SWAT Kats Creators Wanted to Make a Dark Spyro Cartoon

If you're a fan of classic cartoon shows, you may remember a little gem called Swat Kats, a fun little series featuring a pair of brave fighter pilots (cats, of course) that went up against both human and supernatural adversaries. The show lasted for 23 episodes and made a name for the Tremblay Brothers.

But little did we know that this wasn't the only project that the team had in mind. In fact, the Brothers opened up a web page showcasing some of the pitches they had over the years. This includes the Loonatics Unleashed series from Warner Bros. as well as other unique projects like Hunter the Cheetah Warrior and The Mask Reanimated, loosely based on Jim Carrey's box office hit from the 90's.

Then one particular project caught our eye -- Spyro the Dragon. At one point in time, the Tremblay Brothers pitched the idea of bringing back the fire-breathing PlayStation hero back to the limelight with an "edgy" cartoon by the name of Spyro Revolution.

There's no real story behind the pitch or why it didn't get picked up into a series for that matter. But the early artwork, which you can see below, is pretty cool. It features a dramatic pose of Spyro with some fiery sky behind him, along with the words "Unleashing the Blaze of Fury." And it looked like the Tremblay team was pitching it to coincide with Vivendi Games. At the time, that was the company holding the Spyro franchise.

In 2008, the publisher did release an "edgy" Spyro game called The Legend of Spyro: Dawn of the Dragon, going for a more epic action approach instead of the usual antics we've come to expect from the fire-breathing hero. Some fans loved it (and made it a rarity to this day); however, the game didn't sell as well as anticipated. As a result, Spyro would end up shelved until his rebirth with the Skylanders franchise a few years later. With that, the cartoon series the Tremblay Brothers were proposing was likely turned down as well.

It would've been interesting to see Spyro in "grittier" form in a TV series as that could've boosted his popularity and taken it in a different direction. Alas, we'll never know what might have become of it.

But don't feel too bad. Spyro is on the comeback trail with the highly anticipated Reignited Trilogy, which is set to make its debut on September 21 for Xbox One and PlayStation 4. Who knows? Maybe the Tremblay Brothers can come up with a new pitch for an animated series that could do the dragon justice. We're waiting, team.