Today I watched “Street Sharks.” The show was first created in 1984 by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, then later ripped off by David Siegel and Joe Galliani and renamed “Street Sharks.
The first episode, titled Shark Bait (ooh-ha-ha) opens in a laboratory full of a variety of marine animals, sharks, an octopus, piranha… evil Nick Fury, also known as Dr. Paradigm splices a swordfish and a lobster with human DNA from Ghengis Khan.
The lobster and Marlin start to literally flip out and break their tanks, landing them on the floor. Evil Nick Fury is upset at the failure of his experiment. Suddenly he sees his colleague, Dr. Bolton (from the ministry of silly walks) approaching the lab on a security camera.
Bolton is understandably upset at his research being bastardized and he attempts to stop Paradigm. Dr. Paradigm does what any evil scientist worth half his salt would do and injects his foe with shark animal DNA.
If he ends up as some kind of sea-rat I’ll be really upset.
Bolton becomes… something, we don’t get to see him. But his shadow gets bigger and he busts through a wall so it’s safe to say his transformation was more successful than that poor lobster and marlin.
Or was it?!
Nick Fury turns around to see that his original experiment actually did work out, meaning he didn’t have to throw a hissy-fit… but he did, and there’s no changing that now. Slash and Slobster, also known as Bebop and Rocksteady stand beside Paradigm ready to do his bidding. Let’s forget the fact that apparently injecting a lobster and a fish with human DNA teaches them English (not the language Ghengis Khan even spoke) and focus on the fact that the Marlin’s new name is Slash, an appropriate name because he’s a SWORD FISH, but the lobsters name is Slobster…. Slobster. Anyway…
Shredder… I mean, evil Nick Fury… I mean, Dr. Paradigm convinces an intern to call Dr. Bolton’s four sons, all of which happen to be of roughly the same age, and convince them to meet at a central location where he, you guessed it, kidnaps them and takes them back to the lab.
When they awake they are each strapped to a different table and injected with the DNA of a different species of shark. Because colored bandanas would have been to obviously a rip off.
The process doesn’t seem to work, leaving at least one of the boys dead on the ground. Bald Shredder tells Bebop and Rocksteady to get the boys out of his site, they dump the bodies in a viaduct where they float away.
They awake, once again in a different location (not the best day for the Bolton family) still human, but not for long. The transformations begin and they bust out of their clothes in true Hulk fashion. When they realized what has happened, they cope with this outrageous change how any sane person would… by devouring an entire hotdog cart while the poor schmuck who owns it stands and watches.
The boys make their escape by literally swimming through the asphalt. They arise upon a freeway pileup where, using their teeth, they free a woman from a burning truck.
Also, one of them is wearing roller blades, that’s important because… nineties.
They end up at the amusement park where they pretend to be part of a new attraction called Street Sharks.
After a brief battle with Tokah and Razar, the street sharks encounter Dr. Paradigm who says they must accompany him if they ever intend to find their father. They respond by throwing amusement park rides at him. The army arrives, encircling the street sharks with tanks and helicopters.
The episode ends here, if you want to know what happens next you’ll have to keep watching. But you know what… we’ve learned a few things today. The nineties were a ridiculous time of bright colors, fluffy hair, and roller blades; Shia Lebouf wrote “Street Sharks”; and never trust a guy named Dr. Paradigm.
Jaw-some.