Why didn't Shredder reunite with the human Foot Clan at any point?
 

In the original cartoon, we of course see Oroku Saki take over the human Foot clan in the first episode. The "stick 'em up" scene with the Foot attacking the kid with the icecream cone were all human.

Then in "Legend of Koji" in Season 7, we again see Shredder go back in time to 1583 where the Foot Clan was first started by Hamato Yoshi's ancestor. Saki's ancestor was there too, and he winds up losing the loyalty of his men to Hamato's new Foot Clan.

However, at no point of the series does Shredder ever reunite with the human Foot Clan of Japan and use them to attack the Turtles in the present day. I honestly feel as if its a huge missed opportunity.

Would have been a great way to bring Karai into the old toon as well, since by 1993 she existed in the comics and we could have seen her in charge of the Foot in Japan while Shredder was with Krang.

This is gonna sound nuts, but who were those ninjas in the opening episode of season 9 (and the credits for the "Red Sky" seasons)?

They were the ninja's from the Season 8 episode, the ones who worked for the guy who turned into a giant cyborg.

Ok...thanks.

Maybe Saki felt robots worked better for his purposes: completely loyal, easily replaceable, no need for food, no families, things like that...

As far as the show goes thought, it's because robots "blew up real good."

By Season 8 they no longer had the robot Foot Soldiers, would have been interesting to see him go back to the Foot Clan of Japan.

I guess it would also remove Shredder from the Turtles realm of responsibility. Then again, lots of awesome stories could have been told with Splinter also going back to Japan to wrest control of the Foot back from Saki...and turn it back to the side of good.

The robot foot soldiers were also wasted, I mean they made them robots so the turtles could cut and stab them basically right? However that never really happened in the old show. You also rarely see them, and when they appear Shredder never sent more than 4-6 anyways, they might as well have been human if the turtles weren't going to be using their weapons on them. Also why not give them purple gloves if they are robots, it bothers me that they have skin for hands.

The creators really should've used season eight to feature Shredder involving the Foot. Without the technodrome and the robot foot soldiers, it was a perfect opportunity to have Shredder use the human Foot members to attack the turtles.

The whole mutagen and foot soldiers backstories ended up being fairly irrelevant in the show, we never saw a real foot vs tmnt theme in the show and they also never used as many mutants as people are led to believe. It was mostly shredder/krang/technodrome/krang/beebop/madscientist/one of the few mutant animals.

The Foot mostly showed up in Season 3, and they're in most of the Shredder eps of Season 6 and 7.

I think it was just for the bulk of Season 4, which was like 40 episodes, that the Foot Soldiers disappeared besides a handful of episodes. That's why you hardly remember seeing them.

Remember, in Season 2 Shredder only had Baxter for the first half of the season, and in Season 8 Shredder/Krang don't have the Technodrome.

So the only major Foot screentime after Season 1, is basically select eps of Seasons 3, 6 and 7. I can't remember what Season 5 eps they were in.

I also believe the Foot, especially during Seasons 4 and 5 were underused to discourage violent fighting, something to fit CBS standards (grappling hooks and foot soldiers just don't mix); whenever the Foot is present, expect some real good use of the Turtles' weapons. And if the human foot was introduced, it could have really given some new plots; but the creators just wanted more villians and generic mad scientists. It could have also made Shredder a much more serious threat to the Turtles.

I remember an ep where Splinter had a map to the Turtle's Lair as well as info that prooved his innocence with the Foot Clan... which Shredder was interested in. But seriously I thought to myself... what Foot Clan? The Foot Clan was basically Krang, Bebop, Rocksteady and a bunch of robots at that point.

in my mind I thought at some point Krang gave shredder technology that transformed the human foot ninja into cyborgs.




Personally I would have liked to have seen more foot clan and ninjitsu centered plots rather than all the sci-fi mad scientist ones we got. I always thought the episodes that heavily drew on SHreder and Splinter's involvement with the foot clan and ninja stuff in general (legend of Koji, White belt black heart) were some good episodes.

I'd have loved to see some human foot soldiers. Maybe Shredder wouldve won more lol

Well Shredder did have the Crooked Ninja Turtle Gang who were humans.

Not really, in Season 7 they fought the human Foot in Japan, and that ninja gang from, "White Belt, Black Heart" as well as those Mole people gangs.

They fought a lot of human enemies later on.