Luno the White Stallion: The Forgotten Flying Pegasus

When I was young, one of my favourite books was Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. I would spend hours getting lost in the stories and staring at the incredible illustrations by Steele Savage. Now and then, though, I would stumble across something even stranger on television: a little cartoon called Luno the White Stallion.

The premise felt like pure childhood wish fulfillment. A small marble Pegasus sitting innocently in a boy’s bedroom could suddenly come to life. Not just any winged horse, either. Luno could talk. Imagine being a kid and secretly flying around the world on a magical horse while your parents had absolutely no idea where you were. It was the ultimate fantasy.

Created by Terrytoons in 1963, Luno the White Stallion had a surprisingly short run, yet it quietly helped lay the groundwork for many children’s adventure cartoons that followed.

The series followed a highly imaginative boy named Tim, who owned a white marble statue of a winged horse called Luno. Whenever Tim wanted an adventure, he would raise his hands and recite the magic words:

“Oh, winged horse of marble white, take me on a magic flight!”

Instantly, the toy transformed into a giant living Pegasus. Together, Tim and Luno would soar out the bedroom window and into fantastic adventures. They travelled across oceans, visited prehistoric worlds, explored legendary kingdoms, and crossed paths with characters such as Sinbad the Sailor, Captain Ahab, and King Rounder.

What makes Luno fascinating today is how ahead of its time it was.

Long before modern cartoons embraced magical companions, Luno introduced the idea of an ordinary child using a special object to summon a powerful friend and escape into incredible adventures. You can see echoes of that formula in everything from Masters of the Universe to The Fairly OddParents and countless anime series.

The show also arrived during a major turning point in animation history. Only six episodes were originally produced for theatrical release. The remaining eleven were shifted directly to television, where they appeared as backup segments on programs like The Astronut Show and Deputy Dawg. In many ways, Luno sits right on the dividing line between the golden age of theatrical cartoons and the rise of Saturday morning television.

So why does almost nobody remember it?

Part of the answer is Terrytoons itself. The studio had a reputation for keeping production costs low, and Luno often showed it. The animation was limited, the stories could be chaotic, and it simply could not compete visually with what Disney or Hanna-Barbera were producing at the time.

Another problem was ownership. Terrytoons eventually became part of CBS and later disappeared into the massive corporate library that would ultimately become part of Paramount. While characters like Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle continued to receive attention, smaller properties such as Luno were largely forgotten and rarely resurfaced on television.

Then there is the simple fact that only seventeen episodes were ever made. That is not much material to build a lasting audience, especially in an era when successful cartoons relied heavily on reruns and syndication.

Fortunately, the internet has given Luno a second chance. Thanks to collectors and animation fans uploading episodes to YouTube, this forgotten flying horse is still finding new audiences more than sixty years later. Watching it today is like opening a time capsule from an era when children’s television was still figuring out what it wanted to be.

For a generation of kids, Luno was a secret doorway to adventure. For animation historians, it is a fascinating missing link between movie-theater cartoons and the Saturday morning classics that followed. And for those lucky enough to remember him, that marble Pegasus still hasn’t landed