Welcome to "Samurai Pizza Cats Online" the first anime related webpage created by web hostess Lil' Polly (aka Yuuki Hikari).  Despite my obvious lack of updates (and I have to say I'm sorry for being lazy ^^;) this is still my baby because nothing will ever replace the spot in my heart that is devoted to the Pizza Cats.   My page was originally launched April 28, 1999 after I had a friend at work revive my interest in the cats.  For anyone who's paid any attention to my page o.O it's had a few face lifts and is obviously not as horrid as it use to be e_e (and for some strange reason XD I still have my old HTML page layouts).  One of my prides has been my petition, which has suffered greatly since Geocities would not allow me to run form submissions for whatever reason....  So basically this is my dedication to probably the coolest anime dub in existance!  Special shouts out to Princess Vi cause she's just so devoted to SPC it's amazing, and to Purrcat for creating edoropolis.org ^_^!

The following is my information on the Pizza Cats or depending on what version you prefer, their japanese roots - Nyankee: 

  (Kyattou Ninden Teyandee) was a project by Tatsunoko Productions in 1989/90 and released in 1990.  The original idea layout of the cats can be credited to Tenko who made the cats and the citizens of look the way they do.  first aired Febuary 1, 1990 at 7PM (isn't that prime time? what a slot!) but the show didn't last as long as SPC did in other nations.  The show lasted only 2 years but produced what the English audience wants the most:  Manga, CD's, art, cels, merchandise.  Things like that weren't in the western nations like they were in Japan and are a covetted prize.  But without this origin who knows what we would be watching!

  is based in (Edoropolis:  Edo = old name for Tokyo; ropolis = robotic metropolis) somewhere in time where the Shogun (and daughter (Usa Hime)) rein supreme over a metropolis that is so advanced that everyone is no longer flesh and blood but metal and iron.  Although the people have changed, civilization has not.  People live in buildings from shaks to mansions, the people still have cullinary needs and fast food still provides a quick souce of nourishment (and pizza tops the list!).  In this mess of workers, childern and everything else, rises (Koon No Kami), a fox who craves nothing but control and power over everyone and who's provocative clothing style incorporates the idea of sexual preference into a position of power and his preferences are never questioned.  To keep his position he relies on advisor (Karasu Gennari) and warrior (Karamaru) with his crow followers and any robotic monstrosity they could create.  only challenge to his power is   (Wankoo Kami), another counsilor who knows about evil ways and to bring him and his followers to justice.  To do so employs 3 fighters who are called (Nyankee).    are 3 warrior fighters:  (Yattaro), (Pururun), and (Sukashii).  Their main objective is to foil plot and to eventually expose him to the public.  But these warriors (cats) have a day job as their cover; managed by (Otama) they work (and live) at Pizza Cats.   Pizza Cats is a fast food resturant that served all types of pizza for all walks of life and offered a unique delivery service (which made employment quite undesireable due to lousy aim).  A large clock tower/cannon perched above (and attached) to the resturant is the method of ariel transport for the and others.   The main opperator is who runs the entire launch opperation, the only one of the cats who knows how.  But this launch has a hidden secret.  In it lies the area which transforms the cats into and from there they are sent into action to fight and his clan.  In the middle of the plot falls (Omitsu) the intital love interest of and friend of the .   For the foil, the love interest of is (Okara).  As the plot deals out and his interest change as he and form a close bond and eventually push out of the picture.  In the end, evil is defeated but ironically it is love that destroys all when everything is destroyed by .

  To the delight of both fans and Samurai Pizza Cat fans the Japanese like promoting things.  CD releases from the show were made as well as other promotional items.  Manga is the most prominant of all, but the manga was not released at the time of in Japan, but rather at the height of Samurai Pizza Cats in the west.  Set after the final episode, much has changed, which some has stayed the same, and some has gone back to what it was to start out with (like and ).  For more on the manga check out Princess Vi's Spiffy Diffy Web Page or Pzario's Pizza Cat log book.

Understanding some KNT Japanese - Here you'll find a few words that I've figured out that pop up frequently in KNT and/or are requirements of Japanese sentance structure.

