Last time on Cartoon Vault, the Kung-Fu Dino Posse was the subject thanks to a list of shameless Ninja Turtles knockoffs but there is one show I missed on that list, but there is a good reason which I’ll explain in this Cartoon Vault entry the Chop Socky Chooks

Dr Wasabi is an evil genius fish who has taken over the city and rebuilt it in his image, but three chickens disagree with Wasabi’s rule. Our heroes are Chick P, KO Joe & Chuckie Chan, a team of chickens who know Kung-Fu who oppose Wasabi’s rule and put a stop to every scheme he cooks up to try and grab the attention & control of the populous.
The Chooks are entirely CGI, which seems to work surprisingly well with the British Aardman animation team on board but some of the designs are really creepy such as in one episode with evil ninja babies (don’t ask) who are just plain scary.
The series does a surprisingly good job in both story and characters; Wasabi is clearly incompetent but is shown to still be dangerous, Bubba his Mafia Suited Gorilla bodyguard is clearly stupid but can still dish out decent pain, even the Ninja chimps manage to get in proper hits sometimes showing that they are not entirely useless. Equally the heroes are not always guaranteed a victory and usually have to work twice as hard to succeed and have even been known to struggle against lesser villains. Staying with the lead three characters, the reason why I don’t regard this as a shameless Ninja Turtles knockoff is because it negates the main ingredient needed to be one of those shows, which is near identical designs. Each Chook is very different going as far down to their civilian identities.
Chick P passes as a proper Kung Fu girl reminiscent of modern martial arts films where being a lead female is not so rare and breaks predetermined gender roles by being a maintenance engineer in her civilian identity, she’s even the unofficial leader if the opening theme is any indication.
KO Joe (which is an awesome name) is portrayed as a retro 70s martial artist complete with Afro and even he breaks predetermined roles by being a comic book store owner in his civilian identity.
Only Chuckie Chan keeps his predetermined role by not only being a wise old man with supernatural powers but also being a Martial Arts teacher in civilian attire.
These are great characters and are fun to watch and are even well voiced by Great British talent, if it weren’t for such creepy designs and a few utter bizarre stories, this show could easily be one of the best CGI cartoons ever made, and I never say that lightly.