Mutant of the week show?
 

One thing the show seems to fail at: everytime anyone is mutated there is never any horror, never any, "Oh my GOD, what will become of my life now??! My job, my wife/kids/parents/friends!!!" The mutated people just kind of shrug and go, "Oh nice, now I can really f*** up the Turtles! Rahhh!!!" It's never not fun, but this show is hardly making a stellar case for how one can sensibly embrace what Peter went to great pains to avoid, which is mutant-of-the-week type of fluff.

Ordinarily they seem to mutate people who're self centered loners, like that Snake thug who worked for the Kraang and Vic who got mutated into Spider-Bytes. Odds are neither of them had any loved ones in the first place. Maybe at some point down the line they'll do a storyline where someone with a family gets mutated and we'll get to see the consequences of that scenario.

To be fair it's like this in Archie and the OT too. Ray Fillet didn't mind being a mutant, Leatherhead got over it fast, same for Mondo Gecko.

Bebop and Rocksteady also enjoyed being mutants and never showed a desire to become human.

I think the only character who hated being a mutant was Baxter Stockman since he considered himself a hideous freak.

That's a good topic. I was wondering about as Shredder talked to Bebop and Rocksteady before he mutated them. In Episode 2 of the OT i think..he said to them.."well you will not get a date at sunday evening after this " or something like that.

I was starting to think about.. How hard must it be to be a mutant and try to get a girlfriend? I think this is really sad if you think about.. The only way to find love as a mutant is

A. You have good friends like the turtles (And still then you will not have body-love)
B. You have a mutant of the same kind of your friend/partner

Mostly theres just only one Mutant of his kind...sad story. Most of them will never find love.

The OT is a child's show so i can understand they don't show the feelings of mutants and so on.. It's about turtles kicking butts !

In the Nick show Splinter is shown on a picture (as human) with his family and he talked about once...i think Splinter is the only mutant that offers the tragedy of beeing a mutant without wanting it sometimes. A more complex character if you ask me.

2k3 did very good in this department...

Archie Leaterhead at least struggled with it. He said he was considered a monster on Earth, but wanted to be a hero on Stump Asteroid. Also, Archie Ray Fillet had to struggle with his new body, Even Archie Mondo Gecko had a hard time, so Archie did it better.

Honestly, this is an element that's bothered me since I was a kid and similar things would happen in the cartoon, toy bios or Archie comics.

I like the mutant-of-the-week schtick in certain versions of the TMNT, but I do feel this aspect could be better handled.

Splinter No More
 

The 1987 show at least dealt with Splinter's emotion, especially season 1-2. Splinter No More is, together with Shreddervile, the deepest works of that show, dealing with mankind at all.

The reason it didn't matter as much because most mutants in the past were animals who became intelligent, not humans. When animals are given a higher form of life and become self aware, of course its going to be a benefit. (See: Leatherhead, the Frogs, Groundchuck/Dirtbag, Rahzar/Tokka, Slash, Mondo Gecko (OT origin), etc.)

Baxter Stockman constantly considered himself a freak, spent his entire run trying to find some way to turn back to a human, and blamed both Shredder/Krang and the Turtles for his misfortune.

As for Bebop/Rocksteady, their charm was probably that they were just so stupid that they didn't care about being human again.

So as you can see, most mutants weren't human prior to mutation, so what did they have to complain about? The only exceptions is probably Mona Lisa, Muckman, and Mutagen Man...but they were all one-shots.

Well there's always fan fiction....

Actually, now that you bring it up, you're right. There weren't many human-to-animal mutations in the Fred-Wolf cartoon, and when there were, they were usually treated with some level of outrage and horror, or at least a period of settling in.

The Adventures characters seemed to more or less shrug it off though.

But yeah, the Nick cartoon could have a slightly more somber approach when it comes to this.

Bradford and Xever seemed pretty horrified at first, but no follow up.

I prefer animals becoming intelligent in most cases for the mutants anyway. The only ones I prefer being human prior is obviously Bebop/Rocksteady and Baxter...both of whom were our, "gateway drugs" to human ---> animal mutants other than Splinter.

There weren't really that many Archie mutants that were human prior either besides the Mutanimals and...Scumbug I think. Armaggon was a normal shark I'm sure, Slash was from an alien turtle planet, etc. Most of the other characters were aliens, (Malinga, Scul/Bean, Wingnut/Screwloose), or demons (like Null)

There was also Verminator-X, but I believe it was stated he was a normal cat prior. Certainly no mention of him ever being human.

That was disappointing to me to be honest. I would have liked to see even one scene of them (or either one of them) having trouble accepting what they have become.

Xever in particular bothered me. He became a fish stuck in a giant glass tub and all he can think about is "If I wasn't stuck in here, I would have caught the Turtles by now". Talking about priorities.:roll:

As for Spiderbitez and Snakeweed, they were kinda stereotypical douchey characters as humans, so the lack of angst from their side doesn't bother me.

I really don't care about Snake and Vic's social lives.

Falco seemed to be set up as a regular character more than Rockwell did, so I doubt we'd see the latter. The only wrinkle was Bradford, since he was famous.

I see your point here, but like to give something to think here.becomming humanoid may not be a 'higher lifeform' as you put it...also we as a species are terribly ignorant while not all-knowing at the same time..why would it be better to be a humanoid?..I dont see them mingle with other people..and we still dont know **** if ou ask me on the topic whether animals are aware of themselves, are activelly thinking and such..we in many fields just assume that animals dont...

