Trivia / SWAT Kats

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• Contest Winner Cameo: While there was no actual contest, Dr. Konway from "Mutation City" was based on a fan who sent the Tremblays numerous fan letters.
• Common Knowledge: One of the most pervasive myths about Swat Kats was that it was cancelled directly on the orders of Ted Turner (owner of Hanna-Barbera and Cartoon Network at the time) due to his dislike of the show's violent content. As explained under Executive Meddling, while Turner did disapprove of cartoon violence in general, and this did play an indirect role in the show's cancellation, the actual decision to cancel the show was made well below his level.
• Development Hell: A planned reboot of the series from the Tremblay Brothers' studio was in development, but was turned down by every major streaming service. They spent several years trying to pitch the series and alleging its release was a matter of when, not if. Finally averted as of 2022, as an Indian media company picked up the show for worldwide distribution.
• Executive Meddling: According to the Tremblays, while 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 (Beavis And Butthead being his most commonly cited example). 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.
• Follow the Leader: You could argue this was Hanna-Barbera's attempt to compete with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) and that series' 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 Sky Commanders tech-wise, and both Charlie Adler and Paul Eiding worked on that show too.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes:
  • This is no longer in effect, as Warner Bros., through their Warner Archive DVD-on-Demand program, released SWAT Kats in December 2010, with some missing scenes restored (the Episode Title Card 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.
  • The Polish-language version "SWAT Kats: Radykalny szwadron" is downright lost media. All that is known is the aforementioned Polish title and that it aired on TVP2 at one point.
• Mid-Development Genre Shift: The show was planned to be more cartoony and comedy based but was changed to be more action packed.
• The Other Darrin: A few characters had different voice actors between seasons, and in some cases, between episodes.
  • Sgt. Talon was first voiced by Ed Gilbert for Season 1. Beginning with "When Strikes Mutilor", however, he was voiced by Jim Cummings (using the same voice he'd given to another sergeant in Season 1). Cummings voiced him for the rest of the series.
  • In "The Wrath of Dark Kat", Al the Kat's Eye News helicopter pilot is voiced by Frank Welker. The next time he appears, which is in "Night of the Dark Kat", he's voiced by Rob Paulsen.
  • Dr. Greenbox is voiced by Robert Patrick in Season 1's "Chaos in Crystal." By the time he reappears in Season 2's "Unlikely Alloys," Nick Chinlund has taken over the role.
• Playing Against Type:
  • It isn't that Hanna-Barbera hadn't done Darker and Edgier shows before, but this and The Pirates of Dark Water were the studio's first attempts at full-blown, no-holds-barred action and adventure since Jonny Quest and their Super Hero cartoons of The '60s, and they're a far, far cry from the Funny Animal cartoons they established themselves on in The '50s. More than that, they were the studio's first truly creator-driven shows.
  • Casting-wise, it served as this for Charlie Adler, who tends to do more comedic roles (like Cow, Chicken and the Red Guy), and for Gary Owens, who either tended to be an announcer (like on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In), or a full-fledged superhero (Space Ghost and Blue Falcon), not an police commander with a big chip on his shoulder towards vigilantes, ego issues, and a tendency to call for tons of backup that gets demolished.
• Recycled Script:
  • "Razor's Edge" and the Biker Mice from Mars episode "Modo Hangs It Up", both written by the same author, share similar plots: one of the heroes suffers a Heroic BSoD followed by a 10-Minute Retirement after the villain tricks him into thinking he injured a civilian.
  • Elements of the unfinished episode "Succubus!" (aka "The Curse of Kataluna") were later recycled for Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, and the episode "Eclipse" of Jonny Quest: The Real Adventures (Glenn Leopold, who wrote the episode, wrote for both of those projects; Davis Doi, co-producer of SK, also co-produced season 2 of Quest).
• Screwed by the Network: Even if it wasn't directed at Swat Kats itself, Ted Turners statements against cartoon violence definitely caused this to happen to the show. The executives in charge of Swat Kats's production delayed its scheduling and merchandise release in an effort to make it more "appropriate", which only contributed to its cancellation.
• Show Accuracy/Toy Accuracy: The SWAT Kats action figures were all redesigned from the characters' TV versions. Most drastic change: Dark Kat was apparently a Cyborg, a revelation the show never even hinted at.
• Shrug of God: Whether or not Dr. Zyme really was Killed Off for Real in "The Giant Bacteria". The writers, when asked, tend to avoid answering the question or give answers such as Glenn Leopold calling Zyme "survivally challenged" instead of dead. The closest to a confirmation comes from Christian Tremblay, who said, "He probably died!"
  • At the 2016 Anime Matsuri convention, a printout was provided, signed by Christian Trembley, thanking various fans for their participation in the fandom throughout the years. It ended with the apparently sincere "AND apologies for killing off Dr. N. Zyme."
• Unfinished Episode: The series was canceled so abruptly that three episodes were left unfinished; they were storyboarded and the voice tracks were recorded, but they were never animated. All three were written by Glenn Leopold.
  • In "Succubus!", Commander Feral begins dating the wealthy and beautiful Katrina Moorkroft, unaware she is a succubus who plans to drain his lifeforce on a full moon. The plot summary and script for it can be read here.
  • In "Doctors of Doom", Dr. Viper teams up with Dr. Harley Street (the alien-possessed MASA scientist from "The Ci-Kat-A") to create giant monsters.
  • In "Turmoil II: The Revenge", Turmoil escapes from prison and turns a powerful laser device into a Kill Sat.
• Urban Legend of Zelda: The SNES game was supposedly released in Japan but this was never proven to be true.
• What Could Have Been:
  • 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 Fake Defector act in the finished episode, Feral's Face–Heel Turn 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 Face–Heel Revolving Door.
  • 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 here. Another unused story idea of Falk's, "Blackout", can be read here.
  • The Villain Team-Up 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 here while the script itself can be read here here.
  • One unfinished episode by the name of "Succubus!" would've involved a succubus. The concept did end up used, however, in Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, 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.

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