Road Rovers

Road Rovers is an American animated television series produced by Warner Bros. Animation that premiered on Kids' WB on September 7, 1996, and ended after one season on February 22, 1997. It was later shown on Cartoon Network from February 7, 1998 until 2000.

The show follows the adventures of the Road Rovers, a team of five super-powered crime-fighting anthropomorphic dogs, known as "cano-sapiens". The characters all live with world leaders, including the President of the United States, the British Prime Minister, the Chancellor of Germany and the Swiss President, with one dog living in the Kremlin.

Plot
In the town of Socorro, New Mexico, Professor Shepherd was forced to relinquish an experimental transdogmafier technology to General Parvo in exchange for his lost dog, but instead Parvo gives him a bomb that destroys his laboratory. One year later, as normal dogs begin to mutate into monsters, Shephard, who miraculously survived the attack, takes measures to stop Parvo who is behind this.

Shepherd selects five different dogs and in his new, secret underground lab, he uses his new transdogmifier on the five, turning them into "Cano-sapiens". These dogs are the pets of world leaders and when called to action they are a team of crime fighters known as the "Road Rovers".

Characters

 * Hunter (Jess Harnell): A Golden Retriever mix breed from the United States and the leader of the team. While an effective, optimistic, and loyal leader, Hunter also can get overly cocky. Hunter's power is super speed; this allows him to run faster than the speed of sound. Hunter lives with President Bill Clinton in the White House.
 * Colleen (Tress MacNeille): A no-nonsense Rough Collie from the United Kingdom, and the only female in the group. Colleen is the coordinator of the team, always checking to make sure everything goes well without any problems or issues. She is also a skilled martial artist, using her skills to help the team. She currently resides with the prime minister of the United Kingdom, John Major and his wife.
 * Blitz (Jeff Bennett): A Doberman from Germany. Unlike Hunter, Blitz has selfish, childish, spiteful, and cowardly tendencies and a bad temper. His super powers are razor-sharp claws and strong jaws, which allow him to bite and cut through almost any substance. Blitz formerly was a guard dog for thieves, but now lives with the chancellor of Germany, Helmut Kohl. His personality is a parody of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
 * Exile (Kevin Michael Richardson): A Siberian Husky from Siberia. His full name is Exilo Michalovitch Sanhusky. Exile speaks English with a thick Russian accent, sometimes mixing up words in the process (ex: "Aprilday" instead of "Mayday", "Jingle balls" instead of "Jingle bells"). Exile is friendly and easygoing, but often clashes with Blitz. He's super strong and has heat, ice, and night vision. Exile used to work with other huskies as a sled dog, but now lives with the president of Russia Boris Yeltsin.
 * Shag (Frank Welker): A cowardly Old English Sheepdog from Switzerland. Shag only transformed halfway into a Cano-sapien. He walks like a human, but speaks in a half-dog, half-human dialect. In addition to this, he does not wear a uniform, instead remaining in his natural state. He's super strong and his hair can store a lot of things like weapons and random items. He lived in a valley with a flock of sheep, but now lives with Arnold Koller, the president of the Swiss Confederation.
 * Muzzle (Frank Welker): A Rottweiler. Muzzle was once "Scout", Professor Sheperd's dog that was kidnapped. He was never transformed into a Cano-sapien, but instead became aggressive due to Parvo's failed experiment on him. Due to this aggression, he is often restrained on a cart while wearing a straitjacket and mask.
 * Persia (Sheena Easton): An Afghan Hound and commander of the Space Rovers.
 * Professor Hubert (David Doyle): A Bloodhound scientist.
 * Professor William F. Shepherd "The Master" (Joseph Campanella): The geneticist behind the transdogmafier and the Road Rovers. He's the master of the Road Rovers, and the one who selected each of them. Without him, the world would have been ruled by the cano-mutants led by Parvo.
 * General Parvo (Jim Cummings): The Road Rovers' main antagonist who is out to destroy Professor Shepherd and conquer the world. He has a permanent cough. It was revealed later in the series that General Parvo was at one time a Cat before being transformed into a "Feline Sapien", which resemble humans a great deal more than Shepherd's Cano-sapiens. He shares a very similar appearance to wrestler Hulk Hogan. The name Parvo derives from a canine disease which often kills puppies.
 * The Groomer (Sheena Easton): The Groomer is the mostly loyal assistant to General Parvo. She's generally armed with a portable hair clipper, though she uses other equipment when it's appropriate.
 * Cano-mutants: Dogs turned into humanoid monsters and led by Parvo.

Home media releases
A multi-region DVD of the entire series was announced on February 4, 2015 by Warner Archive and was released on February 10, 2015. All episodes were also available for viewing on Crunchyroll's VRV streaming service, but they were removed for unknown reasons.

In popular culture
Hunter made a cameo appearance as a background statue in the The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries fourth season premiere episode, "The Stilted Perch / A Game of Cat and Monster!".

The Road Rovers made a cameo appearance in the Teen Titans Go! sixth season episode, "Huggbees".

Controversy
The show drew criticism from parents when a rerun of the first episode was aired. A parent wrote a letter to the executives of Warner Bros. complaining about a scene in the episode where two of the dogs were shown being taken to a gas chamber in a dog pound to be put down. The parent claimed that it was an anti-Semitic display too closely related to the events of the holocaust and complained that it was too inappropriate to be shown to children. The episode was pulled, and show would later be dropped by Kids WB, but was picked up by Cartoon Network.

Cancellation
According to the writers, the show was canceled in part due to an undisclosed lawsuit over the rights to the series. This lawsuit was later revealed to be between Warner Bros. and an individual named Bruce Blumenfeld on December 1996. In it, Mr. Blumenfeld claimed Road Rovers was plagiarizing from his own attempted children's show known as "Wing Puppies". No specifics were divulged about the outcome of the lawsuit, making the factors around how it contributed to Road Rovers demise unknown.