Jab’s Builds! (Lawnmower Man! Samus Aran! Metroids!)

[Ares]

Rankin Bass had 3 very similar shows: ThunderCats, SilverHawks and TigerSharks. And the order they came out pretty much dictates their popularity and quality.

[Jabroniville]

TYGRA
Played By: Peter Newman
Role: The Easily-Captured One, The Passive One, The Calm One
PL 8 (133)
STRENGTH 3 STAMINA 3 AGILITY 6
FIGHTING 11 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 5 AWARENESS 4 PRESENCE 2

Skills:
Acrobatics 6 (+12)
Athletics 9 (+13)
Deception 2 (+4)
Expertise (Science) 4 (+9)
Investigation 2 (+6)
Perception 4 (+8)
Persuasion 4 (+8)
Stealth 4 (+10)
Technology 5 (+10)
Vehicles 2 (+6)

Advantages:
Defensive Roll, Equipment 2 (Bolo-Whip- Strength-Damage +1- Reach 4), Improved Critical (Whip), Improved Initiative, Ranged Attack 4, Set-Up, Teamwork

Powers:
"Invisibility" Concealment 2 (Vision) [4]
"That Shit He Only Did The One Time" Illusion (Vision & Hearing) 8 (Flaws: Mental, Tiring) [8]

Offense:
Unarmed +11 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Bolo Whip +11 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +10

Defenses:
Dodge +12 (DC 22), Parry +12 (DC 22), Toughness +3 (+4 D.Roll), Fortitude +6, Will +8

Complications:
Disabled (Poor Swimmer)- Tygra cannot swim properly unless he's invisible. Seriously.
Responsibility (Lacks Confidence)- Tygra is not outgoing, and has been shy since childhood. He can often take too long to come to a decision.

Total: Abilities: 76 / Skills: 40--20 / Advantages: 11 / Powers: 12 / Defenses: 14 (133)

-Tygra was a bit of an odd character- you'd think a humanoid TIGER would be the most bad-ass character around, but instead he acted like a wuss, lost like a wuss, and every kid loved Lion-O & Panthro more. Even his name strikes me as feminine, though that might be because the Avengers had a "Tigra" on the team who was a sexy chick. He functions as a bit of a Second-In-Command, being a bit wiser and more mature than Lion-O, in addition to being more experienced. EVERY kids show in the 1980s had a "Leader" and a "Second Leader"- Hawk from G.I. Joe, Prowl in Transformers, etc.

-Tygra is a fast, skilled fighter, but below Lion-O on the food chain. He has the power of Invisibility, which is tremendous, and also a "Mental Illusion" power that he literally only used in the Opening Pilot Episodes. He tended to get captured A LOT, though.

[Jabroniville]

PANTHRO
Played By: Earle Hyman
Role: Everyone's Favorite, The Strong Guy, Team Pilot
PL 9 (172)
STRENGTH 6 STAMINA 6 AGILITY 5
FIGHTING 10 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 5 AWARENESS 4 PRESENCE 3

Skills:
Acrobatics 5 (+10)
Athletics 6 (+12)
Deception 2 (+5)
Expertise (Science) 5 (+10)
Intimidation 7 (+10)
Investigation 2 (+6)
Perception 4 (+8)
Persuasion 2 (+5)
Stealth 1 (+6)
Technology 7 (+12)
Vehicles 9 (+13)

Advantages:
Accurate Attack, Equipment 13 (Assorted Gear, ThunderTank), Fast Grab, Improved Critical (Fighting Sticks), Improved Critical (Unarmed), Improved Hold, Improved Smash, Ranged Attack 4, Set-Up, Teamwork, Weapon Bind, Weapon Break

Powers:
"Battle Sticks That Are Really Nunchucks" (Flaws: Easily Removable) [8]
"High-Pressure Bubbles/Red Energy" Blast 4 (Feats: Variable 2- Any Energy) (9) -- (12 points)

• AE: Strength-Damage +1 (Feats: Split, Improved Disarm, Reach 3) (6)
• AE: "Flamethrowers" Damage 5 (Extras: Area- 30ft. Cone +1/2) (Flaws: Unreliable- 5/day) (5)
• AE: "Fire-Retardant Foam" Nullify Flames 2 (Extras: Ranged) (Flaws: Unreliable- 5/day) (2)

