The Greatest Zootopian Hero

Believe it or not con artist Nick Wilde is walking on air when he's given a super suit. Can he, along with a hard drinking and cynical cop named Judy Hopps, save the city from itself? He may not be the hero the city wants, but he's the hero they're going to get! This story is based on the 1980's TV show The Greatest American Hero and is a parody of that show, not a crossover.

We continue with the next story in the I Love the 80's Flashback Fridays Series with a Zootopian take on Stephen Cannell's The Greatest American Hero. This comedy based drama took a mild manner teacher played by William Katt and made him the recipient of a special suit that granted him superhuman powers. Unfortunately he lost the instructions! Partnered with a hard-fisted FBI agent played by Robert Culp, he fumbled his way from one adventure to the next for three seasons from 1981 -1983.

We begin our story during the city of Zootopia's darkest days. Society is slowly slipping into chaos, because for some unknown reason predators are reverting back to their savage ways. Mayor Lionheart is facing impeachment by the city council for his inability to stop the problem and for being a predator. Assistant Mayor Bellwether and her associates are now running the city with an iron hoof. (Okay, the beginning is a little bit sinister…)

I do not own the rights to Zooptopia or The Greatest American Hero or any of its characters. This story was written solely for the reader's enjoyment and without any profitable purposes. The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this story are fictitious.

Chapter 1: Dark Days In Zootopia

Nick Wilde watched his ancient television as it showed flickering images of the latest government roundup of protesters in Savannah Central, several of them were predators and he winced as the camera showed a brutal muzzling of a young wolf cub who couldn't have been over twelve. Peter Moosebridge came back on and continued to drone about another bear going feral over in the Haymarket district. Sighing, the scruffy looking red fox in his boxer shorts yawned as he poured himself a bowl of salmon flavored kibble and added hot water so it could make the so called gravy which made the chunks somewhat edible. "I sure miss Fabienne Growley, she may have been a cat but she was cute," he sighed to himself as he dug his spoon into the bowl. The snow leopard was a veteran anchor of ZNN, but she was retired as the public's growing mistrust of predators grew and the city's government began censoring all news.

With the morning news coming to an end and the channel's first talk show beginning, the fox turned off the television. The red fox really didn't want to watch that old goat Bill O'Baaly whine and carry on about the growing predator conspiracy. Nick sighed as he looked around at the small dank basement room he rented, it was cold and damp. What passed for a bed was an old dresser drawer with a cheap small mattress he had salvaged from a dumpster, but at least this place was better than sleeping under a bridge or in Finn's old van. Money was tight, because it had grown almost impossible for the fox to pull any kind of scam, get rich scheme, or even find honest work.

Being an omnivore, he now subsided on cheap kibble, Ramon noodles, and whatever few vegetables he could afford. Things were worse for many of the other predators, such as the felines who had to have what was now expensive protein to survive. The staples of their diet, such as fowl or fish, were getting harder to legally obtain. He and Finn had managed to do some periodic trout poaching from the river, but a crackdown by the cops had made even that risky. The latest move by the city was a suddenly suspicious health concern about grubs, crickets, and other common insects which were popular in a processed form and now even that food source becoming difficult to obtain. Last night he and Finn, had dined on worms dug up from the park, with a marinara sauce that the raccoon who prepared it called ketchup spaghetti. The former award winning chef had managed to make the dish edible, although the sauce still had a strong ketchup taste.

Washing himself in the sink, he dug around for a clean shirt and pair of pants. He found his favorite green tropical Pawaiian print shirt and pulled it on, along with a rumpled pair of khakis. Finding a mismatched tie, he put that on and after combing his fur, he felt ready to face the world again. As he opened the basement door, he heard the voice of his landlady. Mable was a wildebeest in her late seventies and was sitting in her favorite chair by the window. "Nicky, please come here!" she called out.

Nick's ears drooped and his tail dragged along the carpet as the entered the room. The elderly bovine looked up from her knitting, pulled back her long grey fur and frowned at him. "If it's about the rent, I know I'm behind…" he began.

"Nicky, I know you will pay me when you get the money," she sighed as she reached for her glasses. "I just wanted to say good morning, I haven't seen you around much this past week and please don't worry about the rent! I have better paying tenants who live upstairs and my pension. After all those years I worked with your mother, rest her soul, do you really think I'm going to throw her only pup out onto the streets."

"No ma'am," Nick meekly replied. He hated taking anything from the elderly widow, but he did try to pay her when he had some money and also did odd jobs around the building to justify her obvious charity.

"Now that all of that is settled," the widow sighed. "I know that you are doing your best looking for employment, but please be careful out there today. They are starting Mayor Lionheart's impeachment hearing and everyone is very tense, this town is like a powder keg ready to explode. I still don't know what that poor lion has done for them to justify his removal, it all seems…fishy to me. Speaking of which, when you get home I have a little gift for you in the kitchen."

"Oh?" Nick asked.

"Some processed fish sticks. Larry down at the grocery store said the health department was claiming that they were contaminated, but he knew they were perfectly good and so he gave his last box to me to give to you," she answered. "Something is going on in this city and I don't like it. Larry said that the health department also told him he had to stop letting predators use his bathrooms, hygienic concerns they told him. He needed to have prey only facilities and separate facilities for predators, separate but equal!"

