History Trivia / SWATKats

* ExecutiveMeddling: One of the reasons why ''SWAT Kats'' was cancelled was that it debuted at a bad time where parents were pressuring politicians to take a stronger stance against the portrayal of violence in cartoon shows. Ted Turner, the founder of Cartoon Network which also owned Hanna-Barbera, endorsed the usage of a rating system for cartoon shows and took an averse stance against ''SWAT Kats'' for not being in line with his standards for kid-friendly programs. In doing so, he put ''SWAT Kats'' in an unfair position where it suffered from poor scheduling and poor ratings and guaranteed its failure.
** [[WordOfGod According to the Tremblays]], this is a case of misunderstanding; they claim Ted Turner was fully on board with the show, and his adverse stance was more a criticism against more "realistic" and "child-replicative" violence in shows at the time (''WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead'' being an example given of this). However, it still proved ruinous for the show, as the Executives in charge of the show mistook Turner's stance as being against ''Swat Kats'', and caused delays with merchandise release and scheduling in an effort to "clean it up", which - considering the show was ''very'' expensive to produce - greatly contributed to its fall.

* ScrewedByTheNetwork: Again, executives under Ted Turner pretty much targeted the show just to show his supposed hard stance on action shows for kids (even though WesternAnimation/CaptainPlanetAndThePlaneteers, a show Ted Turner created, was an action-adventure cartoon itself). Despite the show having a dedicated fanbase, it was given a poor timeslot just as an excuse to cancel it in the name of that.

** [[WordOfGod According to the Tremblays]], this is a case of misunderstanding; they claim Ted Turner was fully on board with the show, and his adverse stance was more a criticism against more "realistic" and "child-replicative" violence in shows at the time (''BeavisAndButthead'' being an example given of this). However, it still proved ruinous for the show, as the Executives in charge of the show mistook Turner's stance as being against ''Swat Kats'', and caused delays with merchandise release and scheduling in an effort to "clean it up", which - considering the show was ''very'' expensive to produce - greatly contributed to its fall.

* ScrewedByTheNetwork: Again, Ted Turner pretty much targeted the show just to show his hard stance on action shows for kids. Despite the show having a dedicated fanbase, it was given a poor timeslot just as an excuse to cancel it in the name of that.

* ExecutiveMeddling: One of the reasons why ''SWAT Kats'' was cancelled was that it debuted at a bad time where parents were pressuring politicians to take a stronger stance against the portrayal of violence in cartoon shows. Ted Turner, the founder of Cartoon Network which also owned Hanna-Barbera, endorsed the usage of a rating system for cartoon shows and took an aversive stance against ''SWAT Kats'' for not being in line with his standards for kid-friendly programs. In doing so, he put ''SWAT Kats'' in an unfair position where it suffered from poor scheduling and poor ratings and guaranteed its failure.

* HeroicSacrifice: The ''show itself'' essentially did this in real life -- it, along with all of H-B's other ongoing series at the time, ended so they could focus on ''WesternAnimation/WhatACartoonShow'' -- which helped to bring so many beloved cartoons to our screens. So in essence, ''SK'' died to give the other projects a fighting chance.

* ShoutOut: Commander Feral's appearance and personality is strikingly similar to that of [[Manga/{{Akira}} Colonel Shikishima.]]

* TalkingToHimself: Whenever T-Bone and Murray interact.
** Creator/{{Jim Cummings|1952}} whenever Dr. Konway and Mayor Manx were onscreen together in "Mutation City". This probably cropped up a lot more on a smaller scale, as Cummings seemed to voice a solid third of the one-shot and background characters.

* KeepCirculatingTheTapes: This is no longer in effect, as Creator/WarnerBros, through their Warner Archive DVD-on-Demand program, released ''SWAT Kats'' in December 2010, with some missing scenes restored (the EpisodeTitleCard for "The Pastmaster Always Rings Twice", and the farmer getting devoured in "The Giant Bacteria"); although in January 2012, they issued an updated version, mainly because the original [=DVDs=] had the ending credits wrong for many of the episodes.

