That’s right; jawsome. Get it? It is awesome, but with sharks. See, sharks have big jaws and teeth. Okay, now that we have that explanation out of the way, I think we can forge ahead. For those of you that were not all about the toys Mattel was putting out, this is one of those cartoons that is very aesthetically pleasing to kids so they’ll get their parents to shell out money for these cool looking anthropomorphic sharks in ripper shorts. Since Netflix has added to the instant streaming, I’ve taken on the task of watching these two glorious seasons. I must say, my reaction of, “Oh, I actually remember that!” really bought me a lot of wasted time this week.
If you’ll notice, I very subtly threw out the word “shell” before. This was no accident people and at times I must bring my genius to attention.
Mattel is smarter though. They got kids to buy guitars for their sharks.
Anyway, to anyone who has seen any of the pictures so far, it’s pretty obvious that this is a “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” rip-off. The only twist is that these were humans that were turned into sharks, not sharks that decided to sprout legs. The way they talk is radical. They are non-stop eating machines, and they specifically hate pizza. They abhor pizza. Weird how they go out of their way to hate the Turtles favorite food; it’s almost like it was on purpose. I’m sure the creators knew what they were doing. If the kids want crime fighting animals with a very “dude” lexical pattern, why not give it to them?
So, how did these boys get turned into sharks you asked? Oh you didn’t? Well, that’s awkward. I guess I should keep going, stopping now would be a weird. I would have told you nothing at all. Although the premise is pretty much the whole show, so I’ve basically told you everything. I guess I could just stop now.
But I won’t since I get paid to do a good job with these. And no, I don’t make real money, I make theoretical internet dollars. What’s my point? Ah, yes, why did the boys turn into sharks? It is all very simple. You see, Dr. Paradigm is all evil. You can tell because he’s bald and has an eye patch made of metal, SEE!
Well, Paradigm was harmlessly trying to mutate a lobster and a marlin, and one of his colleagues tried to stick his nose in it. This man was Dr. Bolton, who turns out to have four sons. Well, Bolton gets injected with something horrible, starts mutating and runs off. It’s never known what he turned into. Paradigm then sets his sights on Bolton’s boys. This evil doc traps John, Clint, Robert and Coop and turns them into sharks! Thank goodness he had hammerhead, great white, whale and tiger shark DNA available so we could still differentiate between the boys.
To make a long pilot short, the boys go off to find their dad and try to thwart Dr. Paradigm. Luckily for Dr. Evil’s long lost brother, he still has that lobster and marlin up his sleeves. Or should I say Slobster and Slash. They are evil because their DNA was mixed with Genghis Khan’s and Thomas Blood’s. What odd references. They are later joined by Killamari and they make up the evil group the Seaviates. Later such great characters like Repteel, Shrimp Louie and Tentakill join the ranks to take down these horrible sharks.
Luckily for the sharks, along with their great eating and burrowing powers, they had friends that help them out. They had one of the most reliable people you can have on their side: a college girl. Her name was Lena and she was mainly written out, mainly because it is obvious college girls are all but useless. Bends is their biggest help. He is the universities best tech guy and makes their cool shark motorbikes (merchandising opportunity: sharks on motorcycles) and hides them under an ice rink. There are also people later in the show named Moby Lick, El Swordo, Mantaman, Clamando and later the “Street Sharks” is merged with a show about dinosaurs from space called “Dino Vengers”. So on top of all the nautical puns, there are also alien dinosaurs. Awesome…I mean Jawsome. Also Paradigm evetually becomes a squid man.
The real star for me is the weird random character that is really only a nuisance to everyone watching;
GUY IN THE SKY!
Guy is mainly used to weave in the other annoying part of this show, which is the preachy little ecofriendly message. All of this insane sea creature madness goes on in Fission City. At first I thought it was lame attempt to sound like the word fishing, but turn out they were actually cleverer than I thought. Well, it’s actually pretty obvious; I’m just actually dumber than I thought. It’s a science thing, look it up. Well, Fission city is full of green ooze and NUCLEAUR (fission) waste. Guy comments on all the gross things about the city and belittles the people about all the smog clouds he has to fly through. Don’t preach to me guy, I already have a weird blue guy that does that.
Come on Planeteers! Let's kill the mutant sharks.
So I would like to thank Netflix for not only reminding me of something I likely never would have thought of again in my entire life, but letting me relive it and write about it, forcing others to remember it. Hopefully I either get you to seek it out or keep you from wasting time like I have. Either way, I don’t really care. The only questions I want answered is if a shark could beat a turtle in a fight.
An artist's rendering of such a thing
Credit goes to: TVtropes.com, IMDB.com, Wikipedia.com, and Blingcheese.com.