SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron: Difference between revisions

Unfortunately, ''SWAT Kats''' attempts to break out of the [[Animation Age Ghetto]] came too soon for many people, and the series took criticism for its violent content. Even before that, the show underwent extensive [[Executive Meddling]] during its first season, forcing the creators to insert several inherently silly and "kid-ified" stuff aimed at younger audiences (which clashed horribly with the show's dark premise). This changed in the second season, since the first season's good ratings enabled the series to get an [[Animation Bump]] (and a slight makeover) that resulted in a [[Darker and Edgier]] style which proved to be a better fit for the show.

 

 

The show has a very strong cult following that continues to this day, becoming the source of numerous fan sites, a fair amount of fan fiction, and even online RPGs. What makes ''SWAT Kats'' fansites different from other shows' fansites? They developed a good reputation for their interlinking and close cooperation, which means most fansites will provide resource lists/links to most of the other fansites--and almost all of these sites, including a wiki dedicated to the show, ''are regularly updated to this day''. This dedication remains a standing testament to the show's popularity.

''SWAT Kats'' suffered from not having any true home video release following its demise (except for a pitiful handful of VHS tapes). Once the series was moved from Cartoon Network to Boomerang, that network's ever-changing schedule made it hard to figure out when/if they were showing it. In December 2010, the Warner Archive program started offering the complete series on DVD as an "on-demand" release, but stopped in 2011 due to unspecified issues (likely the fact that syndication cuts were used for the DVDs). Episodes were--and still are--widely circulated over the Internet, however, so it's not hard to watch the series if you're interested.

 

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=== Tropes ===

* [[All Up to You]]: Done awesomely with Cybertron in "The Deadly Pyramid". SWAT Kats and The Enforcers are elsewhere, and he is forced to defend Callie from two giant mummies all by himself.

* [[Almighty Janitor|Almighty Mechanics]]: Chance and Jake.

* [[Animal Superheroes]]: Of course.

* [[Animation Bump]]: Season 2. Not only was the animation of much better quality, the style more closely matched the tone and feel of the series. This isn't to say that the animation in the first season is bad (quite to the contrary), it just went from good to ''great''.

* [[Artifact of Doom]]: The Pastmaster's [[Time Travel]] watch and Tome of Time spellbook ("The Pastmaster Always Rings Twice"), and the Jeweled Headdress of Katchu Piccu in "The Deadly Pyramid".

* [[Attack Pattern Alpha]] In the event they're being followed by a heat-seeking missile, the SWAT Kats have "Plan Z" - which involves shutting down the engines ''in midair'' and launching a decoy missile to draw the heat-seeker off. Understandably, Razor hates this plan.

* [[Awesome but Impractical]]: Most of the customized weapons in Razor's arsenal.

* [[Crazy Prepared]]: You name it, the SWAT Kats have a gadget/mod for it.

* [[Cyberpunk]]: Hard Drive, the "technology pirate".

* [[Damsel in Distress]]: Callie sometimes, although she never goes down without a fight. Also Ann Gora once in "Caverns Of Horror".

* [[Darker and Edgier]]: "The Giant Bacteria" has the highest number of on-screen deaths in a single episode (see [[Bus Full of Innocents]] above). This also marks the beginning of T-Bone & Razor's {{spoiler|"Kill if everything else fails"}} policy. Quite a punch, consider this was the show's first completed episode (it was second in broadcast order). Then there's Season 2 compared to Season 1.

* [[The Determinator]]: Both SWAT Kats.

** Also Feral.

* [[Dirty Coward]]: Lt. Steele. At litterally EVERY chance, he tries to take over his boss Feral's job.

* [[The Documentary]]: "SWAT Kats--A Special Report".

* [[Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep"]]: The Enforcer Sergeant.

* [[Everyone Loves Blondes]]: The SWAT Kats and The Pastmaster for Callie and Queen Callista.

* [[Evil Laugh]]: Dark Kat, Viper, The Metalikats, Madkat, The Red Lynx, Mutilor, Turmoil... seems to be a mandatory requirement if you want to be a bad guy.

* [[Evil Twin]]: In "The Dark Side Of The SWAT Kats", for T-Bone, Razor and {{spoiler|Callie.}}

* [[For Science!]]: Even the non-villainous scientists and engineers in Megakat City seem pretty cavalier about the risks and consequences of their work.

* [[Four-Fingered Hands]]: The entire cast.

* [[Fungus Humongous]]: Dr. Viper's ravenous half cat, half mushroom assistant in "Katastrophe".

* [[Furry Confusion]]: Anne Gora wears earrings in the ''human'' position, apparently fixed to her jaw.

* [[Hanna-Barbera]]

* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: The SWAT Kats/Chance and Jake.

