Teen Titans GO! has earned a unique place in the wide tapestry of DC Comics TV series, with the animated series lampooning all kinds of comic and pop culture. The series is currently in the middle of its fifth season, and if details surrounding an upcoming episode are any indication, things are about to get even more self-aware. According to the official Teen Titans GO! Wiki, the fifty-second episode of Season 5 will be titled “Teen Titans Roar”, which seems to be a reference to the controversy surrounding another Cartoon Network series, ThunderCats Roar. The episode’s synopsis confirms this, saying that it will follow the Titans being “outraged when their favorite cartoon is rebooted”, causing them to “come up with a plan to get this new show off the air”.
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ThunderCats Roar was initially announced in the summer of 2018, as the third television adaptation of the series after the original 1980s cartoon and a short-lived 2011 reboot. The series has a similar concept to the original series, following the ThunderCats as they crash-land on Earth for the first time, but with a much more cartoony style compared to previous iterations. The art style – plus the more comedic tone introduced in the first trailer – were quickly met with backlash on social media. The trailer sparked petitions to cancel the series, as well as a bizarre discourse about “CalArts style” – the argument that distinct character designs have gone to the wayside in the 2010s in favor of thin-frame animation.
In a way, this discourse sounds somewhat similar to the backlash that Teen Titans GO! initially received, as many argued that the series was a poor substitute to the grittier and less cartoony Teen Titans series. Teen Titans GO! has certainly poked fun at this backlash, both through occasional episodes involving the villain Control Freak and in this year’s Teen Titans GO! vs. Teen Titans.
Following the controversy, few updates have been released about ThunderCats Roar, which was initially believed to premiere in September of this year. Some have speculated that the “Teen Titans Roar” episode is being delayed in order to premiere alongside ThunderCats Roar, although there is currently no indication as to when that will happen.
ThunderCats Roar is created by Pickle and Peanut‘s Victor Courtright and Right now Kapow’s Marly Halpern-Graser. The cast includes Max Mittelman (Justice League Action) as Lion-O and Wilykat, Erica Lindbeck (DC Super Hero Girls) as Cheetara and Wilykit, Patrick Seitz (Justice League Action) as Tygra and Mumm-Ra, and Chris Jai Alex (Star Wars: Battlefront II) as Panthro.
What do you think of Teen Titans GO! lampooning the controversy around ThunderCats Roar? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
