- by Owen Morton
You all remember them. Leonardo. Donatello. Raphael. Michaelangelo. Four great Renaissance painters, artists, inventors, sculptors, whatevers, who, for some reason, were chosen to have their memories insulted by naming a bunch of bright green insane crimefighting mutated turtles after them. That was back in the late 1980s, possibly the early 1990s, when some cartoon-making company decided that it would be the height of logic to create a programme about superheroes who dwelt in the sewers and continually sought to stop a small pink brain from Dimension X from invading Planet Earth, starting with New York City. The logic is inescapable. Well, not quite inescapable, because it escaped me.
At any rate, I was slow to catch on to the Turtles. Me and my friends Peter and Daniel (and possibly a number of other chronically insane children) used to play Turtles every break at Musters Road Infant School, now sadly and inexplicably renamed West Bridgford Infant School. Now, as anyone will realise, children like to play the heroes, not the baddies. Consequently, there was always great debate over who would be Leonardo, etc, etc. (As I recall, everyone wanted to be Raphael, though I couldn't say why.) No one ever wanted to be Shredder. And thus it was that he who had never seen the cartoon (i.e. me) was always lumbered with the indignity of being labelled the "Shredhead" and "Metalmouth", because I could never make a decent case for why I should be one of the Turtles.
Well, those days are long gone, thank Christ. I haven't seen Daniel for nigh on fifteen years, and on the rare occasions that I see Peter, we do not play Turtles (our tastes now being oriented more towards He-Man). But the fact remains that he who is slow to catch on to a craze is slow to let it go. That is why I was still watching Turtles over breakfast six years ago, when I was doing my first year of GCSEs, when everyone else had long since abandoned this programme as a possible source of entertainment. I loved it. I had found the ideal breakfast viewing. I was heartbroken when it was taken off and replaced with the Smurfs (though they did, eventually, prove just as good when I gave them a proper chance).
And with the end of that run of Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, I thought the end of the story had come. I have, I know, reviewed a couple of the episodes on this website, but my memory of those episodes is sadly shaky, and I'm afraid I can't remember any more plotlines, so there'll be no more reviews of those particular Turtles episodes. But! Back in November, when I was eagerly awaiting the new He-Man series, I had the mind-wrenchingly wonderful experience of catching the vast majority of an episode of ... (dud dud dud dud dud durrrr!) a new series of Turtles!
I was unaware such a series even existed. I have now become quite well aware of it, thank you very much, considering the huge amount of Turtles-based merchandise on offer in every shop where they should be selling He-Man toys and aren't. But at the time, it was a revelation. I videoed it and watched it once, and vowed never to watch it again. I'm now going to review it, despite having held to my vow.
The new series of Turtles - now named Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as per the original intention, but the word 'ninja' seems to have been decreed as too offensive in the UK, and was replaced with 'hero' - is, as can probably be imagined, nowhere near as good as the first. I'm sorry about this, because every time I mention something which is a relaunch of something I used to like, I end up whinging and moaning about it being nowhere near as good. But really, this was genuinely bad. (I have since noted that this new Turtles series seems to have been removed from Up On The Roof, while He-Man and the ever-glorious Yu-Gi-Oh live on.)
I can't remember the plot very well - it has been two months since I saw it, and considering I can't really remember the episodes of He-Man I watched last week on my new DVD, my lack of memory on this subject isn't surprising - and as I missed the start of the episode, there could well have been something there which would have redeemed the entire thing in my eyes. I rather doubt it, of course, but one never knows. Anyway, at some time prior to my beginning to watch the episode, Leonardo had injured his arm, and he and the other Turtles had retreated from their sewer hideout to some form of ski hut in order to help him recover. I can't remember whether our favourite giant rat, Splinter, had come with them or not, but based on this lack of memory, I think it's fairly safe to say that he had very little part to play in this episode, if he was in it. Also accompanying the Turtles was their stupid hanger-on, April O'Neill, who looked infinitely more intelligent in the first series, despite her still wearing a bright yellow jumpsuit all the time. There was also a stupid man with them, though who he was, I really don't know.