* [[High-Speed Missile Dodge]]: Multiple examples. Subverted in "A Bright And Shiny Future", in which {{spoiler|the SWAT Kats of the future are killed by [[Five Rounds Rapid]].}}

* [[Honour Before Reason]]: Feral's response to the Metallikats' offer to give away the identities of the SWAT Kats in exchange for their freedom: "I don't make deals with ''criminal scum''."

* [[In the Back]]: "A Bright And Shiny Future" had ''three'' double-crosses: {{spoiler|one by the Metallikats, one by the Pastmaster, and one by the SWAT Kats themselves.}}

** Weird. "Katastrophe" ''also'' had three different ones: {{spoiler|Dark Kat always planned to screw over everybody, so Viper anticipated that and decided to screw him first, and he recruited the Metallikats to screw Dark Kat with him. Also averted, in the sense that Dark Kat thought he could force the Metallikats to do his dirty work for him and screw Viper first. Please do not take any of these statements literally. If you do, considering we're talking about robots and mutated monsters, keep a bottle of [[Brain Bleach]] handy. Thank you for visiting [[TV Tropes]]. Have a nice day.}}

** It's even sillier considering [[Hanna-Barbera]] were one of the main studios to start making action adventure cartoons like ''[[Space Ghost]]'' and ''[[Jonny Quest]]''.

** The worst part is the whole thing is vaguely hypocritical: Violence was cited as one of the main reason Turner personally pulled the plug despite the show's high ratings. However, the violence in ''SWAT Kats'' is stylized and largely not imitative (consider how hard it would be to fight a giant bacteria monster with a VTOL-capable jet), compared with other [[Hanna-Barbera]] series which feature stunts and slapstick violence that kids could easily recreate on their own.

*** This is weird, as the version of "The Giant Bacteria" on the DVD contains a scene cut from the broadcast versions where Viper {{spoiler|feeds a farmer to his bacteria monster}}. It also restores "The Pastmaster Always Rings Twice"'s long missing [[Episode Title Card]]. The episodes themselves appear to be uncut, and all that seems to be missing is the "Today on SWAT Kats" promos before the TBS-era (season one) episodes, which are a fairly negligible omission. The real reason would appear to be that Warner used the wrong end credits for many of the episodes.

* [[Killed Off for Real]]: Surprisingly often [[Animation Age Ghetto|for a cartoon]]. So it's a fair point when, in "The Metallikats", Feral says, quote, "Mac and Molly have been dead for months." To which another guy exclaims, "No, no, they ain't dead!"

* [[The Ladette]]: Felina Feral.

* [[Lantern Jaw of Justice]]: Commander Feral. And his hair-cut is ''fierce!''

** A better example is Callie seeming to fancy Jake, who is unabashedly nerdy, as stated above.

* [[Never My Fault]]: Feral unfairly blames Jake and Chance for the damage to Enforcer HQ, even though it's his own fault the incident happened (he interfered with their attempt to catch Dark Kat, because he couldn't accept someone else might catch the crook).

** Those [[Bowdlerise|poor]] [[Red Shirt|RedShirts]], though...

** In "Mutation City" Razor prepares to go after a sinking T-Bone and growls "If you drown, buddy...I'm gonna kill you!"

* [[Non-Indicative Name]]: Dr. Greenbox. Originally, he was to be a botanist, in which capacity his surname would make sense; his field of expertise was later changed to "generic tinkerer" who works with machines, rendering his pun-tastic surname meaningless.

* [[Not the Fall That Kills You]]: In "The Giant Bacteria", Razor and T-Bone drop Morbulus into the ocean from what has to be at least a hundred feet up.

** [[Played With]] in "Razor's Edge" with Dark Kat's Black Widow. The outside was waterproof, but the inside was not.

** Averted again in "SWAT Kats Unplugged", where in a fit of improvisational tactics, the SWAT Kats try to knock over a water tower so that it falls onto the pursuing Hard Drive's jet and stalls out his engines, but it doesn't work.

** Also, this trope plays an important role in the SWAT Kats' origin. While they were still Enforcers, Jake and Chance had Dark Kat's ship cornered. Unfortunately, Feral insisted on capturing the villain personally, and his interference resulted in Dark Kat escaping, Enforcer headquarters being damaged, and Jake and Chance getting thrown off the force--and deciding to become the SWAT Kats.

** The Red Lynx can only die if he's killed by the descendant of the pilot who originally defeated him. Turns out to be {{spoiler|Mayor Manx}}, of all people. Which causes some problems, to say the very least.

** You can count the number of times T-Bone and Razor's real names (Chance and Jake, respectively) are used on one hand. In fact, they aren't even mentioned until the second episode "The Giant Bacteria"

* [[Only the Chosen May Wield]]: "Bride Of The Pastmaster".

* [[Our Liches Are Different]]: The Pastmaster.

* [[Papa Wolf|Uncle Wolf]]: Feral may seem harsh and quick-tempered, but he genuinely loves his niece and would do any think to protect her. In fact, he tried to prevent her from joining the Enforcers for just that reason.

