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Old 04-04-2017, 12:19 AM   #1
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Thoughts on season 2 of the Fred Wolf series?

As we all know, the FW series had 10 seasons, with 3 and 4 being the longest ones by far.

After a 5 episode only debut season comes a new season with 13 episodes, which is still a fairly low count, but hey I guess the show only hit its height in popularity around 1989-1990.

This season starts out well. Return of the Shredder is alright for what it was an that final battle where Baxter Stockman barges in with a forklift was a bit tense. As was the way he ravaged the Lair to abduct Splinter... man speaking of which how did several characters find out the Turtles Lair and none of them was ever Shredder or Dregg? And their allies that have found the turtles Lair never even told them about it.

Anyway then comes the 4 episode Eye of Sarnoth arc. I really liked this arc when I was a kid and as frustrated that Shredder kept getting every fragment. At the end the whole thing just blows up.. and that's it. never to be mentioned again.

Then there's the Killer Pizas episode which is iconic since those alien like creatures even showed up in Turtles in Time 4 years later. Didn't care much for Splinter No More, the 2nd Neutrino episode or that episode where April turns into a feline. I liked New York's Shiniest, though. And also Enter: The Fly.

The season finale was quite good. Not as great as seasons'3 or season's 7 so I guess it gets kinda overlooked nowadays but I liked it a lot when I was a kid and thought the show was over as the Technodrome sunk into the lava.

Overall this season was a bit over the place. First of all, Baxter is Shredder's sidekick for half of it while Bebop and Rocksteady are stuck in Dimension X with Krang. It's kinda odd how that changed and then Baxter turns into a fly. I had not foreseen that as a kid.

The Eye of Sarnoth arc was also kind of weird when you look at the whole show. Never again did we get arcs until Red Sky came along, unless you count the last 3 episodes of season 3 as one arc. And the payoff of the Eye of Sarnoth arc was Shredder getting all of the alien fragments and then it blowing up at the end... and things went back to normal and it never got brought up again.

I also almost forgot that the Punk Frogs debuted in this season... but they were lame. They were such a poor knockoff of the TMNT and the thing is, they all had the same personality pretty much. Nothing was interesting about them. It's not like the Turtles met their match in them really.

It seems the writers were still unsure how to carry the rest of the show and experimented a bit with this season. Honestly, of all seasons this is one of the ones I go back to the least. Rarely do I feel like watching an episode from this season. It just has a weird vibe to it in comparison to season 1 and 3 for some reason.

So, thoughts?
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Old 04-04-2017, 12:21 AM   #2
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It was a pretty solid season and you can tell the writers were trying to figure out what to do with the series. Felt like they weren't sure if they wanted to go full parody/slapstick like later seasons or more action oriented.

I always wondered how things would turn out different if Baxter actually stayed a mutant henchmen of Shredder the entire series like Bebop/Rocksteady.
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Old 04-04-2017, 12:24 AM   #3
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It was a pretty solid season and you can tell the writers were trying to figure out what to do with the series. Felt like they weren't sure if they wanted to go full parody/slapstick like later seasons or more action oriented.

