SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron
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 Let's Kick Some Tail! Roger!
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SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron is a 1993–1994 American animated television series created by Christian and Yvon Tremblay and produced by Hanna-Barbera Cartoons. The series takes place in the fictional metropolis of Megakat City, which is populated by anthropomorphic felines, known as "kats". The SWAT Kats of the title are two vigilante pilots who possess a state-of-the-art fighter jet with an array of weaponry. Throughout the series, they face various villains as well as competition from Megakat City's militarized police force called the Enforcers.
The show originally premiered and ran on the syndication block The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera, as well as TBS Superstation (as a part of the Sunday Morning in Front of the TV block) from 1993 to 1995. Every episode of the series was directed by Robert Alvarez. The bulk of the series was written by Glenn Leopold (15 episodes) or Lance Falk (9 episodes). Jim Stenstrum contributed two episodes, while David Ehrman, Von Williams, Eric Clark (with Lance Falk), Mark Saraceni, and Jim Katz all contributed one episode each.
A revival series, titled SWAT Kats: Revolution, is under development, with both the Tremblay brothers and the Toonz Media Group at the helm.
Overview
Jake "Razor" Clawson (Barry Gordon) and Chance "T-Bone" Furlong (Charlie Adler) were members of Megakat City's paramilitary law enforcement agency, known as the Enforcers. They were discharged from the Enforcers after disobeying the orders of Commander Feral (Gary Owens), which destroyed the newly built Enforcer Headquarters. While in pursuit of the criminal mastermind Dark Kat (Brock Peters), one of the main arch-villains of the series, the two rebelled against Enforcer Commander Feral's orders to fall back and leave Dark Kat to him. When they objected, citing their already-acquired target lock, Commander Feral crowded out their jet, clipping their wing and sending Jake and Chance's jet crashing into Enforcer headquarters. The resultant explosion distracted Commander Feral, allowing Dark Kat to escape. The Commander took no responsibility for the incident, discharged Jake and Chance from the Enforcers, and reassigned them to work at the city's military salvage yard to pay for the damage to the Enforcer Headquarters which Feral caused.
Using discarded military parts and weapons from the salvage yard, Jake and Chance built themselves a three-engine jet fighter called the Turbokat, which resembled several different jet fighters, most notably the Grumman F-14 and the Saab Draken, along with a handful of other vehicles such as the Cyclotron (a motorcycle built into the jet's seating, deployed from the bomb bay of the Turbokat like a missile), the TurboMole (a subterranean vehicle used to drill underground), the HoverKat (a militarized hovercraft), and the Thunder Truck (a militarized Jeep modified from their tow truck). All these vehicles were stored, along with a training area and other equipment, in a secret hangar below the yard. Razor and T-Bone now patrol Megakat City as the SWAT Kats, defending it against any kind of menace that threatens the city. Their enemies include Dark Kat, the undead sorcerer Pastmaster (Keene Curtis), the mutant evil genius Doctor Viper (Frank Welker), and the robotic gangsters the Metallikats, husband and wife Molly (April Winchell) and Mac Mange (Neil Ross). The SWAT Kats also face many villains of the week, such as Madkat (Roddy McDowall) and Volcanus.
The SWAT Kats keep their identities secret from everyone, including their closest ally Deputy Mayor Callie Briggs (Tress MacNeille), who assumes the responsibilities of both her post and of her boss, Mayor Manx (Jim Cummings), who mainly neglects his political duties in favor of pastimes like golf. Their methods do not endear them to Commander Feral, and the three of them often clash throughout the series. In the second season, Feral's niece Felina (Lori Alan), who holds a lieutenant rank in the Enforcers, becomes another ally of the SWAT Kats.
Home Media
In July 1995, Hanna-Barbera (through Turner Home Entertainment) released three VHS collections with two select episodes on each. These releases also included some of the "Secret Files of SWAT Kats" clips that ended each episode in original airings and an episode of Space Ghost at the beginning.
"Deadly Dr. Viper" - featuring "Destructive Nature" and "Katastrophe".
"Strike of Dark Kat" - featuring "The Wrath of Dark Kat" and "Night of Dark Kat".
"Metallikats Attack" - featuring "The Metallikats" and "Metal Urgency".
On December 14, 2010, Warner Archive released SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron- The Complete Series Collection on DVD in Region 1, as part of their Hanna–Barbera Classics Collection. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release, available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.
The episodes themselves are not remastered, and the DVDs contain no extras or bonus features, although three scenes that were originally cut from the show were restored for the DVD. However, Warner Bros. put the end credits for the episodes in the wrong order, meaning voice actors either were not credited for episodes they were in or were credited for ones where they did not appear. Only a few episodes had their proper end credits intact. On March 3, 2011, Warner Bros. removed SWAT Kats from its DVD page. On January 19, 2012, Warner Archive re-released the SWAT Kats set with the end credits corrected.
Why It Kicks Some Tail
- To start off, the theme song! Both seasons had their unique theme music, which 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 its intro.
- Season 2's theme song gets even better and kicked ass.
- Additionally, the soundtrack is again, kickass.
