| SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron | |
|---|---|
 Season 2 title card | |
| Created by | Christian Tremblay Yvon Tremblay |
| Developed by | Glenn Leopold Davis Doi |
| Directed by | Robert Alvarez Kris Zimmerman (recording) |
| Voices of | Barry Gordon Charlie Adler Candi Milo Gary Owens Jim Cummings Mark Hamill Tress MacNeille Lori Alan |
| Composers | Matt Muhoberac John Zuker Randall Crissman Nick Brown[1] |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 26(list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Buzz Potamkin |
| Producer | Davis Doi |
| Running time | 22 minutes |
| Production company | Hanna-Barbera Cartoons |
| Original release | |
| Network | TBS |
| Release | September 11, 1993 (1993-09-11) – January 6, 1995 (1995-01-06) |
SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron is an American animated television series created by Christian and Yvon Tremblay and produced byHanna-Barbera.[2] The series takes place in the fictional metropolis of Megakat City populated by anthropomorphic felines, known as "kats",[3] and follows twovigilante pilots who possess a futuristicfighter jet with an array of weaponry. Throughout the series, they face various villains, as well as competition from Megakat City'smilitarized police force, called the Enforcers.
The series originally premiered and aired on thesyndication blockThe Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera, as well as onTBS Superstation (as a part of theSunday Morning in Front of the TV block) from 1993 to 1995.[4] Every episode of the series was directed byRobert Alvarez. The bulk of the series was written by Glenn Leopold (15 episodes) or Lance Falk (9 episodes). Jim Stenstrum contributed two episodes, while David Ehrman, Von Williams, Eric Clark (with Lance Falk), Mark Saraceni, and Jim Katz all contributed one episode each. Nine episodes from Season 1 are animated byHanho Heung-Up Co., Ltd., four episodes from Season 1 and all episodes from Season 2 are animated byMook Animation Inc.
A revival series, titledSWAT Kats: Revolution, is under development, with both the Tremblay brothers and the Toonz Media Group at the helm.
Jake "Razor" Clawson (voiced byBarry Gordon) and Chance "T-Bone" Furlong (voiced byCharlie Adler) were members of Megakat City's paramilitary law enforcement agency, known as the Enforcers. They were dishonorably discharged from the Enforcers after disobeying the orders of Commander Feral (voiced byGary Owens), which resulted in the destruction of the newly built Enforcer Headquarters. While in pursuit of the criminal mastermind Dark Kat (voiced byBrock Peters), one of the mainarch-villains of the series, the two rebelled against Enforcer Commander Feral's orders to fall back and leave Dark Kat to him, as Feral wanted the honor and fame of bringing Dark Kat in personally as the leader of the Enforcers. When they objected, citing their already-acquired target lock, Commander Feral crowded out their jet, clipping their wing and sending Jake and Chance's jet crashing into Enforcer Headquarters. The resultant explosion distracted Commander Feral, allowing Dark Kat's escape. The Commander took no responsibility for the incident and damage to his own agency's new HQ, discharged Jake and Chance from the Enforcers when they tried to argue over who was to blame, and reassigned them to work at the city's military salvage yard to pay for the damage to the Enforcer Headquarters which Feral caused.
Using discarded military parts and weapons from the salvage yard, Jake and Chance built themselves a three-enginejet fighter called the Turbokat, which resembled several different jet fighters, most notably the GrummanF-14 and theSaab Draken, along with a handful of other vehicles such as the Cyclotron (a motorcycle built into the jet's seating, deployed from the bomb bay of the Turbokat like a missile), the TurboMole (a subterranean vehicle used to drill underground), the HoverKat (a militarizedhovercraft), and the Thunder Truck (a militarizedJeep modified from theirtow truck). All these vehicles were stored, along with a training area and other equipment, in a secret hangar below the yard.
