Lance Falk: "Somebody told me after the show was on, ‘Man, that show was so dirty! You have this big, tall building, like this phallic symbol, and then this big thing that’s going to explode on top of it and spread seed all over the city.’ When I was writing it, it never occurred to me, but now I can’t not see it like that."
Alternative Character Interpretation: In "Metal Urgency", where Feral refuses the Metallikats' offer to reveal the SWAT Kats' identity: was it really a matter of principle or was it because he thought the Metallikats were lying?
Better on DVD: The Warner Archive began offering "made on demand" DVD sets in December 2010. While most of the episodes were not remastered or restored in any way, two episodes did receive a small boost: "The Giant Bacteria" had a deleted scene featuring a farmer being eaten by the titular monster reinserted, and "The Pastmaster Always Rings Twice" finally got its Episode Title Card back after it was absent from practically every rerun. This was the version of the series that was released to digital sales outlets such as iTunes and Amazon.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Chopshop. In a world populated by nothing but anthropomorphic felines, Chopshop is a... laughing hyena?note Fans are still arguing about whether Chopshop is literally a hyena or not. Though hyenas are technically closer related to cats even if they behave more like dogs. In true BLAM fashion, he shows up for about five minutes at the start of the episode "SWAT Kats Unplugged" until he's captured, and is never heard from or spoken of again in the run of the series.
Dark Kat is one of the Swat Kats' most recurring, and wicked, villains. A complete madman obsessed with the death of the SWAT Kats and the destruction of Megakat City, Dark Kat is introduced trying to use a nuclear weapon to annihilate Megakat City and its thousands of residents, attempting to force Lieutenant Feral to watch the carnage as it unfolds. Later attempting to turn the Swat Kats into ground meat while using their jet to frame them for opening fire on civilians and blowing up entire buildings, Dark Kat follows this up by convincing Razer he severely wounded innocents to throw him off his game while Dark Kat uses a robotic arachnid to attack and hopefully tear Megakat City to shreds. In his arguably worst outing, Dark Kat makes an alliance with Dr. Viper, using him to rebuild the Metallikats then install chips in them that allow Dark Kat to torture them at his leisure. Using the Metallikats and Viper, Dark Kat lures the Swat Kats, Feral, and assistant mayor Callie Briggs into a trap to kill them all, ordering the Metallikats to kill Viper when he outlives his usefulness, and ultimately attempts to blow up the entire base as a last ditch effort to kill the Swat Kats, their friends, and all of Dark Kat's own allies in one fell swoop.
Dr. Viper was once Elrod Purvis, a greedy scientist whose plan to sell the Viper Mutagen to the highest bidder ended with his supposed death and subsequent mutation into the evil Viper. In his schemes to destroy Megakat City and replace it with a festering "Megaswamp City", Viper regularly attempts to mutate and murder all he can through his chemical weapons and monsters; painfully transforms one-shot villain Morbulus into a mindless bacteria creature that he sets loose on Megakat City, leading to dozens of deaths, including that of Viper's former colleague Zyme; attempts to drown the entire city in toxic spores; teams up with Dark Kat; and finally floods the city with mutative chemicals in a bid to mutate everyone within the city. Regularly murdering innocents in his attempted conquest and seeing beauty only in the fetid and festering, Dr. Viper was about as remorselessly evil as his sinister appearance would suggest.
"When Strikes Mutilor": Mutilor is a brutal mercenary who takes over a ship from a peaceful race called the Aquians and attacks Earth, planning to drain every drop of water from the world to sell it off, saying that if Earth dies as a result, then that's just business. When the heroic SWAT Kats interfere, Mutilor tries to torture them to death with electricity, and when the ship is taken, Mutilor attempts to destroy it out of spite so that it crashes into Earth and causes a devastating catastrophe that could easily kill every cat on the planet.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: This show has a very vocal fan following in India, where it was one of the first few shows that appeared in 1996, when Cartoon Network was launched there. Plenty of Indian fans discuss this on forums, social networks and upload videos on YouTube. This turned out to be prophetic, as the show’s reboot, the crowdfunded Swat Kats Revolution would be picked up by India-based Toonz Media Group after years of most networks passing on it.
The SWAT Kats flying the Turbokat into a building to save Callie. Doesn't help that said building immediately after explodes.
