Fox Kids helped introduce countless animation fans and young viewers to quite a few series when it debuted in 1990. Eventually ending in 2002, the programming block gave fans the likes of Bobby’s World, X-Men The Animated Series, Spider-Man, Digimon, Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, and many more. Unfortunately, one of the biggest Fox Kids’ shows not only never made its way to DVD or Blu-Ray but is nowhere to be found on any streaming service. Considering said animated series had five seasons and was routinely one of the faces of the Fox Saturday morning block, it’s all the more curious why we’ve seen nothing from Eek The Cat.
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Eek The Cat, for those unfamiliar with the series, is a surreal animated show that follows the titular character as he dates his girlfriend Annabelle, dodges her dog, Sharky The Shark Dog, gets into bizarre adventures with Brave Elmo the moose, and has more than a few major pop culture references in its history. As mentioned earlier, the show had five seasons to its name and housed around seventy-five episodes in total, proving that it found serious success when it first debuted in 1992. Not only did Eek get his fair share of adventures in the series but the show even spawned two spin-offs in The Terrible Thunder Lizards and Klutter, two very different segments that were a regular part of the show. Unfortunately, finding any of these segments can prove quite difficult, which is especially surprising considering which company currently owns the rights to the Fox Kids series.
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Disney’s Eek The Cat
At present, the rights to Eek The Cat are owned by Disney, meaning that it would be entirely possible for the show to stream on platforms like Disney+ and/or Hulu. With many streaming services even going so far as to reboot old animated franchises, simply housing the long-running series would help to pay tribute to the era of Fox Kids and the impact it had on the animation world. As it stands, Disney has not released any information regarding why the hit animated series hasn’t been released via any format so fans are still waiting for Eek’s return.
Eek The Cat was so popular in fact that on top of the five seasons it received, it also received its own video game on the Super Nintendo in 1994. On top of this Super NES offering, the show itself was fit to bursting with major voices actors including Phil Hartman, Tim Curry, Gillian Anderson, William Shatner, Dee Snider, and Weird Al Yankovic to name a few.
Why Eek The Cat?
Eek The Cat is a series that punched above its weight class in a lot of different ways. It’s akin to shows like Ren & Stimpy and Animaniacs, wherein many of the jokes might have flown over young audiences’ heads but made sense to adults. In one particular episode, based on the events of The Wizard of Oz, Eek and Elmo are forced to contend with an army of evil lawyers who are released from a dungeon. There were multiple instances where Eek was more than willing to take its humor to some wild territory and it would be a shame if said humor were lost to the ages via streaming services and home video.
The Terrible Thunder Lizards was quite different from Eek despite being under the same series, routinely focusing on dinosaurs hunting humanity with two cavemen who bounced off one another like a hilarious new “odd couple.” Klutter was far different from both of its cohorts, focusing on a family living with a pile of clothes that gained sentience and created more of an affable vibe overall. With so many series making comebacks via reboots and revivals in recent years, bringing back Eek in some form or fashion would be a refreshing change of pace.
Want to see if Eek The Cat is eventually able to find some path to return? Follow along with Team Anime on ComicBook.com for the latest updates on Eek and Fox Kids and hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.
