Music of the Spheres

Halley's Comet is passing through Limbo on a course that will just miss Brim*Star. Steelheart has an idea: Mon*Star needs the Moon*Star's light to transform, so if the comet can bump Brim*Star out of its beams, he will never transform again. The job falls to Bluegrass, who only has to tune his guitar to the comet's oscillations. He flies out, calls on Hot Licks for his music cue and starts bending the comet toward Brim*Star.

Mon*Star sees it coming and sends Melodia out with her Sound Smasher to play the hillbilly a tune he will never forget. She knocks Bluegrass out of action, and the comet runs wild, straight for Bedlama. Commander Stargazer sends Quicksilver and Steelheart and warns Governor Zander, who has an hour to evacuate the city, and Steelheart takes Sideman, Bluegrass's new Riff Hawk, for the music power they will need. Melodia reports to Mon*Star that she blew the singing cowboy clear of the comet, and goes after the others.

In Bedlama the citizens run for the spaceport. Sideman stops the comet dead in the sky, but Melodia arrives, the comet bounces off Bedlama, and Quicksilver and Steelheart end up trapped under Bedlama Lake, the water pressure holding their hatch shut. Back on Brim*Star, the Mob gloats that it can now grab anything it wants from the Bedlamians.

Stargazer calls every SilverHawk in turn and raises only Bluegrass, who comes round wondering where in Limbo he is. He calls up his cue on Hot Licks again, makes the comet work for the SilverHawks and knocks Brim*Star out of its orbit, so that the Mob can no longer line up with the Moon*Star. Quicksilver and Steelheart are brought out from under the lake, and Governor Zander thanks the SilverHawks for saving his city. The Mob is still at large, but it will take everything Mon*Star has to get Brim*Star back into position.

The passage of Halley's Comet throws Limbo into chaos as the Mob tries to thwart Steelheart's plan to send the comet crashing through Brim*Star.

Steelheart: "We're not, cowboy. You are."

Commander Stargazer: "Is there anyone out there? Am I talking to myself?"

Bluegrass: "I'll be there quicker than a greased hog sliding down a wet chute, Commander."

Bluegrass fights with a guitar, and Lee Schneider's script asks what that guitar could do if somebody pointed it at something big. Steelheart's plan is enormous: "All you have to do is tune your guitar into the comet's oscillations.", bend Halley's Comet into Brim*Star, and knock the Mob's home out of the Moon*Star's light for good. "Mon*Star will never be able to transform again." When Bluegrass asks how they are going to manage that, she tells him, "We're not, cowboy. You are."[1]

The trouble with a weapon made of music is that anybody with an instrument can play it, and the comet goes wherever the last musician sent it. Someone watching it early on calls it "The ultimate linebacker.", and the rest of the story treats it like a ball in play. Bluegrass takes it, Melodia takes it off him with the Sound Smasher, Sideman stops it dead over Bedlama, Melodia sends it back again with "That country western stuff doesn't do a thing for me, SilverHawks.", and the Mob's verdict, "The comet bounced off Bedlama, boys.", is delivered on Brim*Star.

Both weapons are only sound, so the animation has to keep the duel legible, and it does. Hot Licks throws a blue beam full of musical notes out of its headstock, Melodia's keytar fires red, and the colours stay on their sides, so that we know whose music is winning without being told. Sideman, introduced here as "Bluegrass' new friend, Sideman the Riff Hawk", gets a striking image of his own, standing upright and ringed in waves of sound while Melodia comes back into the fight.

The standout is Bluegrass's comeback. With Quicksilver and Steelheart trapped under Bedlama Lake, Stargazer calls his team one by one on the radio and hears nothing back, "Is there anyone out there? Am I talking to myself?", until the cowboy comes round wondering where in Limbo he is. His answer to the call, "I'll be there quicker than a greased hog sliding down a wet chute, Commander.", is the kind of line only Bluegrass gets, and his next move is to call up his cue on Hot Licks again.

The weakness is that the comet has no weight. It stops dead in the sky when Sideman plays at it, bounces off a planet, and changes course whenever the next scene needs it to, so the hour Bedlama is given to evacuate never feels like an hour.[2] Quicksilver and Steelheart suffer for it too, stuck under a lake for the climax while Bluegrass wins the day alone.[3] It is a fair choice for a Bluegrass episode, but in a short slot it leaves them with little to do.

It ends where Steelheart's plan pointed it in the first scene. Brim*Star is out of position, and the admission that the Mob is still at large comes with a consolation: it is going to take everything Mon*Star has to get his planet back. Melodia had the comet for most of the episode, but Bluegrass had it when it counted!

1 ^ The plan starts as a compliment, "You just had the best idea of your life, little bro.", paid to a SilverHawk whose only reply is "I did?"

2 ^ The warning gives Bedlama an hour to evacuate; by the time the citizens are running for the spaceport, one of them reckons on half an hour. The Governor of Bedlama is addressed as Governor Zander throughout the dialogue, and he waits for the SilverHawks at the Space Trooper headquarters.

3 ^ Trapped under the lake, one of the pair asks the other for help with the hatch and is told that the water pressure is holding it shut.

1. Steelheart's plan rests on Mon*Star needing the light of the Moon*Star to transform; knocking Brim*Star out of its beams would stop him transforming at all.
2. Sideman is introduced as Bluegrass's new friend, Sideman the Riff Hawk, and goes to Bedlama with Steelheart for his music power.
3. Bluegrass twice asks Hot Licks for his music cue before he plays.
4. Mon*Star names Melodia's weapon, the Sound Smasher, when he sends her after Bluegrass.
5. Bedlama is given an hour to evacuate, and its citizens head for the spaceport before the flights out are cancelled.
6. The closing quiz is on the Saturn V rocket at the Kennedy Space Center: its name, its height in stories, and its fuels. The Copper Kidd totals 14 points.

2 names enter the series in this episode.

• Bedlama City citizens
• Space Trooper Headquarters

Appearance lists compiled from the episode articles on the ThunderCats wiki, checked against this site's encyclopedia. Names we have no entry for are shown without a link rather than left out.