As I’ve said so many times, I’m stunned by the undying loyalty of ThunderCats fans. Nick Carver introduced me to Egmond who tirelessly promotes the show and the toys. A fanatic in the best sense of that word! His words:
I’ve been around only 5 years longer than my favorite cartoon. I know I was 6 or around there when ThunderCats aired in South Africa. 
Just before I went to 1st Grade but I’d been hooked since before the toon came out. When they started running ads for it, my 6 year old self and my 4 year old sister Elda always were hyped for the show and my stay-at-home-mom was partly to blame. She kept an eye out for its TV debut and I remember that day vividly: we were playing in the garden and my mom stormed out “kom, ThunderCats gaan begin!” – which translates to “come, ThunderCats is about to begin!”. I was bilingual from an early age because the shows we watched on the telly were in both Afrikaans (my home language) and English. Many cartoons were dubbed into Afrikaans, but thankfully they left ThunderCats in its original tongue because, frankly, if you were to translate Thunder to Afrikaans, its counterpart “Donder” is also a swearword! I doubt parents would’ve been happy with kids running around shouting “donder, donder, donder”. We would all have been “donder-ed” (beaten!) by our elders.
I remember the Exodus episode so well. 
The funny thing is, I think we had a Black & White TV back then but I still see it in technicolor. It was a joyride I’ll love to experience again the day I die – one of those “flash before your eyes” memories to be slowed down to the second just to experience the wonder of it once more. We were hooked. We watched Season One religiously.
I only found out about Season Two in the early 2000s, alongside the Lunataks and so forth. So I got to experience ThunderCats all over again, this time as an adult.
My first toy experience wasn’t long after the debut of the toon here, when by happy accident we walked into the shop CNA which had rows and rows of LJN ThunderCats on display. We were visiting my cousin, so while the two of us were standing there admiring it, our parents said it was time to go. I begged to have one, but dad said no. I broke down in tears, sobbing. I left with Cheetara and WilyKit, while my cousin took home Lion-O.
That was the beginning of the toy bug. I eventually got my own Lion-O and Snarf, Tygra, WilyKat and Mumm-Ra with Ma-Mutt. I never owned Panthro, but a friend had him. I’d go play at his house and the team would be complete.
It was a year later that I one day decided the girls – Cheetara and Wilykat – wanted to sleep outside on a bed of raked fall leaves. They were gone the next day. Stolen. I was devastated. At least I have a photo as proof that I owned them, even though I’m wearing my mom’s old stockings as a kangaroo pouch with the toys in front!! But I moved on, grew older, occasionally saw the Beta Video Cassettes at my other cousin’s house where we’d watch the episodes, and while new cartoons eventually took over the household with other toys like Bionic Six and TMNT, ThunderCats laid that foundation in terms of how happy the toys would make me.
I was 12 when a boy from high school stopped me on the way home, asking if I’d wanted to buy some toys. In his sports bag was a bunch of ThunderCats! I borrowed R50 from my dad and bought the lot the next day. Come high school, the toys were passed on to my younger cousin, and some went down the drain in a box I thought would be a fun way to send them off. Oh the shame!!
Fast forward to adulthood when I visited an old teacher at school, and she pulled out her son’s old toys. ThunderCats!! 
I borrowed them for a while. I wanted to put them in my music video AS JY WIL (If You Want To). I had the boy play with these toys as if it were me as a kid. But upon returning them, there was something missing. I still wanted those toys, and the eBay bug bit me. Living on this side of the world meant I had to find the toys from across the globe. And I did. I amassed an almost complete vintage toyline. Then WB released the cartoon on DVD. Finally, after only getting a TV-copied digital copy from a friend in late 2005, I managed to get my hands on the physical media. It was great indeed. I had the toys and the toon from my youth. I was in such a good place that I revisited the toys in my music videos idea, and made my own Toy Story version with the gang for a song called JY’S IN MY BLOED (meaning You Are In My Blood). It was a great experience. It had the 2011 toys in there too from the reboot. It also led me to the ThunderCats.Org site – where the forums had people talking about all things ThunderCats. I met my best friend Jacques there. We’re still BFFs. We still talk ThunderCats almost every day.
My Toy Story inspired video debuted on the front page of ThunderCats.Org. That was a highlight for me. Even though it was silly, it was just a fun idea to immerse myself into the toy world. It’s still a fun video for me.
