped in the seventh dimension and can only communicate every 7000 years through reflective surfaces, tries to communicate with the ThunderCats, but they think he's a ghost and freak out. Tygra does some research and tries to get the others to take things rationally, but they don't listen and instead throw everything reflective they have out the window; and when they see Wizz-Ra through Tygra's reading glasses, they think he's been possessed by the ghost and throw him out as well. After all is straightened out, Tygra lets Wizz-Ra deliver the message he's been trying to give the ThunderCats, which is that they're doing a great job and to keep it up. Tygra, after all he's been through this episode, goes on a rant over this and tells off Wizz-Ra.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: After Mumm-Ra is defeated at the end of "Mumm-Ra of Plun-Darr", he starts to give a As Long as There Is Evil speech, but before he finishes the first line, the ThunderCats mecha sends him back to his lair with one swift kick.
• Signs of Disrepair: In "Mandora - The Evil Chaser", Lion-O finds a large container with a lever that says "Pull Now". After he does, the container shakes and the dirt around it falls off to reveal that the sign actually reads "Do Not pull this lever, not Now, not ever!" It was actually a prison transport full of dangerous criminals, which Lion-O just released.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • In "Driller", Lion-O has no reaction to learning that the base's power core could explode and destroy everything until he realizes that would include all his stuff.
  • In "Panthro Plagiarized", Panthro is more upset about Vultureman stealing his idea for a gravity fork than with the fact that he's going to use it to take over Third Earth.
• The Slow Path: In "Killing Time", Mumm-Ra goes to sleep on his sarcophagus for a thousand years, hoping to wake up in a world where there are no ThunderCats. Unfortunately, due to having found the Fountain of Youth 999 years prior, the ThunderCats are still around. Mumm-Ra tries to sleep for another thousand years, but no matter how far in time he goes, there are still ThunderCats. Eventually he gets to a time where the ThunderCats are everything, including time itself. Mumm-Ra takes that opportunity to go back to just after the first time he went to sleep, avoiding all this from happening.
• Something We Forgot: "Telethon" has the ThunderCats hosting a telethon to rescue the Berbils, who had accidentally sent themselves into space. The story gets sidetracked when Cheetara's telepathic powers cause her to go One-Winged Angel and Lion-O has to rescue her. At the end, everyone is happy that Cheetara is back to normal, but then we cut to the Berbils floating in outer space.
  Berbil: What a sweet ending. I wonder if they saved the Berbils?
• Stacked Characters Poster: The show's poster has everyone is stacked on top of each other in a big tower of violence, with Lion-O at the top holding the Sword of Omens.
• Suckiness Is Painful: In "Telethon", Lion-O defeats a superpowered Cheetara by reading Tygra's bad poetry.
• Sudden Video-Game Moment: As Lion-O crosses the bog in "The Legend of Boggy Ben", the scene cuts to an eight-bit video game display, which suddenly glitches and Lion-O falls down a pit. It's then revealed to be the video game WilyKat and WilyKit are playing.
• Summon to Hand: In "Lion-S", Lion-O finally reveals he learned how to do this when Lion-S steals the Sword of Omens and tries to escape in a spaceship. His summoning ends up dragging her ship back to Third Earth.
• Swiss-Cheese Security: Panthro updates the base's security considerably in "Mumm-Ra of Plun-Darr". Unfortunately, the Mutants are able to bypass it because Lion-O forgot to lock the door. Not only that, he left the control pad inside, enabling the Mutants to use the ThunderCats' own security system against them.
• Taken for Granite: In "Prank Call", Mumm-Ra uses his new crystal to turn Panthro, Tygra, and Cheetara to stone. Lion-O reverses it once he reads the crystal's manual.
• Take That!:
  • In "Prank Call", the ThunderCats watch TV and see a show that is clearly based on SilverHawks. The Kittens call it lame and bail.
