THUNDERCATS (T.V. SERIES, 1985 - 1989) - Tygra, Panthro, Cheetara, WilyKat, WilyKit Original Production Cel Setup on Hand-Painted Key Master Background

An incredible original multi-cel production setup on a hand-painted key master pan background from ThunderCats, Rankin/Bass Productions, 1985, featuring five of the series' core characters across a single wide and angled composition: Tygra, Panthro, Cheetara, WilyKit and WilyKat, inside the Cats Lair.

Few animated series of the 1980s left a mark on a generation the way ThunderCats did. Forty years on, the theme still stops people in their tracks. (You're humming it now, aren't you!) The characters, the Cats Lair, the Sword of Omens, the cry of "ThunderCats, Ho!" are burned into the memory of an entire generation with a permanence that only the very best children's television achieves. With a live-action feature film now in development at Amazon, that cultural moment is very much alive again, and original production art from the 1985 series has never felt more relevant or more sought after.

This is the kind of setup that defines an era. Five ThunderCats on a single original background, production codes 187 and A6X over background C-187, the hand inking and paint as vivid and immediate as the day it left the studio, the colors saturated with an intensity that four decades have done nothing to diminish. Which is not surprising as the piece was wrapped and vaulted for years, and the condition reflects exactly that: a production cel setup preserved at the point of perfection, the deep blues of the Cats Lair interior, the orange and black of Tygra's tiger markings, the gold of the ThunderCats emblem on his chest, all of it alive in a way that stops you in your tracks.

Pan backgrounds were reserved for scenes requiring lateral camera movement, painted wider than the standard field to allow the camera to travel across the composition. This one earns every inch of its width, five characters staggered in depth from Tygra's dominant foreground presence back through Cheetara and the ThunderKittens, with Panthro's grey bulk visible in the far left background, the whole team assembled inside their home base.

ThunderCats launched on January 23, 1985, conceived by Ted Wolf and produced by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, the New York independent whose instinct for character and spectacle their animation rivals rarely matched. The series was animated in Japan by Pacific Animation Corporation under the supervision of Masaki Iizuka, and the quality of draftsmanship that arrangement produced is visible in every line of this background. Leonard Starr, brought in as head writer to develop the series bible, gave the show a serialized ambition that set it apart from its contemporaries, and the voice cast Rankin/Bass assembled in New York, Larry Kenney as Tygra, Earle Hyman as Panthro, Lynne Lipton as Cheetara and WilyKit, Peter Newman as WilyKat, gave it a warmth and presence that the animation repaid in full.

This is an impressive ThunderCats lineup, on an original painted background, in extraordinary condition. Provenance is excellent, the piece having passed through careful private hands before reaching Propstore, and we are just delighted and thrilled to be offering it.

Estimate: $6,000 - 12,000

See Online Here: https://propstoreauction.com/lot-details/index/catalog/496/lot/193438/2048-Tygra-Panthro-Cheetara-WilyKat-WilyKit-Original-Production-Cel-Setup-on-Hand-Painted-Key-Master-Background-THUNDERCATS-T-V-?url=%2Fauctions%2Fcatalog%2Fid%2F496%3Fpage%3D1%26view%3Dgrid%26cat%3D9230%252C13295%26catm%3D2%26order%3Dhighest%26xclosed%3D1%26featured%3D0