"Super-Underwear" (Flaws: Removable) [16]
"Chest Spikes" Blast 4 (Extras: Multiattack) (Flaws: Unreliable- 5/day) (8) -- (10)

• AE: "Rappelling Lines" Movement 1 (Swinging) (2)
• AE: "Spikes on the Ground" Enhanced Strength 2 (Flaws: Limited to Resisting Movement) (2)

Features 1: Makes a Dumb Helmet (1)
"Remote Control Drone" Remote Sense (Vision, Hearing) 3 (9)
-- (20 points)

Equipment:
"ThunderTank"- As Tank minus Explosive Shells, Plus Some Stuff (55-ish points)

Offense:
Unarmed +10 (+6 Damage, DC 21)
Battle Sticks +10 (+7 Damage, DC 22)
Chest Spikes +8 (+4 Ranged Damage, DC 19)
Flamethrowers +5 Area (+5 Damage, DC 20)
Initiative +5

Defenses:
Dodge +10 (DC 20), Parry +11 (DC 21), Toughness +6, Fortitude +8, Will +8

Complications:
Phobia (Bats)- Panthro hates bats.

Total: Abilities: 86 / Skills: 50--25 / Advantages: 23 / Powers: 24 / Defenses: 12 (172)

-I feel like asking people their favorite ThunderCat is like asking who's their favorite character on The Wire. It's ALWAYS Panthro, right? Voiced by a Shakespearean-trained actor (and Cliff Huxtable's father), Panthro is the stern, confident, ultra-strong, super-genius tech star of the ThunderCats, which... basically makes him the best guy. Like, Lion-O needs his Variable Macguffin Sword to compete; Panthro just whups ass LIKE A BOSS. In one episode, he straight up jumps between four Mooks, taunts them, and then CRUSHES ONE OF THEIR MACES WITH HIS BARE HANDS.

[FuzzyBoots]

Two more Eric Jacobus videos I missed.

Jacobus as Jin Kazama

Notes:

Breakdown - Jin Kazama's Mishima Karate is like Kazuya's in its Kyokushin roots, though Jin's is more accurate since he was mocapped in the superior Tekken 3 (compared to Kazuya, many of whose moves are left over from Tekken 1). Though he has no fancy kicks aside from a Mawashi Geri (13 Spinning Flare Kick), his advancing footwork made this movelist a bit tricky.

And as Devil Jin

Notes:

Breakdown - Devil Jin's movelist is built off Jin's Tekken 3 movelist utilizing Mishima-Style Karate, which is shared by Kazuya, Heihachi, Jinpachi, and a few other characters. According to the Tekken Wikia, DJ's movelist has elements of Shito-Ryu, though it seems like more a general amalgamation of Karate elements with its front-stance punches and abundance of front kicks, plus all the laser beam attacks. It's be a stretch to say Devil Jin's style is applicable in real-world situations, though the fundamentals of his basic attacks definitely have their place, as do most of his throws.

[Ares]

PANTHRO
Played By: Earle Hyman
Role: Everyone's Favorite, The Strong Guy, Team Pilot

In one episode, he straight up jumps between four Mooks, taunts them, and then CRUSHES ONE OF THEIR MACES WITH HIS BARE HANDS.

As seen here.

[Ares]

It is kind of nuts how "broken" Panthro was. He was the physically strongest ThunderCat, rivaled only by Lion-O, and Panthro frequently had greater feats of strength, such as flipping the ThunderTank right side up on his own. He was also a highly skilled martial arts master. He was also the best pilot, at least when it came to ground vehicles. And oh yeah, he was an engineering genius who built and maintained said vehicles.

