A "Thundarr Teaser"? Thundarr In Space

The 1980 saturday morning cartoon Thundarr The Barbarian had been one of my favorites as a kid. But because it only lasted for two seasons on ABC back then, a mere 21 episodes, I was never able to find out very much about it in subsequent years, except what I could glean from the credits.

As I wrote here before, the Mego Corporation was planning a line of Thundarr action figures in 1982, but went bankrupt just before they were released. But other than that, I never could find out why the show had been cancelled back then, or whether there might have been any plans for a third season before it was cancelled, and if so, what they were.

Well, about 10 years ago or so now, I stumbled upon a fan site about Thundarr that had a picture of him dressed in a space suit, with an accompanying explanation that this was a design for an episode in a proposed third season, in which Thundarr, Ookla and Pincess Ariel would travel into space. Alas, that episode was never produced. But I've never seen those plans mentioned anywhere else since then. So I was never sure whether that was "real," or just a clever invention of a fan. And then, when I tried to go back to the site a few years later, the whole site was gone. So I'd never been able to see that image again either.

Before today, that is. That's it above. I stumbled on it this afternoon on another site. And this one appears to be an original animation cel, signed by the show's producers, Joe Ruby and Ken Spears. (Though I still question whether this is "real" because the same site also contained another animation cel like this one, also labelled "Thundarr Teaser," which was a full frontal nude shot of Princess Ariel.) And so the mystery continues, I suppose.....