Shredder wearing his armour, mask and helmet almost all the time?
 

In the original series and TMNT Adventures, Shredder wears his armour, mask and helmet almost all the time. Is that lazy animation or what?

I think it's stupid Shredder not taking these off when he doesn't fight. He spends a lot of time in the Technodrome, where he isn't attacked unless he doesn't have a plot and the turtles infiltrate.

It just makes me think of that line from The Princess Bride, when the dread pirate Roberts says that his mask is tremendously comfortable and that everyone will be wearing them in the future.

That one episode where he used a hologram device to make him look like he's just wearing regular clothes... when he could have just taken the armor off.

He probably can't have the armor off in Krang's presence. From the show, the helmet and face plate are OK; but not the rest of it.

Because he's a supervillain

It reminds of kings and queens of monarchy-states in fairytales, walking around in crown all the time. In reality, that happens only during ceremonies or during the last 200 years usually not even then.

I think it works just fine in the Fred Wolf cartoon, but if you're going for a serious take, he should rarely ever don the armor. Generally speaking.

For real.

Actually, Shredder seems to wear in armor constantly in most incarnations of the show since the 4Kids era (where he actually had his recreational robe and business suit... even though he was just an alien squid inside an android suit the whole time.

I find FW Shredder wearing his armor all the time to be a disappointment; he's quite a handsome fella :lol:

Obviously it was left on all the time for animation budget reasons, but I don't think Krang would really care. He probably runs around without his body all the time anyway...

It was a missed opportunity to have his CG unmasked self appear in "Wanted Bebop and Rocksteady".

Would've been quite fitting when he and Krang were at the coffee table.

It was a good idea if he got in trouble when in Florida, and quickly needed to fight.

Wouldn't you want to be wearing that banging helmet and armor if you had it?

I sure would, and he took them off whenever he needed to but usually didn't.


Now that we're talking about the mask, is that supposed to be cloth or metal? Many times it's removed as if it only were cloth but other times it's supposed to be metal. Very inconsistent in the show with it.

I nevee thought of the helmet or face mask as cloth. It was always metal. What are some examples of it being considered cloth?

In one of the season 2 episodes, Curse of the Evil Eye I think, Shredder takes and puts his mask on as if its a cloth.

I'm pretty sure he does it in more than one episode and of course in others it is indeed a metal plate.

Reminds me of the 90s Fantastic Four cartoon where in one of the episodes the animators didn't get the memo and his metal mouth moves :lol:

I thought it was silly how he never changed his armor...well, looking back as an adult I thought so. I never thought anything of it as a kid watching because I was used of cartoon characters never changing their clothes and wearing the same thing for every episode.:P

You know, I was more bothered by 2012 Shredder always wearing his armor than the 1987 Shredder. Shredder was a businessman in the 2012 series. Seems he would only put on his armor when he has to fight or just feels like wearing it around the house...erm...lair. Doing business in the armor just looked stupid to me.

Being who he is I suppose he never wants to be open to attack. In 2012 when Karai went to try and kill him and attacked his throne in the dark, I wondered if he actually slept in this throne, with his Armour. In legend of the Kuro Kabuto though he wasn't wearing it, cause they needed it to be stolen in that ep.

He probably slept inside his thronehall or a nearby room, without armour, but with gauntleds and helmet ready at the bedside table.

On model policies sure were strict back then... Kind of odd how they didn't have an out of armor model to work with, or did they think kids would be less likely to want the toy that way? Then again, the character model still takes some liberties.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5068/...90594420_b.jpg

You think parents would be weirded out if the character model looked like that?

Neato, looking at the figure I cannot help, but wonder if instead of skin if it was originally supposed to be black to match the pants. Is there any other figure that looks nothing like the actual cartoon character?

There could be a lot of explainations for this. One possiblity is that, yes, he was meant to wear a skin tight top but that detail got lost somehow.

Another one is that the toy's design wasn't quite hammered out when they started production of the show, so Shredder ended up resembling an earlier design in the show.

