Thundercats/Episodes

ThunderCats is an American animated cartoon series created by Rankin/Bass Productions. The original pilot episode aired on January 23, 1985, followed by the four-season series run from September 1985 to 1989.

Season 1 comprises 65 episodes - a standard number for animated series at the time, as it allowed the series to be shown every weekday for thirteen weeks (one full broadcast season). In 1986, the series returned for a TV movie, "ThunderCats - Ho!", which was subsequently aired as five separate episodes worked into the continuing rerun rotation of Season 1.

Beginning in 1987, the show adopted a pattern of a season of twenty new episodes per year, each season beginning with a five-part miniseries that established the new concepts and characters that would play into the events of the season that followed. For whatever reason, however, most online episode guides for the series mistakenly claim that the series only aired in two seasons of 65 episodes, concluding in December 1986, despite the fact that the years of release for the post-Season 1 episodes are clearly presented in the copyright details at the end of the credits as 1986 through 1989.

The entire series has been released on DVD, collecting season 1 across two box-sets, with the remaining 65 episodes spread out over two further sets (misleadingly labeled as "Season 2, Volume 1" and "Season 2, Volume 2", not helping to dispel the internet-borne misconception about the show's season structure). Season 1, Volume 1 was recalled when it was discovered that the second episode was missing its background musical score, and a corrected version was released in its place. Volume 1 was released on August 9, 2005 and volume 2 on December 6, 2005.

The list below presents the episodes in their original broadcast order, which is also the order used for the DVD release of the series. However, neither this order nor the original production order of the episodes is the correct chronological story order for the series. Although there is little in the way of major continuing storyline running through ThunderCats, certain creatures reoccur and clips from other episodes are employed. At times, the order used below causes these to be presented out of order. This is only a problem in the second half of season 1, and especially affects the five episodes which comprise the mini-series Lion-O's Anointment, which are split up throughout the latter half of the season, when the stories featured are supposed to occur on consecutive days. Re-airing on the Cartoon Network years later, the series was presented in a slightly altered, more chronological order with Lion-O's Anointment shown in consecutive order.