Street Sharks
Four brothers gene-slammed into half-shark street fighters by a mad scientist, battling Dr. Piranoid in Fission City. It was a syndicated cartoon built to sell Mattel's chomping action figures, which a young Vin Diesel pitched to toy buyers.
According to Mental Floss, Street Sharks began when Joe Galliani noticed that every shark book at his local library had a waiting list. Galliani and David Siegel of Mr. Joe's Really Big Productions, credited as the creators, came up with a line of humanoid shark action figures with knockout punches, projectile eyeballs and chomping jaws, and when Galliani pitched it to Mattel, an executive cut him off mid-presentation: "We want it. We'll take it." The figures came packaged in diving cages with teeth marks, and some of them wore rollerblades.
To sell the line at the 1994 Toy Fair, Mattel hired a young New York actor named Vin Diesel. Mental Floss reports that he was paid $250 a day, gave upwards of 20 presentations a shift for two weeks, and wore a vest with a fin hidden along the back. The cartoon premiered in syndication on September 7, 1994, produced by DIC and Bohbot Entertainment and airing in Bohbot's Amazin' Adventures block. In it, Dr. Robert Bolton and his partner Dr. Luther Paradigm invent a "gene-slammer" that fuses animal DNA. Paradigm uses it on Bolton's four sons, John, Clint, Bobby and Coop, who become the sharks Ripster, Jab, Streex and Big Slammu, and in the fight that follows Paradigm gets mixed with piranha DNA himself, which is how he becomes "Dr. Piranoid." The brothers eat burgers and hot dogs and turn down pizza. Galliani supplied catchphrases like "Jawesome" and "Fintastic."
Mental Floss says the toys grossed $40 million in 1995, their first full year, and outsold the Power Rangers in some markets. Archie Comics published Street Sharks comics in 1996. That fall the show moved to ABC's Saturday-morning lineup as Dino Vengers Featuring Street Sharks, teamed with a squad of alien dinosaurs who later got their own spin-off, Extreme Dinosaurs. It ended in May 1997 after 40 episodes, and Mattel's original figure line ran until 1997 as well. Mattel has since brought the brothers back, first with three new concept figures on its Mattel Creations site in 2021 and then with a 30th-anniversary line in 2024.
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