I’m finally getting to break into the most recent wave of Super7’s ThunderCats Ultimates and while I was hotly anticipating several of the figures in this assortment, there’s no question about who I had to start with. Snarf has been a long time coming! He’s the heart and soul of the ThunderCats. And while many 80’s cartoons shit the bed with annoying cutesy animal sidekicks, I always loved Snarf. He was fun and goofy, but his role of doting nursemaid to the suddenly giant Lion-O was so endearing. Plus, the neurotic little fluffball certainly saved the day on more than one occasion. Of course, Rankin-Bass couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to toss Snarfer in there, but we’ll get to deal with that a couple waves from now.

Uncle Osbert comes in the same style package we’ve been seeing since the beginning. There’s a high-gloss sleeve that lifts off the top to reveal the window box within. The red foil Eye of Thundera graces the front of the sleeve and you get some character art and a blurb about Snarf on the back of the box. These packages are collector friendly and I have a huge box of them stored in my garage because I can’t bring myself to toss them out. Yup, when you have boxes full of empty boxes, you know you have a problem.

Obviously old Snarf is a little guy, and we’ll get to the pricing on this fellow at the end. But, I’m happy to say that Super7 managed to give us a surprisingly good amount of articulation for such a short and stocky character. With rotating hinges in the shoulders, elbows, knees, and ankles, hinged pegs in the wrists, ball jointed hips, another two ball joints in the neck, and two more in the tail, Snarf is a lot of fun to play with for a character that was merely a static piece in the original toy line. I really dig all the sculpted detail on his fur, which is painted reddish brown with some yellow patches on his arms and legs and a wide stripe running from the back of his head down to the tip of his tail. He’s got a bald, segmented, almost dragon-like tummy that has some nice shading on it and flesh-colored plastic for his hands and feet. For what it is, there’s not much I can complain about here, aside from the fact that Snarf can’t really go down on all fours, which is how he ran in the cartoon. I’m not sure that would have been possible with articulation alone, but with extra swap out limbs? Maybe.

Uncle Osbert comes with three different heads, each showcasing very different expressions, and each one really capturing the cartoon character design very well. The first head offers a somewhat neutral expression with a hint of Snarf’s default emotional setting: Worried. The second is an open mouth expression of pure delight. And finally we get rage monster Snarf. Oh yes… Make no mistake, you back Snarf into a corner and you’re going to get your ankles bit. The paint here is all pretty sharp to the naked eye and you have to punch in pretty close to see any real faults. They did a beautiful job on his eyes, as all the ‘Cats in the cartoon had such distinctive eyes. His pointy ears and adorable tuft of hair round out the package nicely on all of these portraits. I will say that I had some difficulty getting the angry head in for the first time. I had to apply a good amount of force and since the head has a lot of sharp points, it was a painful experience. After that it seemed to go on just fine.

Perhaps the coolest addition to this set is the standing tail base. Snarf had a habit of standing on his erect tail when he wanted to gain some height and this is achieved by swapping out the lower part of the tail for this tail piece that’s attached to a clear base. It’s a clever design for this display option, and I will likely utilize it most of the time because it looks so good and gives him a bit more shelf presence when displayed in front of the other ‘Cats. Let’s check out the accessories…

Snarf comes with a small assortment of extras along with three pairs of hands. The hands include tight grip hands, looser grip hands, and relaxed hands. There’s a gray satchel that he can wear on his shoulder. I remember him having this in the cartoon and I want to say he mostly used it to carry Candy Fruit, but he might of stored other stuff in it too. It’s a simple piece, it looks good on him, but I probably won’t display it with the figure much.

If you don’t remember Candy Fruit, it was harvested by the neighboring village of robot teddy bear Berbils and acted as a staple of the ThunderCats’ diet on Third Earth. God, this was a delightfully bizarre show! I don’t really remember the ‘Cats eating much of anything else. Early on, I think I imagined that the Berbils were just getting them hooked on the stuff so they could enthrall the ThunderCats to slay all their enemies, but nah… The Berbils were pretty chill. Here you get a single Candy Fruit, which seems kind of cheap. Couldn’t throw a few more in there without breaking the bank, guys? The wider grip hands are good for holding it.

Next you get new versions of Lion-O’s Claw Shield and a dormant Sword of Omens. Some might consider this an odd couple of accessories for Snarf, but there were plenty of times where Lion-O got separated from them and Snarf delivered them so he could save the day. Still, I doubt anyone was really clamoring for another version of these, especially since if you have some of the Lion-O variant releases, you have a few already. Still, they look great and the sword can store in the Claw Shield. The paint on both pieces is really nice.

Snarf can hold the Sword of Omens in his mouth, which I remember him doing several times in the cartoon. The problem here is that he was usually doing it so he could run on all fours to deliver it to Lion-O and as we already established, the figure can’t really do that. So again, some way to make that work would have been a nice option, either with swap out limbs or even an extra static body.

Snarf is a fantastic figure. I love the sculpting, the extra heads, and he’s got more useful articulation than I expected we’d get out of a little Snarf. And yes, at $55 he is egregiously over-priced. Indeed, when you consider all the extras that came with some of the other regular sized figures at this price point, Snarf here just feels like highway robbery. It’s not like this was some risky one-off Goat Man villain that some collectors would pass up. Nope. No doubt, Super7 gambled that everyone would want Snarf in their collection and would pay it. And well-played, because in my case they were right. Still, it’s not a great way to treat your customers. I think the best way to raise the value in this package would have been to include a static extra body to pose him running on all fours with the Sword in his mouth. Another way to go would be to make him a two-pack with RoBear Bill. And even with all that having been said, I love how he turned out and I’m happy to finally have a full set of the ThunderCats on display! Snarf, Snarf!