Razor and T-Bone now patrol Megakat City as the SWAT Kats, defending it against any kind of menace that threatens the city. Their enemies include Dark Kat, the undeadsorcerer Pastmaster (voiced byKeene Curtis), themutant evil genius Doctor Viper (voiced byFrank Welker), and theroboticgangsters the Metallikats, husband and wife Mac and Molly Mange (voiced byNeil Ross andApril Winchell). The SWAT Kats also face many villains-of-the-week, such as Rex Shard (voiced byJohn Vernon), Madkat (voiced byRoddy McDowall), Dr. Harley Street (voiced byRobert Ridgely), and Volcanus (vocal effects provided byFrank Welker).
The SWAT Kats keep their identities secret from everyone, including their closest allyDeputy Mayor Callie Briggs (voiced byTress MacNeille), who assumes the responsibilities of both her post and of her boss, Mayor Manx (voiced byJim Cummings), who mainly neglects his political duties in favor of pastimes like golf. Their methods do not endear them to Commander Feral, and the three of them often clash throughout the series.
In the second season, Feral's niece Felina (voiced byLori Alan), who holds a lieutenant rank in the Enforcers, becomes another ally of the SWAT Kats.
| Season | Episodes | Originally released | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | |||
| 1 | 13 | September 11, 1993 (1993-09-11) | December 4, 1993 (1993-12-04) | |
| 2 | 13 | September 10, 1994 (1994-09-10) | January 6, 1995 (1995-01-06) | |
In July 1995, Hanna-Barbera (throughTurner Home Entertainment) released three VHS collections with two select episodes on each. These releases also included some of the "Secret Files of SWAT Kats" clips that ended each episode in original airings and an episode ofSpace Ghost at the beginning.
"Deadly Dr. Viper" – featuring "Destructive Nature" and "Katastrophe".
"Strike of Dark Kat" – featuring "The Wrath of Dark Kat" and "Night of Dark Kat".
"Metallikats Attack" – featuring "The Metallikats" and "Metal Urgency".
On December 14, 2010, the complete series was released on DVD viaWarner Archive.[5] The episodes themselves are not remastered, and the DVDs contain no extras or bonus features, although three scenes that were originally cut from the show were restored for the DVD. However, Warner Bros. put the end credits for the episodes in the wrong order, meaning voice actors either were not credited for episodes they were in, or were credited for ones where they did not appear. Only a few episodes had their proper end credits intact. On March 3, 2011, Warner Bros. removedSWAT Kats from its DVD page. On January 19, 2012, Warner Archive re-released theSWAT Kats set with the end credits corrected.
SWAT Kats became the number onesyndicated animated show of 1994, according toNielsen Television Index (NTI) and Nielsen Syndication Service (NSS).[6]Toon Magazine documented the success ofSWAT Kats in its Fall 1994 issue.[7] Due to the program's success, Hanna-Barbera Productions planned to release new episodes, posters, and other works in 1995.[6] However, the show was ultimately canceled with three unfinished episodes.[8]
Ted Turner, CEO ofTurner Broadcasting System which produced and aired the show, was reportedly displeased with the level of violence in his cartoons, leading to the delay of its merchandising and its eventual cancellation.[9] Turner went on record in front ofCongress and in an early 1995 interview after the show's cancellation, stated that "We have more cartoons than anybody:The Flintstones,The Jetsons,The Smurfs,Scooby-Doo. They're nonviolent. We don't have to worry that we're encouraging kids to kill each other - like some of the other cartoon programs do."[10] According to the Tremblay Bros. in an interview, this quote was more directed against more adult-oriented TV shows at the time such asBeavis and Butt-Head, which depicted more realistic and easily copyable violence, compared to the more cartoony slapstick violence of the aforementioned shows. However, this was misconstrued by both fans and Hanna-Barbera execs as being a strict "anti-violence" policy, especially in the wake of Turner's own pet project show,Captain Planet and the Planeteers.
On July 23, 2015, creators Christian and Yvon Tremblay announced aKickstarter campaign to reviveSWAT Kats, seeking to produce a new series, and if possible, a 70-minute film.[11] On July 24, one day after the campaign began, the Kickstarter successfully reached its first funding goal of $50,000, needed for production of concept art and promotional material, which the pair had aimed to use to help them find an investor who would be interested in helping with the revival.