Okay, so, on to the main plot of the episode. Basically, Leonardo spent the entire thing in a shed, hammering away at something with his uninjured arm. Raphael spent most of the episode with him, reassuring him about something or other. I got the vague impression that Leonardo had led the Turtles to some major defeat, and this episode was a pointless attempt at a deep character study of Leonardo, to show us all his guilt. The thing is, he's a cartoon character, so we don't really care. At any rate, by the end of the episode, Raphael had reassured Leonardo to such an extent that Leonardo's sling fell off, and he started hammering away with both arms. Rejoice!
Despite that probably being the main plot of the episode, it was by far the worst bit - and considering that the rest of the episode was very bad, that's actually saying something. (Well, obviously it's saying something, but what I mean is it's saying something important.) The subplot of the episode focussed on Michaelangelo and Donatello being complete nitwits in a forest with the stupid man whose identity remained a mystery. Basically, there was a stupid professor who was obsessed with catching monsters (though really, she only had to catch herself, because she was a real beast), and she'd heard that there was a big monster in this forest. Consequently, she was out to catch it, in order to make herself rich and famous. "Boo! Hiss!" as I expect we are supposed to say.
Well, surprise surprise, she didn't find the big monster in the forest, but she did catch a recording on her video cameras of Michaelangelo skulking about doing something really stupid. She consequently abandoned her mission of catching the big monster and focussed on catching Michaelangelo and Donatello. While they were hiding in their ski lodge, Donatello revealed that he's a right bastard and had a proper go at Michaelangelo for being so irresponsible as to be seen on the video cameras. I thought this was a trifle unfair, but possibly my memory has been distorted by the two months since I saw the thing, and maybe Donatello was justified. Who knows? Who cares?
At any rate, it became necessary for Donatello and Michaelangelo to go and nick off with the videotape, otherwise their existence as Turtles would be revealed. (Maybe the Turtles are much more subtle in this new series, because as I recall, they couldn't give a monkey's whether they were seen out and about in the original series, using only a stupid brown coat and brown hat as a 'disguise'.) Well, they climbed into the professor's van to get the tape, and, oddly enough, they got trapped inside. At this point, there was a commercial break, after which the presenter told us all that Yu-Gi-Oh would soon be on. I simply couldn't contain my excitement.
After the break, the Turtles escaped with minimum fuss, probably vandalising the van in the process. My memory of the ensuing events is understandably hazy, given that the whole thing was stupid and boring. Whatever happened, it largely consisted of the professor hunting the Turtles and the stupid man through the forest until near the end of the episode, when the real big monster of the forest showed up. The professor tried to capture that one instead, and actually succeeded, and we were all most terribly upset.
The episode then cut back to the van, parked outside the Turtles' ski lodge. The professor had gathered a load of media people around her, and was proudly proclaiming her capture of a monster to them. Our old friend April O'Neill was probably among these people, because otherwise she'd have had very little, if anything, to do all episode, and she'd be very upset about that, I'm sure. Though she must have had a bigger part than Splinter, because I can actually remember her being in it. Anyway, the professor proudly unveils her monster, which turns out to be the stupid man. Laughing hysterically as they watch all the media people rubbish the professor's career, Donatello and Michaelangelo reveal to the stunned viewers that the big monster was in fact the stupid man dressed up as the big monster! Or something like that, anyway.
With the departure of the professor, Donatello, Michaelangelo and the stupid man return to the ski lodge, where they encounter Raphael with the newly-healed Leonardo. They are all most pleased with themselves, and announce that now they will return to New York City to continue fighting "the Shredder". All well and good, though I'd suggest they just said "Shredder", because saying "the Shredder" implies that they're going off to do battle with a particularly vicious piece of office equipment.
A very boring episode, then. I may be doing this new series an injustice, of course, but the original series never had an episode without Shredder, Bebop, Rocksteady and Krang in it, and frankly, this one suffered from their absence. Maybe the new series is good when they're in it. I don't know. All I do know is that when the main baddy is a stupid professor, it's not good.
Oh, by the way, the new He-Man series is, according to He-Man.org, in danger of cancellation. This is what He-Man.org has to say about it:
This is no joke everyone.
We are potentially watching our dream come to an end.
Do you really want to risk losing Masters of the Universe, despite what you may have heard?
We do not! And we won't sit by and wait to find out that the toy line we love is gone!
The time to act is now.
Please sign the petition today!
Sad, isn't it?