Oh, woe were the 1990s, when the major networks tried to capture the audience devoted to Fox’s The Simpsons. They all followed what they believed was a hot trend, launching an unprecedented number of prime-time animated series. All of them crashed and burned in record time. Some of them, including today’s subject, did not survive a single season and are barely remembered today. This misjudgment remains one of the saddest chapters in animation history. Hanna-Barbera’s 1992 entry Fish Police is barely a footnote in that chapter.
Some of these defunct duds suffered from being hastily tossed together. One studio that should have done better was Hanna-Barbera. HB was blessed with a long track record, adequate finances, and numerous artists and animators, even though many of them were relatively inexperienced in 1992. Instead, they turned out a bomb.
Fish Police began as a comic book by cartoonist Steve Moncuse. The comic was an adult-oriented look at crime and justice in an underwater city and maintained a film noir atmosphere, featuring detectives pitted against an underworld similar to the Mafia. These features carried over to the animated series, but not much else did.
While the comic books had a well-defined, detailed artistic style that accented the stories, the HB version was rather cartoony, with goofy animation that undercut the darker, more adult crime tales. It may be possible that Hanna-Barbera, after decades of producing kiddie fare, was unwilling to make a series that was too adult. Developer Jeanne Romano was an assistant to Roger Zemeckis on Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but spent her later career writing videos and TV series about the My Little Pony characters. No slight on Ms. Romano, but Fish Police might not have played to her strengths.
Another problem was too many cooks: the show had no fewer than eight producers. The cartoon featured 12 main characters and 10 secondary characters. Also complicating the scripts was an ongoing love triangle between the protagonist, Police Inspector Gil, diner owner Pearl White, and her rival, sexpot Angel Jones (a direct steal from Jessica Rabbit in appearance and mannerisms).
Throw in a passel of unavoidable fish puns and some risque dialogue, and you get, well, a mess. But let’s not be too harsh: The Prime-Time Animation Boom of the 1990s was a bust for everyone. Goodbye to Capitol Critters, God, the Devil, and Bob, Family Dog, The Critic (original run), Dr. Katz, and Mission Hill. Oh yes, I almost forgot the wretched import Stressed Eric, one of the most depressing animated series ever made. All of these shows were intended for adult audiences, but which contemporary cartoon hit it big? Beavis and Butthead.
Fish Police did have an amazing voice cast, and a half-hour spent conversing with any of them would have been much more rewarding than watching any episode of the series. To wit: John Ritter as Gil (“A cop who’s a carp”) leads the parade. Also providing voices were Tim Curry, Ed Asner, Buddy Hackett, Don Knotts, Phil Hartman, Robert Guillaume, Megan Mullally, Jonathan Winters, Paul Williams, Rob Paulson, Frank Welker, and JoBeth Williams.
James Horner does a more-than-credible job with the theme and musical score; it does more justice to the comic book’s style than to the animated cartoon.
CBS aired three episodes of the six produced before dismal ratings sank the show lower than Atlantis. All six episodes, however, are available on YouTube if you are so inclined, but you’ll find out why this cartoon never attained cult status. The final word? When interviewed, Steve Moncuse said, “The less said about the animated series, the better.” Micky Spillane probably would have agreed.
Martin Goodman is a veteran writer specializing in stories about animation. He has written for AWN and Animation Scoop – and lives in Anderson, Indiana.
The comic was surprisingly good, with the story veering off into unexpected directions as it went on. The series just copied the broad idea of “underwater detective film noir spoof” and otherwise had almost nothing in common with its purported source.
Say what you will about “Fish Police”, it was about a thousand times better than “Capitol Critters”.
Of all the short-lived animated series bruited as rivals to “The Simpsons” in the early ’90s, “Fish Police” was my favourite in spite of its flaws. Yes, they introduced too many characters too soon, and the stories were hard to follow, and the intrusive narration got a little tiresome, as did the incessant mournful saxophone solos (it’s a crime-ridden city, we get it). But the production was very slick by Hanna-Barbera standards, and I enjoyed the wordplay. Since elements of film noir had mingled successfully with animation in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” a few years earlier, the concept of “Fish Police” might not have been as laughable as it seemed after the fact.
Not everyone agreed that the series was insufficiently “adult.” During the brief heyday of “Fish Police” I was living in Cincinnati, which is Ground Zero for the American anti-pornography movement. Since local activists had made it impossible to get hardcore pornography anywhere in Hamilton County, they perforce took to denouncing more mainstream fare as pornographic, for example, movies like “Interview with the Vampire” and “Parenthood”, and cartoons like “Fish Police”. I recall reading a letter to the editor in the Cincinnati Enquirer from a woman who had tuned in to “Fish Police”, expecting some nice, wholesome, family-friendly programming from the studio that had brought us Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo. Instead, she said, she was assaulted by a nonstop barrage of obscene filth. The woman was especially affronted by Angel’s ichthyomastia, or fish boobs. Well, she needn’t have worried. “Fish Police” was cancelled before it had a chance to drag her children any further down into the sewer of moral depravity, freeing her to focus her attention on more pressing matters, such as getting Minerva Mink cancelled from “Animaniacs”.
What would a more “adult” version of “Fish Police” have looked like? Well, we need only to turn to our funny finny friends for inspiration. Fish of the genus Plectorhinchus are known by the common name of Sweetlips, and there’s a kind of wrasse called the Slippery Dick. A couple of characters along those lines might have given “Fish Police” a new lease on life — but not if the bluenoses of Cincinnati had anything to say about it.
All I had time for were the first few minutes, but they didn’t leave me wanting more. Seems to lack (if you’ll excuse the pun) a hook.
The comic had a Hook; he was the main villain. And had minions named Line and Sinker.
I recall Dr. Katz did well for itself on Comedy Central, lasting for 6 seasons and ended on the 13th of February, 2002
Yeah, the fact that Dr. Katz was lumped in with shows that only lasted a dozen episodes is unfair. The only reason that show was (eventually) cancelled was because South Park stole its thunder in 1997.
This show did get a bit of “immortality” (or perhaps infamy) when its title adorned one of the tombstones in the opening of an installment of the annual “Treehouse of Horror” Simpsons Halloween show (along with “Capitol Critters” and others).
Hmm. In my memory I had always associated this show with the Tick, rather than the Simpsons. Maybe because they were both adapted from black and white comics after the black and white boom inaugurated by ninja turtles.
I remembered that it was the victim of some irregular scheduling, which could really hurt a show back then. I think I saw one episode and it wasn’t on the next time and was suddenly canceled. I could be wrong though – I actually thought it was on Saturday mornings and not prime time.
What the show reminds me of is the Kip Addotta song Wet Dream, that I heard on a Dr Demento collection
I’ll admit that the production values and the overall score for this show is actually not bad. Much like Capitol Critters, it’s an awkward (but endearing) misfire.
For me, everything HB did after 1970 was “disposable”.
I rather disagree. There were some bright spots after that.
Wow, this deep dive into Fish Police was a blast! I remember catching episodes as a kid and just loving the quirky vibes. It’s crazy how Hanna-Barbera had so many experimental shows that didn’t quite get their due. Also, it got me thinking about some projects like Space Waves that embrace unique concepts—definitely worth checking out if you’re into offbeat animations! Thanks for sharing this nostalgic gem! strands hint today