History YMMV / SwatKats

* FoeYay: T-Bone and Turmoil have this going on big time.

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: This show has a very vocal fan following in UsefulNotes/{{India}}, where it was one of the first few shows that appeared in 1996, when Creator/CartoonNetwork was launched there. Plenty of Indian fans discuss this on forums, social networks and upload videos on Website/YouTube.

** Meta example: Two years after the show's abrupt cancelling, Creator/{{Toonami}} would be introduced to Cartoon Network. It could have been the perfect home for two Radical Squadron had it ever been considered for the block.

** Just because T-Bone ''called'' him "a laughin' hyena" doesn't make it literally true. It could have been meant in a metaphorical sense, as is the case with [[TheHyena the trope of the same name.]]

* MemeticMutation: "BINGO!", "AHOY!", "YEAH!"

** Many fans pair up Razor with Callie and T-Bone with Felina (or the other way around). That is, when they aren't pairing up T-Bone with Razor and Callie with Felina (or Abby Sinian, or Ann Gora, for that matter)...
* TheWoobie: Cybertron, the SWAT Kats' brave [[spoiler:and ultimately doomed]] RobotBuddy from "The Deadly Pyramid".
** IronWoobie: His status as TheDeterminator makes him this.

* HumorDissonance: A lot of the TV shows the characters watch, especially David Litterbin's show in "Enter the Mad Kat", offer some, at best, mildly amusing jokes that are treated like Grade-A humor.

* HumorDissonance: A lot of the TV shows the characters watch, especially David Litterbin's show in "Enter the MadKat", offer some, at best, mildly amusing jokes that are treated like Grade-A humor.

* FollowTheLeader: You could argue this was Creator/HannaBarbera's attempt to compete with ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'' and that series' [[TeenageMutantSamuraiWombats profusion of copycats]]. Though in comparison, this series is much darker, and doesn't have any humans or other humanoid animals besides cats. It also takes a bit of influence from H-B's ''WesternAnimation/SkyCommanders'' tech-wise, and both Creator/CharlieAdler and Creator/PaulEiding worked on that show too.

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* AccidentalInnuendo: Lance Falk, writer of "Destructive Nature", learned that his script had [[{{Pun}} planted]] an unusual interpretation in one viewer's mind.

* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation: 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.

** [[SpacePirates Mutilor]], from "When Strikes Mutilor", is a brutal mercenary who takes over a ship from a peaceful race called the Aquians and attacks the SWAT Kats' planet, planning to drain every drop of water from the world to sell it off, saying that if Earth dies as a result, then that's just business. When the heroic SWAT Kats interfere, Mutilor tries to [[ElectricTorture torture them to death with electricity]], and when the ship is taken, Mutilor attempts to destroy it out of spite so that it crashes into Earth and causes a devastating catastrophe that could easily kill every cat on the planet.

** [[DiabolicalMastermind Dark Kat]] is one of the Swat Kats' most recurring, and wicked, villains. A [[BombThrowingAnarchists complete madman]] obsessed with the death of the SWAT Kats and the [[ToCreateAPlaygroundForEvil destruction of Megakat City]], Dark Kat is [[EstablishingCharacterMoment introduced]] trying to use a [[NukeEm nuclear weapon]] to annihilate Megakat City and its thousands of residents, attempting to force Lieutenant Feral to watch the carnage as it unfolds. Later attempting to turn the Swat Kats into ground meat while using their jet to frame them for opening fire on civilians and blowing up entire buildings, Dark Kat follows this up by convincing Razer he severely wounded innocents to throw him off his game while Dark Kat uses a robotic arachnid to attack and hopefully tear Megakat City to shreds. In his arguably worst outing, Dark Kat makes an alliance with the below-mentioned Dr. Viper, using him to rebuild the Metallikats then install chips in them that [[BadBoss allow Dark Kat to torture them at his leisure]]. Using the Metallikats and Viper, Dark Kat lures the Swat Kats, Feral, and assistant mayor Callie Briggs into a trap to kill them all, ordering the Metallikats to kill Viper when [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness he outlives his usefulness]], and ultimately attempts to blow up the entire base as a last ditch effort to kill the Swat Kats, their friends, and all of Dark Kat's own allies in one fell swoop.

