Re: Another Newbie Question

From: Chance <chance_at_unix.infoserve.net>
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 1995 19:50:51 -0700 (PDT)

On Mon, 18 Sep 1995, Nicole Virginia Boultinghouse wrote:

>
> The two stories on the page....are they:
>
> a) Actually done and waiting for air?
> b) Partially done, maybe, maybe not to be finished?
> c) Should I just keep my fingers crossed and wish real hard?
> d) Give it up now and enjoy what I can get at? (which is only the 3 videos)
>
> Any comments for me?

Yep. "Cold War" and "Blackout" are what they call "script premises". The
way most studios work in regards to freelance and staff writers is that
they get these folks to submit their ideas for scripts in the form of a
"premise" - that is, a brief outline of the episode which describes all
the pivotal stuff that would make the story work, but generally leaves
out specifics. After the "premise" is approved by the Powers-That-Be (in
this case Glenn Leopold, Story Editor, and Buzz Potemkin - exec.
producer) it goes back to the writer for him to create a "beat outline",
a bit more detailed than the "premise", which in turn goes back to the
Powers That Be for another round of approvals. If the script still makes
it through all the hoops, it goes back to the writer for him/her to flesh
out to a full script with dialogue, camera directions, background
descriptions etc. From there, scripts are generally approved once more
by the PTB, then converted into "storyboards", and from there to film/video.

"Blackout" was fairly far along the approval process when it was
discovered that the Tremblay Bros. already HAD an underground-themed one
ready to go for the second season ("Caverns of Horror"). The premise was
shelved until the third season, which, as we all know, never happened.
Lance's sense of humour is evident in "Blackout" when one notes the
ironic name of the Kats nemesis...Elliot Kliban...from "Kliban's Cat"
fame in the mid-late 80's. "Blackout" made it all the way to full script
form, and I hope to have that in my greedy little paws shortly.

"Cold War", as Lance admits, came during a period in which he was rather
burned out. It was intended as the second installment in what was
planned as a on-going series in which Rexx Shard, semi-sympathetic
villain of "Chaos in Crystal", would return to menace the Kats in a
slightly new incarnation each time - bearing the cumulative physical
scars of previous encounters with the Kat guys.

     "I intended him to return a number of times, each time bearing
a new physical scar as evidence of the previous encounter...each time
more bitter" (Lance Falk).

"Cold War" would've been revived had the series gone to 65 eps, as was
originally intended. It was scheduled as episode 11 of the second
season, but "Turmoil II: The Revenge" was given the nod in its place.

There are currently three episodes of SwatKats that made it through all
the hoops to get through the storyboard stage, and the voice artists have
even recorded all the tracks to enable their completion. These can now
be taken at any time by Hanna-Barbera/Turner and shipped overseas to Mook
for animation -- whatever Post-production necessary afterwards could be
accomplished fairly quickly - without H-B noticing the loss of critical
creative personnel who were either fired by H-B upon the termination of
Kats, or quit in disgust voluntarily (Christian and Yvon Tremblay, Lance
Falk, Jim Stenstrum, Tony Sgroi). The three episodes (which would've
rounded out the second season to 13 instead of 10) break down as follows
(from the pages of "Animato!"):

"Turmoil II: The Revenge" -- Turmoil busts out of jail. It opens up in a
womens' prison, and this big mole machine comes out of the ground and
(the prisoners) all pile into it. Turmoil busts out the entire womens'
prison, and they all work for her. She gets ahold of a massive laser
satellite system, or a big death beam -- I've forgotten exactly what it
was. It's controlled from her fortress, which is a castle on top of a
snowbound mountain. The SWAT Kats must scale the mountain and do all
this snow fighting stuff.

"Doctors of Doom" -- Dr. Viper teams up with Dr. Harley Street, the
alien-possessed scientist from "The Ci-Kat-a" (hence the title). "They
create a lot of monsters that have to be blown up within 22 minutes. I
hardly remember that one."

"The Curse of Kataluna" -- "It was a succubus story, about a woman that
Commander Feral really had a thing for, and she was really draining the
life out of him. He was getting older and older through the show, until
he was practically a mummy at the end. (Kataluna) drained his energy and
became this big, huge harpy, and she had other harpy things that helped
her, and they were terrorizing the city." The SWAT Kats become involved
when a justifiably concerned Felina Feral called on them to help save her
uncle. Kataluna was voiced by Nancy Linari, who had played Morticia on
H-B's 1992-1994 Addams Family series. "Kataluna' was a real strong
episode with another terrific female villain," Falk says. "It used
Commander Feral more than any of the other shows that used him -- it was
really Feral's episode." Not surprisingly, Dr. Sinian also appears;
after helpin the SWAT Kats defeat The Pastmaster and The Red Lynx, she's
an old hand at handling supernatural villains by now.

(Quoted with permission from Lance Falk via Mark Lungo from the pages of
 "Animato!" 32)

BTW, I secured permission to upload the whole article/episode guide to
rat.org, and will do so the minute my OCR stuff works properly.

_____________________________________________________________________________
 "There must be some way of getting the money without working for Eisner.."
 
 -The Brain
 ____________________________________________________________________________
Received on Mon Sep 18 1995 - 23:20:27 PDT