"Tried to destroy Yoshi with that Mutagen!" And Other Random Fred Wolf Conundrums
 

I was reading the Season 0, thread and it kinda dawned on me, why did Shredder think that a mutagenic substance would destroy (read: KILL!!!) Hamato Yoshi? Did he expect him to mutate into a human virus and make himself sick? I mean, what part of "mutagen" didn't Saki understand?

See...that doesn't say, "Kills your 'immortal enemy.'" (There's another little gripe...how are Yoshi and Saki "immortal" or "ancient" enemies?) It says, "Mutates your enemy in to some critter." Maybe he wanted to do much more than kill him. Maybe he wanted to hurt him. And he wished to keep on hurting him....sorry, slipped into a little Wrath of Khan there.

Perhaps he thought Yoshi would be closest in contact with s*it and piss and mutate and die from that:)

You're trying to make sense out of the Fred Wolf show???

If you must I'd argue that the most logical explanation would be that Shredder simply thought it was toxic waste that would poison Yoshi and kill him. Mutation was an unintended side effect like it was in the comics.

Why Saki didn't do the deed himself or send his Foot Soldiers (robotic or otherwise) to kill him directly I don't know. Just the nature of action/adventure fiction I guess.

Well, scientifically speaking, "mutagen" is generally a negative phenomenon when it comes to practical things... like living.

So I totally think Shredder just wanted to test out Krang's shiny goo and see what happened.

There was some other clunky stuff in the script. Like Shredder watching the live video of the turtles thrashing his Foot Ninja... he recognizes their fighting style as that of the Foot but can't tell if they're turtles or not.

It's not that weird an idea to me. Shredder probably figured if Hamato Yoshi mutated into a rat or whatever else animal he'd be an outcast and wouldn't be a threat to him anymore. In a sense he did destroy "Hamato Yoshi" as the latter took on the identity of Splinter after this incident.

"Could it be? My ancient enemy Hamato Yoshi still lives?"

Mutation isn't beneficial to living, although in the context of fiction it gives people enhancements. In a sense, the Shredder's viewpoint is fairly realistic in that he used it to kill, destroy, ruin, etc. Hamato Yoshi.

Ok, maybe he figured Hamato Yoshi wouldn't be able to survive in his mutated form isolated in the sewers, being unable to go topside to get supplies and food. Still makes sound reasoning to me.

I always kinda assumed Shredder was trying to destroy him 'socially'. So, "Splinter No More" was a glimpse at how his plan was intended to work.

Yeah, that's a good theory too. Obviously Shredder didn't know the exact location of the lair (I guess we can assume that anyway), so perhaps he just flooded certain parts of the sewer system with the stuff. Which makes you think there probably should have been a lot more mutants running around under the NYC Sewer System!

In the episode "return of the technodrome" Splinter and Shredder can actually feel each other's presence. I guess that's how he managed to pour the mutagen canister into the right part of the sewers.

This made me giggle.

Shredder must have realized that the sewers were the last possible location where Yoshi was. He just hoped that it would mutate him into a weak creature, such as an ant or a snail that would make Splinter too powerless against Shredder. Shredder just didn't understand that Mutagen doesn't destroy anything and seemed to be his Achilles heel in terms of how he would kill people. Realizing that a retromutagen ray would only make Splinter human, Shredder can only use Ninja Weapons and firearms and other non-mutagen traps to destroy mutated humans. That's why Shredder wanted to destroy the turtles before dealing with Splinter is most cases since not only pet shop sized-turtles can be destroyed easily, but it would allow him to fully concentrate on his archrival.

I agree. While it's best not to try to make too much sense out of the little things in the original cartoon, this explanation seems to make the most sense to me.

I think this is what I always assumed when I was child.

Well he did know that Yoshi was taking care of four pet turtles. So that makes me think that he did know approximately where Yoshi was staying in the sewers.

Maybe it wasn't yet called "mutagen" when Shredder used it. Maybe it was just toxic waste (like in Mirage) that coincidentally turned out to be mutagen.

Are ya sure he says "immortal enemy" because the phrase is usually "mortal enemy". :P

I'm pretty sure that's a completely different kind of story.

Good point! Maybe Splinter and the turtles relocated after all?

Um... sorry about that. I need to think about how things sound before I post them.

Maybe they did relocate, and here's a logical reason why. Up until that point, Yoshi was a bachelor living alone with only pet Turtles and rats. Now he's suddenly a father to four newly teenage Turtles and his "bachelor pad" just ain't big enough and they need a bigger living area...just my thought.

You know in writing this I wonder: The FW Turtles (as we've established since IDW shares this trait) mutated into "teenagers" in seconds (took a year in the Mirage origin to reach their "current size"). How long did those turtles "train in the art of ninjitsu"?

EDIT: If your thread starts to veer to further awesome, but slightly off topic, things...just rename the thread. :P