Burke and Murray
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| Burke and Murray | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Males |
| Vehicle | Dump truck |
| Color | Brown (Burke) Tan (Murray) |
| Hair | Brown (Burke) Tan (Murray) |
| Eyes | Unknown (Burke) Brown (Murray) |
| First appearance | The Giant Bacteria |
| Voice actor | Mark Hamill (Burke) Charles Adler (Murray) |
Burke and Murray are the two burly junkyard cats who continually torment and bully Chance Furlong and Jake Clawson in the animated television series SWAT Kats: The Radical Squadron. Burke, voiced by Mark Hamill, is the larger of the two, a big, heavyset thug; Murray, voiced by Charlie Adler, is much shorter and his left eye is much larger than his right for unknown reasons. Both of them work at the Megakat City Salvage Yard where they deliver scrap, taking every available opportunity to taunt Furlong and Clawson, and although never actually stated in dialogue, Burke and Murray are actually brothers (their surname is unknown). They first appeared in The Giant Bacteria, wherein they drop off a load of scrap at the Salvage Yard and stay long enough to point out how far Chance and Jake have fallen since being kicked out of the Enforcers. They get their comeuppance at the end of the episode, though, when they are shown used a bulldozer to clean up the burned, melted remains of Dr. Viper's bacteria monsters.
In the flashback in The Wrath of Dark Kat it is revealed that after Chance and Jake were kicked out of the Enforcers, Commander Ulysses Feral assigned Burke and Murray to keep a close eye on the two former pilots, apparently due to his distrust of them. We see Burke gives them the keys to the Salvage Yard before he and Murray drive off, the two brothers vowing, "We'll be checkin' up on youse!" The siblings appeared for a third and final time very briefly in Metal Urgency, during a mostly unimportant scene wherein they once again drop off a load of scrap at Chance and Jake's doorstep. Unlike in the previous episode, though, Burke attempts to pick a fight with Chance, threatening, "Miss flyin', ya loser? Maybe I can put you back in the air!" Chance appears ready to fight Burke, but the silent alarm of the Metallikats breaking into their secret hangar prompts Jake to intervene and send Burke and Murray on their way. Being bullies, the brothers take this to mean that their victims are cowards and cluck like chickens as they leave.
[edit] Trivia
Oddly, despite being featured prominently in the main model sheets for the series and being mentioned in early promotional material, neither Burke or Murray ever appeared again after Metal Urgency (and, indeed, writer Lance Falk even confessed he only wrote them in so he could meet Burke's voice actor Mark Hamill). The pair were scripted to appear in a fourth episode, also by Falk, entitled Blackout, but the series was cancelled before this could get any further than a rough story outline by Falk.