Its just that these characters prefer having mutant powers feeling that they feel more evil than simply remaining human. Baxter is an important exception since he could just build machines/electronics and feels that being mutated will limit his powers and reception.

Every series with 50+ episodes will have some one-shots, whether its in Mirage, Archie, 4kids, or the OT. So far, most of the characters aren't one-shots, so its too early to judge if this series will evolve into a mutant of the week formula like the OT did later on.

The monkey professor and pigeon pete could've been two examples to illustrate the point Andrew made.

Being a kids' show though, any of that type of stuff is fodder for a tie-in comic.

Pidgeon Pete wasn't a human prior. Didn't you hear him say he started off as a pigeon?

As for the monkey professor, we're probably going to see him again and hopefully see him revert to normal.

Actually no, I only saw the last few minutes of the episode. :tsmile:

You must see that episode ASAP, one of the best episodes of the new show so far. :D

Mona Lisa on the OT didn't seem very comfortable with being a mutant, either. After her flashback to tell her story, she says something along the lines of..."and became the grotesque mutant I am today..."

I'd like to point out that this, in fact, never happened, although it probably would've been a lot cooler if it had.

You know I remember that quote from her from that episode. To contrast that, IF they do put her in the new series have her embrace her mutant form after she discovers the super abilities he now has but yes she did make the comment about the grotesque mutant she became.

I don't think pointing to the Fred Wolf universe as a basis of reasoning for anything... realistic... is going to be a good idea. Or a worthwhile burning of calories.

And the Archie series, while it is a direct Fred Wolf spinoff and kind of grandfathers in all the latent stupidity therein (which leads us back to my last point), did at least make some attempt -- at times -- to show some learning curve to mutations. The first one that comes to mind is Mondo Gecko, the horror not so much in him, but of his girlfriend who leaves him (for a time) and his subsequent depression. Jess Harley was pretty horrified, too, at least for a while -- in fact, his whole thing in the beginning was, "I gotta find a way to undo this and go back to being human!"

I think an argument could be made that psychologically, the more self-centered and/or narcissistic the person, the more them becoming physically warped would tend to horrify the person.

There's literally no thought process behind it. "Wow, I'm really gonna be able to beat up the Ninja Turtles now!" But let's assume you do. What then? At the end of the day you're still going to be Plant-Man, or Giant Dog Man, or whatever other else is going on this week, so what's your plan, then? What's the endgame? Where are you going to live, how are you going to support yourself... what will be your hopes and dreams? None of this, huh? Just stand over the TMNT's graves and pound on them for eternity, that's the plan, ey?

Silly, silly, silly...

Or Rat-Man, in the case of Splinter.

Considering Splinter has to live the rest of his life below ground seperated from human society, I'd say his mutation was depressing.

One of the reasons I like the Hamato Yoshi origin.

Unfortunately, same as in the Fred Wolf show, it comes at the cost of making the mutagen a joke.

At the end of the day it's a freakin' children's show, that you weren't gonna like or even respect anyway....

Neither comment is true. I respect the show for what it is and I rather enjoy it (despite it definitely not being "for me"), but I don't see how affording the tiniest bit of weight to, I dunno, completely destroying people's lives with mutations would make the show toxic for little children.

Really...wow. Color me pleasantly surprised and genuinely apologetic. :P

At least there could have been a few episodes dedicated to Scumbug, Antrax, Wyrm or Pizzaface.

A lot of those other Playmate mutant characters were terrible though. Glad Monty Moose and Half Court never made it into the show.

I wasn't thinking she would but my 5 year-old daughter actually really loves the show too. We've watched every one together and, in addition to constantly asking me "Why is the orange one so silly?" asks daily "When does the next one come out?" I don't have an answer to either question. When does the next episode come out?

Back on point, it wouldn't be something that appeals to me personally but I do feel like it's possible for a TMNT kids show to have a lot of mutants and not escalate things into creative bankruptcy and "prove Peter Laird wrong" in that regard... but this just isn't how you do it. To me this is only proving him right, at seemingly every turn.

Leatherhead episode was very well done, though.

Apparently Ciro said it'll be back in February.

There's a lot of children's shows I, and other adults, like and respect. Sadly I can't count this as one of them. Just because it's for kids doesn't mean it has to completely kiddie. Avengers, Wolverine and The X-men, Spectacular Spider-man, Batman TAS, Superman TAS, Justice League, hell even 2K3. This is way sillier, lighter, and much more streamlined for young children...who like anime.

The show has very, very few anime-esque expressions. Its only used like one or two times per episode, and even then its only in certain scenes.

Then that's one or two times too many. I'm not saying the show needs to take itself hyper-seriously, but I don't know that it needs to kick me in the nuts and yank me out of the story just to remind me "Hey, f*ckface! Don't forget this is a show for little kids!" either.

Its actually interesting how even though the anime boom died in the U.S. sometime back in 2006, you still see this anime expressions added to U.S. produced cartoons.

You go back and watch the original cartoon and you see NONE of this in the episodes, there were no visual gags that popped out in "Looney Tunes" -esque fashion. Mainly because the show was produced prior to the anime craze ever hitting America...which started around 1998 when Pokemon hit U.S. shores.

Interesting, plague, all depends on how you view it. It's because a lot of animators themselves are fans of anime so they reference it. I just wish they were fans of good anime like the Disney and Pixar animators so we could see homages to decent anime films.