Panthro and Tigra were actually a kind of nice subversion of the "omni-disciplinary scientist" trope, if only a little, as both men contributed to the ThunderCats technology. Panthro was the mechanic and engineer, while Tigra was the architect, chemist and general lore master. Panthro would design the vehicles, tended to have some interesting gadgets, while Tigra was basically Mr. Exposition and would handle problems that required more "science-y" solutions. Like, in one episode, when the ThunderCats were exposed to a shrink gas, Tigra was the one who created an anti-shrinking formula to restore them to normal size. Meanwhile Panthro would frequently fit a truly bizarre amount of gadgets into an outfit that was, essentially a belt, underwear, suspenders and socks. One episode revealed he'd messed with the ThunderCat emblem on his outfit to where he could remove it, it could hover under its own power, he could remote control it, and it could record video, functioning as a spy drone.

Also Jab, a few things:

Lion's Clawshield should probably be a device in and of itself rather than equipment. It not only served as a shield, but the claws on it gave him extra striking power, and it doubled as a means of transportation. Basically, the claw in the index finger could be fired out and function as a cable gun, allowing Lion-O to swing around with it or ascend to greater heights.

You might actually want to consider giving the 'Cats primary weapon a small Variable pool, something like "80s Cartoon Gear" Variable, because what the 'Cats weapons could do varied wildly from one episode to the next. Basically, while the Sword of Omens was the ultimate MacGuffin, the rest of the 'Cats gear was likewise very plot device-y.

Take Panthro, for instance. His nunchaku could function as normal nunchaku, but over the show it we also saw that:
- The chain could also extend to great lengths
- The red claw could shoot variable types of energy, either generic lasers or heat energy.
- The blue claw could shoot either cold energy or generate fire retardant foam

His harness also had gadgets in it, such as:
- The spy-drone belt symbol mentioned above.
- The spikes on his harness could extend and bend to cover his head, functioning as an on-demand helmet.
- The spikes could also shoot out with chains attached to them into the ground to anchor Panthro in place, to resist being blown away.

Granted, this could also just be handled with a Hero Point, but still, it was crazy how often their gear could just do whatever the writers needed.

The ThunderTank is also more like a Tank version of the Batmobile with how much gear, gadgets and unique features it had. Plus it just looked bitchin.

[M4C8]

IIRC didn't Lion-O have some sort of mental control over all cats? I'm sure he somehow calmed or controlled Snow-Meow, the huge cat that Snow Knight rides.

[Ares]

IIRC didn't Lion-O have some sort of mental control over all cats? I'm sure he somehow calmed or controlled Snow-Meow, the huge cat that Snow Knight rides.

He did, supposedly as part of his title as Lord of the ThunderCats. However, like many things in the show, it wasn't used with any regularity, and might have only been used the one time. Then again, there weren't a whole lot of other cats on Third Earth, so who knows?

It was kind of like Tigra's illusion power. The show handwaves it with the idea that creating illusions like that is so strenuous that Tigra was basically saving it until Lion-O's trial.

Me personally, I'd write it so that said illusion power is basically a more taxing version of Tigra's camouflage/invisibility power. The Tiger Tribe can all cloak themselves in that way with some training, but with even more training and effort, they can project more complex illusions, though doing so requires great focus, mental effort and energy reserves.

I'd have also said that Tigra, as a lorekeeper, architect and adviser, was not expected to master said illusion power for Lion-O's trials, as that would have been left to a Court Mage or some such who has trained his life to master illusions. But Tigra was the one who got to escape with Lion-O, so he had to spend time learning that aspect of his abilities, made more difficult since he didn't have a teacher. So for the Trial, Tigra had to basically build up in inner reserves of mental energy, and then use intense meditation and quiet to perform what the Trial needed of him.

And then after said Trial, have the illusion power be something he can only use in a limited fashion unless he likewise has weeks to prepare and a quiet moment, being more general mentalism abilities akin to some versions of the Shadow.

