History Recap / SWATKatsS1E1ThePastmasterAlwaysRingsTwice

* MuseumOfTheStrangeAndUnusual: Although it has plenty of legitimate things museums might like dinosaur skeletons, the Megakat City Museum of History ''also'' has ancient evil spellbooks on display as well as exhibits dedicated to serial killers like [[JustForPun Kat]] [[UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper the Ripper]] and even one dedicated to the Pastmaster.

Back in the present, Commander Feral demands Mayor Manx (Creator/Jim Cummings|1952}}) let him attack "that gnome and his buzzards," but Manx tells Callie to go tell the Pastmaster that he's willing to make a deal with him. She and Dr. Sinian go to the clocktower, but the sorcerer is uninterested in anything the Mayor can offer him; he's ''already'' getting what he wants. When the clock strikes noon, the spell will be complete. An attempt by the two women to take away the Tome of Time ends in them being blasted by his pocketwatch, but they survive.

Back in the present, Commander Feral demands Mayor Manx (Creator/JimCummings) let him attack "that gnome and his buzzards," but Manx tells Callie to go tell the Pastmaster that he's willing to make a deal with him. She and Dr. Sinian go to the clocktower, but the sorcerer is uninterested in anything the Mayor can offer him; he's ''already'' getting what he wants. When the clock strikes noon, the spell will be complete. An attempt by the two women to take away the Tome of Time ends in them being blasted by his pocketwatch, but they survive.

* LongTitle: This episode has the longest title in the entire series.

* OffModel: Despite the AnimationBump, a few of the characters don't look like *quite* the way they're supposed to, particularly Razor, who would frequently be a victim of this in later episodes such as "[[Recap/SWATKatsS2E1MutationCity Mutation City]]" and "[[Recap/SWATKatsS2E10UnlikelyAlloys Unlikely Alloys]]".

* StockDinosaurs: Mostly averted, insofar as the episode uses fictional dinosaurs like the Megasaurus rex and the "long-necked flying reptiles," and the real prehistoric animals they ''do'' use have a lot of ArtisticLicense taken.

Declaring that ''they'll'' handle the beast, which has picked up the Pastmaster and is carrying him down the street, they launch Octopus Missiles at it. But it smacks them back towards the vigilantes with its tail, severing the Turbokat's fuel line. The out of control jet flies through the still open time vortex, trapping the SWAT Kats in the prehistoric era. The spin of the jet going through the vortex causes Razor to pass out again. After crashlanding in a swamp, T-Bone and an awakened Razor realize they need to fix the torn fuel line and find an alternate means of powering the jet because "the closest gas station is only a million years away." But first they have to evade a bevy of prehistoric monsters, most notably winged, Pteranodon-like creatures with long necks.

The SWAT Kats escape back to the present day using the volcanically-powered Turbokat to fly through the still open time vortex before it closes, and after being brief by Callie, engage and defeat the Pastmaster's Pterodactyls. Evading two of them forces T-Bone to fly into a downward spiral, causing the two dinosaurs to smack into one another and fall. Razor doesn't pass out from the Gs this time, but ''T-Bone'' does, and Razor has to wake him up so he can fly the jet before they crash. He then launches a missile that wedges between the hour and minute hands of City Hall's clock, preventing them from coming together to strike noon, interrupting the Pastmaster's spell. He himself is then knocked through the time vortex and into prehistoric times, while the Tome of Time flies from his hands and is sucked through the Turbokat's intakes and shredded.

* ArtisticLicenseEngineering / ArtisticLicenseChemistry / ArtisticLicenseGeology: Razor somehow using volcanic gas fumes as jet fuel just by modifying the Turbokat's fuel tanks in some unspecified way.

The Pastmaster finds the Tome of Time in the Hall of Ancient Manuscripts and steals it. Leaving the museum, he is stopped by Sergeant Talon (Ed Gilbert), who demands he surrender the book. Instead, the Pastmaster uses a spell from the book to open a time vortex, through which he summons a "Megasaurus rex," which crushes Talon's car. The Sergeant barely escapes.

At the museum, Callie Briggs (Creator/TressMacNeille) is speaking to curator Dr. Abby Sinian (Linda Gary) about upcoming exhibits when the Pastmaster breaks in. Accosted by a guard (Creator/FrankWelker), he brings a stuffed sabertoothed tiger to life, which attacks the guard, causing a dinosaur skeleton to collapse on him. He then sics the taxidermied terror on Callie and Dr. Sinian when they come to see what the noise was. Digging through Callie's purse, he accidentally activates her communicator, tossing it on the ground. Back at the SWAT Kats' hangar, Razor has passed out again. T-Bone goes to answer Callie's call. Getting no reply, he fears the worst, waking Razor up. The duo hop into their high-tech fighter jet, the Turbokat, and fly to the museum, arriving in time to save Callie and Dr. Sinian from the sabertoothed tiger.

* ArtisticLicensePaleontology: All over the place. The Megasaurus rex and what the model sheets refer too as "long-necked flying reptiiles" are completely fictional dinosaurs, for starters. The sabertoothed tiger has a long tail, when most such prehistoric cats had short ones, the Pterodactyls look more like Pteranodons (''and'' have teeth!) as well as possessing long tails with Stegosaurus-like spikes on them.

** T-Bone's preference for grappling with the sabertoothed tiger sets him up as tough to the point of being overconfident.

* EverythingsDeaderWithZombies: In addition to the two undead skeletal kats at the beginning, the sabertoothed tiger which the Pastmaster brings to life is explicitly identified as a zombie in the model sheets.
* FurryConfusion: In a world of anthropomorphic cats, there once existed non-anthro sabertoothed tigers.

* PantheraAwesome: The sabertoothed tiger.

* IgnoredExpert: Dr. Sinian. For about two seconds, anyway. Feral doesn't listen to her until Callie presses the issue. Then he relents.
-->'''Sinian''': Get that spellbook from the Pastmaster, or we'll all still in danger!

* OffIntoTheDistanceEnding: The episode ends with the SWAT Kats flying into the horizon yelling "Rock and roll!"
* OneSteveLimit: Jack is named Mac in the script. His name was probably changed to avoid confusion with [[Recap/SWATKatsS1E5TheMetallikats Mac Mange]].

* TrappedByMountainLions: They may be the protagonists, but the "meanwhile back in the prehistoric era" scenes with the SWAT Kats TrappedInThePast can come off this way. Except for the chase with the long-necked flying reptiles, most of the scenes with them stuck back in time are brief and uninteresting.

* BigNo: The Pastmaster gives the first of many, many of these when he's knocked through his own time vortex at the end.

* PreMortemOneLiner: When King kills the zombies - "You have the right to remain ''buried''!"

* WhatMeasureIsANonCute: Even before he's actually done anything evil, Tom wants to sell the Pastmaster to the museum (how?), viewing him not as a fellow kat but as an "old gnome" he can sell like a puppy he found just because the Pastmaster is short and ugly.