Mumm-Ra, the show’s resident corpse-in-a-bandage, sneaks into the Cats’ Lair by pretending to be someone else. This will be the first of many times such a plot takes place across Thundercats’ 130 episodes. It’s hardly Shakespearean intrigue, but it does have its compensations. For one, it allows us to see the ThunderCats’ stronghold from the inside. Like all cartoon fortresses of the 1980s, it’s essentially a bachelor pad with battlements. Under the guise of the “Thunderian refugee” Pumm-Ra, he gives us the tour: cooking facilities, sleeping quarters, even a whiff of civic administration, as the cats convene in what looks suspiciously like a town-hall meeting. It’s Democracy in Action, except the electorate has tails.
“Pumm-Ra”, the first ThunderCats script not written by Leonard Starr comes, improbably enough, from Jules Bass—yes, the “Bass” of Rankin/Bass, previously credited with snowmen that sing rather than cat-men that swing swords. Under the pseudonym “Julian P. Gardner” (a name with the faint whiff of a disgraced BBC news presenter), Bass turns in his sole solo episode. It is therefore our one glimpse of how the man who pulled the levers behind the curtain saw his own circus.
Where Bass excels is in dialogue. His Mumm-Ra is less a villain and more a wronged tenant. “I am not the intruder,” he cries, “it is you that has disturbed my rest!”—the sort of line that could be delivered with equal conviction by a Shakespearean tragedian or a man woken by roadworks outside his window. For a fleeting moment, one feels sorry for the old ghoul, embalmed yet still unable to get a decent night’s sleep.
Lion-O, meanwhile, regresses to his earlier mode: the sort of sulky adolescence and gullible petulance that makes you wonder whether the Sword of Omens should have come with parental controls. His fellow cats indulge him with the patience of colleagues dealing with the boss’s unqualified nephew. This episode reminds us that he is still, emotionally speaking, twelve years old—which in ThunderCats arithmetic means that he is both the chosen leader and the least qualified to lead.
Mumm-Ra’s alter ego, Pumm-Ra, is unfortunately more of a sound idea than the character that's put into practice. In the first season, there is just one story told across more than a single episode. Pumm-Ra could have easily been a two-part tale charged with more suspense with a slower pace, and as a result, could be far more sinister. Instead, he flits in briefly, like a substitute actor who’s been told he only has one line, before dissolving back into bandages. But the ruse at least underscores the main theme: that the ThunderCats are stranded, isolated, and yearning for remnants of their lost civilization. For a children’s show that had to compete with toy commercials in the next ad break, this is practically Proustian.
And if all else fails, we do learn one hard statistic: Cheetara can run a mile in thirty seconds. That’s 120 miles per hour—faster than most cars, and infinitely more stylishly dressed. For that fact alone, Pumm-Ra deserves to be enshrined, if not in television history, then at least in the annals of useful pub trivia.
Next time: “The Terror of Hammerhand”
