Scrag from Season 1? Story Potential?
 

Anyone else feel like this guy, along with the Mutated Punks had story potential and could have been a good storyline but were pushed to the side around Season 2 to make way for Baxter Stockman's return and The Four Part Episodes.

The Punks happen to be my favourite minor characters in the whole series and it always boggles me on how no-one, and I do mean NO-ONE has bothered to even ask David Wise about this.

Also, another question. Where did Scrag's name come from? It is said that it came from an unspecified, extremely rare colouring book but I would really love to see pics if anyone has got any.

So what are your thoughts on Scrag and the Punks?

I always imagined them as being retconned into the gang seen during "The Gang's All Here" and "Once Upon a Time Machine" but I would've loved to see the individual Punks from season 1, especially in their mutated forms.

I was happy that they got a small cameo in Turtles Forever, along with Bebop and Rocksteady's human forms.

I agree, I really wish they appeared outside of Season 1 and I always wondered why they didn't. They had everything to make a good episode out of them but it still boggles me on how David Wise wouldn't do anything with them. They surely had to have come up during script meetings during rewrites and all that.

I think its mostly because the showrunners would've likely seen them as generic punks rather than established characters, so when they did decide to make characters out of Bebop and Rocksteady's gang (Jersey Red, Lugnut etc.) they glossed over the season 1 punks and instead came up with completely new designs. Besides, David Wise didn't even write "The Gang's All Here" so things might've turned out differently, had the episode had his input.

I do have to admit, I love Bebop and Rocksteady's established gang from season 3, but atleast seeing the season 1 punks alongside them would've been so much cooler.

There's no need for seing them as retconned. It's easy to assume that not all members were mutated.

Based on what I remember, the season 3 gang members seemed to have no recollection of Shredder, so its likely that they were never among the mutated gang members in the technodrome or were a part of a different gang altogether, one that Bebop and Rocksteady were in before working for Shredder.

Didn't the turtles and April O'Neil recognize them? Anyway, the gang seems to have been divided into two fractions. Shredder mutated most of those in Bebop's and Rocksteady's fraction. Those in Lungnut's fraction weren't mutated, and never inside the Technodrome when it was sent to Dimension X at the end of season 1.

Scrag was a bat mutant, wasn't he? Seems like he was a proto version of Wingnut.

No, not every mutant is a prototype or anyway related to another character just because they're the same animal.

And what happened to those who were inside the Technodrome by the end of season 1?

I have/had a scan of the page where they call him Scrag from a coloring book, but I don't know if it's in easy access. I might have gotten it from tOkKa's Flickr, but I'm not sure.

I do find it a shame they didn't do more with the gang but when you have mutants and ninjas I guess a bunch of punks is a little underwhelming but they definitely had potential.

Shredder could hire the human streetpunks more often to steal hightech equipment for the Technodrome.

You know what I actually think happened to them after Season 1. Krang could have had them executed for being just mindless cannon fodder, not being much use, even he said so in Hot Rodding Teenagers From Dimension X, that the punks were not useful. This isn't very surprising to be honest as Krang tried this on Baxter Stockman in Season 2 either.

What do you guy think?

Or just abandon them on the same planet the Technodrome was in during season 2.

Actually, they WERE the same gang, though some of the members had changed. Lugnut from Gang's All Here was the short blonde thug, and the other black guy was in there too, and I think one of the others as well. It's likely the gang was bigger during season 1, due to several members later being mutated.



They did appear- several of the same members were in both Gang's All Here and the Hokum episode. They just weren't given names in their original appearance.



Lugnut and one or two of the others were the same punks from the first season. They weren't named, but it was definitely them.


It's not even a retcon. Some members changed in the later season, probably BECAUSE several had been mutated and the gang recruited new members.



Yes they did. I don't think the gang actually divided into factions. Lugnut's group was just lucky- they got out while they were still human. I have a theory that Shredder and Krang used the "failures" from the mutated gang members as test subjects for their weapons, or to test out the Foot-bots' combat skills on.....

Very true. Never thought of that, good point.

But Bebop and Rocksteady recognized at least some of them before.

I watch pics of the Turtle Tracks ep and Gangs all Here, and sorry, they just don't match up.

Plus if they were the old gang from season 1 they would have known Bebop and Rocksteady were mutated and not be surprised.

I prefer the idea of only Bebop and Rocksteady mutating, and not all gang members.