Daily Cartoon: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles S05E15 “The Crypt of Dracula”

Welcome back to another Halloween cartoon episode recap and – unexpectedly – we are picking up right where we left off yesterday. Since I was completely unaware that the yesterday’s installment was a multi-episode engagement, we’re going to come right back and see what more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has to give us.

Truth be told, by the end of yesterday’s episode, I was totally into it and didn’t even realize we were coming up to the end so when it cut to credits I was all sorts of aghast. I made the decision right then and there that we were just going to bring this back to see what happened next.

When we left off, the Turtles along with their time-traveling friend, Renet, took a big L at the hands of Savanti Romero (another time traveler, but an evil one who is building an army by jumping time periods). Savanti escapes an ancient Egyptian tomb with the no-longer-buried Pharaoh and opens a portal to the Middle Ages to continue building his army. The Turtles had hoped to stop that before Savanti even got started to bring back peace and normalcy to their current-day New York which has been overrun with a curse perpetrated by Savanti that’s turning normal civilians into zombie vampires on Halloween of all days.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Renet’s scepter – which is what allows our heroes to travel through time – is at a dangerously low power level and cannot be recharged until they get back…to the future (yesssssssss). They’re already taking a chance at being stuck forever by following Savanti into the Middle Ages, but what choice do they have? Savanti Romero must be stopped.

Which bring us to today…

Daily Cartoon: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles S050E14 “The Curse of Savanti Romero”

Hello and welcome back to another Halloween cartoon episode recap! We’ve been on a solid run of mostly highly enjoyable shows of late so let’s hope that today’s choice keeps things going in a positive direction.

Today, we’ll be watching an episode of Nickelodeon’s 2012 reboot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This should be an actual Halloween episode as the word “Halloween” does appear in the description on Hulu as opposed to yesterday’s Powerpuff Girls viewing.

I’ve never seen any of this series. Obviously, I grew up on the original TMNT but it was more my brother’s “thing” than mine. I still liked it and had toys and saw the movies, but my fandom for it never continued through the years like it did with other things such as Masters of the Universe or Thundercats. That’s not a bad thing. For all I know, I could end up loving this and start holding a candle for TMNT for the remainder of my days which wouldn’t be bad considering that this property has really never died or been in danger of going away in over 30 years now. To this day we continue to get cartoons, movies and some badass toys of our heroes in a halfshell.

This is the newest show we’ve checked out so far in the Halloween marathon we’re running here and I’m pretty excited about that. Let’s see what today’s kids are being molded by.

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.

Daily Cartoon! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: S.2,E.5: “Curse of the Evil Eye”

Welcome back to another episode of TMNT. The shit is hitting the perpetual fan when it comes to the Eye of Sarnath. We still don’t know all the power it holds when assembled, but it’s gotta be serious AF since the dead alien said so.

So let’s not waste any more time, on to the next episode…

S.2,E.5: “Curse of the Evil Eye”. Original Air Date: 10/29/1988

Plot:

Donatello builds another new device to help them track down the third and final crystal piece that makes up the Eye of Sarnath, but despite this hot new tech, Shredder and Baxter again beat them to it and now has all the fragments. They got it out of the river which is great because we get Shredder dressed as Paddington Bear. He puts them together and then attaches the completed Eye of Sarnath to his helmet so he can increase his brain power…and utilize the powers of the alien device through mind control, obvi.

Meanwhile, Baxter Stockman is hungry AF after a job well done and picks up some Chinese. I don’t blame him. I’ve been dying for good Chinese food since moving out of NYC. I have places around here that are OK, but it just doesn’t compare. Although, when I visited my Mom over the weekend, we went to a place by her and it was pretty good actually. Don’t take good Chinese food for granted, folks.

The Turtles are still hunting for the Eye and spot Baxter leaving the Chinese place, but he sees them and uses his special eyeglasses to expose them out of their disguises. The Turtles still track the signal back to Shredder’s hideout, but he uses the power of the Eye to bring the red dragon on the side of Baxter’s Chinese food box to life. Leonardo and Michelangelo jump on the dragon to try to stop it from causing anymore of the unneccessry deaths we’ve become accustomed to just as April, Verne and Blodgett (the news van driver) are out looking for a story.

