The Monstrefact Redux: Mumm-Ra

In this episode of STBYM’s The Monstrefact, Robert discusses Mumm-Ra the Ever Living…

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and this is the
Monster Fact, a short form series from Stuff to Blow
Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas and monsters
in time. Let us now turn our attention to the
chief antagonist of the Thundercat's cartoon franchise, Mumraw. Between nineteen

(00:33):
eighty five and nineteen eighty nine, the original ThunderCats show
ran for one hundred and thirty episodes, chronicling the struggle
between the titular ThunderCats and the undying mummified sorcerer Mumraw
for control of the planet New Thunder Era. The ThunderCats are,
of course, cat people who display the features of various

(00:54):
feline species and are masters of both high technology and
martial warfare. Mumraw is a mummified, desiccated living corpse who
serves the ancient spirits of evil from his black pyramid.
He must return to his sarcophagus to recharge, but may
also transform in a full blown hingehin sequence into the

(01:16):
towering muscular warrior dubbed Mumraw the Ever Living, He was
quite honestly perfect a villain almost too awesome for the
show he emerged from. Yet, even as a child, in
the back of my mind, I always wondered if Mumraw
was a cat or not. The ThunderCats are, of course

(01:37):
cat human hybrids, and it's hard to deny that Mamra
himself is not essentially all of the same species. We
see this in his feline facial features especially. But while
each thundercat is patterned after a particular terrestrial feline species,
what is Mamra. For starters, His blue gray skin is

(01:57):
reminiscent of the Russian blue cat breed. However, he is hairless,
which instantly brings to mind the hairless Sphinx cat breed,
which was a nineteen sixties product of selective breeding by humans.
Both of these are domestic. Meanwhile, with the thunder cats,
Jaga is part jaguar, lion O is part lion, Panther

(02:19):
is part panther, Tigra is part tiger, Chitara is a cheetah.
Willi Cat and Willie kit are both wildcats, and so forth.
Is Mamra alone seemingly linked to domesticated cats to some extent.
This might seem counterintuitive, because clearly this is mamra we're
talking about. He is the most dangerous and powerful of

(02:42):
them all. Why would he be linked to the common housecat. Well,
the domesticated cat is a rather powerful species. We have
to admit that while it has not lived alongside humans
as long as the loyal dog, they have still lurked, hunted,
and slept in our domestic shadow for thousands upon thousands
of years. During that time, these cats have spread around

(03:05):
the world to every continent except Antarctica, though they have visited,
and I am told they did not like it. Domestic
cats have proven themselves rather destructive as well. They are
voracious predators, driving multiple species to extinction and posing a
continuing threat to birds especially. In fact, according to the
University of Texas at Austin Biodiversity Center, the numbers are

(03:26):
pretty staggering. They write that in the US alone, free
ranging domestic cats kill one point three to four billion
birds every year, and they kill six point three to
twenty two point three billion mammals annually. Amphibians, reptiles, and
insects are also impacted. So yes, our domestic cats are cute,
they're amusing, but they are also destroyers and in this

(03:49):
perhaps they fitting likeness for mum Raw. Now, there is
some discussion on to what extent cats may have domesticated
themselves in our shadow, and certainly cats do not seem
to see us as a masters in the same way
that dogs two. But it brings me back to the
ancient spirits of evil that Mumrah serves on the show.

(04:09):
They're represented by a bore, a vulture, a crocodile, and
an ox, and they might well be thought of as
great old ones and extra dimensional monster gods. But if
Mamra is a domestic cat, then perhaps we humans are
the ancient spirits of evil, the true enemy of the
various animal human hybrids that populate the thunder Cat's universe.

(04:34):
In closing, I should also point out that yes, essentially
Mamra is a mummified cat, so he is linked to
the actual ancient Egyptian practice of mummifying cats, a practice
that in short, had connections both to the cat headed
god Bastet, as well as their fascination with an affection
for the animals in question. Cats have traveled with us everywhere,

(04:58):
so why not into the feel reads as well. Tune
in for additional episodes of The Monster Fact each week.
As always, you can email us at contact at stuff
to Blow your Mind dot com.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
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