http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Anime/SamuraiPizzaCats

Top to bottom: Guido Anchovy, Polly Esther, and Speedy Cerviche

nobody's got a flashlight?" — Polly Esther "A fully functioning, cybernetic, technologically advanced team of superheroes... andgot a flashlight?"

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Would somebody PLEASE cue that description?

Samurai Pizza Cats is the English (gag) dub of Kyattou Ninden Teyandee (キャッ党 忍伝 てやんでえ, "Cat Ninja Legend Teyandee" note The word "Teyandee" is an Edo period slang term that does not have an actual English translation. It is used by Yattarou/Speedy to show frustration or determination.). A long-standing rumor says licensor Saban Entertainment either didn't manage to receive transcripts of the original show's dialog, lost the transcripts, or received horribly translated scripts, so the writers had to make up stories and dialog from scratch. (The official story is less amusing: the original production company didn't send the scripts because they had given Saban carte blanche to turn the show into something a Western audience would find funny. Then again, given how Ghost Stories came about...) As a result, Samurai Pizza Cats became a tremendously (in some peoples' eyes) well-written Gag Dub—which got so popular that the series is better known outside of Japan in its "Samurai Pizza Cats" form. One could almost consider it an early example of an Abridged Series, years before they'd be commonplace on YouTube.

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The eponymous Samurai Pizza Cats [Nyankii] are the owners/employees of a pizza parlor, the actual "Pizza Cats" of the "dubbed" version's title.note During the mother and son's scenes, the son refers to them as "Pizza-ya-san", while the subtitles have him call them the "Pizza Cats", although really only for convenience. They defend the city of Little Tokyo [Edoropolis] and the royal family (pushy, spoiled Princess Violet [Usa-Hime], and her demented father, Emperor Fred [Shogun Tokugawa Iei-Iei]) from the machinations of the villainous Big Cheese [Kon-no-Kami, who is actually a fox, rather than the rat the gag dub refers to him as]. Between the giant robots, the ninja crows (known as the "Kara-Kara clan" in the Japanese version) and the...peculiarities of their emperor (or rather, Shogun), this is both harder than it sounds and easier than it ought to be.

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While the plots can be a bit formulaic, most of the show's appeal comes from the humor derived from both lame puns (main characters include Speedy Cerviche [Yattarou], Guido Anchovy [Sukashii], Polly Esther [Pururun], and "Big" Al Dente [Wanko-no-Kami]) and an astounding number of running gags. The show is notable for being perhaps the only heavily-edited, re-written, hacked-up anime dub that (some) international fans actually prefer to the original (well, that, and the Latin America dub of Dotto! Koni-chan...and Ghost Stories). While the original Japanese show also took a light-hearted and goofy approach to its action show format, Samurai Pizza Cats is chock full of sly references, shameless puns, rapid-fire sardonic humor, and a total refusal to acknowledge the outdated concept of the fourth wall.

Despite what you may have heard, it is not a lame Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles rip off, but a decent cartoo...er, sorry; "anime" that can stand on its own merits. It was licensed as part of a TMNT Follow the Leader movement, though. (To quote the theme song, "These Cats have more fur than any Turtle ever had!")

In 2013, Discotek Media released a DVD boxset of the original Kyattou Ninden Teyandee in its entirety (uncut and with subs, of course). Discotek also released a boxset of Samurai Pizza Cats in 2013, and followed that up a few years later with a one-disc Blu-ray release (made possible by all the episodes being in standard definition, natch). And as of late December 2015, both versions are available on Crunchyroll for viewers in the US and Canada.

The Samurai Pizza Cats will deliver these tropes in 30 minutes or less:

Big Cheese: The Pizza Cats are Samurai, and Id like to note,

Jerry Atric: Their antics take your breath away,

Big Cheese: Like fur balls in your throat.

Speedy Cerviche: We kittens are a special breed, we never call retreat,

Guido Anchovy: Whenever Big Cheese knocks us down,

Polly Esther: We land upon . . . our feet!

Narrator: So hail to thee, o Pizza Cats, please ring your little bell, although you may be pen and ink, we know youll fight like . . .

Ladies and Gentlemen: the Samurai Pizza Cats Fanclub Oath: