While 80’s children’s TV programming is under the all-scrying gaze of the Wessex Scenes features section, I would like to add my own piece of incoherent hackery full of salacious tat and crude smut to the proceedings.

The article in the April 2005 issue spoke movingly and nostalgically for the esoteric surrealism omnipresent in many 80’s offerings from deranged TV pedagogues, smacked up to their spandexed tits on the mind-altering cocktail of hallucinogenic scooby snacks available in the 80’s. Mr.Benn, Super Ted, Bananaman and the kitchenware-based characters of Button Moon were mentioned.

However, I would beg to differ. All of these programmes are merely weird. I would contend that, in addition to being odd, the true glories of the kids TV of my early years were magnificently sexually deviant to an extent unthinkable in these more blinkered and unwise times.

Two particular greats stand out: He-Man and the Thundercats. Collectively, these two cartoons scaled the heights of warped sexual imagery, forever corrupting the impressionable vulnerable little minds watching them, assiduously absorbing every piece of information in the process of growing up. Who can say what the long term effects may be? Even now, just by looking in the window, I can see that subconsciously, I have styled my hair in part homage to Lion-O’s tousled extravagant mane. For those who remain unconvinced, I shall elaborate on my theme.

There were two camps among my childhood friends, those who preferred He-Man, and those who liked the Thundercats. I was in the latter group, and consequently cannot describe as many aspects of He-Man as would do it justice.

I can only recall that He-Man (with his porn star alter-ego name, Prince Adam) physically resembled a over-developed Hollyoaks regular with a fondness for steroids, and wore little else but a fur thong, leather braces and an appalling blonde-bob hair-cut, not unlike Sadie’s coiffure in Emmerdale.

He-Man’s acquaintances included Fisto, Randor, Spikor, Man-at-arms and Whiplash. Suffice it to say that I think we may hazard a guess which side the animators of He-Man batted on. But I digress. The Thundercats is my specialty.

Ostensibly, the Thundercats visited the theme of the titanic battle between good and evil, a familiar epic theme which many children’s cartoons have devoted themselves to.

Where the Thundercats differed from less adventurous depictions is by infusing the eternal struggle between light & dark with a tint of every possible sexual perversion known to man, not just the mere homoeroticism of He-Man.

With its pantheon of characters armed with whips, chains, spikes and wearing hotpants and leotards the Thundercats is a masterpiece.

When the Thundercats crash land on a planet which is to become their new home, having narrowly escaped the destruction of their home planet, Thundera, Lion-O, the young titular lord of the thundercats, must lead his friends in their quest to explore their new home and battle the evil that plagues that world.

In doing so, Lion-O must uphold the Thundercats cherished ideals of truth, honour, justice and friendship. That he feels comfortable doing all these things whilst clad in what is best described as a light pastel blue man-bikini and booties amazes me.

In addition to utilizing what surely must be industrial quantities of hair-spray to maintain the shape of his extravagant bouffant hair-style, this makes him a far more interesting and complex character than his latter day analogues such as Harry Potter.

I refrain from overt comment on the Sword of Omens, Lion-O’s sword, which is capable of extending five times its original length at his command ‘Ho’, and shoots magic, save from inquiring whether that sound I hear is Freud rotating at several million rpm in his grave.

Each of the other Thundercats have their different peccadilloes. Panthro is the engineer of the thundercats and builder of all their vehicles aided by his vast strength and mastery of the technological arts.

He also seems to be somewhat of an S&M devotee, what with his studded thong, spike encrusted braces and fondness for chains, he is tortured by some inner turmoil, which manifests itself when it becomes clear that his sole emotional outlet is one of his creations, the thundertank.

In later episodes, he avidly strokes its inert metal surfaces whilst addressing it with feminine personal pronouns and inflections quite obviously inconsistent with a healthy relationship between man and machine.

Tigra, the elder warrior of the Thundercats, whose attire of leotards and leggings, while unconventional, is by no means the worst of the Thundercats, though he does possess a penchant for wielding with enthusiasm a selection of whips not normally seen out of the more violent Soho dominatrix bordellos.

He may be sleeping with Cheetera, who as one of the only two female members of the Thundercats, was always going to generate a bit of tension.

Cheetera has super-human speed, as well as being quite hot, with her pouting lips and strawberry-blonde hair. I still fancy Cheetera.

The other Thundercats are the Thunderkittens, Wily-kit and Wily-kat, whose overly-close sibling relationship (they are never seen apart) and habit of wearing miniskirts irrespective of gender imparts the suspicion of incest.

Then there is Snarf, a weird cat-thing who is there for comic purposes such as providing the obligatory laugh contractually required at the end of every episode in which the quality of the joke is patently insufficient to merit the amount of laughter elicited. But the baddies are camp as well.

Slithe, the reptilian leader of the mutants, has man-breasts and all the other mutants sport a varied selection of phallic weaponry.

Mum-Ra, the source of the evil and the Thundercats’ deadliest foe ordinarily wears toilet-roll (in his evil pyramid) but when he wants to leave and cause havoc he gets the ‘ancient spirits of evil’ to transform him into a 6’5" grey monster, made considerably more terrifying by their insistence that he wears nothing but a mini-sarong and pom-poms, of the type favoured by Hawaiian hula dancers, while he sashays around and laughs camply at every possible opportunity.

God bless the Thundercats. Without them, I may have grown up to be a well-adjusted, balanced individual, capable of fitting in ordinary society. Thanks to the Thundercats, I happily avoided this terrible fate.

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