ThunderCats anthropometric data

"vkGX9w8s, post: 128095, member: 25940" said:

Update: Better scans of the production material reveal that Lion-O's height is actually six foot, nine inches. Similarly, the material for Panthro and Cheetara lists their heights as six-two and six-zero, respectively. Unless the characters were scaled down later on, this really shakes up the assumption that they were of typical human height. I've yet to review the episodes showcasing humans such as Hachiman and Safari Joe, but I'm keen to see how tall they look next to the ThunderCats.

On a side note, the Universo Retro company has put out a trading card set, with their own take on the ThunderCats' stats. Their choice of weight for Cheetara, Pumyra, and Mumm-Ra makes more sense than the numbers given in the "Fact File" excerpts from the comics. However, by the same token, I think they dropped the ball by making Lion-O lighter and the Thunderkittens nearly adults.

Here's where I found the aforementioned production materials containing references to height:
https://www.deviantart.com/curious4ever/art/ThunderCats-Lion-O-character-sheet-1-711257814
https://www.deviantart.com/curious4ever/art/ThunderCats-Panthro-model-sheet-716185130
https://www.deviantart.com/curious4ever/art/ThunderCats-Cheetara-model-sheet-2-762080946

Hachiman is pretty much the same height as Lion-O as seen here:

And I think Safari Joe is around that height as well. However, Hachiman isn't human because he comes from the Planet of the Red Sun. And I don't think Safari Joe is from Earth either. He could be, but I don't recall anything in the episode specifically mentioning that. He is portrayed as kind of an intergalactic hunter, and all his tech hints that he isn't from Earth.

The really "true" humans would include the Warrior Maidens, King Arthur, Merlin, Queen Tartara and her Guards and Dr. Dometone and is crew (there could be more but I can't recall right now). As far as I remember, the Warrior Maidens and Queen Tartara are around Cheetara's height, so according to the production material, they were all around 6 feet tall, which is a bit too tall.

My guess is that even though they originally designed the characters to be a bit taller than the average human, in the final animation they made them around the same size as normal human superheroes, either because it was easier to do so, or perhaps they forgot to do it, or maybe it was just visually better to see the heroes as normal-sh than as really tall beings. Again, this is just my guess. :)

"Wilycub, post: 128101, member: 25043" said:

He is portrayed as kind of an intergalactic hunter, and all his tech hints that he isn't from Earth.

The really "true" humans would include the Warrior Maidens, King Arthur, Merlin, Queen Tartara and her Guards and Dr. Dometone and is crew (there could be more but I can't recall right now). As far as I remember, the Warrior Maidens and Queen Tartara are around Cheetara's height, so according to the production material, they were all around 6 feet tall, which is a bit too tall.

I'm not convinced that Safari Joe's technology proves anything, per se. ThunderCats is clearly a transhumanist setting, with all the circumstantial evidence showing that enough centuries or millennia have passed for the descendants of humans to spread across the galaxy and, whether through nature or engineering, branch into a number of variants inhabiting their chosen home planets. Perhaps the humans we see in the show come from traditionalist cultures that chose to preserve the human form, but even that doesn't inform us as to what might have changed over untold generations.

I don't recall the source, but I remember once seeing something about how humans are expected to grow taller and develop larger eyes, somewhere down the road. If that really is the direction we're headed, then any attempt to compare the various human characters to the ThunderCats might be an exercise in futility.

Perhaps some of the Asian writing on the production materials will reveal more about the character sizes. Is anyone here capable of interpreting it?

As an aside, I do think that the six-foot-plus ThunderCats would make a compelling twist. Imagine how imposing, almost lion-like, that version of Lion-O would be: a three-hundred-pound slab of muscle needing to duck just to pass through our standard 6'8" doorway. It really doesn't take all that much of a height boost to magnify his presence to awe-inspiring levels, plus the commensurate gain in muscle mass combined with the superhuman power of animal-like muscles would instantly place him among the strongest men ever recorded.

Believe me, I was weirded out when I first learned the "petite" Cheetara was nearly a hand taller than the average man! However, the more I think it over, the more I like the idea of the ThunderCats being of mighty proportions. They don't have to be as big as their feline namesakes, but I think there's an interesting middleground to be found by pushing the envelope of humanoid biology, especially as it comes from what amounts to an "official" source.

I've done a preliminary recalculation of the team members' heights, based on the benchmarks of Cheetara, Lion-O, and Panthro. I took the "police lineup" image of the primary characters and measured by pixels, scaling in proportion to Lion-O's height of 6'9". I tried measuring from the eyeline as well as from the crown of the head. The latter was less certain due to their hair, but seemed to provide better results overall. I fiddled around by shifting up or down by a pixel or two (out of 300 or so) for each character, until all three benchmarks would round to their stated heights.

I'm hoping to find a higher resolution version of the lineup image, so that I can measure with greater accuracy. Curious4ever on DeviantArt says he's got the high-res one somewhere, but it's mixed in with myriad other source documents. Should he find and post it, I'll be able to update my original data with the new stats.