Megakat Trade Towers, which are featured prominently in "Metal Urgency" and are seen briefly in "SWAT Kats Unplugged". Both times, they're at least partially damaged—and in the latter case, they appeared to be the deliberate target of the evil helicopter pilot the SWAT Kats are chasing at the episode's start.
"A Bright and Shiny Future" had the Swat Kats journeying to a future where the Metallikats conquered Megakat City. In this future, the Swat Kats died when the Turbokat was shot down and they crashed into a building.
Meta example: Two years after the show's abrupt cancelling, Toonami would be introduced to Cartoon Network. It could have been the perfect home for the Radical Squadron had it ever been considered for the block.
The show’s reboot would be picked up by Toonz Media Group in 2022. The show has a major following in India.
Turmoil's warship is very reminiscent of the Titans in Battlefield 2142.
The Ci-Kat-A bear a striking resemblance to Mothmonsterman. Which is rather fitting, since Aqua Teen reused a lot of assets and backgrounds from Swat Kats.
Ann Gora's species and hairstyle makes one pause to wonder if she's related to Ivy Pepper.
Humor Dissonance: A lot of the TV shows the characters watch, especially David Litterbin's show in "Enter the Mad Kat", offer some, at best, mildly amusing jokes that are treated like Grade-A humor.
"Back off SWAT Kats! The Enforcers can/will handle this!"
Mis-blamed: It's commonly claimed, including on this very wiki, that SWAT Kats was cancelled on the direct orders of Ted Turner, who disliked the show's violent content and/or wanted to promote his own pet project Captain Planet and the Planeteers. While Turner did disapprove of cartoon violence in general, his distaste was mostly aimed at Animated Shock Comedy shows like Beavis and Butt-Head rather than action/adventure shows. The actual decision to cancel the show was made well below his level, and seems to have largely happened because the executives in charge believed Turner disliked it.
One of Razor's Catchphrases — "(Name of missile), deploy!" — has been accused of this.
Also, the phrase "Radical" was used as slang a few times in the second season. Thank goodness it didn't catch on.
Nightmare Fuel: "The Giant Bacteria" is often considered the darkest episode of the show, no thanks due to all the Family-Unfriendly Death in it. Dr. Viper mutating Morbulus into the titular creature as the latter screams in agony, with the eyes at the back of his head horrifically shifting straight to the front. The monster itself is downright ruthless with how it eats several dozen innocent people on-screen no less.
Older Than They Think: While it certainly is true SWAT Kats has an awesome fanbase, some are not exactly big fans of the series' production company, Hanna-Barbera. Which sometimes takes the form of people describing things that make SWAT Kats different, which was also often found in their 60s output. Mostly because the Tremblays were big fans of the super hero and funny animal super heroes of the day. As a result SWAT Kats shares a lot of tropes with some of those older action series.
Popular with Furries: Being a cartoon filled with humanoid felines, this was inevitable. Callie, Felina, and Turmoil are especially loved, for obvious reasons.
Callie and the SWAT Kats. One of the reasons Felina was introduced in Season 2 was to intentionally avert this on further episodes. It kinda-sorta backfired: now, instead of one triangle, fans started shipping two entirely different ones: One involving the SWAT Kats and Callie, and other involving The SWAT Kats and Felina. What do you even call that? A parallelogram with two sets of boobs?
Many fans pair up Razor with Callie and T-Bone with Felina (or the other way around). That is, when they aren't pairing up T-Bone with Razor and Callie with Felina (or Abby Sinian or Ann Gora for that matter)...
Unexpected Character: Nobody expected them to show up on Uncle Grandpa's checklist of other Cartoon Network series at the end of his crossover with Steven Universe, especially considering they were right in the middle, between Juniper Lee and Flapjack, when logically, they should've been at the top (as they predated everything else on the list).
The SNES Game:
Cult Classic: A somewhat average game that is good enough for both casual players and devoted fans.
Just Here for Godzilla: The art style and music is polished and (somewhat) faithful to the TV show, but the gameplay and story is just lukewarm which led to it getting low reviews on GamePro and Electronic Gaming Monthly.
Play the Game, Skip the Story: If the game even has a story, then it's an incredibly simplistic marathon of recaps featuring the most noteworthy villains that appeared on the show.
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