* HeroicSacrifice: The ''show itself'' essentially did this in real life- it, along with all of H-B's other ongoing series at the time, ended so they could focus on ''WesternAnimation/WhatACartoon''- which helped to bring so many beloved cartoons to our screens. So in essence, ''SK'' died to give the other projects a fighting chance.

!Trivia tropes for ''WesternAnimation/SWATKats''

!!Trivia With Their Own Pages
[[index]]
* [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/SwatKats What Could Have Been]]
[[/index]]

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: [[WhatCouldHaveBeen/SwatKats Has it's own page.]]

* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** According to Lance Falk, a writer for the show, "When Strikes Mutilor" was supposed to end with the pacifist astronauts being ''human''; with two of them removing their helmets and commenting how there's intelligent life, and we see an American flag in the background, confirming that the series took place on another planet in the future. However, H-B exec Buzz Potamkin "didn't get it" and had them changed to kat aliens, much to Falk's displeasure.
** Lance Falk had big plans for Commander Feral in his initial pitch for "Cry Turmoil". It was originally Feral, not T-Bone, who joined Turmoil's forces. Unlike T-Bone's FakeDefector act in the finished episode, Feral's FaceHeelTurn would have been real--until he realized that the SWAT Kats were going to win, which prompted him to betray Turmoil, then claim he was planning to do so all along. In the end, only Feral and the audience would have known about his trip through the FaceHeelRevolvingDoor.
** Lance Falk had two unrealized ideas for future appearances by Rex Shard, the villain of "Chaos in Crystal". Each time he returned, he would get a different power to use against the SWAT Kats (what would have been his second appearance would have him gain power over the weather by diving into an experimental energy source, and freezing Megakat City). And each time the pilots defeated him, he'd show the effects of the previous encounter. For example:
--->'''Falk''': "He’d lose an eye, so from then on when you saw the guy he had an eyepatch. And each time he comes back, he’s a little more beat up. He’s become a fanatic, and he’s lost all sight of everything but {{revenge}}, and it’s really destroying him."
*** The summary for this episode, titled "Cold War", can be found [[http://skfanfic.com/authors/lance-falk/cold-war here]]. Another unused story idea of Falk's, "Blackout", can be read [[http://skfanfic.com/authors/lance-falk/blackout here]].
** The VillainTeamUp episode "Katastrophe", written by Glenn Leopold, was originally called "Blowout!" and was written by Lance Falk. Other than Dark Kat, Dr. Viper and the Metallikats teaming up and kidnapping Callie and Manx, it had little in common with the final product, and was a much more ambitious story than "Katastrophe" ended up being. It featured, among other things, giant tree monsters and a huge mobile command center for Dark Kat called the Fear Train. A plot summary is available here [[http://swatkats.info/encyclopedia/official/blowout-summary-review here]] while the script itself can be read here [[http://skfanfic.com/authors/lance-falk/blowout here]].
** One unfinished episode by the name of "Succubus!" would've involved a [[SuccubiAndIncubi succubus]]. The concept did end up used, however, in ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDooOnZombieIsland'', explaining the dark tone of the episode.
** There was a plan to make a Sega Genesis version of the game after its debut on the SNES, but it never took off.
** The very first drafts of the show actually had humans instead of cat people. The already dark tone could have been ''much'' darker without talking cartoon animals to soften things up a bit.

** According to Lance Falk, a writer for the show, "When Strikes Mutilor" was supposed to end with the pacifist astronauts being ''human''; with two of them removing their helmets and commenting how there's intelligent life, and we see an American flag in the background, confirming that the series took place on another planet in the future. However, H-B exec Buzz Potemkin "didn't get it" and had them changed to kat aliens, much to Falk's displeasure.