When Thundercats age, do they lose their tails?

[mustardwketchup]

Hi!

New to the forum, and quite new to the Thundercats fandom as well. My question, I apologize if this has already been talked about, is about tails in the Thundercats beings.

The Kits have tails but the rest, (Lion-o, Cheetara, Tygra) don't. Do you guys know if it's because they're young? Or maybe a different subspecies of cat?

Also, do you guys happen to know what cat that the kits are supposed to represent? My mind is blanking. ^^

Thanks!

[Ravenxl7]

The tails are something I don't ever remember coming into play during the original show, and not much is known about them in the new show. From what I've heard, it's a combination of species and class. For instance, one of the cats that fights Lion-O in the premiere has a tail, so it's definitely not an age thing.

In the case of the twins specifically, them being orphans could also be a factor. As for what species of cat they're based off of, the only thing I could find was on Wikipedia, and it says they're supposed to be based on "Wildcats". Essentially, they're wild house cats.

[Balgus82]

Straight from the Thundercats crew:

"As we wanted to diversify the cat races (and other animals species). My
approach was to give some tails and also make the ears different. For
WilyKit and Kat, the points of their hair is actually the tips of their
ears. That’s right, the whole part of their head is their ear.

The fur along the side of their head is, well, ear hair. So when you see Kit tie up her ponytail it’s actually pinning her ears back. My hope was that we could use the animal characteristics of putting the ears back when scared or threatened or perking one up when trying to listen would be interesting for a more dynamic character trait. Especially for comedy.

While we’re here let me explain the tails a bit. Again, I thought it would be cool to introduce social class stigmas amonst the thunderan people. Having been born with a tail in some opinion would be considered less evolved. A birth defect if you will. But as a design element, like a cape, the tail can give a sense of direction on a stagnant pose or give a sense of direction or movement to the arc line of the pose. In real life, cats tails can tell us more about the emotion of the animal. For example if it’s sitting still the tail may be swatting with a thump (which from watching my cat) meaning it’s going to pounce in a moment. Or when it slumps shows the cat is relaxed.

There is also the play that the tail helps with the balance of the cat, since the kids are like the acrobats of the group, I wanted to keep that aspect. Hope this give some insight…

-Dan"

Thundercats Crew Blog, I first saw ThunderCats on Toonami when I was young, and I love the direction you

[squawkbot]

Its probably like circumcision. Some cats have it, some cats dont.
Purely cosmetic....but less smegma

[wesitron]

I knew I remembered something about it having to do with status and subspecies. Thanks for that, Balgus.

[Lord of Cragsclaw]

I’m glad someone asked this question because I was curious too. I had always seen the Thundercats with a more humanoid appearance, with a “cat-like veneer”, which I liked, rather than full on “bipedal cats.” It is very encouraging that the developers took the time to ask the questions about evolutionary differences between the various humanoid cats seen. I find it very intriguing that Clawdus and Lion-O, Cheetara and Panthro, and others, all look more or less humanoid yet the Kittens and Grune look more cat like with their ears and tails and facial features… when I saw the revamp.

In the original series, I never got the impression, though, that they were hairy from head to toe. I thought they were smooth skinned, like we humans, but that their markings were part of their skin. In the new series, it does seem they have a pelt, at least on their sholders, as seen on Lion-O a few times. For humans, there is an evolutionary reason why we lost most of our hair on our bodies, if cats were to evolve into a humanoid form, it stands to reason that they too would lose a lot of their body hair.

Another observation, from an evolutionary standpoint, which goes to the question about tails, is that for bipeds we do not need tails for balance. Though humans do have a tail bone from which a tail would have spraing forth, we have long since lost that appendage. Some scholars believe that some of our primate ancestors learned to stand upright as a response to foraging and traversing in waist deep waters in East Africa, this too, some say, is why we lost a lot of our body hair.

As for the fur pelt, it should be noted that when one shaves a cat’s coat, their skin is as pink as ours :P, and their markings are only fur deep.

Does anyone else have anything to offer on a possible evolutionary history for Thundercats?

[megus]

i always thought it was an age thing because when we saw a young panthro he had a tail but now he doesn't

[Balgus82]

Quote:

Originally Posted by megus

i always thought it was an age thing because when we saw a young panthro he had a tail but now he doesn't

You also saw Lion-O and Tygra as kids in the same episode and they never had one

[NoodleChow]

hmmm i like the evolved take on the tails. just had this conversation with my sister when we did a marathon on the weekend. didn't understand why some had tails and other didn't and chalked it up to them homaging the original show.