"Mark M, post: 116942, member: 5058" said:
I completely age with you. There are some episodes like 'The Duellist and the Drifter' that would have given Snarf some excellent dialogue with Lion-O. I rally liked Snarf as a character and his personality.
Oddly enough in MOTU 200X I wasn't too bothered about Battlecat not being able to talk although it would have been better if he had still been able to talk like the Filmation cartoon.
Interesting that you make the comparison of Snarf with Battlecat. In both their original cartoons, the heroes' companions (Snarf/Battlecat) could talk while the villains' companions (Ma-Mutt/Panthor) could not. :)
Now that I think about, I don't think there really was any particular benefit/need for Battlecat to actually talk. I've only seen some episodes and he rarely has anything useful to say. As Cringer he is always scared a la Scooby Doo and as Battlecat he just can't wait to kick some butt a la Scrappy Doo. :biggrin
One could compare Battlecat to Snowmeow, as mainly a steed who didn't need to talk. But I guess in the original MOTU cartoons, he helped to add some humor and give Prince Adam/He-Man someone to talk to since he knew his double identity secret. :) Otherwise Orko might have ended up being in a lot more scenes to give Prince Adam someone to talk to, and I'm not particularly a fan of that idea! LOL! :laugh
I guess in the 2011 TCats and the 200X MOTU, the makers were going for the more "realistic" approach of not having the "animals" speak. Technically they were all animals, but some were more humanoid than others, and I'm guessing the general rule was that those who did not wear clothes shouldn't talk.
It's not that different in the original TCats with many creatures not being able to talk. The exceptions that I can remember are the Snarfs, Kudi, Spidera and Crownan.