Take Me To Your Leader
 

I went into Wednesday wanting to watch three FW TMNT episodes, none of which were going to be this, but I did'nt have much time after playing a couple of matches from the WWE MITB event for my pal, (trying to gradually get her into wrestling), so we settled on this one episode on a random whim.

My first exposure to this story came from the book adaptation, which was called "Follow the Leader"

If I had to pick apart one part of the story, it's that Leonardo's' crisis of confidence is void of any real motivation other than a bad dream. Outside of that one extra scene where he hits himself on the head with the Bo staff, it's very rushed. I think it'd have been better if Leo's dream had been motivated by an actual battle. I think this element was just a victim of time constraints because it packed a lot in otherwise, and it also has a pretty rushed conclusion, with Leo suddenly snapping out of his funk once the bridge collapses.

I liked how resourceful Donatello was in the leadership role, and he only really relinquishes it just so he can nip back to the lair to fetch another device. Raph's problems with leadership were interesting, but before you have time to think about them, it's dropped as soon as he hands over the role to Donny. If they did this in a modern show now, this would be a whole arc for Raph, choking in the face of a real position of responsibility and realising he has very little answers to solutions.

One of my favourite episodes. I mostly agree with what ZariusTwo said. Leo was my favourite turtle as a kid, so it was great to see a good Leo-centric episode. I thought there was truth in the quote by the man: "Everybody's complaining about the weather, but nobody's doing anything about it."

And in Hotrodding Teenagers from Dimension X Raphael says everyone complains over the weather but Leonardo does something about it.

One of my favourite eps, love it to death :)

Hey even Michaelangelo gets some spotlight

We still see him use his nunchucks also! (kinda... a troutsicle!)

I wonder if Krang maybe had sucked out stellar energy from other stars like that while in Dimension X the way he almost did with the Sun here almost turning the Earth into a snowball? Could have been one of his deadliest weapons.

Is this the one with the gay farmer stereotype? And monster pumpkin nightmares?

No, that episode is "Unidentified flying Leonardo."

That episode you're referring to had farmers, but I do not recall them being gay. Unless you don't mean gay in the homossexual sense.

I watched it once as a kid and remember only the pumpkins. But when I read DrSpengler's review of the episode on AiPT, he mentioned an insulting homosexual stereotype of a farmer in a pink shirt and overalls.

All I remember... giant nightmare pumpkins.

Oh Fred Wolf. <shakes head>

I just watched this episode and heard Leonardo's voice in the zoo and the old school as if he were actually there.

I gave my opinion in another thread so I'll quote it here:

"Love that episode, it has some genius moments of comedy and irony. The bit where after Leo leaves the other three not wanting to be leader because they know what hassle it'll be I always found really funny. I always liked the bit where the three Turtles are in the school, Don slips on the stairs and you get this hilarious shot of him falling towards camera showing how not capable they are without Leo. I do wish the 80's cartoon had more scenes that were this funny."