  • Silver Hawks shows up again in "Hachiman", where the ThunderCats are stuck watching a four-day marathon while Lion-O gets the batteries for the remote. The clips shown parody the lengthiness of the opening logo and the Lock And Load Montages. By the time Lion-O returns, they actually like the show now.
• Telethon: The episode "Telethon", where Cheetara uses her Psychic Powers to broadcast a benefit show to raise enough money to build a magnet to rescue the Berbils.
• Temporary Bulk Change: In "Ratar-O", the ThunderCats go to a carnival and gorge themselves on too much food, leaving them too fat and bloated to fight back against Ratar-O. By the second half of the episode, however, they are back to normal and able to fight back.
• Tempting Fate: "Secret of the Unicorn" opens with Tygra reading books in his room, making several remarks about how nothing has interrupted his studies. Cue Lion-O running in and having an impromptu dance party.
• That's No Moon: In "The Horror of Hook Mountain", the Sparklemaw that Snowman rants about turns out to be a giant mouth in the mountain itself, which swallows our heroes at the end.
• Theme Naming: Everything in ThunderCats HQ has "Thunder" before the name of the object.
• Too Dumb to Live: In "Telethon", the Berbils build a black hole generator, which suck them out into space the moment they turn it on. When Panthro asks why they would build something so recklessly dangerous, a Berbil answers "Because building."
• Total Eclipse of the Plot: In "Eclipsso", the titular villain builds a giant Dyson sphere around the sun, threatening to freeze Third Earth, and it's up to the ThunderCats to stop him.
• Trash of the Titans: The ThunderCats are very messy in the episode "Thunderslobs". After Tygra is left behind at Mumm-Ra's lair, they wake up to find a huge mess and Lion-O assumes that Mumm-Ra cursed them to be messy. It's only when they look at the surveillance footage that they realize they made the mess and Tygra was responsible for cleaning up after them.
• Trust-Building Blunder: In "The Horror of Hook Mountain", Tygra puts Lion-O through some trust exercises, starting with the trust fall. Lion-O overdoes it by falling from a high cliff.
• Unusually Uninteresting Sight:
  • Thundera explodes during the first minute of "Exodus Part 1", almost immediately after it's introduction. Rather than showing sorrow over his planet's destruction, Jaga simply states that "everything 'splodes someday!". Later justified when it's revealed that Jaga accidentally caused the destruction of the planet.
  • Lion-O’s initial reaction to seeing Driller in his eponymous episode is an understated "who dat?"
  • In "Barbastella", the Mutants attacking the base has happened so often the ThunderCats have gotten bored of it. Panthro only fights them off after hearing they have flying machines, so he could show off his own flying machine.
• Vanity License Plate: Safari Joe's plate reads, "Duz*It", a play on his catch phrase.
• [Verb] This!: In "Panthro Plagiarized", when Vultureman steals Panthro's invention and accuses Panthro of being the one copying him, Panthro says, "Copy this!" before attacking him.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: In "Exodus Part 2", when Mumm-Ra is defeated and the ThunderCats are mocking his puny true body, Mumm-Ra swears revenge and teleports away. Panthro comments that they probably should have grabbed him while they had the chance.
  • Done again in "Driller" where the titular character immediately leaves the heroes, with Cheetara questioning why their villains always do that.
• Visual Gag:
  • Lion-O defeats Boggy Ben with a "finishing blow"... by blowing on him to topple him over.
  • In "Eclipsor", during the midst of a space battle, Lion-O is warned that something is on his tail. Cut to him looking at his behind and realizing he doesn’t have a tail at all.
• Vocal Dissonance:
  • Lion-O has childish features despite his general muscled build, but has a deep, heroic-sounding voice.
  • WilyKat is a child, but sounds like a teenager.
• Wacky Racing: In "Thunder Road", a shipment of Swords of Omen is dropped on Third Earth, resulting in a four-way race between the ThunderCats, Mutants, Mumm-Ra and a pair of Bolkins to get to it first.
