Daily Cartoon! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles S.2,E.10: “New York’s Shiniest”

Welcome to another exciting episode of TMNT. We’re coming down the homestretch of Season 2 and what a season it’s been! We’ve still got a few episodes remaining and I’ve got questions I want answered so let’s see what we get today.

S.2,E.10: “New York’s Shiniest”. Original Air Date: 12/3/1988

Plot:

Shredder’s got a new plan! The NYPD is understaffed and investing in robot cops. They’ve obviously never seen THE TERMINATOR. Shredder will infiltrate the NYPD, reprogram the robot cops to obey him and SURPRISE…he will use them to destroy the Turtles. I don’t think Krang really believes this will work, but he seems tired and doesn’t want to fight with Shredder so he tells him to go for it.

Meanwhile Irma and April are having some girl time and…wait…what’s this? Is April…my god, she’s actually wearing a dress! 

I know, not the best picture, but at least we know she owns something else after all.

So these two yutes go to April’s apartment where she’s being robbed. The burglars take everything and she calls the Turtles for help. They roll through and try to track down the van she described. When they find it, they also find the robbers trying to sell all April’s stuff on the street. A very slight rumble breaks out where they basically scare off the robbers and reclaim April’s belongings before returning them to her.

Irma convinces April to capitalize on her anger from being robbed to do a big story for Channel 6. Personally, I don’t know what kind of scoop “mediocre reporter leaves door unlocked, loses couch” is, but people watch anything. She calls her connect at the police station who gives her the iggy about the robot cops coming soon. April runs down to secret location her police informant tells her about and she meets Rex-1, robotic officer. He helps her escape from the real cops who want to arrest her for trespassing and then follows her to give her the remote control to him because he claims to exist to solely protect her. We can make jokes about the police only protecting white people all day, but let’s call a spade a spade: girl got a fat ass. I’d protect her too.

So April takes Rex-1 homes and has the Turtles kidnap Vernon Fenwick so she can give a live report on the Rex-1 robots the NYPD are planning to use. The whole town is watching and April’s got the scoop. Her stock’s gonna be on the rise for sure. Shredder, meanwhile, is going to hack the system and create a clone army of Rex-1s to destroy the Turtles.

Somehow, Shredder has a robot factory again and is able to create another goddamn army of robots in the time it took for the Turtle to drop off Vern at home. Where he gets the funding for all this shit, I’ll never know. Let alone the raw materials. The steel, the circuitry. This is all very complex and Shredder is able to produce an army in less than an hour.

The evil robots confront the Turtles on their way home from dropping off Vern, but they refuse to surrender and go jumping in the river instead. Shredder – who is watching on closed-circuit TV – is hyped AF that the Turtles exist no longer. But he’s a tard because they’re fucking Turtles and they survive in water. Like, really. C’mon now, Shredder. Head in the game, bro. That’s a rookie mistake.

Splinter, April and Rex-1 head to the streets but are stopped by the Shredder-Bots. They drop a gargoyle on Rex to take him out and are about to set their sights on April and Splinter when the Turtles make the save and take out the handful of evil bots.

They take Rex-1 back to the sewers where Donatello begins some robot surgery. He’s able to resurrect Rex, but has to use Michelangelo’s VHS movie collection as parts. Splinter devises a plan to lure Shredder’s robots to the carnival where the Rex is able to get the evil-bots to explode by trying to keep up with him while he exercises to Donatello’s aerobic workout tape.

Shredder’s obviously annoyed because he was sure this was the home run of plots. The Turtles go celebrate, probably the same way they always do…with a pizza and bad jokes. Irma pops in on April to show off her new gentleman caller, Rex-1 who states his objective as “To serve and protect…and take Irma to the movies.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Uhg.

Final Thoughts:

Weak AF. I can see Rex-1 becoming kind of cool if he becomes a recurring character, but I definitely don’t think that happens. This episode sucked. And, as bad as the endings have been with the convenience of getting everything in a neat bow-tie, this one was especially bad with the evil robots exercising too much and then exploding while Shredder shook his fist.

This is only episode 15 of 190-something overall so please don’t start getting corny as fuck on me already. I’ll never make it anywhere close to finishing if that happens. Hopefully, this is just an exception and not the rule and we can get back to something decent tomorrow.

