"Cold War" Pt. III

From: Chance <chance_at_unix.infoserve.net>
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 1995 08:36:54 -0700 (PDT)

....nearing a fatal drop of hundreds of feet.

     Using Glovatrix grappling hooks and the Turbokat's braking chute,
the Swat Kats manage to stop their beloved vehicle mere feet from the
deadly plunge.

     Razor and T-Bone break out the SUB-ZERO GEAR: arctic survival
suits, special devices, and the SUPER SNOW KAT (a snow-friendly
turbo-powered cyclotron). The city is one quarter iced over at this point.

     Racing uphill, T-bone and Razor reach Shard and begin a pitched
battle. Using the Snowkat missiles, they bury Shard in an avalanche.
The snow freezes instantly into a case of ice around the heat sucking
monster, snuffing his flame, but the powerful beast simply shatters his
frozen prison from within.

     The Swat Kats are barely able to leap from the Snowkat before Shard
blasts the vehicle into frozen shrapnel. Razor and T-Bone activate their
MEGA-SKIS (jet powered snow skis that expand from their snow boots).
They renew the attack. Shard stomps the ground, creating a monstrous
crevasse and the Kats go down into the abyss.

     The heroes manage to save themselves with glovatrix grappling hooks.
Then, the SWAT Kats extend claw-like blades from their boots and gloves
and begin a harrowing climb to the top of the crevasse for a final
showdown with Shard.

     Once at the top, T-Bone uses his jet skis to ice up the crevasse
ridge. Razor jets over to Shard and fires a few ineffectual bazooka
shots at the giant, enraging him. Shard gives chase, narrowly missing
the nimble SWAT Kat. The beast is nearly upon Razor when he looses his
footing on the iced over ground. At that moment, both SWAT Kats fire
simultaneously, T-Bone at the ledge and Razor at Shard himself. Razor
has been saving a special weapon for last: The LAVA-MISSILE, a
projectile of astonishingly high temperature. The missile is so hot, it
actually overloads Shard's ability to absorb heat. He screams in rage,
then goes over the cliff to shatter a thousand feet below!

     Shard's destruction releases a burst of stored heat which rapidly
melts all the snow and ice into the ocean.

As in show #9, Shard is actually alive after this ordeal and cured of his
powers. As Feral slaps on the cuffs, the unrepentant thug promises "You
ain't heard the lasta' Rex Shard!!"

__________________________END__________________________________________

(Last page is Lance's sketch of what Rex would look like as the
aforementioned "eclipse with a fiery corona" - kind of vaguely like the
stereotypical horned devil with Kat ears in place of the horns - entirely
in black silhouette, with a fiery aura all about him.)

My comments:

     Lance's story ideas had to go through four hoops at Hanna-Barbera
before they were turned into episodes. The "premise" (a short outline of
what will turn into a script, like the above) is created and read, then a
more detailed "beat outline" is done, and then the actual script. The
script first goes from Lance to the Story Editor, Glenn Leopold, who
suggests changes, vetoes things and adds others. From there, it went to
Margot McDonough and Buzz Potamkin for further approval, and then to the
Tremblays.

     This 'premise' was submitted in October of 93 after all the first
season eps had been completed. "Personality conflicts" had started to
rear their ugly head between Lance and the executives, and he actually
announced his retirement from writing for 'Kats shortly after his "When
Strikes Mutilor" and "Cry Turmoil" because of it. Margot McDonough, by
her own admission, "didn't understand action-adventure", yet was placed
in such a position that she had veto power over script ideas and
storyboard gags - which she evidently exercised at every available
opportunity. Buzz Potamkin was the other force to be reckoned with, and
his and McDonough's interference on "Cry Turmoil" and "Mutilor" prompted
Lance to ask his friends to keep the story materials for "Unlikely
Alloys" away from these people, as a condition of his doing the episode.

"Naaaah...just make them cat aliens", is the statement of Buzz when
he overruled Lance's story ideas on "Mutilor". I doubt I could
encapsulate the ills of the Turner org any better than Buzz did.


 _____________________________________________________________________________
 "Of course it has boogers in it. It's got kid-type humour" - John K. in TVG
                                   --
 "Naaaah...just make them cat aliens." - Executive 'creative input' at H-B
 _____________________________________________________________________________
Received on Sat Jul 22 1995 - 11:52:12 PDT

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