Everything was going well. Then a sad day came when I had to sell the lot. I know many collectors who have been in a similar financial crunch and these toys saved them. It wasn’t an easy thing to do but the toys that brought me so much joy gave me an out. Sounds silly perhaps but the day I chose to sell them I prayed “please can I have them back one day?” That day rolled in courtesy of Mattel in 2015, just months later. They announced their new Classic line. My prayer was answered. Talking with other collectors on the ThunderCats.Org forums was so awesome. We were a brotherhood (and sisterhood) and we were all there for each other. Even with the fighting and extremely sensitive name-callers, things were always good. We were all very opinionated. Unfortunately, before the line even hit their website, they had cancelled it! ThunderCats seemed to be over. Again. Just like the failed Bandai Classic line.
Then a tease at Power Con by Mattel of a potential restart of the line delivered a phrase that wasn’t meant for ThunderCats, but I took the cue from their production designer who told folk that if they wanted more MOTU or She-Ra, they should use those hashtags. I thought that was a great plan to do it for ThunderCats and so I started the #wewantmorethundercats campaign. 
Other fans joined. And then more started voicing their support. I started speaking to Super7’s Brian Flynn too at the time and was fortunate to hear that they had acquired the license. It wasn’t for a lack of trying. There’s an interesting behind-the-scenes story here. One fan, whom I’m proud to call my dear friend, managed to get in touch with the highest power at WB about ThunderCats and shared a bunch of facts about the cancelled toyline, its fanbase, and more support for Super7, who had been trying to get the go ahead from WB for a while.
That one email had a ripple effect, and very soon Super7 announced they officially would be restarting the line as ULTIMATES! I became a vocal supporter of anything and everything Super7 ThunderCats related.My passion online was so infectious that the owner of ThunderCats.Org reached out to me to join the team and manage their social media platforms. 
Their Instagram account jumped from a few thousand followers, to a staggering 70k+ in the years since I took over. It was evident there was and still is a massive following. What’s more, it is not just US-based. It is global and, being from Africa, I’m super-aware of that. (And hey the ThunderCats landed in Egypt, right?!)
With the Super7-focused #wewantmorethundercats profile, as well as the more generic over-arching ThunderCatsOrg profiles in my hands, it’s been a wonderful journey to meet people who share their love of this brand too. ThunderCats is a part of my life. My passion for these toys by Super7 is one thing that has allowed the toon to become three dimensional and give me a deeper appreciation for the show.
Gran with Snarf!
I binge it regularly. And even after 40 years I still discover new things. I’ve met fantastic friends all around the world. There’s still such a treasure trove of information to discover, which is why ThunderCats “doesn’t get old”. There is always something new that enhances my experience of this excellent show.
I’ve been privileged to not only review the excellent toys that Super7 makes, but to also speak first hand with Brian Flynn, the man behind Super7, and to interview him regularly to get all the latest news and secrets from the Super7 team. 
I’ve been honoured to break the news about several reveals, some as recent as the SDCC and Amazon exclusives for 2025, and others as far back as confirming that TigerSharks would also be joining the ranks like SilverHawks did. I’ve made suggestions in the past that became actual figures, and I’ve consulted very excitedly on something as small as the incoming SkyCutter vehicle. There is always something new and different that Super7 has in the pipeline and I’m on the ride. All the way! I even wrote a song singing the praises of the “Super7 ThunderCats” in my 2022 single HELLO and dressed myself up as the mentioned toys in the video too! 
What’s more, I managed to interview Larry Kenney too and be one of the first people to interview the creators of the new Dynamite comic book series. ThunderCats truly left its mark on my soul. it tattooed itself onto me with that brilliant logo. The ThunderCats community has so many different branches, and it’s easy to get lost in everything that is out there. From the new Dynamite comics to the Mondo figures, to the new Mattel MOTU crossover toys, and many other customs and creations by fans, like my good friend @nickfromthundera, the creator of the gorgeous Black Widow Shark toy that had never had been released in action figure form before. I’m proud to own one.
I’ve found my niche in my little corner of the ThunderCats universe. It’s the Super7 collection, and it ticks all the boxes. 
Not just because it brings the cartoon to life, but because I get to relive my childhood. I hope to one day be mentioned in the ThunderCats analogues as someone who did their part for the continuation of this iconic cartoon. Forty years on and it is even bigger in my life now than it has ever been. All because of the beautiful stories that formed me as a person, with its lessons of life, of good and bad, of honor, loyalty, truth, and justice. May whatever I do now have that effect one day on someone else, the same way that the creators of the IP did way way back. To get to meet a name from the show many years later, even if it is only virtually, amazes me. You never think that the few seconds the writer’s name appears on your screen that it will ever be on your path to actually talk to them. So being able to share my story with Peter for his blog just shows me how big ThunderCats is, and that I can count on enjoying decades more of stories about this life-changing cartoon.