Wave your hands up in the air!"♫
Team: The Wildcats!
Flanders: Who are we gonna beat?
Team: The Wildcats!
A tropably generic name and mascot for a sports team.
This trope tends to run in two flavors. When the team and its struggles are central to the plot, they are likely to be the Wildcats because it's a safely neutral name (i.e. not under the claim and copyright of someone who could sue the work to kingdom come). The implication is that the writers needed a placeholder name, and the Wildcats will do. When the team is not the focus of the plot, calling them the Wildcats make them sound like the local sports team of Everytown, America; a placeholder team rather than merely a placeholder name. This flavor often comes up in sitcoms and cartoons, especially when the plot centers on a character trying to make "the team" or go to "the game."
Definitely Truth in Television. Nor is this trope confined to high school: the sports teams of the University of Arizona, Bethune–Cookman University, Davidson College, Kansas State, University of Kentucky, University of New Hampshire, Northwestern University, Villanova, and Weber State (not an exhaustive list) are all Real Life Wildcats. Similarly generic team names are Cougars, Tigers, Eagles, or Bulldogs. These along with the Wildcats are among the top 8 most popular team nicknames
in active use by high schools, colleges, and professional teams in the US.
One use for this trope is to make a gentle dig at the NCAA's naming policies. While the name Wildcats is historically popular, the number of teams vaguely named after cats and birds has exploded recently as schools try to get away from older, politically incorrect nicknames (e.g. "We're the Sabrecats. We used to be the Savages, but we had to change that").
Not to be confused with the superhero comic series Wild C.A.T.s (WildStorm).
Examples:
- When Abby temporarily has superpowers in Love and Capes, she is trying to come up with a superhero name and asks Mark how he decided on Crusader. Mark admits it was the name of his high school football team. Abby says hers was the Cougars, and they agree she should keep looking.
- The school mascot in Ultimate Spider-Man.
- Superhero teams aren't immune to this. Just ask the Wild C.A.T.s (WildStorm).
- In this Novelization of EarthBound Beginnings, Ninten's school baseball team is named the "Podunk Panthers".
- The football team from Prudence's high school in Across the Universe.
- In High School Musical, the basketball team is called this:
"Wildcats everywhere! Put your hands up in the air!"
"WHAT TEAM?" "WILDCATS!" - A plot point in Speed. The villain refers to Annie as a "wildcat" behind the wheel, revealing that he can see her Wildcats sweatshirt through a hidden camera. (A nod to the aforementioned real-life Arizona Wildcats.)
- Goldie Hawn was in a 1986 film called... Wildcats. Her dream was to coach high school football. Guess what the name of the team is... go on, guess.
- The 1944 novel Yea! Wildcats! by John R. Tunis, about a small-town Indiana high school basketball team and its idealistic coach, might be the Ur-Example as a fictional team nickname.
- The college in Gulfhaven uses the Cougar nickname, as a self-admitted weak justification for Cougar Town keeping its original title.
- Claire's original high-school football team on Heroes: The Wildcats.
- Played with in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series, since the actual mascot for East High isn't the Wildcats, but the Leopards. "Wildcats" still becomes an unofficial term for the drama club, however.
- House: When Cuddy asked, "The janitor's closet here?" in response to hearing that Cameron and Chase had been having liaisons in the janitor's closet, House sarcastically replied, "No, the one at the local high school. Go Tigercats!"note
- MacGyver: The Pee Wee Hockey League team MacGuyver belonged to as a boy was the Wildcats, as seen in the episode "Harry's Will".
- Hal coaching Dewie's soccer team The Tigers on Malcolm in the Middle.
- In Modern Family, when Haley has her student disciplinary hearing after being arrested at a college party, her last comment on her actions is a weak "Go Wildcats". A member of the board points out that that's not even the college's mascot, and they vote to expel her.
- In Mustangs FC, the Mustangs' most hated rivals are the Wildcats.
- Bayside High in Saved by the Bell are the Tigers, and their fiercest rivals are the Valley High School Bulldogs.
- In Allegro, the football team at Joe's college is named the Wildcats. Joe has a disastrous tryout for the cheering squad, but he makes friends with Charlie, the freshman football star.
- The baseball team in Burnout Paradise.
- One of the racing teams in Juiced.
- Parodied on Teen Girl Squad with the Fighting Growlbacks.
- In 8-Bit Theater, when the various teams (Light Warriors, Dark Warriors, Other Light Warriors), recombine, one of the new teams (comprising Rogue, Garland, Ranger and Fighter) is the Wildcats, which was also Fighter's elementary school mascot.
- In Babe Ruth: Man-Tank Gladiator amateur team are always named "Wildcats".
- In the town of Hatchetfield there are two high schools, Hatchetfield and Sycamore, home of respectively the Nighthawks and the Timberwolves, both named after some of the tourism-worthy wildlife species that inhabit the island.
- The Kitchen Coliseum in Futurama is "Home to the Kitchen Universium Wildcats."
- In Groove Squad (a made-for-TV animated film from Nickelodeon), the mascot for Bay City High School is the "wildcat," the mascot costume for which looks like a smiling fat tiger. The person with the job of the mascot is Zeke, one of the movie's lead characters, and he appears to wear his mascot costume everywhere—in fact, he's only seen in one other outfit outside of his mascot costume (a tuxedo he wears at his High-School Dance at the end of the movie).
- The high school and middle school teams from King of the Hill were originally named the Cougars. It was changed to the Longhorns later on.
- The Looney Tunes Show: In "Bobcats on Three!", Daffy's recruited to coach the school water polo team, the Bobcats. (Which makes very little sense as the name of a water polo team.)
- The Simpsons lampshaded this trope in "Bart Star", when the Springfield Wildcats' first game is against... the Ogdenville Wildcats.
Ned Flanders: Who are we?
Springfield Wildcats: The Wildcats!
Ned Flanders: Who are we gonna beat?
Springfield Wildcats: The Wildcats!