Nick didn't really know what to say, he was used to being looked down at and ridiculed for being a fox and for him this was just an ongoing fact of his life. "Thank you for thinking about me," he replied with a smile as he walked over and kissed his landlady's cheek.

She reached up with her hoof and patted his arm. "You're such a nice boy Nicky, I'm sure you'll find a job today."

He left the apartment building and looked back over his shoulder at the building. Like its owner it was aging and was more of a tenement then a luxury apartment as the sign advertised, but all the real apartments would never think about renting to a fox or just about any other predator.

"Yo fox!" a voice called out from a nearby alleyway. Nick looked into the shadows and saw a wiry brown furred weasel wearing a dirty white sleeveless undershirt shirt and black shorts with red-and-white stripes.

"Well if it isn't Whestlton," the fox replied with a smirk as he crossed the road.

"It's Weaselton! Duke Weaselton!" the weasel angrily snapped back.

"Run out of bootleg movies to pawn off on the poor innocent public?" Nick chuckled as he leaned against the alleyway wall.

"Aren't you high and mighty Wilde," Weaselton answered. "If I recall, you aren't above a little petty theft yourself fox."

"You're boring me Duke," Nick sighed. "I've got more important things to do then stand here yapping with you."

"Don't give me that, I know the cops shut down your little pawsicle scheme," the weasel scoffed with an evil grin. "That little spot you and your little furball friend had was too close to the Lemming Brothers Bank, they don't want your kind around there no more."

"I've got other ideas," the fox replied. Nick was somewhat taken aback from the fact that the weasel was aware that his and Finn's little scheme had been abruptly closed one afternoon by a couple large cops. They had set up their cart like they always do near the bank, just before closing time and were ready for the little employees to begin filing out. Suddenly two cops showed up in front of him commanding him to close and leave the area. He tried to show him that he had all the permits required to conduct his business, but the uniformed rams didn't care and shoved over his cart. The icy treats were spilled onto the sidewalk and a day's work was ruined in a matter of minutes. As he was cleaning up the mess, he received a verbal warning that his kind wasn't wanted around there anymore. The next day when he passed by the area, he saw that Jerry Jumbeaux had set up a stand in that exact spot. The elephant had hired a groundhog to staff the stand, which sold frozen treats that looked remarkably like pawsicles.

"I've got a sure score," the weasel said as he leaned forward. "All I need is your little pal to drive us over the Canyonlands and pick up some flower bulbs tonight, that's all. It pays a couple hundred for pickup and delivery, not a bad score. "

"Do we have to rob someone," the fox scoffed. "You're the Duke of Bootleg and sometimes into petty thievery, but burglary?"

"Naw, we don't have to do anything but make a pickup and delivery," the weasel replied as he leaned forward. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out a toothpick and shoved it between his teeth as he grinned up at Nick. "Easy peasy Wilde."

The fox leaned back against the wall again and sighed, "Nothing is easy these days."

Judy Laverne Hopps had come to Zootopia as a wide-eyed and naive rookie, a product of Mayor Lionheart's Mammal Inclusion Initiative. The rabbit's reception at the First Precinct was less than enthusiastic by the other officers and by Chief Adrian Bogo, who felt she had been assigned to his command almost as a form of punishment. At first she objected to the endless parking duty assignments she was given every day, but finally she just surrendered to her fate and with a great lack of enthusiasm did her dreary job day after day.

She found solace in drink, it started with carrot juice martinis and soon she was drinking whiskey every night after work. Helplessly she watched as the number of predators that went savage grew every day and as the political pressure forced Chief Bogo to gradually decrease the number of experienced predator police officers on the force, replacing with hastily trained rookies. The loss of effective police on the streets led to an increase of crime, including those against carnivores.

Sitting in a dingy bar, the rabbit watched the news, a simple car accident had escalated out of control and the ocelot behind the wheel was beaten to death in the city streets in broad daylight. No one was arrested as events spiraled into a riot as looters robbed predator owned businesses on the city's east side. With a sigh she began to order another drink, but then her cell phone rang.

"Wolford you old mutt, I thought you moved out west?" she answered the caller with a smile. Of all the animals at the station, only the timber wolf and a fat cheetah named Benjamin Clawhauser had been friendly to her. Now Wolford was gone, kicked out by an internal affairs report that claimed that the whole K-9 unit was too dangerous and Benny had been sent to the basement to the Record Archives. "So what has my favorite fleabag been up to?"

Author's Notes:

This is the second story in the I Love the 80's Flashback Fridays Series - A Zootopian remake of some classic 1980 movies and TV shows.

Tail's from the Darkside – There was a campy horror TV series during the 1980's called Tales from the Darkside and this is my homage to that series. Judy finds out there is a reason why some old cemeteries have wrought iron fences and why this particular cemetery has its gates welded shut. Nick drags our little skeptic on a ghost tour led by the strange and enigmatic Undertaker. Can his seven tales of the supernatural convince the bunny that there are some mysteries that even she just can't solve? (Completed – Rated T)