A more major goal of $200,000 would allow the pair to produce a 22-minute episode, while a pledge total of $1,000,000 would allow them to do a mini-series of five episodes. Their highest pledge, $1.5 million or more, would help them to make aSWAT Kats film. The campaign ended on August 22, 2015, with $141,500 pledged, and already passing another goal of $100,000 helped to create a 2-minute-long trailer of how the series would look.
On February 17, 2016, the Tremblay Brothers confirmed they had started development on the trailer, which they would show to a TV company in order to have the greenlight for production onSWAT Kats Revolution.
Christian Tremblay confirmed Warner Bros. had expressed interest in "bringing back"SWAT Kats onBoomerang, but were unable to convince the parent network to commit to a new series, and thus they passed on the project. Tremblay then started working with investors to create independent episodes ofSWAT Kats that would be available online for streaming. In a Kickstarter campaign update on July 23, 2020,[12] show co-creator Christian Tremblay alluded to the issues being faced in getting theSWAT Kats Revolution reboot picked up:
"It has been a long time coming to provide an update on Swat-Kats Revolution, we sincerely apologize. I hope this update will bring you comfort that the efforts to bring back SK is very much alive and we are actively pushing to make it happen...For us the challenge is not IF a new series will be produced, but WHEN will it be done...So we encountered roadblocks after roadblocks: Hulu passed, Netflix passed, Warner Bros passed. Amazon was not really the place for it and changed its animated content approach. A fairly important movie producer wanted to bring Swat-Kats to Netflix, where he has an output deal, but ultimately, the deal did not make sense for us. I can't count the number of potential business investors we met, trips we did, meetings we held. There have been many opportunities we believed were very promising (with some very important mini Major studios, among others), and we hold on to those opportunities to bring some good news, only to fall apart. Some additional difficulties were unexpected, such as the movie CATS! (Anthropomorphic cats), and a major box office disaster, ridiculed by everyone, let's just say that we had to let the dust clear on this one before we could even approach anyone in the industry, so they could not make any types of similarities between the two properties...this is a Hollywood mindset; when something bombs at the box office it becomes radioactive...We are more motivated than ever before. We have seen and encountered roadblocks in the past but we are resilient. It's not the 100's of NO that count, its the one Yes that allows everything to fall into place.We will make SK happen, no matter how hard or how long it takes.
In a Kickstarter campaign update on January 19, 2022, show co-creator Christian Tremblay announced that they "teamed up with Toonz Media Group to bring Swat-Kats Revolution to life."[citation needed] On February 1, 2022, several websites reported additional details, including that "the new series is billed as being for kids in the age range of 5-11" and that the series was already in pre-production as of that date.[13]
Remco produced a line ofaction figures in 1994 which included Razor, T-Bone, Dark Kat and Dr. Viper.[14] BothWhite Castle andCarl's Jr. have offered SWAT Kats toys in their kids' meals in the 1990s.
The gameSWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron, developed byAIM, was released byHudson Soft on August 21, 1995, in North America for theSuper NES. ASega Mega Drive game based onSWAT Kats was in development byTraveller's Tales but it was cancelled before being completed.[15]
On July 25, 2025, it was announced that aSWAT Kats comic book series would be published by Roditeli Productions.[16] AKickstarter for the comic was launched on October 28, 2025. It reached its main goal of $40,000 within the same day.
The OFFICIAL reasons the show was cancel is that the timing between the merchandising being out late, affected the bottom line of the financial, i.e. the money HB was making. Remenber that the series cost many, many, many million $$ to produce, all financed by HB. Now why the merchandising was out late, is because Ted Turner, announced in congress that what his tv station are producing, there won't be any violence ( this is in 1994 about, in a time where all the broadcaster were pointed about violence on TV.) At the same, here we were producing SK with helicopters crashing into walls exploding....! So the show, before it aired was some kind of a hot and sensible issue the executive had to navigate with.......which at the end result in being late in the coordination of the series coming out and the toys following way late after that.
