F.U.R.

F.U.R. (Faunasapien Undercover Renegades) is a 1987 Canadian-American-Japanese animated sci-fi/action/mystery television series created by Joseph Haddad, Michael Warren and Toshihiro Chiba. It was among the first co-productions between Magic World and Studio Axel, starting a long-lasting relationship.

The series, taking place in a city populated by anthropomorphic animals, stars young adult female raccoon Maya who collaborates with fox detective Reggie Brushtail to unravel the mystery of an ancient elixir believed to have transformative healing properties.

A production of Magic World and Studio Axel in association with DiC Entertainment and Saban International, the series was broadcast from September 14 to December 11, 1987 in syndication as part of the Magic Weekday programming block. It was followed by a theatrical feature film in 1988.

Premise
In the city of New Faunahaven, where all its residents are anthropomorphic animals (referred to as “faunasapiens”), young adult female raccoon Maya is unable to pursue her lifelong dream and finds herself living out on the streets. A fateful robbery attempt gone awry results in an opportunity to redeem herself when vulpine investigator Reggie Brushtail needs an assistant on a quest to prove whether or not a fabled elixir exists.

This case is especially urgent because the city's mayor has recently fallen ill, leaving residents and higher-ups alike in a state of anxiety and uncertainty as to the guarded metropolis’ future… until renowned scientist Dr. Mendelson arrives with what seems like a solid promise, but truly wishes to find the elixir as well to use for his scheme.

Characters
See List of F.U.R. characters

Reception
The series’ initial syndication broadcast in the United States was hard to reliably judge as successful or not because network affiliates allocated different hours to air one episode every day from Monday through Friday (primarily in afternoon time slots). Some market research of the time suggested that it did well in some areas but struggled against popular cartoon series in others.

Though a moderate wave of merchandising (such as toys and videocassette compilations of episodes) for the holiday season of 1987 helped it gain a boost in visibility, prompting reruns early the following year and also to advertise further licensed products.

While it wasn't more than a modest hit with American viewers, the series fared significantly better overseas, particularly in Canada, Brazil, Germany, France, Peru, Italy, the UK and Eastern Europe among other places.

Home media
Following its broadcast debut, the series was released on VHS by Golden Book Video for much of 1988 in the United States. This included five additional episodes made exclusively for video.

In the UK, Tempo Video released episodes of the series on video in 1988 through 1989. Later on, throughout the mid-90's during reruns on TCC, PolyGram Video (through sub-labels 4Front and Channel 5) distributed videos of the series, including episodes not previously released by Tempo.

Once Fox Kids had begun airing the series, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's UK branch released a set of numbered volumes covering numerous plot-relevant episodes.

In Canada, Malofilm Video released feature-length episode compilations on VHS in 1994, containing story-arcs edited into a movie. In addition to rebate offers, the tapes included a discount coupon for a purchase of the SNES/Genesis game released that year's holiday season.

Merchandise
Early on in the show's run, a line of toys was released by Canadian toymaker Irwin for the holiday season of 1987 as was agreed upon during the show's financing stages. These consisted of action figures, playsets and replicas of detective equipment/weapons used by the characters. They were also sold in Japan by Bandai (with whom Irwin had ties) around the same time.

Video games
Among other forms of merchandise, the seres spawned numerous game adaptations over the years. The majority of which, especially during the 90's, were published by Playfair Interactive (later known as Bronzelight) who had a license to various Magic World properties at the time.

First, a computer game was released for the Acorn Archimedes, Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, MSX and ZX Spectrum in 1989 and 1990. It plays like a standard arcade-styled action game where the player (alternating every level as either Maya or Reggie) must climb up staircases and enter rooms in buildings to collect evidence while dodging/incapacitating bandits. It was later remade with additional content for DOS, Windows 3.1 and Mac OS in 1993.

Only the Amiga, DOS, Windows and Mac versions were released in North America while the rest were largely Europe-exclusive (though the MSX version was also sold in Japan and Brazil).

Also of note was the "Schoolhouse Sleuth" line of games combining point-and-click adventure with educational content. Faunasapien Fast Food Frenzy, the first game in this subseries, handled mathematics, critical thinking, memorization and verbal communication skills etc.

More notably, an action game was released for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis consoles in 1994. Following the series' and film's plots closely, it is a platformer with some beat-'em up mechanics, complete with boss fights. It is easily the most popular game based on the series, with positive reviews in gaming publications of the time and a tremendous fan following to this day. A port for personal computers was also released.

In 1997, a Windows/Macintosh game entitled F.U.R.: Mendelson's Mindbogglers was released. Unlike previous games based on the series, it is a compilation of various different minigames and puzzles, as well as classic games of strategy like chess, all themed to F.U.R. in some way.

In 1999, F.V.R.: Faunasapien Virtual Resistance (for the Nintendo 64, PlayStation and personal computers) marked the franchise's first depiction in three-dimensional graphics.

In late 2001, four PC games were re-released free inside packages of Nestlé cereals in the UK and Republic of Ireland as an early commemoration of the series' 15th anniversary. The discs were optimized for Windows 98, 2000, ME and XP, working around compatibility issues. Certain other countries where the show was popular followed with a similar promotion.