Fox Kids

Ah, halycon days...

During the 1999-2000 television season in the United States, the Beast Wars cartoon was rebroadcast on the Fox Broadcasting network alongside the first season of Beast Machines. In conjunction with these reruns, Hasbro released a few waves of redecoed Beast Wars toys with the Fox Kids logo on the packaging; hence, these toys have become known as "Fox Kids redecoes" (or more commonly but less correctly, "Fox Kids repaints") among collectors.

Fox Kids would later go on to air the Robots in Disguise cartoon in 2001-2002.

Censorship

The Beast Wars episodes aired on Fox Kids were conspicuously re-edited to remove sequences of graphic and not-so-graphic violence. These edits often took the form of a relatively slow and extremely obvious onscreen fade-to-black; during a prolonged fight scene, several such fades could occur in quick succession. Sequences edited out for Fox Kids broadcast include:

• Tarantulas being impaled by Optimus Primal in "Gorilla Warfare".
• Cheetor being brutally pummeled by Blackarachnia in "The Spark".
• Tarantulas being set on fire by Inferno in "Other Voices, Part 2".
• Silverbolt being headbutted by Blackarachnia in "Proving Grounds".

Though, other, non-violence-related edits would also be made (possibly for time contraints), such as cutting Rattrap's immediate reaction to Blackarachnia's slipping away in "Aftermath".

Though the RID cartoon, adapted from Car Robots, had always been lighter fare than Beast Wars, it too was edited for violent content on Fox Kids. In particular, depictions of characters (especially Autobots) firing missiles or other projectile weapons would be removed. In such cases the cuts were handled much more smoothly and unobtrusively than had been the case with the Beast Wars edits.

In the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks, Fox Kids was leery of cartoon imagery of skyscrapers being bombarded. Several RID episodes were canceled altogether, others never re-aired again, and many significantly edited to remove the offending sequences.

Toys

The following deluxe toys were redecos released in promotion of the Beast Wars reruns on Fox Kids

1999

Wave 1

• Jungle Roar Cheetor (cheetah, redeco of Cheetor)
• Live Wire Dinobot (Velociraptor, redeco of Dinobot)
• Energon Surge Rhinox (black rhinoceros, redeco of Rhinox)
• Power Flight Waspinator (hornet, redeco of Waspinator)

Wave 2

• Mech-Tech Cheetor (Transmetal cheetah, redeco of Transmetal Cheetor)
• Steel Force Tarantulas (Transmetal tarantula, redeco of Transmetal Tarantulas)

Initial Hasbro solicitations gave the toys in the Fox Kids assortment "power up"-style descriptors, but these did not make it to their final packaging. Only "Steel Force" Tarantulas was ever worked into fiction in such a manner, appearing as his Vok-empowered form in "Primeval Dawn".

2000

Wave 1

• Rattrap (Transmetal rat, Fox Kids redeco)
• Rhinox (Transmetal rhinoceros, Fox Kids redeco)

Wave 3

• Airazor (Transmetal falcon, Fox Kids redeco)

Wave 4

• Waspinator (Transmetal hornet, Fox Kids redeco)

2000's toys shared an assortment with the Mutant Beast Wars line, and not every wave included a new Fox Kids figure.

Notes

Cute, or not cute? You decide.

• Disney bought Fox Kids in 2002 and renamed it Jetix. As such, it is the Jetix logo that appears on all DVD releases of the Robots in Disguise cartoon (so far).

External links

• Fox Kids article on Wikipedia