In the 1980s, Rankin/Bass Entertainment had a lot going on. They’d been creating hit animated movies like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964) and The Hobbit (1997) but now they were trying to create a series of three animal-hero-based syndicated cartoons. The first, and most well-known, was ThunderCats, then came SilverHawks. These two shows were much loved by children in the mid-1980s.