''Samurai Pizza Cats'' is an American animated television adaptation of the

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

series ''

Kyatto Ninden Teyandee is a Japanese anime series produced by Tatsunoko Productions and Sotsu Agency. The series originally aired in Japan on TV Tokyo from February 1, 1990 to February 12, 1991, for a total of 54 episodes. Saban picked up the North American righ ...

'' (''Cat Ninja Legend Teyandee''), produced by

Tatsunoko Productions and often shortened to , is a Japanese animation company. The studio's name has a double meaning in Japanese: "Tatsu's child" (Tatsu is a nickname for Tatsuo) and "sea dragon", the inspiration for its seahorse logo. Tatsunoko's headquarters are i ...

and Sotsu Agency. The series originally aired in Japan on

TV Tokyo JOTX-DTV (channel 7), branded as and known colloquially as , is a television station headquartered in the Sumitomo Fudosan Roppongi Grand Tower in Roppongi, Minato, Tokyo, Japan, owned and operated by the subsidiary of listed certifie ...

from February 1, 1990 to February 12, 1991 for a total of 54 episodes.

Saban Entertainment Saban Entertainment, Inc. (along with Saban International; currently operating under the legal name is BVS Entertainment, Inc.) was a worldwide-served independent American-Israeli television production company formed in 1980 by Haim Saban and ...

picked up the North American rights to the series in 1991 and produced a 52-episode English adaptation. When Saban licensed the English version, proper translations of and information about the original Japanese episodes were either of poor quality or non-existent. It was decided to write completely original dialogue for the English dub, playing the show as a wacky,

Animaniacs ''Animaniacs'' is an American animated comedy musical television series created by Tom Ruegger for Fox Broadcasting Company's Fox Kids block in 1993, before moving to The WB in 1995, as part of its Kids' WB afternoon programming block, until ...

-esque comedy in contrast to the less farcical original. The English-language version became a

cult hit A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. A ...

among anime fans due to its rapid-fire pop-culture references and farcical nature. Saban's distribution rights to the series expired on November 12, 2000.

Discotek Media Discotek Media is an American entertainment company based in Altamonte Springs, Florida, focused on distribution and licensing Japanese anime, films, and television series. Formed in 2005, Discotek primarily focuses on licensing retro titles fr ...

currently holds the North American home video license to the series in North America, while

Madman Entertainment Madman Entertainment Pty. Ltd., also known as Madman Films, is an Australian distribution and rights management company headquartered in East Melbourne, Victoria, specialising in feature films, documentaries and television series across theatr ...

holds the license for Australia and New Zealand. Crunchyroll began streaming the series on December 27, 2015. The series became available for streaming to Amazon Prime subscribers in late 2018. In 2020, it became available on

Tubi Tubi is an American over-the-top content platform and ad-supported streaming service owned by Fox Corporation. The service was launched on April 1, 2014, and is based in Los Angeles, California. In January 2021, Tubi reached 33 million monthly ...

. In 2021, it became available on

Peacock Peafowl is a common name for three bird species in the genera '' Pavo'' and '' Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae, the pheasants and their allies. Male peafowl are referred to as peacocks, and female peafowl are r ...

Plot

The series is set in Little Tokyo, a mechanical city which fuses feudal Japanese culture with contemporary culture, and is populated by

cybernetic Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson ma ...

anthropomorphic animals. The city is nominally led by Emperor Fred, a doddering eccentric. The city's actual leadership lies in the hands of the city council and the emperor's daughter, Princess Violet. The council is headed by ambitious

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister i ...

Seymour "The Big" Cheese, a rat who constantly plots to overthrow the Emperor. Big Cheese is aided by his inept minions: trusted adviser Jerry Atric and Bad Bird, the leader of an army of ninja crows. Unknown to the prime minister, council member and palace guard commander "Big Al" Dente has learned of his designs on leadership, but is unable to prosecute him for treason because of the plausible deniability he maintains. Instead, Al Dente enlists the services of Speedy Cerviche, Polly Esther, and Guido Anchovy, three

cyborg A cyborg ()—a portmanteau of ''cybernetic'' and ''organism''—is a being with both organic and biomechatronic body parts. The term was coined in 1960 by Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline.

cat

samurai were the hereditary military nobility and officer caste of medieval and early-modern Japan from the late 12th century until their abolition in 1876. They were the well-paid retainers of the '' daimyo'' (the great feudal landholders). They h ...

who work in the city's

pizzeria A pizzeria is a restaurant focusing on pizza. As well as pizza, dishes at pizzerias can include kebab, salads and pasta. Many pizzerias offer take-away, where the customer orders their food either in advance or at the restaurant and then t ...

