The animated animal-themed superhero TV series "Street Sharks" (which aired from 1994-1997) was one of several animated animal-themed superhero TV shows to air during the 1990s - probably to cash in on the craze for such properties created by the wildly successful "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Like more than a few of such series, "Street Sharks" was co-created by Ron Askin and Phil Harnage to cash in on an already-existing toy line (by Mattel).
I eagerly collected the Street Sharks action figures as a nine-or-ten-year-old growing up during the mid '90s. I still have those Street Sharks toys, too. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to watch the TV series that was inspired by the toys that came before it. Fast-forward two decades and lo and behold, the wonders of TV-on-DVD: "Street Sharks" is released on DVD and I'm able to finally watch the series I remembered so fondly growing up - even if I never actually got the chance to watch it.
"Street Sharks" was very obviously influenced by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and so were so many other such animated children's TV shows produced during that time. So, try to imagine this series as "Jaws" meets the Fantastic Four. "Street Sharks" concerns the Bolton Brothers - John, Clint, Bobby, and Coop - who are transformed by the insane, megalomaniacal and power-hungry university geneticist Dr. Luther Paradigm, who kidnaps the four siblings and injects them with an experimental serum that transforms them into massive half-man/half-shark mutants:
- John becomes Ripster, a Great White Shark and their "de facto" leader of the four and is the most brilliant Street Shark; Clint becomes Jab, a Hammerhead Shark and is the tough-talking fighter of the group who often charges, quite literally, head-first, into battle; Bobby becomes Streex, a Tiger Shark and is the most fun-loving of the bunch and is always seen wearing a pair of trademark roller blades; and Clint becomes Big Slammu, a Whale Shark who is the resident jock and proves to be the physically strongest of them all.
Together, the four of them team up as one, as the "Street Sharks," to fight crime and all manner of evil in their native Fission City. Of course, Dr. Paradigm becomes their primary nemesis, who has an insane scheme to "gene-slam" the entire human population into nefarious "Seaviates," hideous genetic mutants based on marine animals that will exist only to serve him. Paradigm himself becomes a victim of his own sick and twisted experiments when he is accidentally injected with his own "gene-slamming" serum and is transformed into "Dr. Piranoid," whose face assumed an inhuman piranha-like form during moments of extreme emotion. The Street Sharks are aided in their battles against Dr. Piranoid by Bends, their genius human friend, and other "gene-slammed" human/animal mutants like Moby Lick (a Killer Whale) and Rox (a Mako Shark) and later, the Dino Vengers.
"Street Sharks" is not a particularly deep or involving show. The animation is pretty simple and straight-forward, with no other underlying theme other than the theme of brotherly camaraderie amongst Our Four marine Heroes. Seeing the show in my adult years, it's not as mind-blowing as I thought it was going to be - but perhaps that's just the 31-year-old adult in me. But remembering back to my nine-/10-year-old self, it's easy to get lost in a show that promises nothing more than just great fun and "Jawsome" one-liners.
7/10.