- Amazing and colorful art style calling a mind to many of the Silver Age of comic books.
- The animation is very smooth and fluid even for a H-B cartoon, since they were notable for their stiff and limited animation techniques. It gets even better starting in Season 2 with its iconic anime style aesthetic that was greatly done by Mook Animation Inc.
- An interesting concept. Razor and T-Bone work as mechanics in a salvage yard but are secretly military allies.
- 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.
- 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.
- Magnificent voice acting, such as Barry Gordon, Charlie Adler, Tress MacNeille, Jim Cummings, Mark Hamil, Candi Milo, and the late Gary Owens.
- 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 (arguably the best episode of the show)
- 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.
- It spawned a tie-in video game for the SNES which is neat.
Bad Qualities
- The series does have some pretty mean-spirited moments at times, especially from Commander Ulysses Feral.
- 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 for a character, can be pretty a greedy jerk to Razor, T-Bone, and Callie sometimes.
- Ann Gora can be a bland & dull character to some viewers, but it depends on your view.
- Burke and Murray are completely unlikable jerks to Razor and T-Bone.
- Sometimes the animation can be quite stilted, even betwixt the fluid movements.
- "Unlikely Alloys" while nothing wrong with this episode, doesn't really feel like a perfect finale to end season 2.
- CEO Ted Turner, who produced the series via Turner Entertainment then, strongly opposed 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 clip show "The SWAT Kats: A Special Report".
- After that, Christian & Yvon Tremblay the show's creators would later develop the three 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 canceled.
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 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 pet project show, Captain Planet and the Planeteers.
Revival
On July 23, 2015, creators Christian and Yvon Tremblay announced a Kickstarter campaign to revive SWAT Kats, seeking to produce a new series, and if possible, a 70-minute film. On July 24, one day after the campaign began, the Kickstarter successfully reached its first funding goal of $50,000, needed for production of concept art and promotional material, which the pair had aimed to use to help them find an investor who would be interested in helping with the revival.
A more major goal of $200,000 would allow the pair to produce a 22-minute episode, while a pledge total of $1,000,000 would allow them to do a mini-series of five episodes. Their highest pledge, $1.5 million or more, would help them to make a film of the SWAT Kats. The campaign ended on August 22, 2015, with $141,500 pledged, and already passing another goal of $100,000 will help to create a 2-minute-long trailer of how the series should look.
On February 17, 2016, the Tremblay Brothers confirmed they had started development on the trailer, which they will show to a TV company in order to have the green light for production on SWAT Kats Revolution.
Christian Tremblay, confirmed Warner Bros. had expressed interest in "bringing back" SWAT Kats on Boomerang, but were unable to convince the parent network to commit to a new series, and thus they passed on the project. Tremblay then started working with investors to create independent episodes of SWAT Kats that will be available online for streaming. In a Kickstarter campaign update on July 23, 2020, show co-creator Christian Tremblay alluded to the issues being faced in getting the Swat Kats: Revolution re-boot picked up:
"It has been a long time coming to provide an update on Swat-Kats Revolution, we sincerely apologize. I hope this update will bring you comfort that the efforts to bring back SK is very much alive and we are actively pushing to make it happen...For us the challenge is not IF a new series will be produced, but WHEN will it be done...So we encountered roadblocks after roadblocks: Hulu passed, Netflix passed, Warner Bros passed. Amazon was not really the place for it and changed its animated content approach. A fairly important movie producer wanted to bring Swat-Kats to Netflix, where he has an output deal, but ultimately, the deal did not make sense for us. I can't count the number of potential business investors we met, trips we did, meetings we held. There have been many opportunities we believed were very promising (with some very important mini Major studios, among others), and we hold on to those opportunities to bring some good news, only to fall apart. Some additional difficulties were unexpected, such as the movie CATS! (Anthropomorphic cats), and a major box office disaster, ridiculed by everyone, let's just say that we had to let the dust clear on this one before we could even approach anyone in the industry, so they could not make any types of similarities between the two properties...this is a Hollywood mindset; when something bombs at the box office it becomes radioactive...We are more motivated than ever before. We have seen and encountered roadblocks in the past but we are resilient. It's not the 100's of NO that count, its the one Yes that allows everything to fall into place. We will make SK happen, no matter how hard or how long it takes.
Official revival announcement
In a Kickstarter campaign update on January 19, 2022, show co-creator Christian Tremblay announced that they "teamed up with Toonz Media Group, an amazing global media company, and Studio 4°C, a Japanese animation company, to bring Swat-Kats Revolution to life." On February 1, 2022, several websites reported additional details, including that "the new series is billed as being for kids in the age range of 5-11" and that the series was already in pre-production as of that date.
In other media
Toys
Remco produced a line of action figures in 1994 which included Razor, T-Bone, Dark Kat, and Dr. Viper. Both White Castle and Carl's Jr. have offered SWAT Kats toys in their kids' meals in the 1990s.
Video Game
The game SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, developed by AIM, was released by Hudson Soft on August 21, 1995, in North America for the Super NES. A Sega Mega Drive game based on SWAT Kats was in development by Traveller's Tales but it was cancelled before being completed.
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, 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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