In the year of our lord 1987, Rankin-Bass, the production company behind ThunderCats and SilverHawks, wanted to see if the third time was the charm and launched TigerSharks. Ostensibly, the TigerSharks were essentially the ThunderCats of the Sea. The 22-minute series was part of their Comic Strip block of programming and aired only 26 episodes before cancellation later that year. If anything, the TigerSharks maintained a decent theme song but the concept as a whole was a bit … salty.

Now the TigerSharks garnered their aquatic powers through the use of the “Fish Tank” onboard their submarine/spaceship dubbed the Sarc. Now this team of super-powered fish people traveled to the planet Water-O on a research mission where they ended up as protectors of the gentle Waterians and waged battle against the evil T-Ray and his minions.

With nearly twenty years removed from its last airing, I think we can all agree that TigerSharks is near unwatchable. Aside from a brief cameo in the 2011 ThunderCats reboot, the TigerSharks have been barely a blip on the pop culture radar. Now the one area that they remain popular is in the realm of obsessive toy collectors. LJN Toys produced a toy line of action figures that lasted just one series, but did not see massive distribution at the time due to a lack of interest.

These days any of the TigerSharks action figures will fetch insanely high prices on the secondary market. As someone who sees himself as a rather astute collector, I can honestly say that I’ve only seen a TigerShark action figure at a handful of toy and antique shows over the years with prices so high that convinced me that owning this particular piece of pop culture history just wasn’t worth it.