** [[EvilutionaryBiologist Dr. Viper]] was once [[MadScientist Elrod Purvis]], a greedy scientist whose plan to sell the Viper Mutagen to the highest bidder ended with his supposed death and subsequent mutation into the evil Viper. In his schemes to destroy Megakat City and replace it with a festering "Megaswamp City", Viper regularly attempts to mutate and murder all he can through his chemical weapons and monsters; [[TransformationTrauma painfully transforms]] one-shot villain [[AssholeVictim Morbulus]] into a mindless bacteria creature that he sets loose on Megakat City, leading to dozens of deaths, including that of Viper's former colleague Zyme; attempts to drown the entire city in toxic spores; teams up with the aforementioned Dark Kat; and finally floods the city with mutative chemicals in a bid to mutate everyone within the city. Regularly murdering innocents in his attempted conquest and seeing beauty only in the fetid and festering, Dr. Viper was about as remorselessly evil as his sinister appearance would suggest.

* HarsherInHindsight: 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.
*** "A Bright and Shiny Future" had the Swat Kats journeying to a future where the Metallikats conquered Megakat City. In this future, the Swat Kats died when the Turbokat was shot down and they crashed into a building.

** [[SpacePirates Mutilor]], from "When Strikes Mutilor", is a brutal mercenary who takes over a ship from a peaceful race called the Aquians and attacks the SWAT Kats' planet, planning to drain every drop of water from the world to sell it off, saying that if earth dies as a result, then that's just business. When the heroic SWAT Kats interfere, Mutilor tries to [[ElectricTorture torture them to death with electricity]], and when the ship is taken, Mutilor attempts to destroy it out of spite so that it crashes into Earth and causes a devastating catastrophe that could easily kill every cat on the planet.

*** "A Bright and Shiny Future" had Swat Kats journeying to a future where the Metallikats conquered Megakat City. In this future, the Swat Kats died when the Turbokat was shot down and they crashed into a building.
* InformedWrongness: Commander. Feral. He is almost always presented as completely wrong, even though he often makes very good points.
* MemeticMutation: "BINGO!" "AHOY!" "YEAH!"

* {{Misblamed}}: UsefulNotes/TedTurner was not responsible for killing the show; the decision was made well below his level. Sadly, the blame ''still'' falls on Ted Turner, due to the misquoted segment of his interview. To clarify: around the same time the show was cancelled, Turner said that he was proud of having "cartoons that don't encourage kids to shoot each other." Many took this as proof that he hated ''SWAT Kats'' and wanted it cancelled. However, this was not the case; he was actually talking about ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead''.

* TheFireflyEffect: A rare inversion of this trope. The effect usually takes hold in three stages: the show suffers from ExecutiveMeddling, which results in low ratings, which results in getting ScrewedByTheNetwork. ''SWAT Kats'', meanwhile, got the aforementioned meddling, but maintained its high ratings... then got canceled anyway.

* TheFireflyEffect: A rare case of an inversion of this trope. The effect usually takes hold in three stages: the show suffers from ExecutiveMeddling, which results in low ratings, which results in getting ScrewedByTheNetwork. ''SWAT Kats'', meanwhile, got the aforementioned meddling, but maintained its high ratings... and then got canceled anyway.

** Also, the phrase "Radical" was used as slang a few times in the second season. Thank goodness it didn't really catch on.

* TheFireflyEffect: An extremely rare case of ''inversion'' of this trope. The effect usually takes hold in three stages: the show suffers from ExecutiveMeddling, which results in low ratings, which results in getting ScrewedByTheNetwork. ''SWAT Kats''--'''in spite''' of the meddling--went on to get ''high'' ratings, then got cancelled in defiance of the ratings.