[Jabroniville]

CHEETARA
Played By: Lynn Lipton
Role: Speedster, Miss Fanservice, Your First Crush
PL 8 (143)
STRENGTH 2 STAMINA 2 AGILITY 7
FIGHTING 12 DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 2 AWARENESS 3 PRESENCE 4

Skills:
Acrobatics 7 (+14)
Athletics 13 (+15)
Deception 2 (+6)
Investigation 2 (+5)
Perception 4 (+7)
Persuasion 4 (+7)
Stealth 1 (+8)
Technology 2 (+4)
Vehicles 2 (+6)

Advantages:
Agile Feint, Defensive Roll, Evasion, Improved Critical (Staff), Improved Initiative 2, Ranged Attack 4, Set-Up, Teamwork

Powers:
Speed 7 (250 mph) [7]
"Hit Everyone In Range" Strength-Damage +2 (Extras: Area- 30ft. Shapeable for 4 Ranks) [6]
"Sixth Senses" Senses 8 (Precognition, Postcognition) (Flaws: Side-Effect- Affliction -2, Uncontrolled) [2]
"Woman's Intuition" Senses 1 (Danger Sense) [1]

"Extendable Staff" (Feats: Subtle- Cuff on Upper Arm) (Flaws: Easily Removable) [10]
Blast 7 (14) -- (15 points)

• AE: Strength-Damage +2 (Feats: Reach 5) (7)

Offense:
Unarmed +12 (+2 Damage, DC 17)
Staff +12 (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Hit Everyone +4 Area (+4 Damage, DC 19)
Initiative +15

Defenses:
Dodge +13 (DC 23), Parry +13 (DC 23), Toughness +2 (+3 D.Roll), Fortitude +5, Will +8

Complications:
Power Loss (Speed)- Cheetara cannot run endlessly- running for two miles at her peak speed will exhaust her.

Total: Abilities: 72 / Skills: 38--19 / Advantages: 11 / Powers: 26 / Defenses: 15 (143)

-Cheetara was of course, The Chick on ThunderCats, but avoided some of the usual pratfalls of that type (many of which went to Tygra instead). She was DEFINITELY a focus of sexy imagery, though- hell, the first episode has her NAKED! I mean, all the ThunderCats are naked in that for some reason, but Cheetara gets the full "outlines of the breasts" thing, which is pretty erotic given how we've been trained to look at women's bodies. And her leotard outfit was pretty sexy, too.

-Cheetara was the team Speedster, ripping through Mooks in the show's opening. However, her weakness is her low stamina- she can't run endlessly. In the "Trials of Thundera", Lion-O successfully defeats her in a distance race after she flags at the last bit, and she later over-extends herself and is badly hurt in a later episode. She has the highest Defenses of her team, and typically focuses on either those or lashing out with Area Attack Damage.

[Shock]

I always liked Tygra, him being the scientist/ninja. His being the weakest fighter left him open to the captures and such though. I liked him more than Panthro who was more of a mechanic. Now, I appreciate Panthro's lack of subtlety more than I did as a kid.

Cheetara was ultra-hot, especially with that husky voice. It was also painfully obvious her voice actress was the only female doing voices for the show.

Lion-O still had some of the typical leader traits, as he was supposed to be just as good as each of the others at their given roles. But his lack of experience kept him from being the best at everything.

[Ares]

Cheetara was interesting in how she was definitely not your standard 80s "token female", being this highly competent speedster martial artist. The limits on her stamina naturally varied from episode to episode, like so many other aspects of the show. The idea of her being someone who could constantly use her speed was actually a good one, as it kept the normal broken superspeed power to a minimum, and why she tended to limit it to travel and not overuse it in combat. But then again we'd get things where Cheetara would run Wizz-Ra from Mumm-Ra's pyramid back to cat's lair in moments.

Though the weirdest thing about Cheetara was that they gave her make-up. I mean, she's a cat person with these stylized markings on her face, and she's got these little purple lines over her eyes rather than give her something like, I don't know, eyebrows.

Then again, Lion-O's "armor" had a section cut out for his abs. Granted, if I had abs like that, I'd probably show them off to, and frankly, what armor is going to offer him more protection than those muscles?

I've also got to give the show credit for being willing to mix things up constantly. Plenty of new characters, new villains, actually rebuilding Thundera and having the 'Cats travel back and forth between it and 3rd Earth, etc.

While I like and can appreciate the 80's ThunderCats, and prefer it over the 2011 version, I've got to say that it could use a revival more in line with the 2002 Masters of the Universe, as that series is something of a high example of how to re-introduce a 80s property. Make the series closer to the original, but include some tweaks to the design. Also have most episodes be stand-alones, but reference continuity and build up towards storarcs. Enjoy being able to have the heroes engage in a bit more violence.

