Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Thread

[Drtooth]

I don't know anyone who would want a plain Baxter. Everyone remembers him best as a Fly. Now with the new series, they made 2 versions of Baxter. One with a humanoid body and detachable head which was impossible to find. I only have weird disembodied head in a robotic body that he never had in the show Baxter.

I wonder if they ever considered having the animated series voice actors do the voices in the live-action movies.

I'm glad they didn't. I really like how the first movie did its own thing like that, being as close to the comic as possible, changing only April's career back to her cartoon one (there's no way we'd be able to have all those Mousers for that budget, let alone wanting Shredder to be the star) and making Raph the one that got knocked out instead of Leo, leading Don to become chummy with Casey Jones.

Sigh... I wish the second movie was more like the first and less of a jaded attempt to become the cartoon series. And Really, I think the entire sequence with Vanilla Ice ruins the movie even more than it needed to. I actually quite dislike the second, and even enjoy the third more.

But when it comes down to it, the best movies were the first one, and the last one that was CGI. Too bad it had a Tales of TMNT type story, but at least we had Karai (Oroku Saki's adopted daughter that would later take on the mantle of The Shredder herself after dear old dad was killed by the Turtles).

 

[Fragglemuppet]

So human Yoshi, Bebop and Rocksteady were made into action figures? Kind of a waste of money and resources, I'd say. An 80's human Backster would've been more appropriate in my opinion.

 

[minor muppetz]

So human Yoshi, Bebop and Rocksteady were made into action figures? Kind of a waste of money and resources, I'd say. An 80's human Backster would've been more appropriate in my opinion.

It was only as a line of toys called the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turltes Mutations". These figures were made so you could tranform the characters into their original forms and back. This line also included the four turtles being able to become ordinary turtles, and eventually it would include turtles in different job attire which could transform into vehicles, like one of them dressed as a fireman who could transform into a fire engine. I'd say it's Transformers style, except I've never played with any transformers figures. And I remember it being hard to truly get them to transform properly.

I also found it odd that it took so long for Krang's android body to be a regular-scale figure. At first only Krang was a figure, with his mechanical walker from certain episodes, and I'm pretty sure the Krang figure came after the body was introduced (I recall that walker came after it was completed, though I think it was a different color from the cartoon version). Then there was a life-sized figure of the body, with removable Krang (the same Krang figure that could be purchased seperately, though repainted a bit), I guess for fans who wanted to do their own versions of the "Shreddered and Splintered" episode. I only remember seeing that toy in stores maybe once. An in-scale figure of Krang's android body (with a smaller removable Krang) eventually came out near the end of the show's run, after I had pretty much stopped wanting toys. Krang's body was just as major a character as Krang. But we got figures of April's co-workers before the body (okay, maybe not "we"... I never owned figures of them or April, though I was never against having them).

I also wish there were toys of the killer pizzas and roadkill rodneys. Both were only in one episode each, but they were featured quite a bit in the video games. Though I suppose it might have been hard to get Roadkill Rodney figures to properly shoot their ropes out and tie up other figures.

Did anybody ever buy multiple foot soldiers, rock soldiers, or mousers? I didn't, but it would make sense for people to buy multiple. since there were multiple but identical ones on the show. Also, were Lord Drek and the other enemies from the last two seasons ever made as toys? I think I read that they weren't, if that's true that's a bit surprising since they were there for two seasons. If they were introduced the last season it'd make more sense. This gets me wondering if there were any "Next Mutation" figures.

 

[minor muppetz]

How would you rate the various TMNT productions?

Here's what I'd do, on a scale of 1-to-10, ten being the highest...

• 1987-1996 TV series - 10
• 1990 movie - 8
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II - 10
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III - 6
• The Next Mutations - 4 (but I think I'd give their guest appearance on Power Rangers in Space a 6)
• NES game - 3 (but it's the only classic TMNT NES game I never actually owned so that might factor in less points in addition to difficulty)
• The Arcade Game - 10
• The Manhattan Project - 10
• Turtles in Time - 10
• The Hyperstone Heist - 7
• TMNT - 8

Keep in mind I'm not including anything I haven't seen. I've never read any of the original comics (or ANY turtles comics), I've only watched the 2003 series once or twice (I tried giving it a chance but just couldn't get myself to pay attention), and I haven't seen any of the live-action VHS tapes (after watching reviews from James Rolfe and Obscura Lupa I guess I should consider myself lucky) or the Turtles Forever special (though I want to see that special).

 

[minor muppetz]

In my last post I was rating the various TMNT productions and video games, and now I wonder if it was unfair for me to give the entire 1987 series a 10. It's been a long time since I actually watched the series, and I'm pretty sure I didn't watch the last two seasons (though I do remember that opening, which debuted in season 8, before Shredder was off the show).

I have the first season on DVD, and that DVD has bonus episodes from the last season. I'd definately give the first season a 10, but judging by the season 10 episodes I've seen, I'd give that season a 5 or less. But I get the feeling that I'd give the episodes where Shredder and Krang return as well as the last episode a higher rating.

Basing my memory of watching the show (and I can't quite remember when I stopped watching on a regular basis... I'm guessing season 6) along with James Rolfe's videos about the show and a series of "Old vs New" videos I've seen on YouTube about the show, I get the impression I would give season 1 a 10, season 2 a 10 or 9, seasons 3-7 somewhere between a 5-9, season 8 something below a 6, and the last two seasons a raning below a 5.

Oh, and a 4-6 to the "Vacation in Europe" sideseason.