, along with their operator Francine. Known collectively as the Samurai Pizza Cats, the three are assigned to stop Big Cheese and his evil henchmen's plans to take over Little Tokyo.

Characters

Production

When

licensed ''

'', 52 of the 54 episodes that were produced in Japan were translated into English. The two untranslated episodes were

clip show A clip show is an episode of a television series that consists primarily of excerpts from previous episodes. Most clip shows feature the format of a frame story in which cast members recall past events from past installments of the show, depicte ...

s that did little to further the series' plot. Some episodes of the dubbed version were never aired in the United States, due to censorship issues. The music in the English dub (replacing the original Japanese music) was by

Shuki Levy Shuki Levy ( he, שוקי לוי; born June 3, 1947) is an Israeli-American music composer and television producer. Levy's best known work is soundtrack compositions for children's television programs of the 1980s, such as '' The Real Ghostbuster ...

and

Haim Saban Haim Saban (; he, חיים סבן; born October 15, 1944) is an Israeli-American media proprietor, investor, and producer of records, film, and television. A businessman with interests in financial services, entertainment, and media, and an e ...

(credited as Kussa Mahchi). In keeping with the parodic nature of the show, the lyrics of the new theme song make a number of references to American pop culture.For example, the line "they've got more fur than any turtle ever had" references the similarly themed cartoon series ''

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ''Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles'' is an American media franchise created by the comic book artists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It follows Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael, four anthropomorphic turtle brothers (named after It ...

'', while the line "they're stronger than old cheese, stronger than dirt" refers to an advertising slogan once used for the industrial cleaner

Ajax Ajax may refer to: Greek mythology and tragedy * Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea * Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris * ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Gree ...

. The theme song also contains the line "As soon as someone finds the script, we might begin the show", a reference to the lack of proper translations given to Saban for production on the American version (). Michael Airington, a writer for the series, also sang the theme song (using a voice very similar to actor

Paul Lynde Paul Edward Lynde (; June 13, 1926January 10, 1982) was an American comedian, actor and game show panelist. A character actor with a distinctively campy and snarky persona that often poked fun at his barely closeted homosexuality, Lynde was we ...

), being credited as "Singing Sensation: Googie Gomez". According to the producer Andy Thomas, Airington had a few drinks before the recording session for the song started, and as a result, accidentally stuttered on one line ("this cat gets ''down down'' with a love hangover"); that mistake was kept in the final version of the theme.

Broadcast

The English version of the series first aired in the United Kingdom on ITV on August 31, 1991, with repeats continuing until 1995. In Canada, the series first appeared in 1992, on YTV, and in 1996, in the United States, on first-run syndication. The series was broadcast on Australian television on the weekday

Seven Network The Seven Network (commonly known as Channel Seven or simply Seven) is a major Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by Seven West Media Limited, and is one of five main free-to-air television networks in Australia ...

morning kid's wrapper programme ''

Agro's Cartoon Connection ''Agro's Cartoon Connection'' was an Australian children's television show that aired on the Seven Network from 1990 to 1997. Shown on weekday mornings, it was primarily hosted by Agro, a puppet played by comedian Jamie Dunn. It was originally ...

'', from April 1992. A repeat run occurred in the same time slot in early 1994.