* [[Petting Zoo People]]: The entire cast.

* [[Police Are Useless]]: Back-and-forth. The Enforcers are a fairly effective police force formed to fight super-terrorists such as Dark Kat. They do a damn fine job in "The Pastmaster Always Rings Twice". [[Badass Normal|Without the SWAT Kats' plane and gear]] and only conventional gas grenades and a convenient tar pit, they took out a bloody ''[[Tyrannosaurus Rex|tyrannosaur]]'' and were just this side of getting the Pastmaster on their own. But it seems that the show takes place during their "fall from glory"; 1). The quality of their equipment is falling - the Turbo Kat is built out of the Enforcers' ''garbage'' but easily outperforms their current gear. 2). Its leadership is becoming overconfident - T-Bone and Razor were Enforcers until Feral pulled an absolutely ''stupid'' [[Only I Can Kill Him]] on Dark Kat (imagine two nobodies nearly catching bin Laden when some big shot was around) and blamed them for the ensuing property damage. Feral got a bit better, and by the time of the show proper is more professional. Lt. Commander Steele is an extrapolation of this that nearly screws the entire city. Result? The Enforcers [[Can't Catch Up]] to two hardcore [[Badass|Badasses]] and the enemies that show up to challenge ''them''.

** Also, Burke and Murray from season one, despite their apparent stated role as Chance and Jake's "babysitters", disappear completely by the time season two rolls around with no explanation given.

* [[Punny Name]]: Ann Gora, Dr. Abby Sinian, and Dr. N. Zyme.

* [[Rogues Gallery]]: See above.

* [[Rogues Gallery Showcase]]: "Katastrophe", "A Bright and Shiny Future".

* [[Self-Constructed Being]]: The "micro-brain repair unit" featured in "Unlikely Alloys".

* [[Sexy Secretary]]: Callie shares some aspects of this character trope, but she's actually the ''Deputy Mayor!'' (And basically does the mayor's job for him, which makes her a [[Hypercompetent Sidekick]].

** There's another, more subtle one in "Unlikely Alloys", when Mac [[Captain EO|descends towards the camera from the ceiling]], supported by various wires.

** Two of the cyclopes in "Bride of the Pastmaster" have [[The 7th Voyage of Sinbad|horns on their foreheads]].

* [[Skunk Stripe]]: Felina's hair color.

* [[Sky Pirate]]: Turmoil.

* [[Sonic Stunner]]: The Banshee missiles. Further, their performance is what gives T-Bone the idea that saves the day in "Chaos In Crystal".

* [[Space Plane]]: The Turbokat, literally. It can bust out ''four additional engines'' and go into space.

** Or Steele was refering to the middle of his name: Steele vs Steale.

** Actually, it's referring to the word "stele", which is a type of writing implement. He wants his name spelled with two e's because then it's a type of strong metal, as opposed to something like a pen.

* [[Talking to Himself]]: [[Jim Cummings]] whenever Dr. Konway and Mayor Manx were onscreen together in "Mutation City". This probably cropped up a lot more on a smaller scale, as Jim Cummings seemed to voice a solid third of the one-shot and background characters.

* [[Tanks for Nothing]]: The only purpose the Enforcer tanks serve is getting stomped by the [[Monster of the Week]] so the heroes can save the day.

* [[That Poor Plant]]

* [[The Renaissance Age of Animation]]

** "Radical" was used a few times in the second season.

* [[Transformation Sequence]]: From Chance and Jake to T-Bone and Razor.

* [[Trapped in Another World]]: "The Dark Side Of The SWAT Kats".

* [[Unobtainium]]: Aggresite from "Caverns Of Horror". Also played straight in "When Strikes Mutilor" with ''water'', of all things. Turns out plain old agua is actually unobtanium for aliens, which is the reason for Mutilor's attack on Earth (Yeah, yeah, "Haven't they heard of ice?").

** Played straight in a few cases. Razor says that a couple of his missiles are diamond-tipped. Who the hell would throw away diamonds, or even diamond dust?!

*** Unless they're industrial diamonds, which are usually artificial.

* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: "Razor's Edge". {{spoiler|Granted, it really ''wasn't'' his fault.}}

** In "The Giant Bacteria", the SWAT Kats manage to defeat and capture a villain named Morbulus. Instead of holding him until the authorities got there or even going over to said authorities to hand Morbulus over, they decide to just mess around with Morbulus and Feral and just drop the villain in the water. Of course, Morbulus takes advantage of this and escapes. They never get called out on it by anybody other than Feral, who is actually right about the SWAT Kats screwing up this time around. Not only do the SWAT Kats get pissed and act like whiny children by blaming Feral for Morbulus getting away, but to make it worse, even Callie acts like a bitch and tries pinning the blame on Feral for the whole thing.