Colorful ThunderCats Roar promotional illustration featuring the main cat characters drawn in a chibi, exaggerated animation style.

Thundercats Roar

2018controversy / parody artclassic

Published October 3, 2026

Thundercats Roar is a 2018 Warner Brothers reboot of the 1980s Thundercats cartoon whose May trailer drew massive backlash for its cutesy animation and family-friendly tone1. The ratio of 4,200 dislikes to 400 likes within three days sparked a wave of parody art dragging the show's so-called CalArts style, which became the online shorthand for everything fans felt was wrong with modern Western animation2.

character design memes redraw challenge memes cartoon network memes fandom discourse memes animation memes

Overview

Thundercats Roar is Warner Brothers' comedic reboot of the 1980s action cartoon Thundercats, developed for Cartoon Network with a softer, gag-driven tone and a flat, bean-mouth art style that fans immediately lumped in with the so-called CalArts look of Adventure Time and Steven Universe1. The backlash itself turned into the meme: within days of the trailer dropping, Twitter artists were redrawing other beloved franchises in the same rounded, pastel style to show how awful it would look if the format spread3.

The parodies run on one joke: take a serious or iconic character, flatten the proportions, add dot eyes and a tiny jellybean body, and present it as a Cartoon Network reboot pitch. Captain America, The Simpsons, and various anime leads all got the treatment5. The term CalArts style became such a lightning rod during this stretch that animators and critics pushed back, pointing out that nostalgia for 80s cartoons glossed over how shoddy a lot of that older animation actually was4.

Origin & Background

Platform
YouTube (trailer) / Twitter (viral backlash)
Creator
Warner Brothers; backlash art by various Twitter users including @flipskip1 and @speedosausage
Date
2018

On May 18, 2018, Warner Brothers uploaded the official Thundercats Roar trailer to YouTube along with a behind-the-scenes interview featuring producer Victor Courtwright2. Within three days the trailer sat at roughly 400 likes against 4,200 dislikes, and the comments filled with complaints about the chibi redesigns and comedic reframing of Lion-O and the gang1.

The backlash spilled onto Twitter the same day. Fan account @LakelPruitt tweeted that the reboot ruined his childhood, pulling over 210 retweets and 600 likes3, while @TheyCallMeTXT mocked both Courtwright and the concept, picking up 70 retweets and 160 likes6. YouTube rant videos followed quickly, with MimHeadroom and Just Some Guy each pulling tens of thousands of views dissecting the trailer frame by frame2.

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How It Spread

The parody art took off almost immediately. On May 18, 2018, Twitter user @flipskip1 piggybacked on the then-recent Captain America Detention meme by redrawing Cap in the Thundercats Roar style, a post that climbed past 8,700 retweets and 35,000 likes7. The next day @speedosausage posted a Simpsons parody drawn in the same look, which cleared 1,700 retweets and 9,000 likes8.

Press coverage followed within 48 hours. The Daily Dot ran a piece asking why grown adults were so mad about the reboot4, Forbes contributor Ollie Barder wrote that fans weren't happy with how different the new show looked1, and Fansided compiled the angriest tweets into a roundup3. The coverage amplified the CalArts style discourse well beyond Thundercats fandom and into a wider argument about the visual direction of American TV animation.

Not everyone agreed with the pile-on. Twitter user @skullmandible posted GIFs of 80s cartoons that fans were calling superior, pointing out blatant animation errors in the originals to argue that the nostalgia was selective4. The show itself eventually premiered in 2020, but the Thundercats Roar name stuck around online mostly as shorthand for a studio tone-deafly rebooting a nostalgia property with a kid-friendly art style5.

Timeline

2018-05-18

Warner Brothers uploads the Thundercats Roar trailer and producer interview to YouTube; dislike ratio climbs fast[2].

2018-05-18

@LakelPruitt tweets that the reboot ruined his childhood, pulling 210+ retweets[6].

2018-05-18

@flipskip1 posts a Captain America parody redrawn in the Thundercats Roar style, hitting 35,000+ likes[7].

2018-05-18

Fansided publishes a roundup of the angriest reactions[3].

2018-05-19

@speedosausage posts a Simpsons parody in the same CalArts style, clearing 9,000 likes[8].

2018-05-20

Forbes contributor Ollie Barder covers the backlash[1].

2018-05-21

The Daily Dot runs a piece on the CalArts style discourse driving the backlash[4].

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How to Use This Meme

The parody format is simple: pick a character known for being gritty, iconic, or hyper-detailed, then redraw them in the Thundercats Roar / CalArts house style. Common conventions include bean-shaped bodies, dot or bead eyes, open-mouth smiles, flat shading, and bright pastel backgrounds. Captioning the result as a fake Cartoon Network reboot announcement is typical.

Frequently Asked Questions