Were the later Playmates mutants too wacky??

[Coola Yagami]

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?