Top 7 … Times That The Samurai Pizza Cats Got Away With Stuff

Welcome, one and all, an MDM Projects Top 5 post. In the time-honoured tradition of my Top 5’s, I’m not going with a Top 5, but a Top 7! Now, today’s subject is one of my childhood favourites: Samurai Pizza Cats. So, some background …

Originally airing in Japan in 1990 as Kyatto Ninden Teyandee, Saban Entertainment – yes, of Power Rangers fame – picked up the rights to do an English dub in 1991, and subsequently released 52 of the original 54 episodes (only the two clip shows were cut from the list). What makes this an oddball of a show is that the English dub seems to be far more popular than the original subbed version. Not only that, but it’s popular because of the changes made. You see, depending on what version of events you read, Saban either didn’t receive scripts, lost the scripts, or received poorly translated scripts, and so told the cast and crew to make things up from scratch. Of course, the official line is that Saban were simply given carte blanche to do what they wanted with the script. Whatever really happened though, the show became a parody show that maintains a decent following to this day.

As a kid, I loved the show. Looking back on it as an adult though, I’m surprised that they managed to get away with some of the stuff that they did! This list is going to show you seven examples of things that may not make it through the censors today. Let’s start with the three tamest examples on the list.

 

How to deal with men …

Ep 1 – Stop Dragon My Cat Around: 03:00

And we’re kicking things off with the very first episode. Here, the two male members of the heroic pizza-kitty triumvirate, Speedy Cervice and Guido Anchovy, are arguing over a local girl. Once they’re argument spills over into a delivery, we cut to the one female on the main team, Polly Esther, and their receptionist/assistant Francine. After Polly expresses her distaste at the guys’ behaviour, Francine utters a dark little line …

Francine: Tomcats – you can’t live with them, you can’t throw them down a well and drown them. There really oughta be a law.

Yowzers. Dark stuff, right there. It’s Polly’s facial reaction that really sells it though.

 

Christmas Disappointments …

Ep 47 – The Cheese Who Stole Christmas: 05:46

Series villain, The Big Cheese, has a flashback to a Christmas from his childhood. In this long-forgotten time, Santa left him a special present: a bull pulling a cart. This was obviously not what he asked for, as he proceeds to yell …

Big Cheese: What? What is this bull?

So, so close to swearing, right? Self-censorship was something that happened more than once in the show too.

 

The Oath …

Playing at the end of each episode, we got to hear the Pizza Cat equivalent of the Team Rocket Motto. Much as with the last entry, the show stopped short of swearing …

So hail to thee, O Pizza Cat, please ring your little bell. Although you may be pen and ink, we know you’ll fight like … Pizza Cats!

The thing to note there is that this is a cultural thing. Lucifer’s domain is not actually a curse word here in the UK, but it can be in the USA.

 

Like I said though, there was certainly some questionable content in the show. And if that makes you think that I’m about to go into more than just swear-word-swerves, you’d be right. You see, Samurai Pizza Cats, a show about robotic animal heroes that work in a pizza parlour as a cover story, could get a bit … well … I think I’ll just show you. In episode order:

 

Biology Class …

Ep 11 – Candid Kitty: 04:49

The Big Cheese is watching videos about the Pizza Cats. His aim is to learn from his mistakes and try to come up with a plan to finally defeat the ferocious felines. During the presentation, he gets to see some annotated profiles of the heroes. When we get to Polly Esther, the three annotations were already in romanji, so Saban left them in. So, what’s the problem? Well, it all started innocent enough. Polly’s kitty ears are labelled as ‘Mimi’. The next annotation though, strays to her chest. The label says ‘Oppai’. And then it gets worse. The final annotation points, um, lower. The label says ‘XXXX’.

 

The Big Cheese’s Wardrobe …

Ep 22 – The Big Cheese Shows His Filmy Substance: 03:07

The Big Cheese is an oddity in the series. In Japan, he’s a fox. The tail and ears give that away. In the dub though he’s a rat, hence the dairy heavy name. Anyway, in Japan, the villain had a hobby: crossdressing. He did so much of it in fact that they essentially had no choice but to keep it in the episodes when it came to the dub, or cut the show to shreds. Instead of being recreational though, the dub passes this off as ‘being in disguise’ most of the time. In this scene, The Big Cheese is auditioning for a role in a film, and showing his right-hand-crow Jerry Atric his potential clothing choices …

The Big Cheese: Who could resist such a pretty face as this? Which outfit do you think I should wear? How about this, a lady in waiting … a geisha … schoolgirl … or something sexy?

Yup, they actually went with that line. That was tame compared to the next entry though.

 

Idol Style …

Ep 29 – No Talent Guido: 10:24

Polly is going to be in an Idol Group. As such, she decides to dress up – which makes sense, she’s got to look the part, right? The outfit she goes for is something that I think is best described as a skimpy furkini. She then has the following exchange with Francine …

Polly Esther: I’m off! Doesn’t this costume make me look hot?

Francine: It’s super sexy alright! Tramp!

I honestly didn’t remember this episode at all. Which makes me think that it may have been one of the banned ones during the original run. Regardless though, even that doesn’t come close to touching this last entry!

 

Kitty-natrix …

Ep 38 – A Mission In Manhattan: 13:46

During a mission to the USA, our heroic trio meets their American counter-parts. Among them is Dee Dee. She dresses like this:

Now, when she makes her entrance, she says the following line to the bad guys …

Dee Dee: My name’s Dee Dee. I know you wanna be punished and my kitty whip will do it, you bad boy.

She proceeds to whip them. Eventually, they all give up and beg her to stop. Look at the ninja crow on the far right though. Methinks he wasn’t sincere in his please for her to cease.

 

So, there you have it. Samurai Pizza Cats. Honestly, a lot of the stuff above just flew over my head as a kid, so innocence was certainly an effective shield in my case. Despite the surprising amount of odd moments though, the show is still good fun and well worth a look in if you’re ever without anything to watch. Do any of you remember the show? Or the moments above? Let me know below.