❤ Joe

Contact on Twitter: @CarJoeMez or @MaximusSexPower

Email: CarJoeMez@gmail.com

Daily Cartoon! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles S.2,E.9: “Splinter No More”

Welcome to the beginning of the work week and, with that, a new episode of TMNT. I don’t have any announcements or anything today, so let’s just get right into today’s episode.

S.2,E.9: “Splinter No More”. Original Air Date: 11/26/1988

Plot:

Michelangelo grabs some pizza for the boys and sushi for Splinter, but Splinter’s feeling kinda blue and doesn’t want to eat. Apparently, he’s been down for a while and the Turtles think it’s because he misses being human.

Donatello shows off a test tube that has what he says is the remainder of the mutagen that transformed them and thinks that, if he were able to get the right ph balance, he’d be able to turn Splinter back into Hamato Yoshi. Speaking of, even though he’s a rat, why can’t his name still be Hamato Yoshi? I dunno. I just feel that if Splinter and I had gone to high school together and years later he sent me a friend request, if it said “Splinter” instead of “Hamato Elizabeth” or whatever the fuck his middle name is now since that seems to be the thing, I’d probably deny that friend request. Actually, not true. I don’t deny them, I just let them sit there so people think I just don’t check that column.

Donatello mixes up this new mutagen into a Lysol can and sprays the fuck out of Splinter and, sure as shit, he is back to being Hamato Yoshi. The Turtles encourage him to go out and check out the city and he’s more than happy to. Once he leaves, however, the Turtles are worried he’ll never return.

April is doing a story at the Museum of…I don’t know, the Museum of Old Shit and catches Bebop and Rocksteady sneaking around. She FaceTimes the Turtles and gives them the 411. Shredder is there looking at books to help him open a dimensional portal anywhere he wants so he doesn’t have to depend on Krang anymore. How the fuck is this kind of information just sitting in a goddamn book and nobody but Shredder is looking to use it?

Meanwhile, Splinter’s walking around the park like a real old man because he doesn’t have any money to take a taxi. Now this brings up my next question. If Splinter doesn’t have any money, then it’s fair to assume the Turtles don’t have money. So how in the fuck are they constantly ordering pizza for dinner? Who’s paying for that shit? You know damn well there’s not a pizza place in NYC that would ever give anything for free. Fuck, if you were homeless and were on death’s door, they wouldn’t even let you take the crust crumbs off someone’s discarded paper dish. I guarantee the Turtles don’t have a fucking vault their dead parents left them filled with Galleons and Knuts. The Turtles don’t even have pockets. Where would they keep money even if they had it? And this is before ATMs and debit cards. Shit like this gets me all fired up.

So Splinter’s in the park alone and is about to get mugged by three assailants who can’t help but pick on an unarmed old man, but the muggers cower as they see the effects of the Lysol Mutagen wearing off and Splinter is beginning to transform back into a rat. Yeah, I’d fucking run off too. Especially when you see how poor he’s dressed. Probably wouldn’t have even been my target in the first place.

Shredder is back at the hideout and FaceTiming Krang to brag about his fancy book finds and saying he’s found the secret, abandoned subway station temple that makes this possible. Krang is like, “Go ahead, asshole, but don’t fuck up, ’cause there are dimension even worse than DX (Suck it!)”.

Shredder takes Bebop and Rocksteady underground to search for the temple. The Turtles have an idea what he’s after, but have to meet up with April to get a tape of her report on abandoned subway stations from last week. Splinter, meanwhile, is almost full rat and trying to escape to the sewers without being seen and doing a terrible job at it. Poor old boy has to duck into an alley to escape an angry mob.

 

Look at that face. Insert tear-drop emoji here.

Shredder calls Krang again to get him to send him some mutant brain-scrambler gizmo, but Krang is tight because Shredder is interrupting his shower. Which means we get this epic image on their FaceTime screen:

Outrageous.

Shredder must have his device activated because the Turtles start having headaches and then attack each other. Finally April convinces them to chillax by asking them what Splinter would think. The whole situation does buy Shredder time to locate the Temple, though.He begins his incantation, but the Turtles but it up only momentarily due to Bebop and Rocksteady hitting them with stun guns from hidden positions. With them out of the way, Shredder begins his real spell, but is interrupted by Splinter who smelled incense once slipping back into the sewers.

