Lords of Light!

As you know, I'm a highly educated man with a vast depth and breadth of knowledge at my disposal. One might expect such an erudite individual to pursue greatness within the halls of academia, but I have elected instead to rub elbows with the Common Man so that I can better understand the Human Condition, as I believe this to be better preparation for writing the Great American Novel and taking on other Appropriately Capitalized Endeavors.

For the most part I tolerate the vulgarities of the hoi polloi, but occasionally I am pained to realize that not all of my acquaintances have had the cultural advantages I have enjoyed. For instance, over lunch with coworkers recently I made a reference to what I assumed was a shared element of our cultural heritage, only to discover that my associates were unfamiliar with one of the basic mythological frameworks that underlies the Western civilization.

"How is it possible," I gasped incredulously, "that you've never heard of Thundarr the Barbarian?"

It would have been understandable if my coworkers were in their twenties. Or fifties. But they are both in their late thirties, which means that they would have been around the age of ten when the animated adventures of Thundarr and his compatriots Ariel the sorceress and Ookla the Mok premiered on ABC in 1980. It is virtually inconceivable that a ten year old American boy would not have known about Thundarr the Barbarian in the early 80s.

Those of you who were born after 1980 or so are going to need this explained to you. You see, in the early 1980s, there was no cable or satellite TV. There were no DVDs or videotapes. There were no iPods or video game systems. All we had to entertain ourselves on Saturday morning were Lite-Brites, Colorforms and four television channels, at least three of which were, at any given time, playing unwatchable crap. The most unwatchable of the unwatchable crap came in the form of semi-animated superheroes, space monsters and talking animals from the Hanna-Barbera school of programming. Naturally, that's what all of us ten-year-olds were watching.

Thundarr the Barbarian was, to a ten year old boy stuck in between Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, pretty much the best imaginable show. In the words of the show's intro:

The year: 1994. From out of space comes a runaway planet, hurtling between the Earth and the Moon, unleashing cosmic destruction! Man's civilization is cast in ruin!
Two thousand years later, Earth is reborn...
A strange new world rises from the old: a world of savagery, super science, and sorcery. But one man bursts his bonds to fight for justice! With his companions Ookla the Mok and Princess Ariel, he pits his strength, his courage, and his fabulous Sunsword against the forces of evil.
He is Thundarr, the Barbarian!

This is awesome because, first of all, 1994! Holy crap, that's already super far in the future. And then, out of nowhere, a runaway planet? That shit could really happen. And then we skip forward two thousand years. That's enough time for pretty much anything to happen. We're talking werewolves, mutants, sorcery... basically all the most awesome stuff ever.

We didn't mind that Thundarr's "sunsword" looked an awful lot like a light saber, or that the massive, fur-covered Ookla bore a striking resemblance to another sub-lingual sci-fi sidekick with a heart of gold. To the contrary, the more something was like Star Wars, the better.

Granted, the dialog (Thundarr was known for such puzzling exclamations as "Lords of Light!" and "Demon Dogs!") made George Lucas seem like a master of interpersonal subtleties, and the animation quality ranked somewhere between "Speed Racer" and a biology filmstrip, but to us it was just awesome.

So thoroughly was I inculcated in the awesomeness of Thundarr the Barbarian that even now, a quarter century after Ookla the Mok took his last ride on his mighty Equort steed into the sunset, I find myself making frequent references to the post-apocalyptic trio's adventures -- which is how the whole business with my coworkers started. "It's just like in Thundarr the Barbarian," I'll say, expecting heads to nod in complicit understanding, but receiving only blank looks of incomprehension.

"It's like what?"

"Thundarr the Barbarian. You know, after the runaway planet wipes out human civilization and the moon gets cut in half."

"Who the hell is Thunder the Barbarian?"

"Not 'thunder.' Thundarr, with two r's. You know, he used to run around with Ariel the sorceress and his friend Ookla the Mok, who could only speak in anguished growls."

But no amount of prodding would rekindle my coworkers' memories. It was as if they had never experienced the apocalyptic runaway planet of 1994 and its ruinous wake. Lacking this shared touchstone, I feel unmoored, like a missionary in a far off land, a stranger in a strange land.

"Who the hell are you people?" I gasped, stumbling backwards in the Google cafeteria. It was impossible -- inconceivable! -- that these people did not know of the indomitable Thundarr and friends. It was as if they had never heard of the Rubix Cube, backmasking or New Coke. Clearly I had been surrounded by impostors, people who pretended to share my cultural heritage in order to manipulate me for their own diabolical ends. Perhaps they were renegade replicants fabricated by the Tyrell Corporation or alien reptiles wearing latex masks, hoping to steal my water and feast on my fattened corpse.

"Get back!" I screamed. Whatever they were up to, I wasn't going to let them get away with it.

My coworkers regarded me with concern. "Diesel, what are you..."

"Inyuk-chuk!" I yelled, looking to the sky, my fists clenched at my sides.

"Diesel, what are you doing?"

"It's the Apache Indian word for 'big man,'" I said. "Hello? Didn't you guys ever watch The Superfriends? In a minute I'm gonna be like three hundred feet tall."

"Why don't you sit down and finish your frozen yogurt," one of them said.

"Whatever," I sighed, and sat to finish my yogurt in silence. Sometimes people are just baffling.

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