SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: When the DVD set was finally announced.
  • Alternate Character Interpretation: Despite her competence (compared to Manx, anyway) Callie sometimes seems to exist just to be the SWAT Kats' cheerleader and remind everyone how awesome they are. She ignores all their (admittedly mostly unintentional) screwups and constantly obstructs (or tries to obstruct) Commander Feral, who—for all his bluster—really does have the city's best interests at heart.
  • Animation Age Ghetto: The show suffered from this hard, and it was ultimately killed by the attempts to break out of it. Some episodes make it clear the Brothers Tremblay had in mind something more complicated (and probably something that didn't involve anthropomorphic characters) when coming up with the show, and that the need to write for kids kept holding back what they could do. Ultimately, they pushed the line too far (such as Feral in no uncertain terms killing the Metallikats directly and giving a rather irrefutable explanation as to why he did so) and Ted Turner pulled the plug on the show personally, despite its high ratings.
  • Better on DVD: The Warner Archive began offering "made on demand" DVD sets in December 2010. While most of the episodes were not remastered or restored in any way, two episodes did receive a small boost: "The Giant Bacteria" had a deleted scene featuring a farmer's death reinserted, and "The Pastmaster Always Rings Twice" finally got its Episode Title Card back after it was absent from practically every rerun.
  • Big Lipped Alligator Villain: Chopshop. In a world populated by nothing but anthropomorphic felines, Chopshop is a... laughing hyena? In true BLAM fashion, he shows up for about five minutes at the start of the episode "Swat Kats Unplugged" until he's captured, and is never heard from or spoken of again in the run of the series.
    • Just because T-Bone called him "a laughin' hyena" doesn't make it true. It's doubtful the writers would introduce a non-cat that wasn't an alien so late in the series, and have him be a nothing villain like Chopshop.
  • Complete Monster: Egregious examples pf this trope would be Mutilor, Dr. Viper, and Dark Kat.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: It cannot be stressed enough how awesome the music was. Almost on par with Edmondson's work in Firefly. To this day, you'll probably find a split between which of the show's two opening themes is considered the better one (despite both themes being, as noted, awesome).
  • Fan Yay—and, because of the show's large Fanfic base, Rule 34.
  • The Firefly Effect: An extremely rare case of inversion of this trope. The effect usually takes hold in three stages: the show suffers from Executive Meddling, which results in low ratings, which results in getting Screwed by the Network. SWAT Kats--in spite of the meddling—went on to get high ratings, then got screwed mostly because of Ted Turner's Idiot Ball.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: The SWAT Kats flying the Turbokat into a building to save Callie. Doesn't help that said building immediately after explodes.
    • Only because the villain threw explosive chemicals. A better example are the Megakat Trade Towers, which are featured prominently in "Metal Urgency" and are seen briefly in "SWAT Kats Unplugged". Both times, they're at least partially damaged—and in the latter case, they appeared to be the deliberate target of the evil helicopter pilot the SWAT Kats are chasing at the episode's start.
  • Memetic Mutation: "BINGO!" "AHOY!" "YEAH!"
    • "This is Feral! Bring me chopper backup!"
    • "The Enforcers can handle this!"
  • Memetic Sex God: Callie Briggs, Felina Feral, and Ann Gora.
  • Narm: One of Razor's Catchphrases--"(Name of missile), deploy!"—has been accused of this.
    • Also, the phrase "Radical" was used as slang a few times in the second season. Thank goodness it didn't really catch on.
  • Too Good to Last: For reasons that are explained in detail on the main page.
  • Vindicated by History: Ted Turner personally cancelled the show because he thought it was too violent—a fair point, even if it's an immensely irritating one)--and he didn't want it linked to his shows. Today, his shows (i.e. Captain Planet) are remembered (at best) as So Bad It's Good and far more often mocked—if not outright torn apart—for their Anvilicious messages and Clueless Aesops, hence demonstrating that any effect he wanted to have with them never happened. Swat Kats, while hardly a bastion of positive messages, is instead remembered with immense fondness and fervor by its fans.
    • The show knew what it was (AWESOME) and never tried to be more than that.
  • The Woobie: Cybertron, the SWAT Kats' brave and ultimately doomed Robot Buddy from "The Deadly Pyramid".
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