The Final Episode #12: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987 - 1996)

 

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was probably my favorite thing between the years of 1988 and I guess 1994? 1993? I don't know when I stopped being high on the turtles, but holy shit when I was with them it was BIG. I had so many Ninja Turtles toys. I must have had every single one of them, and at least a few Foot Soldiers. It was impossible to go to our house in the late 80s or early 90s and not see Ninja Turtles stuff littered ALL over the place, but being a fickle child something new and fancier caught my eye and the Turtles just waned in the background. I'm pretty sure that new and fancy thing was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, so at least I was still a fan of something with a ridiculous name. I'm not even sure that YTV was even showing the Ninja Turtles by 1994, but It's not like I have a complete collection of the Newfoundland Herald to go and check out.

Anyway, by 1996 it wasn't just me who had given up on the Ninja Turtles. It was pretty much everyone. They were on some thing called the CBS ACTION ZONE, a Saturday morning block of cartoons on well CBS.  I don't think I was watching much CBS at this time so this entire thing looks so 1990s that I had to talk about it. I mean look at that above picture. That's so 1996 it hurts me. But it hurts so good. Anyway, apparently they would preempt these cartoons for golf. That's how bad the ratings were at that time, I guess. I guess the best way to show how the TMNT had fallen from grace would be to tell you that in season 3 they had 47 episodes produced, in season 4 they had 41. This last season had 8. I know season 3 and 4 were syndication but still 8 episodes was all they got for season 10 (and season 8 and 9 for that fact too) The TMNT were just about to end their first television show (and the second, the Next Mutation was so bad that it had 26 episodes and like two of them were fucking clip shows). Still you can't keep a good Ninja down and they got several new shows and comics.

I think when I would have sleepovers with like my only friend as a child (and honestly I don't look back at these memories with fondness) we would end up getting up in the morning to watch cartoons. I think we clicked on a later season episode of TMNT and going "where the fuck are Krang and Shredder?" before just putting on a episode of Gargoyles: The Goliath Chronicles (which I honestly like more than most fans of Gargoyles but that's another point for another article), what I'm saying is Little baby claw was not a fan of late era TMNT which has been called "Red Sky Episodes" because of uh the Red Sky.

The Red Sky episodes were a bit more serious than the previous 7 seasons of wacky escapades. This was probably due to Batman: The Animated Series and I guess kids and sad old weirdos who still watch cartoons wanting something more serious and well done. I don't know how well the entirety of the Red Sky episodes hold up but... This last episode is actually pretty damn good if I must say.

The last episode, entitled Divide and Conquer, came out on November 2nd, 1996 to little fan fare, which is pretty sad because this was a decent little finale for such a show. I mean it feels more final than GI Joe, or The Real Ghostbusters, or Transformers or many other such shows. They didn't really get a final showdown with the Big Bad but the Turtles did. Anyway this episode starts with Dregg the replacement for Shredder and Krang for Seasons 9 and 10 has FINALLY had it with the Ninja Turtles that he's not even trying to take over the earth. He just wants them Dead. DEAD. He wants that Turtle Soup worse than Shredder ever did. He's been sending aliens to go after the TMNT for more than 90 seconds. The Aliens then can just leave if they want too. The Turtles are weirded out by this but we find out pretty quickly that Dregg wanted the aliens to do this so that he can use his new fancy Molecules suit thing to take their powers away from them and probably kill them.

The TMNT then fight Dregg in a pretty cool little fight I guess? I dunno the Turtles end up running away so that they can go to Dimension X and fiddle around the trashed Technodrome (which apparently was finally destroyed and it's pretty cool to see it all wrecked like this) to find Krang's android body so that they can fight the Giant Dregg. Well, two of the turtles (Don and Mikey) go to Dimension X. Leo and Raph have to save April O'Neil (who is not wearing her yellow jumpsuit. which is clearly the worst design change ever) for one last time. Anyway they get Dregg by using the grab someone from behind move Splinter taught them (kinda weird for the last thing he will teach them) and send him into Dimension X. Oh, and the Android Body was shrinking and was gonna fucking explode. So yeah the 1987 Ninja Turtles killed a dude. I mean the original comic Ninja Turtles killed like 5,000 dudes but still. The episode ends with Splinter telling them that he is no longer their Sensei but their equal. Nice way to end it all.

FINAL VERICT: This was a fun little story. I mean I kinda wish the OH SHIT THE ANDROID BODY WILL EXPLODE thing that happens at the last moment was better explained but still I enjoyed the rest of it. Oh, and the new voice actor for Raph was weird. I don't like him. Rob Paulsen wanted a raise in like I dunno Season 9 or so and Fred Wolf probably realized that the zenith of TMNT's popularity had crashed into a Power Rangers sized hole so he didn't pay him. Also it would have been nice to see Krang or Shredder in this final episode but still even if I was completely annoyed by this episode I would have still given it some credit for at least having some kind of conclusion unlike every other cartoon made between 1981 and 1992.