Was there any reason given why Rat King only appeared in a single episode?
 

Rat King only really appeared in 1 episode of the show in an adaption of "I Monster" from Tales, besides appearing as Bishop's clone "The Slayer" at the end of Season 3. He then had a 3 second cameo in the last episode of the entire series in BTTS.

For a Mirage character, Rat King was criminally underused in this show. They didn't even have Splinter and Rat King meet in this show which was bizarre. Even the Nick cartoon adapted Splinter/Rat King's meeting from City at War, which given this show adapted Mirage comic stories, it quite surprising they never did that.

He appeared early in Season 4 so they had more than enough time to give him a follow up ep in late Season 4, or could have even given him an episode in the middle of Season 5 instead of that proposed third Garbageman episode, or even a full episode in Back to the Sewers but did not. I don't get it.

The only reason I can think of is that there was already so much going on in the show and that the Rat King was at the bottom of the creators' priorities.

They still made quite a lot of fillers about generic human enemies or aliens/monsters that didn't have much to do with anything. Certainly Rat King being a main villain of the franchise should have had a higher priority.

Blows my mind they wanted to make a third episode for Garbageman of all characters in Season 5 instead of giving Rat King a second episode.

I would't say main villian but it is a shame that we never saw more of him heck considering how he was a clone of Bishop cast out of society we could've had a good guy Rat King

I agree with everyone that it is disappointing that we only saw him in a couple episodes. I wish they would have explored this character more and fleshed out the characters. Its really interesting bc the character was essentially a blank slate in this series and could have gone anywhere with the character.

Nickelodeon's Rat King was great.

Maybe the writers just forgot about him lol. I agree he could’ve been used again a few more times in the series. He had a good backstory.

But given he's Rat King you wouldn't expect him to just be brushed aside, given PL worked on the show and he's a Mirage character.

We sat through multiple episodes for C-tier characters but they wouldn't give an A-lister TMNT character another episode.

I see Rat King as more B list than A list

Well there really wasn't a whole lot of time for the Rat King to appear in season five. And it wasn't very likely that he would've appeared in the Fast Forward season. So all that leaves is the Back To The Sewer season, which he did get a small cameo.

I think the problem is that there really wasn't a whole lot that the writers could do with the 4Kids Rat King. He was pretty one dimensional.

Not that difficult to explain, this Rat King just seems like he wants to be left alone. There is no reason for him to show up because he has no reason to to do so.

Rat King debuted in only the 5th episode of Season 4. They could have easily had him appear again in mid/late Season 4. There were still plenty of fillers being made or he could have appeared in the plot-centric eps with Bishop discovering his clone was still alive.

In Season 5 he could have easily been in one of the two inbetween episodes when they were back in NYC. As I said, the fact that they wanted to make a third Garbageman ep of all things instead of giving Rat King a second episode is mind blowing.

Even in Fast Forward he could have theoretically appeared if you assume Rat King could live for 100 years or something.

Then in BTTS again he could have easily gotten an ep instead of that Serling/toddler Turtles ep, or the dumb Green Mantle superhero ep, etc.


They had more than enough time in every season to give him another ep so that's not an excuse. Also at the end of his first episode he says, "I'll haunt their nightmares for days to come" or something along those lines...yet he never faces the Turtles again. And there was still the Splinter/Rat King meeting they never did where Splinter is injured and Rat King appears as a ghost/hallucination that Nick adapted instead.

I also think that!

I find it odd as to how a secondary tmnt character appeared so often in the Original cartoon (10 episodes, mentioned in many more) while hardly ever appearing in the 2k3 series (barely 3 episodes).

Its usually the other way around.

The secondary villains always changed around based on the show. Like in this show since it was Hun's debut he was a major villain and he lasts throughout the entire series even into BTTS and Turtles Forever. In Nick, Hun is Bruce Lee and only gets like 2 full episodes of screentime.

4kids Baxter is also in the most amount of episodes of all the Baxter's, given he works for Bishop after Shredder is gone.

Each TMNT series also always keeps the same Shredder minions throughout the whole show and never does away with them. This series had Hun, the Elite Guards, Karai, Baxter, etc. last throughout the entire run and get beaten dozens of times. In Nick you saw Tiger Claw/Rahzar/Fishface/Bebop/Rocksteady get beaten throughout the whole show. Then in the original show Bebop/Rocksteady.

Hun gets taken down in this series by the Turtles around 15-20 times, same way they beat Tiger Claw/Rahzar/Fishface dozens of times in Nick. If you're a main villain you last throughout the whole series and get beaten over and over.

Hun at least had his own criminal organization with the Purple dragons and was independent for about 2 seasons

I think the original Rat King could carry some episodes in the 4 Kids series (except the one he just came up from the sewers to steal a pizza). Maybe he shouldn't play the flute to control rats.

Yeah the flute would've been too goofy for the 4Kids series.

If we appeared in the 2003 show as he was in his final appearance of the Original Cartoon, with the Fedora and Telephatic powers, that would've been awesome.

Also, breaking his brainwash of Splinter shouldn't be as easy as just spray water at him. But still, the fight between the turtles and Splinter in "Enter the Rat King" are among the most memorable moments in TMNT history.

Rat King's next appearance should have been meeting with a Splinter with a broken leg in a huge cavern/tunnel/storm drain or whatever from City at War, and Nick adapted that segment.

Had the series lasted longer and started to adapt more stories from the comics, we might have seen him again, but Laird had too many other balls bouncing around at that point due to all the new characters in the show, some he himself did not necessarily create, but became very fond of (Hun for example).

But I think, that's perhaps the reason too. Because he was so much used in the OT, PL didn't wan't him to make a recurring villain, wanted only tell the memorable "I, monster" story, and left the "City at War" episode for the ... rats.

And in the Mirage comics there aren't any more stories with him, aren't it?

The Nick cartoon adapted the City at War meeting between Rat King and Splinter. Surprised this show didn't.

Where would they even put it though?

I'm sure they left it out there to explore later in a future episode, it just never happened. Same with the Darkness Within episode.

Darkness Within was basically a horror movie trope where the monster seems alive at the end, that was never intended to get any follow-up.

Back when that episode first aired I was bothered by the idea of Rat King being some cyborg copy of Bishop, but looking back after the 2012 series and how people are so up in arms about the new show coming out in a few months, the idea was pretty good. I kinda wish I had taken more of a liking to that version.

Rat King can be interperted in many different ways, loved the 2012 version and it might be my favorite, and IDW made him an immortal God.

He's one of the few characters you can do anything with.

Dunno, but his single appearance sure was memorable, so it's fine. I guess there just wasn't much the writers could think about doing with him in the series.