I'd also maybe pull a MCU and make it clear that the SilverHawks and TigerSharks exist in this continuity as well. Kind of explore the history of 3rd Earth and why it's so weird, establish that it IS Earth after a Rifts/Thundarr-style combo science/magic apocalypse where must humans had to leave for space, possibly losing the coordinates for Earth in the process. Humanity sets up an interplanetary government on several worlds, has both SilverHawks and Evil Chasers like Mandora, science exploration teams like the TigerSharks, and maybe through the ThunderCats rediscover Earth. Could even be some shenanigans where some people want to return to 3rd Earth, some people want to exploit it, and some feel that it wouldn't be fair to the societies that have thrived on the planet since then.

Also, have an episode that specifically references that episode with the paper mages from the 2011 show and re-tell it in a less stupid way.

[Jabroniville]

I’ve literally never even heard of TigerSharks. What in the world is that?

[Ares]

I’ve literally never even heard of TigerSharks. What in the world is that?

Oookay, where to start.

So, ThunderCats was Rankin-Bass' step into the action cartoon/toy game, and it was really successful. So they did it again with SilverHawks, but instead of alien cat-people stranded on a new world, it was human cyborgs functioning as intergalactic space cops against this alien criminal organization. This was pretty successful as well, so Rankin-Bass decided to try something fairly novel.

The Comic Strip was Rankin-Bass' attempt at essentially an animated variety show. It booked an hour of cartoon time and had four shows per 60 minute episode. Since each cartoon only had about 10 minutes, what wound up happening would be that many episodes would be two-parters requiring you to watch the next day to figure out what happened.

You had Karate Kat, an anthropomorphic action comedy about a detective agency that employed the titular Karate Kat, Hong Kong Fooey style bumbling martial artist. You had Camp Mini-Mon, a sort of sitcom comedy about these two kids who accidentally get sent to a summer camp for the children of various Universal Horror monsters, and the various antics they get into each week. You had Street Frogs, more of a sitcom/slice of life comedy about anthropomorphic frogs meant to stand in for urban/black characters and the shenanigans they would get up to each week.

Then you had the TigerSharks. The TigerSharks was a straight action cartoon like SilverHawks and ThunderCats, and sort of a hybrid of the two thematically. The heroes were human, but were operating on an alien world, learning to adapt to the new environment. They were explorers and scientists could become half-human/half-fish hybrids through use of the Fish Tank, a giant pool of water found in their base. Said base, incidentally looked like a giant metal shark the size of a building that could fly around and travel underwater. The ship at least was was pretty cool.

So you'd have characters like the leader Mako, who would turn into a half-man, half-shark, able to swim at superspeed, had super strength, was super tough, could use his head and arm-fins as cutting blades, and had a wrist-mounted rocket launcher that he could load with various types of missiles, from the normal kind that explode to various trick shots. Then you had Orca, who would turn into a massively strong human/whale hybrid, Octavia who would turn into a human/octopus hybrid, you get the picture.

Their opponents were the Mantanas group of aquatic bad guys who had fled another planet they had polluted and exploited into a wasteland, and were now looking to take over the mostly water planet the TigerSharks were exploring. The leader of the Mantanas, T-Ray, eventually freed a space pirate, Captain Bizzarly, expecting the pirate to work with him. Instead, the Captain betrayed T-Ray and the two villain groups work to oppose each other as well as the TigerSharks.

It wasn't a bad concept per-say, but the joke is often that they basically created a team of Aquamen. The variety show format also likely wound up hurting the show more than helping it, forcing it to share time with other shows the kids weren't guaranteed to like. As a result, it had the shortest run of the three shows, and to my knowledge never got a toyline.

Still, it was done in the same style by the same company as ThunderCats and SilverHawks, so it'd be fun to include it in any future revival. They even got a cameo appearance in the 2011 ThunderCats series.

[sirjolt]

I wish I had the $450 to get that Cheetara statue.

[JDRook]

I’ve literally never even heard of TigerSharks. What in the world is that?

I've never heard of it, either; It may not have broadcast in Canada, or at least not my area. This opening sequence is . . . evocative.