Release

''Samurai Pizza Cats'' has been broadcast in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Colombia, India, Spain, Finland, Trinidad and Tobago, France, Italy, Poland, Greece, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Chile, Peru, Panama, Hong Kong, Thailand, Mexico, Brazil, Israel, Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Sweden, Armenia, the Philippines, the United States, Portugal, Nigeria, and Russia from 1991 onwards.

released the show in both the original Japanese-language version and the North American English-language version dubbed by Saban. DVDs were released in region 1 format, with the Japanese version in Dolby Stereo 2.0 and English version in Dolby Digital Mono. The ''Kyatto-Ninden Teyandee: Complete Uncut Japanese Language Collection'' was released on April 30, 2013 and the English-dubbed version, ''Samurai Pizza Cats: Complete English Language TV Series Collection – 8 Disc Set'', was released on July 30, 2013. The ''Kyatto-Ninden Teyandee: Complete Uncut Japanese Language Collection'' set includes all of the 54 original episodes (including the two clip-show episodes that were never dubbed into English) while the ''Samurai Pizza Cats: Complete English Language TV Series Collection'' set includes all 52 English-dubbed episodes. A French-language version, titled ''Samouraï Pizza Cats'', which features a French dub adapted from the English dub, was released on DVD in France by Declic Images across two 5-disc box sets (26 episodes per set) in 2004.

released the show on DVD for Australia initially in two collections, with four discs in each set. Collection 1, containing episodes 1–26, was released on October 16, 2013; collection 2 containing episodes 27–52, was released on December 4, 2013. A box set of the complete series was released by Madman on April 6, 2016.

released the ''Samurai Pizza Cats: The Complete Collection'' on

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

on January 19, 2016. This release featured every episode in standard definition on a single disk.

Merchandise

Various toys and model kits were released in both Japan and Europe by

Bandai is a Japanese multinational toy manufacturer and distributor headquartered in Taitō, Tokyo. Its international branches, Bandai Namco Toys & Collectables America and Bandai UK, are respectively headquartered in Irvine, California and Richmond ...

, the latter usually being reboxed versions of the prior. Action figures for the Samurai Pizza Cats and the Rescue Team (the Japanese originals came as model kits comparable to today's

Gundam is a Japanese military fiction media franchise. Created by Yoshiyuki Tomino and Sunrise (now Bandai Namco Filmworks), the franchise features giant robots, or mecha, with the name "Gundam". The franchise began on April 7, 1979, with ''Mobile ...

toys, while the European figures came pre-assembled). There were also both large and small (

Gachapon , also called , is a trademark of Bandai. Among the variety of vending machine-dispensed bulk vending, capsule toys that originated in the 1960s, it became popular in Japan and elsewhere. "Gashapon" is Onomatopoeia, onomatopoeic from the two sou ...

-sized) rubber-like figures and playsets for the smaller figures, including the Great Catatonic and the pizza parlor.

Video game

In 1991,

Tecmo , was a Japanese video game corporation founded in 1967. It had its headquarters in Kudankita, Chiyoda, Tokyo. Its subsidiary, Tecmo Inc, was located in Torrance, California. Tecmo was formerly known as Tehkan. Tecmo is known for the ''Captain ...

published a platform video game based on ''Kyatto Ninden Teyandee'' for the

Famicom The Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) is an 8-bit Third generation of video game consoles, third-generation home video game console produced by Nintendo. It was first released in Japan in 1983 as the commonly known as the The NES, a redes ...

(NES) in Japan. The main characters of the series were also intended at one point to appear in the Wii fighting game '' Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars''. The game's producer, Ryota Niitsuma, was quoted in an interview as saying, "One of the main anime we got more requests for than any others was ''Samurai Pizza Cats''... I wanted to see that, but we couldn't reach an agreement."

American comics

''Samurai Pizza Cats'' comics were released as back-up stories in ''Saban Powerhouse'' (published by Valiant/Acclaim) which ran for two issues in 1997.

Notes

References

External links

* {{Tatsunoko Production 1990s American animated television series 1990s American comic science fiction television series 1990 anime television series debuts 1991 American television series debuts American children's animated action television series American children's animated comic science fiction television series American children's animated science fantasy television series American television series based on Japanese television series Cross-dressing in television Discotek Media Animated television series about cats ITV children's television shows Seven Network original programming Tatsunoko Production Television series by Saban Entertainment YTV (Canadian TV channel) original programming