An interdimensional portal is opened, but it’s not even close to the one Shredder was hoping for and it brings a cyclops, octopus beast with it. Shredder and crew escape and then the Turtles are able to get out just before the Temple collapses on itself due to the monster’s destructive force.

So they day has been saved. Splinter may no longer get to be a person, but he was able to save his homies in the clutch. All was well.

Final Thoughts:

I really want to know why only Shredder can find these maps and shit in these books that seem to be readily available at your local library. I may go to mine over the weekend and see if I can find anything similar.

Pretty standard TMNT fare, otherwise with the added wrinkle of teasing Splinter with the Hamato Yoshi turn. He seems to be OK with it at the end, but I’m sure if he was in that park a bit longer and saw some chicks tanning all oiled up and shit, it wouldn’t be that easy.

Not a bad episode, but nothing that will jump out. Still waiting to see the follow-up on Baxter the Fly.

That wraps us up for today. Questions and concerns can be directed to Twitter: @CarJoeMez or @MaximusSexPower or email CarJoeMez@gmail.com.

We also have a Facebook page if you’re into that: Facebook.com/CarJoemez.

Thanks for reading and we’ll get it again tomorrow.

❤ Joe

 

 

Daily Cartoon! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles S.2,E.8: “Invasion of the Punk Frogs”

Welcome to the Sunday edition of TMNT! We’re coming off what’s been my favorite episode thus far in the series and I’m fired up to get going today.

Quick programming note: check out the new episode of the podcast where we discuss SpaceJam, Legends of The Hidden Temple and The Simpsons 600 marathon on FXX. It may be my favorite episode we’ve done thus far. Find it on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher and Google Play. Also, subscribe and review and all that fun stuff! All those things help us get the word out, so if you can do such a thing, it’d greatly appreciated by Gomez and I.

When we last left off, Baxter Stockman had been turned into a mutant fly and may have been vaporized by a machine of his making. Shredder also was able to convince Krang to send him Bebop and Rocksteady from Dimension X so he finally has a bit of a crew assembled. Let’s see if this helps him against the Turtles.

S.2, E.8: “Invasion of the Punk Frogs”. Original Air Date: 11/19/1988

Plot:

Shredder’s new plan is to get Krang to send him a canister of the Mutagen so he can make more mutant to use to fight against the Turtles. Krang thinks this is a great idea, but there’s currently an ion storm in Dimension X that may interfere with the portal. Shredder says they have to try it.

Well, the ion storm does indeed fuck with the delivery and the canister ends up in a swamp in Florida. Shredder is tight AF and gets dressed in his best Don Johnson-like threads to head to Florida to recover the Mutagen.

Shredder gets to Florida with the quickness and finds the canister, but is dismayed when it’s completely empty. He does, however, find a group of four frogs who’ve been transformed by the Mutagen and convinces them that he’s a swell guy and brings them back to NY so he can use them against the Turtles.

Bebop and Rocksteady are causing a little havoc around NYC to keep the Turtles busy, but they get called home by Shredder since he basically went to Florida and back in what feels like 10 minutes. When they get to the lair, he introduces them to their new co-workers: Attila the Frog, Genghis Frog, Rasputin the Mad Frog and, finally, Napoleon Bonafrog. This is exactly what it’ll be like when I have kids. Baby Skeletor, Baby Mike Piazza, Baby Honky Tonk Man, etc. Solid names.

Bebop is worried that the frogs will get their ass kicked because the Turtles are trained ninjas, but Shredder puts his fears to rest when he says he’s already trained them. So now he’s gone to Florida and back AND trained the frogs in martial arts in no time whatsoever. OK. He has the frogs rob a bank to test them and the news reports that it was the Turtles that did it so now the city is on high alert to rid themselves of the Turtles.

Shredder FaceTimes Krang because he needs more Mutagen, but Krang says the last batch was the last of it. He gives Shredder the recipe, though, and Shredder sends the frogs to steal all the ingredients. The Turtles get the iggy that the Frogs are breaking into the lab and head that way to stop them. They face-off, but the Frogs are able to use a distraction and get out of Dodge before any real battle can take place. They’re really teasing the heat to build the drama here.

It’s worth noting that the Frogs are having ethical battles within themselves over all this stealing. They know it’s wrong, but Shredder’s been so nice to them, they just accept that he knows best and go along with it.

