It's an urban legend that Swat Kats: The Radical Squadron was cancelled in the middle of its second season with three episodes unfinished because Ted Turner himself caught an episode and thought it too violent for kids. While there's no way of knowing if this is actually true (no reason was ever given for its cancellation), it's amusing to keep the legend alive, and believable enough because, while Swat Kats is hardly a hotbed of senseless brutality, it is edgier compared to its contemporaries—especially politically correct goody-goody shows like Captain Planet and the Planeteers. Despite the fact that it's populated with anthropomorphized cats, it deals in pretty straightforward asskicking.
Its lack of ridiculousness is probably why the show, despite being popular at the time (my wee self watched it religiously, as did other boys my age I knew), never took hold of 90's pop history the way Captain Planet did. Because of this, interest is clearly more limited, so despite persistent demand from its now-grown fans, the show made a snail's crawl to home video, and when it finally did, it's in the form of Warner Bros' manufacture-on-demand service; which means it came bare.
Shame, because this really is a terrific action show, obvious just from its guitar-wailing opening credits.
The perceived "violence," perhaps, comes from the Swat Kats' adventures being a form of military action. Our masked heroes, pilot T-Bone and bomber/navigator Razor, use a big metropolitan city as a battlefield, causing much collateral damage, as they fly their weaponized fighter jet Turbokat to combat superpowered villains. That fact alone sets it apart from most "superhero" shows. The Swat Kats, true to the name, use real-world arsenals, though they often deploy non-lethal gimmick missiles. In nearly all of the episodes, guns and explosions are a constant presence, even if they're used in a high adventure, monster movie context.
Speaking of violence, you can't get much more gruesome on a kids show than the Metallikats; robots imprinted with the minds of two mob bosses killed in a prison break, who then go on a revenge-fueled killing spree in their weaponized silver bodies. Just to edge it out a little more, Swat Kats made them a volatile married couple prone to domestic fights. Maybe that's the episode Ted Turner saw. One thing to praise Swat Kats for is their variety of villains that allow them to switch up the setting and even dynamic.
In the third Season 1 episode, "The Wrath of Dark Kat," a flashback tells us of how the Swat Kats came to be: T-Bone and Razor are really Chance and Jake, two hotshot flyboys in the Enforcers, a form of militarized police unit. While in pursuit of recurring villain Dark Kat, they butted heads with their own commander and ended up crashing their jet into Enforcers HQ. As their Bad Conduct Discharge, they're sentenced to work in the city's military junkyard to pay off the debt, where they find the scraps they need to build their own jet and other gadgets.
While Season 1 has a lot of introduction to new threats, Season 2 mostly uses recurring villains to look inward. One episode in particular, "Razor's Edge," one of the series' best, examines the Swat Kats' tendency for collateral damage. In pursuit of Dark Kat yet again, Razor fires a missile that blows up a warehouse, not realizing that there are two elderly bystanders inside. The episode is then about Razor losing his nerve around weapons; how he must overcome his guilt to once again take up arms and fight the good fight.
It's a wholly different nature from Batman, who dedicates his own resources to help people. The Swat Kats are basically blue collar mechanics who, between drinking beers and towing cars, get their adrenaline kicks illegally flying a jet inside city limits. Yes, it's about justice and protecting innocents, but there's also an element of reckless endangerment and anti-authority that gives it an edgy nature.
This collection contains both seasons—13 half-hour episodes each—and no bonus features in five discs. The menu is elementary and the episodes, while transfered from the original master tapes and therefore in good quality, are not remastered and obviously look worn. It's a blessing that this show is finally available for purchase on DVD and there is reason for excitement there, but there's no question that it deserves a much, much better release.
"Swat Kats: The Radical Squadron - Complete Series" is on sale December 14, 2010 and is not rated. Action, Animation. Directed by Robert Alvarez. Written by Christian Tremblay and Yvon Tremblay (creators), Glenn Leopold, Lance Falk. Starring Barry Gordon, Charles Adler, Jim Cummings, Tress MacNeille, Gary Owens.