  Kyattou Ninden Teyandee was made for television outside of Japan in 1990/91 by producer Andy Thomas for Saban International and featured an all Canadian cast of vocalists (and a few behind the scene's people too).  When the show was made for English television it wasn't translated (Thomas didn't even look up the proper spelling for Samurai - thus we get Samuri, which is funny all the same!).  The original dialogue and sound track was kept from everyone (except Thomas) and they created an entirely new show (but some things had to be kept the same because you can't change the cause and effect responses embedded in the cartoon).  The writers were given the animation, re-arranged a bit by Thomas so that they couldn't do a carbon copy translation it if they wanted - and that's all they had to work with.  Andy Thomas came up with the title Samurai Pizza Cats, re-named all the characters; making them international so to speak ~ Speedy after the Mexican theme Speedy Gonzallez, Guido's name is Italian, and Polly... she's named after Andy Thomas's sister!  The bad guy's names became puns of sorts - Bad Bird's name is self explanatory, Jerry Atric is a pun on the medical term Geriatric which refers to an old person, and Big Cheese is a slang term given to a person in a position of power.  It was set in Little Tokyo - 'Little' probably because the characters were rather short and 'Tokyo' because the show is set in Japan.  Andy Thomas came up with the brilliant idea of having a know-it-all narrator providing some direction, communication, explanation and hilarious comic relief!

  The tone of the entire show was lightened immensely (most likely for censorship reasons).  The city is modified: becomes Little Tokyo.  Characters change: becomes Speedy, becomes Polly, becomes Guido, becomes Francine and the become the Samurai Pizza Cats.  The bad guys change too: becomes Bad Bird, becomes Jerry Atric and becomes Seymour "Big" Cheese.  The most significant change there is that Big Cheese is a rat, not a fox like his Japanese counterpart.  The entire idea of civilization is changed from to Little Tokyo; where as the citizens of are animaloid, the citizens of Little Tokyo are flesh and blood or a robotic/humanoid combination (like the Borg from Star Trek).  Some character relationships are altered (the crush has on does not exist between Polly and Speedy) and some stay the same (the general idea behind /Seymour Cheese).

  When all is said and done the unedited English version is longer than what we got to see on television.  Due to censorship (don't ya just hate it) they had to cut out many of the cross dressing jokes and other innuendoes (I bet now that I'm actually old enough to completely understand the majority of the jokes, the unedited version must be hilarious!).  Most of the episode titles for SPC are parodies of sayings, songs, movies, ways of life, etc...  Two episodes from KNT were left untranslated (KNT ep 10 and 51) and one was totally re-done (KNT ep 54 - Cats Cop Cartoon Careers).  It took a while to get the show on television because Haim Saban held the rights back, but when it finally got going (thank you to the WONDERFUL person who convinced Haim Saban to do so) SPC started out it's fan base in England, 1991/92, where the censorship laws were relaxed enough so that all 52 translated episodes could air.  The fall of 1992 saw Canada's Youth Television (YTV) pick up a 48 episode package from Saban and Samurai Pizza Cats thrived in Canada *Click Here for YTV premier dates for SPC episodes*.  Airing on YTV from 1992 to 1997, the majority of it's time was spent on Saturday mornings but had it's greatest triumph in the most prestigious after school slot on YTV's "The Zone" for the 1993/94 school year.  Over the course of the next several years Samurai Pizza Cats spread out across Europe and down into Australia - the cats learnt many new languages in the process.  However it took 5 years for the show to air in it's English companies home land - the USA (something Thomas thought wouldn't happen).

  In 1996, Saban used it's own television station - Fox Family Channel - to air the show.  However, strict censorship laws prevented many episodes from airing (some of them happened to be key episodes) and the deal the American's received was widdled down to 41 episodes.  None the less, Samurai Pizza Cats spawned a huge fan base in the USA, no thanks to lousy/terrible promotional efforts on Saban's part.  YTV's Samurai Pizza Cats promotion was without Saban help and the station did a much better promoting job when the show was featured in "The Zone" commercials and publications *click here for some Zone clips*.  They even had vocalists Sonja Ball and Pauline Little on for an interview during the 1994 Zone season where they talked about SPC and other shows they had featured on YTV.  When the respective stations pulled the plug on the shows, they pretty much had no choice - Saban had pulled it from the market.  Efforts have been and ARE currently under way to bring the show back to television (Check out the "Samurai Saving Time" and "Petition" links at the top of the page).   Anyone who has watched the show knows that this is quality programming and deserves more respect than it's getting, many shows on television pale in comparison to the kind of show Samurai Pizza Cats is.

- Original text compiled 11/14/99 by Lil' Polly

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SPC Online @ http://www.edoropolis.org/spconline