• Waiting Skeleton: In "Killing Time", Mumm-Ra has woken up 1000 years in the future, where his sarcophagus is now in a museum. When he returns, the guard warns him not to go in there, then says he won't move until Mumm-Ra comes out. Another thousand years later, there is a skeleton where the guard was, and Mumm-Ra gloats at it. Turns out it's just a display skeleton, and the old guard is still there.
• Walk the Plank: In "Berserkers", the Berserkers force Lion-O and the Kittens to walk the plank. Lion-O points out they all know how to swim, but then they see the huge Black Widow Shark in the water. Tygra saves them.
• Watch Out for That Tree!: After venturing into Third Earth by himself in "Exodus Part 1", Lion-O swings on a vine and slams right into a tree.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Panthro is revealed to be deadly afraid of bats; which is inconvenient, as he's dating Barbastella, the Queen of Bats.
• A Winner Is You: Inverted in the in-universe video game the kids play in "The Legend of Boggy Ben", where dying results in a "YOU ARE DIED." message flashing on Snarf's screen.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: In "Berserkers", it's revealed that the waste product of the ThunderCats base is gold, which is used to pay off the Berserkers who came to attack them.
• Wrecked Weapon:
  • In "Exodus Part 2", Lion-O uses the Sword of Omens to shatter Mumm-Ra's staff, depowering him.
  • In "Lost Sword", Mumm-Ra rips the Eye of Thundera out of the Sword of Omens, crushes it into powder, and absorbs its magic to power himself up. Eventually, Lion-O uses the Sword of Omens to absorb the power Mumm-Ra took, which regenerates the Eye of Thundera.
  • In "Mumm-Ra of Plun-Darr", Lion-O snaps the Sword of Plun-Darr over his knee.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Mumm-Ra states that his staff makes him four times bigger. His normal form is slightly shorter than Lion-O, meaning he should be around four times his height (or less, if one is taking square-cube into account). Giant Mumm-Ra in actuality is large enough to use ThunderCats HQ as a chair; a more accurate comparison would be forty times bigger, not four.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: In "Mumm-Ra of Plun-Darr", Lion-O has constantly been berated by the others for his irresponsible behavior and recklessness and repeatedly called a "tool". He eventually sinks into a Heroic BSoD and says they are right, he's a tool. Jaga appears and says there's nothing wrong with being a tool; after all, the Sword of Omens is just a tool and it's awesome! This helps Lion-O bounce back and gives him an idea on how to beat Mumm-Ra.
• You Have Failed Me: In "Mumm-Ra of Plun-Darr", when the Mutants fail to stop the ThunderCats from reclaiming their base, Mumm-Ra angrily hurls them into a volcano. They somehow survive this.
• You Have to Believe Me!: In "Berserkers", Lion-O and the Kittens are tasked with cleaning the base's waste tank when the Berserkers attack and they have to fight then off. Tygra catches them not doing their job and think that they're just goofing off. They try to explain about the Berserkers, but since they are not around at the moment, Tygra doesn't believe them.
• You Mean X Mas:
  • Plundmas, a holiday in Plun-Darr which is mostly about beating up the ThunderCats. It even includes its own version of The Krampus, the Kramp-Borg. When the Mutants are too depressed over accidentally destroying Plun-Darr to celebrate it, Lion-O convinces the others (over Tygra's objections) to cheer them up by recreating the Eight Horrors of Plundmas. Santa Claus (via videophone) also attempts to discourage Lion-O, so Christmas also exists in this universe.
  • "The First Thundsgiving" is about the ThunderCats celebrating the first anniversary of their arrival to Third Earth with a feast using local ingredients (after they had eaten all the Thundarian ingredients Tygra had stowed away). The animals they fight to get those ingredients make up with the ThunderCats after finding out the reason for taking the ingredients, and they join together in what Lion-O calls Thundsgiving. The whole episode, then, parallels the story of the American Thanksgiving holiday.
  • Averted in "Mandora Saves Christmas", which shows that Third Earth celebrates Christmas and gets presents from Santa Claus.

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