 

[Drtooth]

I could talk forever about the last seasons. It really felt that in season 9 they were either going to get cancelled or fire all their writers. It seems that the existing writers (David Weiss especially) passive aggressively came up with various insane concepts (ultimate Mutations, Carter, writing the GOOD villains out of the series) so whoever had to write the series after them jumped aboard a sinking ship.

Dregg was perfectly boring as a villain. He was all trope and no substance. He didn't even menace his crew (especially his sidekick) half the time. He basically had the most generic goals of any space mad man, and added nothing to the show. He could have been pulled off a lot better and made more of a threat, but he comes off too dreadfully dull. If they were going for Darth Vader, they failed at it. And Mung is hugely annoying.

There are a lot of unwatchable episodes in the long history of the show. They had almost 200 episodes. Most of them written together for syndication, causing them to rush out similar plot lines with dumb gimmicks... but there was nothing interesting left by season 10. Except the fact they called back to the Shreddered and Splintered episode and used Krang's android body to defeat Dregg in the last episode.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Dregg was perfectly boring as a villain. He was all trope and no substance. He didn't even menace his crew (especially his sidekick) half the time. He basically had the most generic goals of any space mad man, and added nothing to the show.

Agreed, he's the kind of thing that gives action cartoons a bad reputation for having no depth. Throughout history audiences enjoy loving bad guys, it's a type of harmless release and rebellion. If you're unable to like a villain, then the good guys better be amazing and even the Turtles got a little boring in the last season.

 

[Drtooth]

Agreed, he's the kind of thing that gives action cartoons a bad reputation for having no depth. Throughout history audiences enjoy loving bad guys, it's a type of harmless release and rebellion. If you're unable to like a villain, then the good guys better be amazing and even the Turtles got a little boring in the last season.

Throughout the history of the Turtles, including comics and other series, Dregg is one of the worst villains there was. Even three headed wrestler Triple Threat from Fast Forward wasn't that lousy. Of course... uh... I can't really speak for the live action series as I gave up 3 episodes in. Everything and everyone else had either depth or something else interesting to them, even the cartoony ones from seasons 3 and 4. But Dregg wasn't quite murderous enough, his toady wasn't suck uppy enough... even if they played the guy completely straight, they could have added something to the character... a backstory of why he's a bad guy at the very least. he was just there, and he was a cloud over the Turtles... that was it.

Even then, the show was showing signs of fatigue. They were out of ideas for quite some time, they did a dramatic turn which made the show a little deeper, but once they got rid of Shredder and apparently ignored every single other thread they had in the series (where the heck is Leatherhead, Baxter Stockman, and the rest of them during all of this? One of THEM could have rose up as the great threat).

But like I said, seems the writers knew they were getting fired at the time and just wanted to screw over whoever had to write it after they left.

 

[minor muppetz]

A few years ago I bought a used copy of one of the newer TMNT video games, Mutant Nightmare, just because Turtles in Time is an unlockable bonus. At first I struggled to get past the first or second level, gave up on it for a few years, and then motivated myself into putting in more effort, until I unlocked the game. I checked a cheat code website, which mentioned that all you have to do to unlockk Turtles in Time is to complete the first 16 missions (that's what they call the levels, grouping them under "episodes"). That is a great contrast to what I read you have to do to unlock the first arcade game in one of the other games (I forget what you have to do, but I don't have that particular game and have the NES version of the arcade game, so it doesn't matter to me much).

After unlocking Turtles in Time I did play a few additional levels of Mutant Nightmare, but it sort of is hard. I had to find runthroughs for a few levels, and some bosses or enemies are challenging. I think there were two bosses I had to defeat, which felt impossible to beat (but at least I beat them). I wasn't used to having to press the fight button on the controller so much (I think it's caused the button to sometimes get a little stuck). But it sure was worth it to be able to play Turtles in Time. I never played the SNES version (never had one, and very few people whom I regularly visited had the system), and had only played the arcade a few times. It was an interesting experience.

Interesting that you can just pick how many lives you get and can automatically continue. It's like playing the game on a Game Genie, though it did take me a few days to complete the game (I kept getting tired as I progressed, there's no save feature for Turtles in Time, and I wanted to savor the pleasure of playing the game before completing it). I knew that there were differences between the arcade and SNES versions, but there are some things I was surprised by. It's obvious the music was replaced (each level ended with the music from the 2003 series, obviously not in the original), the voices were replaced (most of them sounded robotic... Were they the new series voices? Or were the voices like that in the original?), and I had thought I read that in the original Krang was the final boss while the SNES version added a level afterwards with Shredder, but in this version Shredder was the final boss. It seems it's a rule for the main villian to be the final boss in video games, so it's a shame Krang is rarely the final boss since he seems to be more challenging.

But I agree that it is one of the best Turtles games ever, if not THE best TMNT game. I'm surprised that on the SNES version the skating/surfing levels are bonus levels, since those have bosses and seem to move the plot along. Too bad Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (the movie, not The Manhattan Project) couldn't have had that plotline instead.

 

[minor muppetz]

I would assume that the original series had a syndication package, I think there's more than the required 65 episodes, but I barely recall seeing reruns. I think I saw some on USA, but otherwise I mainly remember watching the show in it's first-run syndicated form and on CBS. But I especially don't remember seeing the series on TV after the show ended in 1996 (I was surprised to see they were still making new episodes at that point; interesting how the original series ended a year before The Next Mutations began). I would have thought Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network would have rerun the show (I think I read something about Nickelodeon purchasing the rights, so maybe it will reair on Nick).

But assuming there was a syndication package, was it a complete package (with all the episodes), or did it end before a certain season, like a number of syndication packages for other children's series (Muppet Babies, Garfield and Friends, Alvin and the Chipmunks)? Somehow I wouldn't be surprised if the syndication package ends before the introduction of Drek.