SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron

All of this just works. ― Todd Howard

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SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron
Let's Kick Some Tail! Roger!
Genre: Action Anime Adventure Comedy-drama Science fantasy Slapstick comedy Superhero Running Time: 22-26 minutes Country: United States Release Date: September 11, 1993 - January 6, 1995 Network(s): TBS Cartoon Network Boomerang Created by: Christian & Yvon Tremblay Distributed by: Turner Entertainment Starring: Barry Gordon Charlie Adler Tress MacNeille Mark Hamill Lori Alan Jim Cummings Gary Owens Candi Milo Seasons: 2 Episodes: 25 (plus the special)

SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron is an American animated television series that aired as part of the syndication block The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera & the TBS Superstation from 1993 to 1995. It was developed by French-Canadian brothers Christian & Yvon Tremblay and produced by Hanna-Barbera and Turner Entertainment.

All the episodes were directed by Robert Alvarez.

Why It Kicks Some Tail

1. To start off with the theme song. Both seasons had their own unique theme music, which really boosts the pleasing aesthetic of the series. In addition to that, the extra guitar riffs kick off pretty awesome.
   • Season 1's theme song has an exciting way to start the show in it's intro.
   • Season 2's theme song gets even better and kicked ass.
   • Additionally, the soundtrack is again, kickass.
2. Amazing and colorful art style calling a mind to many of the Silver Age of comic books.
3. The animation is very smooth and fluid even for a H-B cartoon, since they were notable for their stiff and limited animation techniques. But it gets even better starting in Season 2 with its iconic anime style aesthetic that was greatly done by Mook Animation.
4. An interesting concept. Razor and T-Bone work as mechanics in a salvage yard, but are secretly military allies.
5. Razor and T-Bone themselves are fully likable to say the least.
   • Callie Briggs is very lovable, and she is considered to be the best part of the show.
6. Unique and even terrifying villains like Dr. Viper, Dark Kat, The Pastmaster, Hard Drive, The Metallikats: Mac and Molly, Madkat, Morbulus/Bacteria Monster and Turmoil.
7. Magnificent voice acting, such as Barry Gordon, Charlie Adler, Tress MacNeille, Jim Cummings, Mark Hamil, Candi Milo and Gary Owens.
8. Lots of great episodes, such as:
   • The Pastmaster Always Rings Twice
   • The Giant Bacteria
   • The Wrath of Dark Kat
   • Destructive Nature
   • The Metallikats
   • Bride of the Pastmaster
   • Night of the Dark Kat
   • Chaos in Crystal
   • The Ghost Pilot
   • Metal Urgency
   • Mutation City
   • A Bright and Shiny Future
   • When Strikes Mutilor
   • SWAT Kats Unplugged
   • The Deadly Pyramid
   • The Origin of Dr. Viper
   • The Dark Side of the SWAT Kats
9. The sound effects are very authentic and accurately depict the noises of real-life vehicles, which is something not most H-B shows do at the time.
10. It spawned a tie-in video game for the SNES which is neat.

Bad Qualities

1. The series does has some pretty mean-spirited moments at times especially from Commander Ulysses Feral.
2. The only 4 characters can be unlikable sometimes.
   • Mayor Max is a horribly coward lazy mayor and likes to play golf all day.
   • Commander Ulysses Feral while not too bad can be pretty greedy to Razor, T-Bone and Callie sometimes.
   • Ann Gora can be a bland & dull character to some viewers.
   • Burke and Murray are completely jerks to Razor and T-Bone.
3. Sometimes the animation can be quite stilted, even betwixt the fluid movements.
4. "Unlikely Alloys" while a fine, watchable, enjoyable, & never means a bad episode, doesn't really end the series or even conclude season 2.
5. CEO Ted Turner, who produced the series via Turner Entertainment then, strongly opposed against the level of violence in the series, which enticed the merchandise to be reportedly delayed and the series to promptly end after 2 seasons, and left 3 unproduced episodes (that would have ended Season 2 on a decent note). after that, we have a very boring clipshow "The SWAT Kats: A Special Report".
6. After that, Christian & Yvon Tremblay the show's creators would later develop the 3 most infamous atrocious generic unrecognizable horrible & uncreative shows like "Mega Babies"(the most infamous out of the 3) "Edward" and "Loonatics Unleashed" (the least infamous out of the 3), and they're all giant stinky middle fingers.
   • Thankfully, they're all universally panned and got cancelled.

Reception & Cancellation

SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron received 8.4 on IMDb.

SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron became the number one syndicated animated show of 1994, according to Nielsen Television Index (NTI) and Nielsen Syndication Service (NSS). Toon Magazine documented the success of SWAT Kats in its Fall 1994 issue. Due to the program's success, Hanna Barbera Productions planned to release new episodes, posters, and other works in 1995. However, the show was ultimately canceled with three unfinished episodes.

Ted Turner, CEO of Turner Broadcasting System which produced and aired the show, was reportedly displeased with the level of violence in his cartoons, leading to the delay of its merchandising and its eventual cancellation. Turner went on record in front of Congress and in an early 1995 interview after the show's cancellation, stated that "We have more cartoons than anybody: The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Smurfs, Scooby-Doo. They're nonviolent. We don't have to worry that we're encouraging kids to kill each other - like some of the other cartoon programs do." According to the Tremblay Bros. in an interview, this quote was more directed against more adult-oriented TV shows at the time such as Beavis and Butt-Head, which depicted more realistic and easily copyable violence, compared to the more cartoony slapstick violence of the aforementioned shows. However, this was misconstrued by both fans and Hanna-Barbera execs as being a strict "anti-violence" policy, especially in the wake of Turner's own pet project show, Captain Planet and the Planeteers.

Trivia

• The video game based on the series of the same name, developed by AIM, was released by Hudson Soft on August 21, 1995, in North America for the Super NES. A Sega Mega Drive port was in development by Traveller's Tales but it was cancelled before being completed.
• Christian & Yvon Tremblay the creators of the show would later develop the 3 infamous atrocious generic unrecognizable & horrible shows like "Mega Babies" "Edward" and "Loonatics Unleashed", the latter of which were universally panned and temperately killed the SWAT Kats franchise until the rise of "SWAT Kats: Revolution".
• They had projects centered around 2 characters of Activision's video game franchise, Spyro, but they never edged past production. Concept art can be found on their website here.
• They collaborated with the Kids WB's infamous show "Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island" co-creator Don Oriolo to develop an attempted reboot of Felix the Cat, but the project failed.
• As mentioned below, A reboot called SWAT Kats: Revolution is in pre-production .

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