Re: Question about the Deputy Mayor

From: chance <chance_at_unix.infoserve.net>
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 07:12:01 -0800

 
>> Seems to me that he's one notch below Feral. Feral outwardly dislikes the
>> guys 'cause they always make him look bad (and how would it look for the
>> Enforcer Commander to endorse a couple of vigilantes?) But inwardly, he
>> likes what they're doing (it's rather obvious.) However, Steele shows his
>> dislike of the guys to play on Feral's conscience and promote his own
>> career. Steele doesn't show *any* good feelings towards the guys.
>
> Feral really does like the Kat guys. He just doesn't show it
>because it would make any commander look bad, as said above. Check out
>"Katastrophe".

I really like both the Steel and Commander Feral character (hence their extensive parts
in my "SwatKats Unmasked" thing I guess). A lot of us already know this, but here it is
again for the newer folks anyway. Lance Falk (one of the H-B design team members
responsible for much of the Kats) also really liked the character of Commander Feral.
As noted in the "Animato!" article, he felt the scene at the end of "Metal Urgency" with
Feral was the most important thing in that particular episode, and what he considered his
best character writing for the entire series. He felt that Feral had a set of rules that even
he himself would never break, and the "Urgency" bit demonstrated that ably. Lance
actually wrote "Cry Turmoil" with Feral in the role eventually occupied by T-Bone - as
he felt that Feral could be persuaded to ally himself with Turmoil as "a basically good-guy
who could be capable of bad things given the right circumstances". The execs at H-B
shot down the version of "Turmoil" with Feral, and not only forced Lance to re-write it
in favour of T-Bone ("Lance...the show's about the Kat-guys. Don't overdevelop the
supporting cast..."), but truncated it to 11 minutes instead of the planned 22!

I felt that Feral knew who the Kat guys were, but wouldn't be morally "forced" to do
anything about it unless he was faced with the kind of unavoidable "evidence" that the
Metallikats would've furnished by revealing the info to Feral in exchange for their lives.
I imagine Falk had Feral grease them in that script because Feral knew the Kats, despite
being "lawless vigilante scum", were actually performing a useful task for the citizens of
MegaKat city that he himself could not (being bound as he is by the "letter" of the law).

Feral would've finally had his showcase episode in the form of "The Curse of Cataluna"; one
of the episodes scripted for the second season but never animated.

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Received on Tue Nov 28 1995 - 10:44:52 PST