Yes anime fans, there
WAS a 'movie' put out by Saban Home Video back in the early/mid 90s. It
has been out of print for a very long time, and Saban's video division has
since gotten merged into 20th Century Fox when Saban formally joined them in
1998.
What Was On The Video:
The SPC 'movie' really
wasn't a true full length animated feature. It was the episodes
"Stop Dragon My Cat Around", and "The Big Comet Caper"
(parts 1 & 2) spliced together into a 60 + minute video. Instead of
opening and closing credits breaking each episode apart (like some anime
videos tend to do), the opening only exists at the beginning of the video and
the end credits...well....take a guess. Everything else flows from one
segment into the next with no commercial interruptions like on TV.
Video Cover Shots:
Front Side:
Basically, the SPC ad (which you'll find on the Image Gallery page) cropped to fit the
size of the slipcase. The US/Canadian SPC logo adorns the top portion of
the image.
Back Side:
What you see to the left. The video teaser reads...
"It's a
plane! It's a helicopter! It's a Cat?....
It must be the
"Samurai Pizza Cats" in their first movie! Meet Guido, Speedy
Cerviche, and young Polly Esther, three feline crime fighters dedicated to
delivering the best pizza in Little Tokyo, while keeping the streets safe from
the diabolical schemes of Big Cheese (the baddest bad guy this side of
Wichita), and his henchmen, Bad Bird and Jerry Atrick. They fly through
the air, they crawl through the mud, they have great costumes, and they will
make you laugh until your sides hurt as they save the world from total
destruction!
It's the
"Samurai Pizza Cats" -- The Heroes who Always Land on Their Feet!
This tape has been out
of print since SPC first came on U.S. TV. Since it was released around
the mid-90s and sold poorly....again, due to Saban's lack of promoting 'Pizza
Cats', it makes this a rare find. When it was sold, it usually ended up
in cutout bins at Wal-Mart or K-mart, which was the last time anyone has
really seen any copies, and even then, they were far and few between.
Your best bet is on-line
auction house Ebay. Do a
general search on 'Pizza Cats'. I've seen 4 of these tapes pop up during
Y2K ALONE (and even THAT's rare in itself!!). One auction fell through
(gosh darn deadbeat bidders), another sold for $46, and another that was
SEALED and MINT condition, around $50. Now I know what you're
thinking.....and I'm thinking the same thing. The 4th tape I seen was a European
issuing, but you may want to read my bit about bidding on videos from that
part of the world below, before blowing all your hard earned money.
"I'm not going to
go out and spend $50 + on a kids video"!!
Well, you will when I
tell you as far as SPC collectables goes in the USA, this is all you're going
to find. I myself, have been looking for this video, and provided I did,
it would be the centerpiece of my video library.
One more word of
warning, anime fans. You're looking for the video that is depicted in
the images above. If you find an auction based in the UK......now don't
get me wrong, those tapes are legit also....... the problem you're going to
run into when you get it, is that it's not going to work in your VCR.
Europe uses a different resolution on its TVs called PAL, which uses fewer
lines of resolution. The USA, Canada and Japan use NSTC, and playing a
PAL tape in your VCR will just give you a terribly distorted picture.
That would be a waist of money.
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Now if you're not an
online junkie, or can't get onto Ebay for
some oddball reason or another, as their systems have had past history of
crashing, you could try flea markets or rummage sales in your area. Just
be weary of defective or non-working tapes that can jam up in your VCR and
possibly wreck it. I've had this happen to me with videotapes, and I'll
tell you, it's no walk in the park trying to un-jam a videocassette from a
VCR. Also, damaged or crinkled tape can spell doom on those expensive
video heads.
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