Blodgett is terrified and drives off while April and Verne were trying to get a closer look. Donatello and Raphael battle with Shredder and during the melee, Donatello knocks off Shredder’s helmet causing Shredder’s mind control over the Eye to disappear. Blodgett ends up picking up Shredder’s lost helmet after driving the van into the river and getting fired for being a moron.

Shredder is flipping out over losing the helmet, but Baxter is hot on the trail because he picked up Donatello’s new tracking device and is getting the signal. Blodgett, meanwhile, is realizing the mind control of the helmet and creates a huge comic book collection. Baxter is quick to discover him and steals the helmet with relative ease because Blodgett is completely inept.

Baxter’s not exactly being humble and uses the power of the Eye to build himself a Taj Mahal to live in right next to the fucking East River. Real conspicuous, asshole. The Turtles are obviously wondering where this fucking Taj Mahal came from and end up in a new fight against some kind of glue monster that Baxter thinks up.

Shredder does the hot run-in and is fucking pissedddddddddd that Baxter is using the helmet for himself and didn’t just give unlimited power over to him. Shredder breaks through the glue man and steals his helmet back before trapping the Turtles in a shrinking bubble and taking off on a flying carpet to destroy the Interstate Bridge.

April and Splinter hit the room after receiving an SOS on the Turtle Com and free the Turtles. Blodgett tells the Turtles that the Eye has no effect on gold and April calls her friend who’s conveniently the head of a museum and gets him to lend the Turtles gold shields so they can fight Shredder. It’s good to have friends in the right places.

Shredder is sure he’s got this in the bag, but he’s also holding the Sarnath-tracker which was built to destroy the Eye once it comes in contact. Shredder throws the helmet and device in the river and they explode. Thus ends the saga of the Eye of Sarnath.

Final Thoughts:

This arc kind of goes out with a whimper. I think they could have done a lot more with the effects of Shredder having control of the Eye for some time and the tension it would cause between him and Krang as well as what it means for the Turtles, NYC and the world!

The finish felt like a cop-out. The Turtles didn’t really defeat Shredder. He just carried around the tracking device for whatever reason and didn’t realize that this asshole, Donatello, rigged it to blow the thing up.

Besides that, we get some good tension between Baxter and Shredder with Baxter feeling he’s intellectually superior and thereby truly the one deserving of the power. But it’s weird because Shredder’s not exactly a dumb jock. He’s like part Mr. Science too and built Krang’s body with his bare hands. Maybe Baxter is just THAT smart.

I really love the visual of Shredder in his rain gear. It is stupendous.

Obviously, this isn’t the end of Shredder, but I’d assume he’s going to have to humble himself in front of Krang now. That should be interesting.

All in all, still enjoying the show, but yeah, a little disappointed with how this tale ended.

Favorite Quote:

While Baxter has the Turtles at his mercy, he brags about how he was able to defeat them and Shredder was not…until Shredder hits the room and says,

“I’ll bear that in mind Baxter, when I’ve delivered your eulogy, you traitorous vermin!”

I love when the heels use that kind of disparaging language.

Thanks for reading and we’ll see you again for tomorrow’s episode!

❤ Joe

Daily Cartoon! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles S.1, E. 1 “Turtle Tracks”

Folks, after what turned out to be an abomination of trying to watch the complete series of M.A.S.K., I’ve turned my attention to a new cartoon: TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES.

Gomez was a big proponent of this and I did recently pick up the complete series in the Turtle Van collector box on Amazon Prime Day, so why the hell not? Well, I’ll tell you why not: the series is listed at 193 episodes which is hella daunting, especially once you consider how I just struggled to get through half of a 65 episode series.

TMNT was never my favorite show as a kid. I mean, it was definitely the hot shit and I certainly watched it and had toys, but maybe I was a bit too old to be genuinely swept up in the Turtle Mania of the time. To say my remembrance of TMNT is vague is probably an understatement. My best memories probably come from constantly playing the arcade game that was in every pizzeria in the early 90s. That shit was bananas.

At no point have I ever gone back and done any kind of re-watch with this series so I’m expecting to encounter a flood of memories as well as feeling like I’m seeing a lot of this for the first time. I’d assume more the latter than former. Really, I’m just hoping to enjoy and have fun with this after how much I hated watching M.A.S.K. And so, we begin…

Season 1, Episode 1: “Turtle Tracks” Original Air Date: Dec. 28, 1987

Plot:

We’re introduced to a TV news report on how crime has overrun the city. High tech labs are apparently being knocked over by ninjas and reporter, April O’Neil, is trying to get the scoop when her and her news crew are approached by a gang of toughs. April’s crew immediately heads for the hills, but she tries to save her footage and slips into the sewers while being chased by the gang.

