Were the Punk Frogs essentially a rip-off of the TMNT?
 

I was looking through the old Vol. 4 letter pages, and some guy asks Peter if the Punk Frogs would appear in the 2k3 show, (this is back when the show first started), and of course Peter said no, and that, "I never thought much of those frogs, they were an uninspired rip-off of the TMNT to begin with."

For some reason I never thought about it that way, but he's essentially right. I always thought the Punk Frogs were going to be foils to the TMNT, but they were only villains for their debut episode, and just turn into recurring friends as the show goes on.

What do you think the purpose of those Punk Frogs were?

4 other toys?

A shallow plot device and marketing strategy just like everything else in the MWS series :-P

Their purpose was to help promote the game Battle Toads through the TMNT fever :trazz:

That's exactly what they were meant to be, parody counterparts to the TMNT... This device was used in the 2K3 continuity at least three times. Pre-FF, it was only used once for a very brief joke in "Turtles in Space" (the D'Hoonibian Ninja Rats) who were used more as a plot device in the second 2K3 videogame. However, the device was used no less than twice in the one season of Fast Forward as a "shallow plot device". First, as the Inuwashi Gunjin. Then, the more obvious Dark Turtles.

I was gonna be funny and say, "They were a shallow attempt to get young kids into the hip-hop culture." but Gobo had to go and be serious....:P

Pfft... :P Everybody knows rabbits are the gateway into hippity-hoppity culture.

I seem to recall them wearing hawaiian shirts. Also, didn't they have names? I saw their action figures but don't remember if they had names or not.

They wore second-hand clothing (tropical vacation-wear) and their names were Attila the Frog, Genghis Frog, Rasputin the Mad Frog, and Napoleon Bonafrog (all parodies of historic warlords).

In response to Jester's hip hop post:

What if they had these names instead?

Kevin Federfrog?

Froginem?

Snoop Frogg?

Frogye West?:P





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... The Frog Formely Known as Prince?:|

Kinda hard to rip off your own show... doncha think?

My main prob with the Frogs was that they all acted exactly the same. I mean the turtles had their set character traits. The frogs were all too trusting, naive, and goody-goody hicks. There was no smart one, dumb one, angry one, serious one, lazy one, violent one, etc. They all acted the same.

And I, as a trusting, naive, goody-goody hick, find the stereotype portrayed by the Punk (Kind ironic since they weren't punks, but as previously mentioned goody-goodys) Frogs.

oh gawd!:D
that would be a interesting villain

Battletoads
 

Battletoads debuted in 1991, as a computer/video game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battletoads. The Punk Frogs TMNT episode aired back in 1988. So it can't be.

And only one of them were made a toy.

I always saw the Punk Frogs as thought to be an evil counterpart to the TMNT, but changed side. Remember how Shredder said him training htem inspired by Splinter training the TMNT.

2....Genghis and Napoleon had toys, but Napoleon looked totally different than his cartoon counterpart.

The Napoleon figure was based on the CBS ep were he comes into contact with some mutant steroids or something... or, more likely, the ep was based on the toy.

This is my opinion on it, too. I always figured they were created to have amphibian counterparts to the turtles. Just four fun characters to have in an episode about a swamp. Nothing to take too seriously.

Less "rip-off" and more a version of the classic, Saturday morning "evil clone" or "hero counterpart" idea.

And as has been pointed out, the idea of "anti-Turtle" teams showed up in the 2003 universe as well.

Wasn't Metalhead also an evil clone episode?

I remember the Power Rangers doing an evil clone episode twice in the same season. It's an idea from Saturday morning cartoons that I always liked.

Justice League
 

Probably. And didn't the Justice League also had evil counterparts?