Chris Bradford's career? (Spoilers!)

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

Chris seemed to have formed an army of ninjas before Shredder ever booked a flight to New York. He was most likely a celeb before the Turtles ever got into the picture.

That would mean that the Foot would be in the business of employing celebrities. I don't think they would be. It just wouldn't be in their interests, even talking about a Foot Clan within a children's show.

The more likely scenario: he was already a Foot-trained member in charge of the New York branch. Came time to get in deep with the Turtles, they did some personality profiling and pegged Mikey, Mikey fell in with "Bradford," and then they closed the net on him.

[ToTheNines]

They had no idea about the turtles before "New Friend, Old Enemy" though. The only proof Shredder had that Splinter was still alive was one shuriken with his symbol on it.

[pannoni1]

It may have been off-camera in between "Rise of the Turtles, Part 2" and "New Friend, Old Enemy" where Chris either got contacted by Shredder or saw the news report of Snakeweed and knew that he had a threat. He decided to use the clever method of being friendly at first before seeing that he's evil. Since he had such a big trophy collection, Chris likely turned to the Foot and was once a good person since its not characteristics to give trophies to enemies, though Chris may have also kidnapped the original dojo owner. Chris may have fallen into a trap where Shredder/Foot seemed good at first, but with Shredder's excellent skills, became his student.

[Panda_Kahn_fan]

As a poster in this thread said earlier, it does make sense for the Foot to take one of thier elietes and turn him into a public celebrity. Bradford can attract potential martial artists to train under him, and weed out the ones with the proper martial arts potential to be trained as foot soldiers. Also, it creates a public face for the foot's US branch to operate out of (a martial arts celebrity/franchise) and the head of the US branch of the foot having the public cover of being a martial arts celebrity; perfect example of hiding in plain sight. Everyone would expect a ninja master to hide and be inconspicious, not be showing off his fighting skill to the public. (And the way that the newsman in the one episode reacted to the ninja star being found in New York, that ninjas were a new thing in the city, indicates that the foot has mangaged to stay out of sight in NYC until now.)

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

They had no idea about the turtles before "New Friend, Old Enemy" though. The only proof Shredder had that Splinter was still alive was one shuriken with his symbol on it.

Which is what then brought Shredder to New York. But the Foot could've easily been observing the Turtles for a while before that and before the "Bradford Bigshot Celebrity" thing was concocted, knowledge of Splinter or not.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

Which is what then brought Shredder to New York. But the Foot could've easily been observing the Turtles for a while before that and before the "Bradford Bigshot Celebrity" thing was concocted, knowledge of Splinter or not.

Well considering their first time ever coming up to the surface was the first episode, I'd say that's a massive stretch.

[AnarkyLantern]

I think it was more like the Pack on Gargoyles. The message was "be ware of strangers"/"media depictions aren't always accurate" but when it comes to having lots of goons- yes, you can have security forces but having some in media has its advantages as a recruitment tool and source of income. Mikey was a bonus