a ska album, The Fury showcased a more ambitious musical streak than The Return, incorporating stronger elements of punk and surf, as well as featuring instrumentals, parodies of ragtime and tango music, and a variety of unconventional instruments including sousaphones and banjos. Released at the commercial height of the American ska revival, The Fury earned The Aquabats minor mainstream success, peaking at number 172 on the Billboard 200 and number 12 on its Top Heatseekers, while lead single "Super Rad!" found regular airplay on MTV and Los Angeles' influential KROQ-FM. On July 25, 1998, they fought the alien rock band Gwar during The Ska Parade. The Aquabats spent 1997 and 1998 touring extensively behind The Fury, carrying out both supporting and headlining tours of the United States and traveling internationally as part of the 1998 Warped Tour. By this time, the band had settled into a stable touring line-up of Jacobs (The Bat Commander), Larson (Crash McLarson), Terry (Catboy), drummer Travis Barker (The Baron Von Tito), guitarists Charles Gray (Ultra Kyu) and Courtney Pollock (Chainsaw, the Prince of Karate), trumpeter Adam Deibert (Prince Adam) and keyboardist/saxophonist James Briggs (Jaime the Robot, later Jimmy the Robot). This line-up would last The Aquabats up until 1998, when, in the middle of a tour with pop punk trio Blink-182, Blink unexpectedly fired their drummer Scott Raynor and recruited Barker as a last-minute replacement to sit in for the rest of the tour. By the tour's close, the band was so impressed with Barker's performance that they invited him to join Blink-182 as a full-time member, an offer which Barker accepted, amicably parting ways with The Aquabats. Barker was succeeded by Gabe Palmer (Doctor Rock), solidifying a line-up which would last the remainder of the decade. With the band now finding enough success to generate both an adequate income and media visibility, Jacobs — a former child actor with ties in the entertainment industry — began to conceive the idea of adapting The Aquabats' superhero mythology into a television series. After pitching the concept to several networks, Buena Vista Television eventually agreed to help produce a short live-action pilot in 1998, directed by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait. Titled simply The Aquabats!, the pilot followed the fictional misadventures of the eight band members in an intentionally campy style similar to Saturday morning cartoon shows. The pilot, which has yet to be made available for public viewing,