Skip to main content

Game of Thrones gets animated in Lil Thrones parody

George R.R. Martin Presents "Lil Thrones" - CONAN on TBS
The fifth season of Game of Thrones kicked off this week, and series creator George R.R. Martin had a little fun while promoting the return of the hit show, which is based on his “A Song of Ice and Fire” novels, during a segment on a recent episode of 
Recommended Videos
Conan. The segment features Martin introducing a new animated, Saturday morning cartoon-style series based on Game of Thrones and titled Lil Thrones.

“I’m pleased to announce a brand new cartoon series for kids based on the world of Westeros,” deadpans Martin before offering a “sneak peek” of the faux series.

The brief segment features crudely illustrated versions of many of the key characters in Game of Thrones, including Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson), Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage), Cersei Lannister  (Lena Headey), Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke), and various others that will be familiar to fans of the HBO series. Of course, part of the joke involves revealing some major plot points — particularly characters’ deaths or in some cases, maiming — so if you’re not caught up with Game of Thrones, you might want to hold off on watching Lil Thrones.

The preview of the cartoon, which draws heavily from the Muppet Babies animated series, concludes with all of the characters announcing in musical unison, “We’re all screwed.”

While the cartoon itself is fictional, anyone watching Game of Thrones will likely attest to the closing sentiment being all too true for many of the characters in the series. Notorious for killing off major characters in brutal fashion, the series has been one of the most popular cable television programs in recent years, regularly breaking records for HBO.

The current season of Game of Thrones premiered over the weekend on April 12, and the series will continue to air every Sunday at 9:00 pm ET on HBO.

Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
Game of Thrones’ disappointing finale lost sight of what made the series so great
Daenerys stands above the Unsullied in the Game of Thrones finale.

Ending a TV show well is an infamously hard thing to do. Plenty of great, talented writers have tried and failed over the years, and even more fans have been left disappointed as their favorite shows failed to stick the landing. While bad final episodes have been a part of the TV landscape for decades, no series finale in modern memory has been as universally and passionately detested as Game of Thrones'.

After entertaining millions of viewers for eight years, the HBO drama delivered a final trio of rushed, ham-fisted episodes in May 2019 that brought its story to an incredibly disappointing, unearned conclusion. The show that had long held the TV crown subsequently faded from the world's pop cultural conversations — proving that sometimes the destination is as important as the journey. Many longtime fans seemingly pushed Game of Thrones from their minds altogether, while others decided to place all their hopes for a better ending on the two remaining Song of Ice and Fire books that author George R. R. Martin still hasn't published.

Read more
5 years ago, Game of Thrones aired its last great episode. Here’s why it still holds up
Jamie knights Brienne in episode 2 of Game of Thrones season 8.

Many fans would likely agree that Game of Thrones went out not with a bang, but a profound whimper. After dominating pop culture for nearly 10 years, the hit HBO series concluded with a trio of episodes that were universally reviled by both fans and critics alike. The show's lackluster, ham-fisted finale led to its popularity seemingly vanishing into thin air. In the five years since it aired, time hasn't been kind to Game of Thrones season 8.

To this day, many people still discuss the series' final season with a mix of bitterness and disbelief, and those fans won't find any disagreement about the quality of Game of Thrones' last few chapters here. As disappointing as its eighth season remains, though, April 21 marked the five-year anniversary of its noteworthy second episode, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The fan-favorite installment ranks not only as its season's best chapter, but also as the last great episode that Game of Thrones ever produced.

Read more
Netflix’s 3 Body Problem is missing the one thing that made Game of Thrones great
Ye Wenjie sits in front of a radio dish controller in 3 Body Problem.

Netflix's 3 Body Problem isn't just the streaming service's long-awaited adaptation of the acclaimed Chinese science fiction novel of the same name by Liu Cixin. It's also Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss' follow-up to their HBO smash hit. In many ways, the Netflix series, which Benioff and Weiss co-created with Alexander Woo, is a worthy successor to a show like Thrones. Like that game-changing HBO drama, it's an adaptation of the kind of famously complex source material that many understandably believed to be unadaptable.

To Benioff, Weiss, and Woo's credit, they prove that's not true across 3 Body Problem's debut eight-episode season. Together, the trio and their collaborators successfully streamline the science-driven narrative of Cixin's original novel, turning it into an episodic story that is both easily digestible and propulsive. While 3 Body Problem gets a lot right, though, it's missing the one thing that made Game of Thrones such a beloved show in the first place. To put it frankly, its characters just aren't all that memorable.
A rich foundation
3 Body Problem | Official Trailer | Netflix

Read more