![]() ![]() John Sellers is TheWrap's resident "ThunderCats" expert and is totally on Twitter. Sometimes it’s better just to see the character and not hear him. Jelenic: There is a Snarf equation that we’re working out for how many you can get in before it gets annoying. Have you imposed a limit on the number of times per episode that Snarf can say “Snarf”? I don’t know if we’ll be doing that going forward but the scripts would say, “Snarf: ‘Snarf! Snarf!’” - which is some of the easier dialogue I would have to write. In the scripts, would you actually write, “Snarf says ‘Snarf’”? My take on it is that the Snarf is just an older race of cats and they evolved. You’ll see these other mutants and animals on Third Earth and you’ll just have to accept them, because we’re going pretty detailed. ![]() So we get a little vague around there on purpose just to keep some mystery. It’s like, there’s cats with four legs and then there’s cats with two legs. But it’s like, wait a minute - and you think exactly what you’re talking about. We talk about that because, at one time, we were like, “Can they ride horses?” I mean, you want to get them riding some creature. Spaulding: That’s a good question and something we wrestle with. Have you guys ever discussed how Snarf, a cat who walks on four legs, could be so different than Lion-O, a cat who walks on two? It’s like the age-old Pluto vs. From what I hear, girls really respond to him. Every time, the camera cuts to him for a close-up, it's pretty cute. Jelenic: I think the result of what we've done is that he doesn't overpower this show in the same way as he did in the other one. Even though he doesn’t speak English to Lion-O straight out like he did in the original, he’ll speak in his cat-like sounds and everyone understands him, you know? It’s kind of like R2D2 or Chewbacca. Spaulding: It’s the same role the old Snarf is there in the visuals and in spirit. ![]() So, is he more like the ThunderCats’ pet? Your version deploys him mostly for cutesy comic effect. We changed the eyes a little bit to make him more cat-like and, I guess you could say, a little bit cuter. We were like, “Yeah, let’s keep that because it’s totally weird.” So he still has that. If you remember the Rankin/Bass “Hobbit” cartoon, the dragon Smaug had a lot of those design elements. He’s a cat, but he also has scales on his stomach and claw-like, fleshy hands. ![]() There’s a cool aspect where he looks like he’s part dragon. Spaulding: We wanted to keep as much as possible because there were some really cool aspects to him in the original. In the back of my head, I said we can probably keep him. But at the same time, there’s a way to make him cool, you know? Because he had a cool-looking design. So, after that, it went back to, “Let’s cut him out.”Įthan, were you surprised by the Snarf plan after signing on?Įthan Spaulding: I understood why they wanted to cut him out, really. But at the same time, that isn’t really true to what his appeal was. Like, a Doberman pinscher version of Snarf - but a cat. And then he was reimagined as a sort of tough battle cat. Snarf came very close to getting the axe. Early on, there were a lot of people who did not want Snarf to appear. Michael Jelenic: Our Snarf strategy actually shifted a couple of times during the course of development. Curious about what prompted the show’s producers to alter a character that fans love to hate, we phoned up showrunner Michael Jelenic and visuals producer Ethan Spaulding to explain themselves.Ĭan you walk us through your Snarf strategy? When he does utter his dubious catchphrase, it’s not nearly as intrusive as you’d expect, and he otherwise uses no verbal language. Interestingly, in Cartoon Network’s faithful adaptation of “ThunderCats,” Snarf is more often seen than heard. “Snarf!” he would say, all too frequently. In stark contrast to his young charge, Lion-O, the unflappable and bipedal alpha ThunderCat, this vexing nursemaid sidekick was merely a whiny fur-blob who padded around on all fours and dished out no end of shout-outs to himself. ![]()
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