Were the later Playmates mutants too wacky??
 

We all love the wild and crazy mutant characters seen in the OT and toyline. Some of my faves were Leatherhead, Baxter as a fly, Slash and Mondo Gecko. But looking at the archives I noticed the end of the line had a crapload of totally insane and overly-ridiculous mutants like a basktball playing giraffe, a dalmation firefighter, an elephant which doctor and so forth. What the hell???

In the beginning, with the exception of Pizza Face, it seemed every toy got their time on TV, and they were all characters I was lookin forward to seeing. I mean, a mutant gator, a robot turtle, a crazed hockey player, I thought they were awesome and was glad to see em when they finally made it on the show. Hell, I bought the Mondo Gecko figure cause I thought he was awesome and was glad when he FINALLY made it on the show (though I think he was featured in the Archie Comics first, that cheered me up too).

Near the end, when the Turtles hit CBS, others started to appear like Mutagen Man, Merdude, Mona Lisa, Slash and Wingnut, and then we had Tokka and Rahzar appear in the Dirk Savage episode, Tatoo in the Shell-Ri-La special and even Antrax and Scumbug in Night of the Rogues. After that it seemed the rest of the CBS eps were more about crazy scientists and such, and of course, Red Sky didn't have any guest stars save for the Rat King and Casey Jones.


So why were the other mutants not featured? Not only were they not shown in the cartoon, but not in the Archie comics either. If anything random mutants like the giraffe and such could have been shown in Dirk Savage too. were they considered just too silly, too stupid and too idiotic to be featured even in the wacky old toon?

And why did Red Sky do away with everyone? Sure Baxter was trapped forever, and Rat King was finally arrested, but throwing in the occasional Leatherhead or something would have broken the monotony of too much Dregg once Shredder left the show. With no Dregg or Carter toys out there, Red Sky just seemed too detached from the swing of things. I mean, was Playmates still making toys during the Red Sky era?

Some of the other mutants were pretty bad designs and I'm glad they never appeared on the show.

Monty Moose? Let's be glad that abomination never got an episode.

Half Court? Sandstorm? Scratch? Hot Spot? Doctor El? King LionHeart? Panda Khan? Scale Tail?

There are actually a lot of old mutant toys that never got an episode.

I actually have some mad love for the wacky mutants. I wish they'd gotten their screen time. It was all really part of the flavor of the Fred Wolf Turtles.

And some of the ones that did basically showed up to throw stuff at the Turtles (Pizza Face), or got shoehorned into a generic villain appearance (Wingnut and Screwloose).

It worked for the toy line, which had a very Monster in My Pocket sort of mindset to them, the wacky characters that you have to collect all of... but half the stuff they were doing at the end were just random anthropomorphic characters with some odd theme to them.

Panda Khan actually had his own comic book, he was "borrowed" for the toyline.

Hey, hey, HEY!

Monty Moose is the third most badass fictional Canadian of all time*! Respect, yo!

*Numbers one and two are Deadpool and Wolverine.

I remember the dalmatian fire fighter, he had a bone as a cigarette in his mouth.

the mooose... :D

When was he in the OT? I haven't seen Once Upon a Time Machine or the last 2 seasons, but I wouldn't think he'd be in one of those (even just to throw stuff).

...or are you talking about a comerical or archie?

I'm more surpised how many did get in the show. They were always making stuff up when they had good figures out there waiting to be used.

He wasn't.

That's what I thought. Drtooth needs better examples (like Ace Duck) :P

Thats what I'm talking abooot! Thanks man!! hahaha

Actually many of the toys listed here are all crazy designs which were brought to life by the Mirage artists themselves. Hopefully we can showcase some of this in more detail in the doc, but many of the figures on your lists were personally designed by Ryan Brown, who was also heavily involved with the creation and stories behind the Archie series which is why we see more of them make appearances there rather than in the show. The show was very far removed from the toy line, only occasionally showcasing one or two toys from the line for "product placement" type of thing. There were also a vast number of not produced figures that were tossed around in that day.

All this talk reminds me of this video

Always loved it when the ot had guest mutants from the toy line! Some I am glad didn't make it(Sandstorm,halfcourt,dalmation,lionheart) Others I wish did(Scratch & the other 2 from the Trio in Archie comics,the real Ray Fillet, pizza face,monty moose,the dragon, & armaggon)

LMFAO.


I would've loved to see scale-tail, panda kahn, and pizza face in the OT. Think about pizza faces potential for a villain! (only for one episode of course) Pizza is the best friend of the turtles.. now it gets turned against them! what a nightmare! and of course at the end we'd have a campy scene. Mikey- "ugh.. i dont think i can even look at another pizza dude" Donny- "back with the pies!" mikey- "ALRIGHT!!!!" and then they'd all stare and laugh, he'd shrug and we'd hear some goofy music. EXCELLENT.

I don't think Armaggon ever had a toy... and if he did, I need that in my collection.

they deffinately 100% did not.. maybe hes just sayin he wishes he was in the show? either that or hes mistaking a street shark for him.

He totally didn't.