SWAT Kats

Mark Lungo was kind enough to send Kooshmeister a copy of Glenn Leopold’s script for Succubus!, a.k.a. “The Curse of Kataluna” (a name never mentioned once in the story). From what Mark theorizes, the title was probably deemed too sexually suggestive, and by the time Hanna-Barbera had actually moved on to production of the episode, shortly before the series’ cancellation, the title would’ve been changed. As well as a lot of the dialogue, since the word succubus is mentioned a lot, and the villain’s monster form is even called “the Succubus.”

Act 1

The story opens at the Megakat Shipyards, where dockworker Geno Furness and his pals are knocking off for the night.

Geno turns down his coworkers’ offer to go bowling and walks to his car. After a fakeout scare involving a seagull, Geno is attacked by a fierce gargoyle-like monster which carries him away.

The next morning, the Enforcers are investigating his abandoned car. Ann Gora is on hand to provide exposition in the form of one of her news reports. Geno is the sixth large, physically fit male kat to go missing in Megakat City in two months. Five other individuals have gone missing and turned up later on, dead, their bodies drained and mummified. Ann attempts to interview Commander Feral and Felina but is brushed off, because the two have to go and meet with Mayor Manx about something.

The Ferals drive to Enforcer Headquarters, to find Manx and Callie Briggs waiting for them along with Katrina Moorkroft. Katrina is a wealthy heiress (worth “megabucks”) who moved to Megakat City two months ago and started paying to have parks and libraries built. Her latest contribution to Megakat City’s culture has been a brand new philharmonic hall named after her.

Described as “mysteriously beautiful,” Katrina wears a live ferret as a fashion accessory, giving her a slightly eccentric air. She gets out of her Rolls-Royce style limo to immediately begin vamping on Feral, much to the displeasure of Felina, who dislikes her on sight. The feeling is apparently mutual. Commander Feral finds himself uncharacteristically smitten with the Moorkroft heiress, and doesn’t seem to notice the friction between her and his niece. He gives Katrina a tour of Enforcer Headquarters, with Manx following them, fawning over the latest big contributor to the city and eager to see to it that she is kept happy.

After the tour is concluded, Katrina invites Feral to the inaugural performance of the orchestra at the Moorkroft Philharmonic Hall. Manx suddenly insists that Callie go too, and asks if she’ll be bringing a date. She bemoans the fact she hasn’t got her car, much less a date. The reason she doesn’t have her car is because it’s in the garage being worked on by Chance and Jake.

We get another reason why Chance should never be allowed to tune up people's cars as he has insisted on installing "turbo accelerators" which cause the exhaust pipes to explode and detach, flying across the room, nearly hitting poor Jake.

We get another reason why Chance should never be allowed to tune up people's cars as he has insisted on installing "turbo accelerators" which cause the exhaust pipes to explode and detach, flying across the room, nearly hitting poor Jake.

At the garage, Chance is trying his latest idea to improve the performance of Callie’s car (in a callback to The Giant Bacteria).

Whatever was wrong with the car has been fixed, but he and Jake have also taken it upon themselves to add a “turbo” feature to the car’s exhaust. Apparently, Chance’s motto is “If it ain’t broke, keep ‘improving’ it until it is!” Naturally when he tests it out by flooring the accelerator, it causes one of the tailpipes to come off and shoot across the room, nearly hitting poor Jake. The solution to the problem proves to be that the tailpipes just need to be held on more securely, which Jake accomplishes using a rivet gun. After that, Chance’s ill-advised fire-belching exhausts work fine, although it’s unclear what they actually do besides make the car look cool.

Callie arrives. Deciding one of the mechanics might make a good “plus one” for the orchestra, she casually name-drops the philharmonic hall to gauge their reactions. Chance dismisses classical music as “boring,” but Jake says he likes it just fine. Having found her clear choice, Callie invites Jake to attend the performance with her. After she leaves, Chance angrily demands to know what he’s supposed to do all by himself at the salvage yard while Jake is out, but Jake simply replies that he can work on the Turbokat.

Elsewhere, Felina and the Enforcer Sergeant find the dead body of Geno Furness in the river. He’s shrivelled up and dessicated like the other five victims. Felina wonders when the gruesome nightmare will end.

At the philharmonic hall later that night, Feral and Katrina sit in a private box. Mayor Manx is with them, apparently having invited himself along. The two lovebirds ignore him. In the audience below, Callie is with Jake, who is wearing a suit. The orchestra performs “The Fur Seasons” by Purvaldi (ugh). The music is being broadcast on the radio, and T-Bone is listening to it back in the hangar as he works on the jet, apparently because he likes torturing himself. Angry over Jake getting to go on a date with Callie, and hating the music, he (somehow) uses the radio to tune into an Enforcer band, as he would prefer listening to the Enforcers yack at each other over listen to Purvaldi music.

Meanwhile, a construction foreman is doing a late night inspection of Skycor Towers (“Luxury Living at an Affordable Price”), an apartment building that’s under construction. Suddenly, he gets attacked by the gargoyle creature from the beginning. He runs and attempts to get down from the building in a construction elevator, but a second gargoyle appears and grabs him. Before the creatures can escape, Felina appears in an Enforcer chopper and does the ol’ “Hold it right there!” routine the Enforcers always seem to think will work on monsters. She calls for backup. In the hangar, T-Bone hears her over the radio.

“Looks like I’ve got a date, too,” he observes, “with some monsters!”

Since the he’s spent the better part of the evening taking apart the Turbokat’s engines, he has to take the Thunder-Truck (apparently rebuilt since being blown to bits in its debut episode).

Since the Turbokat's engines are still under repair, he takes the Thunder Truck.

Since the Turbokat's engines are still under repair, he takes the Thunder Truck.

Back at Skycor, Felina battles the gargoyles using her chopper. She shoots a crane arm, causing it to swing around and hit the gargoyle holding the foreman. It drops him and a pile of sand breaks his fall. The creatures’ eyes glow a particularly alarming shade of red and they begin firing energy beams from them. One of them damages Felina’s chopper, which crashes into the partially finished building. She leaps out and falls, but ends up hanging onto a girder. The gargoyles blast the girder with their eye beams, causing her to fall, with no sand pile underneath her to break her fall.

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