#panthro

Concept art for Thundercats

Now if you are a ThunderCats fan, you'll know his voice if not his name or face, he was the voice of Panthro in the original ThunderCats.

For those of you who may not know, Earle Hyman was a closeted gay black and indigenous man.

Born in Jim Crow era North Carolina, his family moved to NYC to seek better education and pursue his love of theater in a part of the country less hobbled by prejudice. Aside from his most famous TV roles, Panthro and Russel Huxtable on the Cosby Show (latter for which he was Emmy-nominated!) He had a long and prestigious career as a Shakespearean actor. Particularly playing Othello, self-reportedly hundreds of times, among many other Shakespearean roles.

Eventually his career took him to Norway, the country became his second home, his second (and third, having learned both dialects) language, and the home country of origin for his partner, Rolf Sirnes, meeting him for the first time not in Norway but the U.S. in 1954.

The two fell in love and moved in together shortly after meeting, Earle Hyman would come to Norway nearly a decade later in 1963, where he met international acclaim and stardom. He and Sirnes had a cabin in Skånevik, Sunnhordland, Norway. A town where Sirnes had spent many a summer holiday as a child.

However, for the majority of their lives together, Earle Hyman and Rolf Sirnes would settle into an apartment in Manhattan, where Sirnes spent his retirement working in Greenwich Village.

The pair would not make the news of their relationship public until 2000, in order to protect Hyman's acting career, which was already hard fought. As he spent no small portion of it smashing various racial barriers and making history by playing roles such as Caliban, Horatio, Macbeth, and King Lear.

"We met in a Manhattan company. We were young and poor and found out we were going to share an apartment, and we still do! Life with Earle has been amazing, but also a roller coaster. Actors are a separate breed and it's not far from top to bottom. Norway is my country, but my heart belongs to New York." - Rolf Sirnes in an interview with Margaret Haavik (translated from Norwegian)

They would also come out to the world on the Norwegian TV Show "God kveld Norge!" (Good Evening Norway).

"I could never live without Rolf. He's the best I could get." (quote from Good Evening Norway translated from Norwegian)

Their nearly 50 year relationship would sadly come to a close when Rolf Sirnes passed away in 2004. He was buried in Haugesund, Norway.

Hyman would outlive his partner for another 13 years, passing away in 2017, his ashes are still in the keeping of his family. The obituary written for him by The New York Times makes no mention of Hyman's queerness or of his life partner Rolf Sirnes at all.

So the complete picture of Hyman's legacy and identity nearly fell into obscurity in the English speaking world were it not for more recent articles and attempts at properly archiving Hyman's life via the Folger Shakespeare Library's "Earle Hyman Collection" and the Henry Giardina article on Queerty about the history of Sirnes & Hyman's love.

Hyman left a mark on ThunderCats through his excellent portrayal of Panthro. Who, I would say is known to be by most fans, especially by fans of color, black-coded. Though that is it's own whole other post (and/or possible video essay in the future). Neither the showrunners of ThunderCats nor Hyman himself allowed the character to be pigeon-holed.

Thundercats Redesign

I’ve been thinking about Panthro as a character a lot lately, especially his dynamics with his other characters in the OG show. What are your personal plans for him your AU? Is he still a presumed dead general of Claudus’s like in the 2011 reboot or do you have other plans for him?

SO sorry its taken me so long to respond to this one, with artfight and irl work my plate has been hella full lately…… Summer is busy asf for me I fear🥲

And Panthro... My next character to focus on (I have been fighting with his design for WEEKS)...

As my first major story arc consists of the classic Traveling Group That Picks Up People Along The Way, Panthro would become a party member not long after Cheetara. Prior to this however he had been tracking down the young princes after hearing of/coming upon the destroyed Thundera City, of which he had been exiled from many years before that.

Panthro’s story is… Complicated, I think in part due to his own internal struggles and conflicts. At this moment in time my plans for him do involve the royal family and service in the military, however I think having a connection to Leona/working alongside her before her marriage to Claudus is the route I’m going down for him. I see a lot of potential for a friendship between the two, as well as him having a lot of loyalty to her, and eventually her sons. This connection to Leona would also be a key aspect to his exile, likely after her death, which leads to a lot of guilt on Panthro’s end.

I do wanna go more in depth with this when I have the time to fully write out his lore and story, but a lot his themes revolve around mistakes and guilt, and the want to atone but not having the courage to do so until it’s too late.