I always wondered how things would turn out different if Baxter actually stayed a mutant henchmen of Shredder the entire series like Bebop/Rocksteady.
I think the action only went down significantly in season 4. Season 4 and 5 seem to have the least action of all seasons and that's when the show became a parody of itself and the Turtles could even go out and get jobs and all. Plus that was probably when the censors and all that jazz were watching the franchise like a hawk the most and they had to tone it down significantly in result. That's also when Mike got a grappling hook wasn't it?
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Old 04-04-2017, 12:26 AM   #4
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Pretty much yeah, although there was still action in some of the episodes. It was really weird, like one episode would be all slapstick with no real fighting, and then the episode right after would have a huge fight scene. It must be because all these episodes were rushed and made at the same time by different writers and animation studios so nobody knew what was going on.
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Old 04-04-2017, 12:29 AM   #5
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Pretty much yeah, although there was still action in some of the episodes. It was really weird, like one episode would be all slapstick with no real fighting, and then the episode right after would have a huge fight scene. It must be because all these episodes were rushed and made at the same time by different writers and animation studios so nobody knew what was going on.
A shame one of the best fights in those season was in one of the goddamn Howie episodes. I always rewatch that episode just because of that Donatello and Shredder fight. Season 4 or 5 iirc?
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Old 04-04-2017, 12:30 AM   #6
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Season 4, the first Howie ep is fun for that reason. The second one was kinda meh, they do the whole phantom of the opera thing better in the Season 6 episode, "Phantom of the Sewers."
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Old 04-04-2017, 12:33 AM   #7
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Season 4, the first Howie ep is fun for that reason. The second one was kinda meh, they do the whole phantom of the opera thing better in the Season 6 episode, "Phantom of the Sewers."
It's interesting because, on paper, that Phantom of the Sewers episode didn't sound so good... but it was pretty well executed in the end.
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Old 04-04-2017, 12:36 AM   #8
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It's interesting because, on paper, that Phantom of the Sewers episode didn't sound so good... but it was pretty well executed in the end.
Honestly the majority of plots from the original cartoon sound ridiculous when you hear them, since most of them are parodies of old 50's or 80's movies, but when you actually watch the episodes they're pretty entertaining.
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Old 04-04-2017, 12:37 AM   #9
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And remember how different the Lair looked in the first two seasons? I wonder if they moved Lairs between seasons.
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Old 04-04-2017, 12:39 AM   #10
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And remember how different the Lair looked in the first two seasons? I wonder if they moved Lairs between seasons.
Possibly. I wish they made a mention of where they got their old beat-up TV set from. It was an old 80's TV with an antenna and missing a leg. Don probably found it in the sewers.
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Old 04-04-2017, 12:57 AM   #11
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Possibly. I wish they made a mention of where they got their old beat-up TV set from. It was an old 80's TV with an antenna and missing a leg. Don probably found it in the sewers.
The rest of their furniture is in pretty good condition however. Maybe in later episodes April bought/gave them some furniture. As for appliances I imagine Donatello building all of them.
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Old 04-04-2017, 12:58 AM   #12
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It's funny as a kid I had no idea Rex-1 was a parody of Robocop, or that the Pizza Monsters were a parody of the Alien franchise, simply because I hadn't seen those movies when I was a kid before the episodes. Same with Baxter turning into a fly.

Now as an adult who finally watched a bunch of old classic movies, it's really weird recognizing all the parodies in the original show that I never noticed before.
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Old 04-04-2017, 01:00 AM   #13
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It's funny as a kid I had no idea Rex-1 was a parody of Robocop, or that the Pizza Monsters were a parody of the Alien franchise, simply because I hadn't seen those movies when I was a kid before the episodes. Same with Baxter turning into a fly.

Now as an adult who finally watched a bunch of old classic movies, it's really weird recognizing all the parodies in the original show that I never noticed before.
Being 5-6 years old when I first watched those episodes I had no idea either... maybe except for Rex-1 very vaguely.
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Old 04-04-2017, 01:00 AM   #14
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Being 5-6 years old when I first watched those episodes I had no idea either... maybe except for Rex-1 very vaguely.
The whole show is one parody. I guess that's why it was fun. It would have just come across as a very dated 80's action cartoon if it wasn't.
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Old 04-04-2017, 01:03 AM   #15
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The whole show is one parody. I guess that's why it was fun. It would have just come across as a very dated 80's action cartoon if it wasn't.
Aren't the TMNT originally some sort of parody of superhero comic books in general?
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Old 04-04-2017, 01:04 AM   #16
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Yes, at least the first issue.

Although it generally proves the original cartoon never moved on from the whole, "Shredder wants revenge on the Turtles/Splinter, Krang tries to take over Earth or Dimension X, and repowering the Technodrome" plot from Season 1. When you stop to think of it, Season 1 basically represents the story of everything up to the end of Season 7.

The show didn't move on from it's basic premise till Season 8.
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Old 04-04-2017, 01:06 AM   #17
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Yes, at least the first issue.

Although it generally proves the original cartoon never moved on from the whole, "Shredder wants revenge on the Turtles/Splinter, Krang tries to take over Earth or Dimension X, and repowering the Technodrome" plot from Season 1. When you stop to think of it, Season 1 basically represents the story of everything up to the end of Season 7.

The show didn't move on from it's basic premise till Season 8.
Also remember when turning Splinter back ot human form was one of the main goals of the Turtles? Well turns out he didn't mind being a rat after all. The funny thing is, at the end of the first NES game he turns human again... just like that with no mutagen
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Old 04-04-2017, 01:10 AM   #18
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Yeah, it's funny how the other material made for the same time based on the original cartoon, like the videogames or Archie TMNT Adventures went in completely different directions despite all starting with the same concept.
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Old 04-04-2017, 01:17 AM   #19
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..have you noticed this thread so far has consisted of just you and I chatting? it's almost like we're exchanging PMs/Emails and not posting on a thread viewed by other people
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Old 04-04-2017, 01:20 AM   #20
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..have you noticed this thread so far has consisted of just you and I chatting? it's almost like we're exchanging PMs/Emails and not posting on a thread viewed by other people
It's late at night, at least here in NY EST, it's 3:15am here. I imagine everyone else is asleep.
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