Does anyone know...
 

I am just wondering if anyone has ever asked Bandai or if anyone knows if they have the rights to do any of the Rankin/Bass cartoon characters, or if they are limited to just the previously made LJN figures and new cartoon characters? I'm just curious as there are a few of those characters that I'd love to have, and I've never seen anywhere where the question has actually been posed to Bandai directly. :D

Thundercats is NOT like He-Man where the rights were spread out among 2-3 different companies.

Presumably, Bandai has full access to the original cartoon characters, since LJN did not create the franchise (they were just a license, just as Bandai is now). HOWEVER, LJN also did a pretty good job in hitting the "key characters", so you are going to see a lot of overlap since Thundercats really doesn't appear to have the fanbase to support the "one off characters", especially in a line like Classics (which is where the old cartoon characters are apt to end up, unless Bandai starts a "4" Classics" line at some point)

Memory Lane does a ton of the holiday Rankin/Bass stuff every year including a 1/18 line that they introduced last year. A great place to look at the Memory Lane stuff is at timeandspacetoys.com. They have a brick and mortar store here in Pittsburgh that's always chock-full of that stuff, especially come the holiday season.

As for the other more action oriented Rankin/Bass, I don't think we'll see those properties pop up anytime soon without a modernized media property to tie it to. And as far as I know Bandai wasn't linked to the entire catalog, so IF those properties show up again I'm sure Bandai will have to duke it out with other companies for the license.

Cool thanks for the info! I was just wondering if there would ever be a chance of any of the folks like Mandora or the Lunataks in this line if it turns out to be popular!