Was Leatherhead a man eater?
 

If Leatherhead mutated the way that he did it would mean that at some point he touched a human right? Humans barely ever touch alligators in the wild intentionally unless they are attacked. So it seems very possible that Leatherhead ate a human at some point before his mutation.

That's entirely possible. I believe his OG comic origin was that he was in containment by the Utroms before being exposed so they either fed him a human or they just had human dna on hand to mix with the mutagen. The toon version was human turned Gator but its been a while since I've seen that episode. IDW Leatherhead was also with the Utroms & mutated...

I agree with the possibility.

I know in the TMNT Adventure Comics he was transformed by Mary Bones...he was originally Jess Harley, and then he wanted to become a wrestler.

The Shredder tricked him in an attempt to gain his strength against the Turtles.

The toon version was gator turned human.

Isn't there at least one version where he started out as a pet (thus handed by humans) and then was flushed? Or am I thinking of something else.

The 2003 cartoon. I thought that was how he met the utroms as well in the Mirage/Image comics as well.

Wait, what? There is no human DNA involved in Mirage mutations.

lol beat me to it.

I should have mentioned that I am talking about the 87 cartoon version of Leatherhead. Perhaps he ate a native cajun person and inherited some of the personality traits.

Eh, didn't we see it happen? He pretty much comes in contact with this guy, then takes his accent like right away.

I saw no contact, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. I don't even remember seeing that scene.

What is interesting is that he not only picks up a Louisiana accent but he finds a set of clothes that match the father. Where did he get the clothes? Could he have killed the two of them freshly mutated? Still though its doubtful the clothes would be his size.

Also, what accents do The Punk Frogs have?

I think the soft inference is that Leatherhead ate/killed the dad between the scenes there. They couldn't show it but... there's the clothes. And he clearly had a grudge with the guy.

I think you're probably right. The personalities are just too similar for it to be a coincidence.

Kind of clever, really, for a kid's show.