There’s one more chemical needed for the Mutagen and the Turtles have April track it down for them. The Turtles catch up to the delivery truck and – sure as shit – the Frogs are there to stop it and get the chemical. Just as they’re about to rumble, the NYC Anti-Turtle Task Force comes rolling through in a fucking tank and uses an ice cannon to freeze the frogs before turning it on Turtles. Raphael is able to knock the ice cannon off track which gives the Turtles the chance to hightail it out of there, but not before taking the frozen Frogs with them.

On Splinter’s direction, the Turtles are told to show trust to the Frogs and they melt them free of their icy confines. After a brief moment of tension, Splinter is able to act as peacemaker and the Frogs realize that Shredder has been lying to them the entire time. The two groups of mutants then hatch a plan to foil Shredder for good.

The Frogs returns to Shredder and tell him that, although they weren’t able to get the chemical, the overheard the Turtles saying that they’d hide it inside a prison where Shredder wouldn’t be able to find it. Shredder loves good intel so he immediately sets out to retrieve it.

Shredders busts into what he thinks is the storage room in the prison only to find out he’s been double-crossed! But, at that very moment, the NYC Anti-Turtle Task Force shows up and throws the sting into chaos. Shredder uses a crystal ball to disguise Bebop, Rocksteady and himself as Task Force cops and they escape leaving the Turtles to deal with the real cops.

The eight mutants head back to the sewers where the Turtles give the Frogs a map on how to get home to the swamps of Florida. They’re very thankful because they miss swamp life. Michelangelo offers them a pizza to tide them over on their trip, but the Frogs HATE pizza. The Turtles can’t believe that anybody would hate pizza and the Frogs turn to head home.

Final Thoughts:

Fun episode here. The Frogs were a weird touch, but I kind of remember Genghis Frog being a thing. Does he come back at some point? I feel like he does. I don’t know. Maybe I’m making that up.

The Frogs had these weird southern accents that – as someone who lives in Florida – I dunno, they weren’t very good. Although, I also don’t hang around the swamp areas so maybe they’re accurate in those parts.

I was always under the assumption that Shredder had created the Mutagen and here, he needs the recipe from Krang to be able to cook up some more. It makes me wonder why Krang was so dependent on Shredder to build his body. I guess he just needed a pair of hands to put it together, but Shredder had always been portrayed as a regular old Mr. Science in addition to a martial arts master so this kind of threw me of. Didn’t take me out of the episode or anything, but there we are.

So, it seems that – at least for now – we’re off the multi-episode story arcs for a bit. Since the Eye of Sarnath was destroyed, Shredder’s plans haven’t carried over much. In this episode, Baxter Stockman didn’t even make an appearance after his huge role in the prior episode. Kinda crazy.

Either way, still a fine episode and looking to see where we go next.

❤ Joe

Any comments and concerns can be e-mailed to CarJoeMez@gmail.com or through Twitter @CarJoeMez or @MaximusSexPower

Thanks for reading, folks.

Halloween Is Grinch Night

In this week’s episode, I made Gomez watch this forgotten “classic” which features the iconic Grinch carrying out his devious Halloween plans. There’s a reason why this isn’t a well-known special as there’s really nothing redeemable about this. But it exists and it’s only 25 minutes, so give it a watch.

Feel free to reach out and share your thoughts either here or on Twitter @CarJoeMez or via e-mail at CarJoeMez@gmail.com.

❤ Joe

Episode-A-Day! MASK: Ep. 7, “The Ultimate Weapon”

Welcome back to another episode of MASK. I apologize if the format on this looks off as I’m typing on my phone as I wait for my flight back to beautiful Florida after celebrating Mike Piazza weekend at Citi Field. 

What a time to be alive. 

Anyway, we’ve concluded a full week of MASK. I can’t believe it either. We’ve had our ups and downs, but we’re doing it together. With that said, on to Ep. 7, “The Ultimate Weapon”!

Plot:

Matt, Scott and T-Bob go out to see a sci-fi movie. Now that I think about it, no mention has ever been made of Scott’s mom. I wonder if Matt just built him kinda like Vicki from “Small Wonder”.

Either way, VENOM attacks the theater using a high-powered laser to cause damage to the roof before packing up and leaving before any counterattack could be put up against them. 

Trakker is suspicious as to why they would do such a thing, but Mayhem is celebrating an objective accomplished. 

