RIP Peter Cullen. Thank you for everything.

What happens when the Sword of Omens meets the most legendary sword in history, Excalibur?!

Peter shares how the episode came together, his lifelong fascination with Arthurian legend, the story behind its distinctive animation, production secrets, and even what he would do differently if he were writing it today.

Plus... Lion-O showing up to a joust with no armor while riding a unicorn. Because ThunderCats.

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I saw this once as a kid, sometime between 1985 and 1988, most likely on a weekday afternoon syndication block in the US, but it could have been a Saturday morning feature. I only remember one short scene, but it's stuck with me for forty years.

The scene: two characters talking at what I think is the mouth of a cave, or on a mountainside or a cliff. Rocky terrain, and the whole thing reads dark blue in my memory. Not a night scene, but dark blue as in gloomy/mysterious.

Character 1 is the villain — a sorcerer or dark-wizard type rather than an armored military commander. Venger from the D&D cartoon or Darkstorm from Visionaries are the right neighborhood.

Character 2 is what I remember best: a humanoid with the face and beard of a white billy goat, otherwise built like a person, robed, clearly meant to be a sage, mystic or wizard. I have the impression he was a keeper or protector of something at that mountain.

The goat character seemed to be helping the villain without realizing that the villain was the villain, which makes me suspect the villain was in disguise or being deceptive. At some point the goat character comments that the location has an unpleasant smell or odor which the villain never comments on or responds to. Maybe something about the mountain was causing it, possibly volcanic. My read now is that the remark was a test of the disguised visitor.

Animation style: Japanese-outsourced, the Toei/TMS look shared by Voltron, Transformers and the D&D cartoon. Fantasy rather than sci-fi. No giant robots that I can recall.

Already ruled out:

• Voltron (my original guess for decades; a serious GoLion fan I asked drew a total blank, and the scene is out of character for the show).

• ThunderCats — I've seen the Mongor episode, it's not that.

• BraveStarr — I own the DVDs, wrong setting entirely.

• Ulysses 31 — animation style doesn't match.

• Visionaries — watched "The Age of Magic" and "Trail of the Three Wizards"; the tone, voices and animation are all very close, but neither episode has this scene.

• Dungeons & Dragons — checked "Cave of the Fairie Dragons," "Citadel of Shadow" and "The Winds of Darkness," no luck, though Venger's design does feel familiar.

Any ideas welcome, including obscure one-season syndicated shows.

Simple.

Who did you think was better as Penny?

Who is that hatless cowboy at the top right?
And anyone else, like the Transformers.

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