* FollowTheLeader: You could argue this was Creator/HannaBarbera's attempt to compete with ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'' and that series' [[TeenageMutantSamuraiWombats profusion of copycats]], though in comparison it's much darker and it doesn't have any humans or other humanoid animals. It also take a bit of influence from H-B's ''WesternAnimation/SkyCommanders'' tech-wise, and both Creator/CharlieAdler and Creator/PaulEiding worked on that show too.

** "Back off SWAT Kats! The '''''Enforcers''''' can/will handle this!"
* {{Misblamed}}: UsefulNotes/TedTurner was ''not'' responsible for killing the show; the decision was made well below his level. Sadly, the blame ''still'' falls on Ted Turner, due to the misquoted segment of his interview. To clarify, Ted Turner, around the same time the show was cancelled, said that he was proud of having "cartoons that don't encourage kids to shoot each other." Many took this as proof that he hated ''Swat Kats'' and wanted it cancelled. However, this was not the case; he was actually talking about ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButtHead''.
* {{Narm}}: One of Razor's {{Catchphrase}}s--"(Name of missile), ''deploy!''"--has been accused of this.

** [[EvilutionaryBiologist Dr. Viper]] was once [[MadScientist Elrod Purvis]], a greedy scientist whose plan to sell the Viper Mutagen to the highest bidder ended with his supposed death and subsequent mutation into the evil Viper. In his schemes to destroy Megakat City and replace it with a festering "Megaswamp City", Viper regularly attempts to mutate and murder all he can through his chemical weapons and monsters; [[TransformationTrauma painfully transforms]] one-shot villain Morbulus into a mindless bacteria creature that he looses on Megakat City, leading to dozens of deaths, including that of Viper's former colleague Zyme; attempts to drown the entire city in toxic spores; teams up with the aforementioned Dark Kat; and finally floods the city with mutative chemicals in a bid to mutate everyone within the city. Regularly murdering innocents in his attempted conquest and seeing beauty only in the fetid and festering, Dr. Viper was about as remorselessly evil as his sinister appearance would suggest.

* AngstWhatAngst: The Metallikats adjust quite well to dying and being brought back to life as robots.

-->'''Lance Falk:''' "“Somebody told me after the show was on, ‘Man, that show was so dirty! You have this big, tall building, like this phallic symbol, and then this big thing that’s going to explode on top of it and spread seed all over the city.’ When I was writing it, it never occurred to me, but now I can’t ''not'' see it like that.”

* {{Misblamed}}: UsefulNotes/TedTurner was ''not'' responsible for killing the show; the decision was made well below his level. Sadly, the blame ''still'' falls on Ted Turner, due to the misquoted segment of his interview. To clarify, Ted Turner, around the same time the show was cancelled, said that he was proud of having "cartoons that don't encourage kids to shoot each other." Many took this as proof that he hated ''Swat Kats'' and wanted it cancelled. However, this was not the case; he was actually talking about ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead''.

** [[SpacePirates Mutilor]], from "When Strikes Mutilor", is a brutal mercenary who takes over a ship from a peaceful race called the Aquians and attacks Earth, planning to drain every drop of water from the world to sell it off, saying that if earth dies as a result, then that's just business. When the heroic SWAT Kats interfere, Mutilor tries to [[ElectricTorture torture them to death with electricity]], and when the ship is taken, Mutilor attempts to destroy it out of spite so that it crashes into Earth and causes a devastating catastrophe that could easily kill every cat on the planet.

* {{Misblamed}}: Ted Turner was ''not'' responsible for killing the show; the decision was made well below his level. Sadly, the blame ''still'' falls on Ted Turner, due to the misquoted segment of his interview. To clarify, Ted Turner, around the same time the show was cancelled, said that he was proud of having "cartoons that don't encourage kids to shoot each other." Many took this as proof that he hated ''Swat Kats'' and wanted it cancelled. However, this was not the case; he was actually talking about ''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead''.