Matt puts together a team and poor Brad has to abandon tuning his guitar. Seriously, he will never be a rock star with that lack of dedication. 

VENOM launches an attack on the local planetarium which is located in a sparsely populated mountainous area that makes you wonder just where in tarnation this show is set. 

MASK is ready for them, however, and attempts to fight back. VENOM, though, has a weapon that is scrambling all MASK vehicles and controls causing their units to go haywire and even injures Gloria after the helicopter crashes into her car. 

MASK agent, Alex, creates neutralizers to offset VENOM’s scramblers and thanks to Brad’s mask being able to create holograms, MASK is able to push back VENOM and save the day. 

Thoughts:

I have no idea what they purpose of VENOM’s plan was unless it was just to trick MASK into fighting in an attempt to use the scramblers to turn their vehicles against them and kill them once and for all. That actually sounds like a helluva plan now that I think about it. 

But other than that, the drama was pretty decent and the final battle was fun. 

PSA: 

Hitchhiking is dangerous. Don’t pick up hitchhikers. They – and I quote – “could be a VENOM agent, or worse, a child molester.” Yup. Solid advice. 

Final Grade:

*** on the Meltzer scale. Solid if unspectacular, but a fun little episode. Maybe we’re hitting the stride now. Let’s see what happens tomorrow. 

❤ Joe

Contact: Twitter: @CarJoeMez or @MaximusSexPower or email: CarJoeMez@gmail.com

Episode-A-Day! MASK: Ep. 1 “The Deathstone”

Welcome to a new feature of Car JoeMez! Since I love vintage cartoons, I thought I’d tackle a series episode by episode and keep you abreast of what’s going on and what I think. Maybe you’ll be inspired to check out a show, maybe not.

As you heard on the podcast, I’ve been wanting to get into MASK for a while as I remember it from my childhood, but it was never something I was really into. I finally picked up the DVD set during the Amazon Prime Day sale and figured it’d be a good show to start with since I’d pretty much be seeing all of it for the first time.

So, without further ado, let’s get to the debut episode of MASK entitled, “The Deathstone”!

Plot:

A meteor crash lands in a mountainous area somewhere where ‘s there’s not many people or places. Some kind of archeological team is dispatched to retrieve it where they are then ambushed by agents of VENOM (Vicious Evil Network Of Mayhem) who steal the stone and then attempt to sell it to all kinds of militant groups from around the world for the price of $50 million.

Professor Stevens who was the head archeologist meets with Matt Trakker who puts together a unit of MASK (Mobile Armored Strike Kommand) agents to chase down VENOM and retrieve the stone.

Thoughts:

This is not an origin episode. You have no idea who MASK is, why MASK exists or what the beef is between Matt Trakker (independent rich guy leader of MASK) and Miles Mayhem (independent rich guy leader of VENOM).

A little background would be nice to get some insight into all that, but maybe that will be revealed in a later episode. For now, you are dumped straight into the middle of what seems to be just another day in the life of MASK. I assume the agents on both sides will both be delved into a bit as we go on because everything is treated as if you should already know what’s going on and the specialties of each person. Spoiler alert: you don’t.

The show has a very GI Joe-ish vibe concerning the conflict between MASK and VENOM, but GI Joe has a much better cast of characters to have fun with thus far. Although, the rumors of a possible GI Joe/MASK crossover movie do begin to make some sense after watching this.

All in all, not the episode I would have liked to see first, but hey, I’m committed to this so I’ll keep going.  Like I said, hopefully, we’ll get some more background on the alliances and conflict as we go.

PSA:

This episode features an ending PSA as did a lot of other cartoons during the 80s. I assume there will be one for every episode going forward and I genuinely am excited for that as those were some of my favorite parts of both GI Joe and Masters of the Universe.

For this episode, we learn about the dangers of crossing the street making sure to do so in the crosswalk and to look both ways. Solid advice.

Final Grade:

Like I said, I was hoping for an origin episode and I didn’t get it. Without any background, it becomes tough to follow who is who and why they are doing what they’re doing. Probably would have been a perfectly fine episode had it not been the first, but because of that, I throw it just ** on the Meltzer scale. We’ll see how they build off this going forward.

❤ Joe

Contact: Twitter: @CarJoeMez or @MaximusSexPower or via email: CarJoeMez@gmail.com