Four giant, talking turtles come to the rescue and send the bad guys packing before April passes out at the sight of her new heroes. The Turtles take her back to their lair so she can rest and when she awakens, she’s greeted by a grown, talking rat named Splinter.

Splinter then bestows upon April (and us) their origin story. He was once a well-respected ninja in Japan named Hamato Yoshi who was sabotaged by his arch nemesis, Oroku Saki causing him to be ostracized by the noble Foot Clan. Yoshi ended up in New York, living in the sewers while Saki took control of the Foot, turning them into a group of evil and crime who – apparently – love soda as they’re shown stealing full soda machines.

Yoshi takes in a group of four turtles who are literally dropped in his lap from a sewer above and treats them as his pets and friends. One day, Yoshi returns to his lair to find his turtles covered in a powerful mutagen that transforms whomever comes in contact with it into whatever they last touched. The turtles, obviously, into half people turtles and Yoshi into a rat because of his recent contact with them in the sewers.

Yoshi names his four “sons” after his favorite renaissance artists and trains them in the ninjitsu that he spent his life learning before being cast out. April is still uncertain what to make of this whole situation, but the Turtles bargain to help her get a story if she would report on their innocence.

They go out for pizza and April leaves to call her network to send a film crew, but she never returns. The Turtles get nervous and go looking for her and notice her satchel hanging from a rooftop of a building across the street which, realistically, would have been impossible during nighttime in New York.

But they notice it and go up there to be attacked by a gang of Foot Soldier robots. The Turtles make quick work of them and  Shredder, the former Oroku Saki who has been monitoring the ordeal on a surveillance system recognizes their fighting style as being Foot influenced and wonders aloud if Hamato Yoshi is still alive.

The Turtles end up flooding the building by using its fire sprinkler system and escape safely with April just in the nick of time. Splinter watches some news coverage of the fight and recognizes the Foot uniform and immediately accepts that his old nemesis, Saki, is still alive and close by.

Thoughts:

This was a really fun pilot episode. Obviously, I’m familiar with the origin after almost 30 years, but forgot how fun the animation, characters and writing were. Also, it’s impossible to hear any line from Shredder now without thinking of Uncle Phil. (If you didn’t know, Shredder is voiced by James Avery who played Uncle Phil on “Fresh Prince of Bel Air.) I’m actually completely into this because, although I remembered the origin, I felt completely unfamiliar to the storyline and how things advance. I’m genuinely excited to get to the next episode.

Final Grade:

***1/2*

Solid, fun and entertaining. Made me want to see the next one.

And with that, we blow the doors open on me watching another cartoon series. I’m not committing to an every day schedule, but I’ll do my best. At least it seems – right now, anyway – that I’ll be motivated to continue watching.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for Ep. 2!

❤ Joe

Joe Gets His Amazon Prime Day Deliveries!

Well, I’ve waited long enough! Finally all those life-changing purchases showed up in my mailbox. Let’s peruse:

Degree Deodorant – 6 Pack

Take a guess at who will have the driest pits in Florida for the next few months!

Space Ghost Funko Pop Figure

Funkos kill me because it’s hard not to go nuts and buy everything, but I’m pretty good about just keeping it to the characters I’m really into. This was a must have for my collection. 

M.A.S.K. – The Complete Series

This is something I’ve been meaning to buy for a while as I was never into this show as a kid, but got interested in because of Twitter and a possible crossover movie with GI Joe. I would bet that you hear a lot more about M.A.S.K. and I very soon. 

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – The Complete Classic Series Collection 

As mentioned in Episode 2, I wasn’t the biggest TMNT fan, but I was definitely a fan and this collection comes in this sweet Turtle Van case that will look great displayed on my…I dunno…some piece of furniture once I figure out a spot for it. Will be fun to get back into this and listen to the velvety voice of Uncle Phil as Shredder talking about dining on turtle soup. 

So this was my Amazon Prime Day haul. Hopefully, your’s was as bountiful.