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Welcome to AFi’s THUNDER WEEK where we are, for the first time anywhere revealing a years worth of unproduced ThunderCats products from Bandai America. If you missed the previous installments you can read the Day 0 Sneak Peek and the Day 1 reveals at the previous links and also catch up on the story so far.
When we last left off, season one of the animated series had wrapped and Bandai had already taken some meetings and read the synopsis of where season two was headed. The Bandai team was very excited with the prospect of the new season and the the possibilities for new products, especially with what the team at WB animation put together for the show. The outline for the second season was great and everyone had their hearts in it so Bandai started the preliminary work on the the 2012 year of products.
There was still no word at that time from Cartoon Network when production on the second season would start. The ThunderCats Wikipedia page has a timeline of events:
Following the end of the show’s first season, ThunderCats was not immediately renewed for a second, which led to speculations that the series would be canceled.[21] During the 2012 San Diego Comic Con, Michael Jelenic and Jeff Prezenkowski announced that ThunderCats has been put on hiatus as they haven’t gotten any word from Cartoon Network about the series’ future yet.[22]
It was about that time that Bandai got word that Cartoon Network would not be picking up the ThunderCats animated series for a second season. With shelf space limited in the boys aisle, retailers were already wavering on carrying the line another year. So when the axe came to the show, top management at Bandai made the decision to cancel the line and save costs. But not before Bandai started work on an impressive year of products, and that’s what we are looking at this week on AFi’s THUNDERWEEK!
Below are the Day 2 reveals for what would have been… if the line had moved forward:
ROLE PLAY ITEMS
If we had gotten the 2012 year of product we would have gotten some additional role play items including a foam dart blaster and two versions of The Sword of Omens.
BLASTER: A Nerf-type blaster themed to the show. Comes with pull back cocking action and three darts.
*UPDATE* BLADE EXTENDING SWORD OF OMENS – As mentioned above this would have been able to slide into the Lion-O Claw Shield. In 2011 we got the dagger version and an blade-extending Sword of Omens that you had to manually extend. This new version would have been spring-loaded extension, just push the button and the blade pops out.
INTERACTIVE VOICE ACTIVATED, LIGHT-UP, SWORD OF OMENS – this is a significant upgrade to the other Sword of Omens. This one has a much longer blade, lights and sounds and an interactive, voice-activated training mode. This would have been a big hit had it been released to stores.
DELUXE 12″ ARMOR OF PLUN-DARR WITH MUMM RA
This would have been a really sweet item! In the first wave of figures in 2011 we got a 12″ Armor of Omens with exclusive Gold Lion-O figure. If the line had continued we would have gotten a 12″ Deluxe Armor of Plun-Darr with exclusive clear translucent Mumm Ra figure that fit inside. While the Armor of Plun-Darr only appeared in two episodes, it’s a great design and in it’s 12″ form factor it would have been a striking presence on the shelf. He would have had removable wings, his weapon and an exclusive translucent Mumm Ra figure with removable cloak.
We will have more ThunderCats reveals all week. Check back with us tomorrow for more of the Bandai “Lost Year” on AFi’s THUNDERWEEK!
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