What I think is the most likely explaination however, is that they're different takes on the comic design. The show actually takes fewer liberties with how Shredder originally looked, only really adding color and a cape. If you compare the show and the toy to the comic, you'll see that the cape is really the only deviation the show and toy share. The cape was proably meant to give the toy another accessory for kids to play with, and so it was a demand from Playmates that he needed to look more or less like the comic except a cape. I guess it went down something like this:

"Look, Freddie, we're gonna use that comic to base them toys on, ya' see? Just make 'em mo' or less look like da comic. Just pick da colors we want, put letters on they'se belts and put a cape on da cheese grater."

In the TMNT Adventures, he wears it even in the desert of Saudi Arabia.

I'm sure there were many scenes with Shredder going to sleep without having his armour on but y'know when you're on the job you have to look presentable, it's as simple as that. :D

Only neatoman finds this stuff. :lol:

Shredder is clever. That's a good way to lose weight. ;)

That brings a slightly scary thought that while in hologram he was actually walking around naked. :o

[QUOTE=pferreira;1748152]I'm sure there were many scenes with Shredder going to sleep without having his armour on but y'know when you're on the job you have to look presentable, it's as simple as that. :D/QUOTE]

There weren't many scenes with Shredder sleeping at all.

Dude, you're in a massive alien battle tank commanded by an alien from another dimension. His whole army of rock soldiers are waiting to invade planet Earth. Your colleagues are a rhino and a warthog, you use an interdimensional portal that splits your atoms apart to allow you travel to another planet or if you're lucky you use a a carriage with a massive drill attachment to get deep underground through lava. You also must contend with four mutant turtles who are teens along with their master who's a giant rat continually foiling your plans. I would get a bit of insomnia myself. :lol:

And, yet he wasn't wearing the helmet, which was weird.

I'm pretty sure something as silly as the OT would dare show Shredder sleeping in his armor, with pijamas over it or such nonsense.

I guess the reason was to slowly reveal the armour under his disguisse at the end of the first of those issues.

I think it's weirder though, that Mirage Shredder (or the undead worm abomination version thereof) took off his armor to duel with Leonardo in "Return to New York". It was a cool dramatic sequence, but removing one's armor is the opposite of preparing for a battle.

And, if he didn't want his armor on (for whatever reason) why did he wait for Leo to show up before he took it off?

It's like he was sitting there for hours thinking "as soon as one of those turtles gets here, I'm going to make him watch me take my armor off, and it'll look cool and bad-ass! Who cares if it makes sense?"

Maybe the armor slowed him down and he wanted to fight Leonardo at his most fastest yet most vulnerable.

2k12 Shredder was also hideously disfigured. Maybe he had self image problems?

I'm sure I remember him telling Splinter it was his fault, or because of him that he had to wear the mask, (referring to scars I assume) can't remember the exact words he used though.

It's not really a deviation Shredder wore a cape in the comics before the toy.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zAWvPEzuQ8...s400/Leo07.jpg

It was rather silly that Shredder never took his armor off in the OT even when in disguise. I think he should only have it on when he personally leads a mission or when he has to fight.

Huh, nicely spotted! Kind of hard to remember something that only occurs for two panels on a single page, one far away and the other in shadow.

I was watching a youtube video the other day of someones TMNT toy collection and the guy had a custom made grey shirt on shredder, along with the original purple cape.
It actually looked pretty neat
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiCffc0X-jA

I'm guessing they had him wear it almost all the time to make it easier for the kids to recognize the character.

This. And it looks cool, tbh. Like a shogun. Especially 2k3's Shredder.

But if he is inside the Technodrome with Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady, recognizing him isn't a big deal...

Cartoon characters tend to only have one outfit only. April was always wearing(except in the Red Sky episodes and a few other exceptions) that yellow jumpsuit of hers, which leads us to believe she never washed it... which really says something since she went in the sewers very often. Yuck :lol:

It's basically less work for the animators. Characters have their trademark look and that's what they present/sell them as. You see Shredder in his armour and helmet all the time and that makes you want to buy his action figure more.

Interestingly, it seems anime/manga characters change their outfit way more often than American cartoon characters do. Dunno why they go the extra mile to do that, but it's nice to see how creative they can get with the new outfits and clothes they give characters throughout a series.