War Planets is the franchise from which Shadow Raiders originates.
History[]
The American toy company Trendmasters released the first wave of War Planets toys in 1996. In 1997, Trendmasters released a DOS game called War Planets: Age of Chaos, which featured a similar yet distinct plot to Shadow Raiders, and only featured the Ice, Rock, Bone, and Beast Planets.
By 1998, Trendmasters hired Mainframe Entertainment, the creators of the hit CGI series ReBoot and Beast Wars: Transformers, to promote the toyline by creating a new series based on it also called War Planets. Likely due to a CRTC statute forbidding "War" from appearing in the title in a children's show, it was renamed Shadow Raiders in every country except the US, where it was broadcast as War Planets: Shadow Raiders. The show ran for two seasons, with more episodes planned. But while the show got good ratings, the toyline did not do well in Canada after it was introduced there during the Spring of '99, leading to the cancellation of both.