Carter? Dregg? What is this crap?

[cartoonistaaron]

So I was making dinner for me and my wife the other night and popped in the Season 1 DVD of the original 'toon. I decided I'd force myself to watch the 4 "Never Before Seen" episodes.

What the hell? Carter? Dregg? That scientist who looks just like the Mirage comic book Baxter Stockman?

What happened with these episodes? Where did the cartoon take such a weird left turn? Raph's replacement voice wasn't too bad but everything else stunk, on ice. Dregg and Mung had terrible designs, even if the guy doing Dregg's voice (Tony Jay?) was fantastic.

It felt like such an obvious "ratings are falling, shoehorn in everything you can think of" scenario. I never saw the last couple seasons of the show and didn't realize how far it had fallen. What an ignominious end to a once-great cartoon. Thank God for Turtles Forever.

Any other thoughts on the last couple seasons of the original cartoon? Am I alone in my distaste?

[AquaParade]

That's pretty much how I felt about everything after season 1

Still, that must have been a shocker, to someone who had never seen the "Red Sky" season, as I usually hear it called. All things considered, I wouldn't actually say it was the worst era of the old toon.

[oldmanwinters]

At least the theme song & opening were pretty cool, even though the clips from the first live-action movie seemed ancient by the mid-90s. I recommend you watch Season 8, it had the improved art style and dramatic tension of the later seasons without the bizzare plot twists (second mutations) and lame new characters like Carter and Dregg.

[DrSpengler]

I didn't mind them in the slightest, personally.

8 seasons of same ole-same ole was getting very, very montonous. I love the Fred Wolf series, I really do, but it was about as repetitive as 80s animation can get.

In Carter, it was nice for the Turtles to have a human ally that wasn't April and was used on a frequent basis. yeah, they had Zack and Casey, but we saw relatively little of them. The Turtles before the "Red Sky" episodes didn't have much in the way of a recurring supporting cast, which was a factor in the show getting stale quick.

And I enjoyed the change of pace that Lord Dregg brought as a villain. 8 seasons of Shredder and Krang had grown weary and season 8 gave them a fair enough sendoff as primary threats. Perhaps I enjoyed Dregg more thanks to Tony Jaye's voice over, but I was just happy to see a regular new villain enter the picture.

A lot of folks hates the last two seasons because of how different they are, but that's the reason I enjoy them.

[sdp]

Funny my opinion is the exact opposite, now the only carter/dregg episodes I've seen are the ones from the S1 DVD and I thought they were great, yeah they are totally different but its a nice change to see the turtles being a bit more serious and a villain that posed a bigger threat, I thought the second mutation angle was kinda cool too, I look forward to seeing those seasons when I watch through the entire series in a few months, I'm done waiting for Lionsgate.

[DrSpengler]

The econd mutations didn't bug me, either. It was nice to see episode-to-episode continuity and season-long story arcs return to the series, consistently, for the first time since season 2.

And the second mutations which a lot of people hated really didn't last as long as they'd have you think. Three or four episodes, was it?

Personally, I'm surprised it took until season 9 for the changes to the show to be implemeted. TMNT was long overdue for them, if you ask me.

[Powder]

I LOVED it as a kid. LOVED IT. I wasn't huge on Dregg, but I loved the second mutations, the "real" foot clan, HAVOC, the dark tone, Aprils new role, and so forth. I don't like it now as much as I did then, but it was still a decent change of pace (Given the exception of Carter [Who should've just been Keno]).

[Icebot]

I remember back in the day when I saw the first new episode of Season 9 for the first time ever, I was pretty excited to see Shredder and Krang, but instead we get this new guy Dregg. I was hoping the turtles would get rid of Dregg as soon as possible so Shredder and Krang could come back. But then it comes to this: week after week after week, Dregg is getting away just as Shredder used to, and coming back for another attempt to conquer the earth. And I was constantly asking the question: When are Shredder and Krang gonna come back?????

As for Carter, I wasn't too crazy about him either when he first arrived but I thought it was pretty cool how his mutation made him powerful, and I learned to like him more in Season 10, the turtles really needed him to help with Leonardo's mutation.

I learned to like Dregg as a villain once Mung told him about Shredder and Krang in Season 10 and broght them back to earth. I also liked how two of the turtles visited the Technodrome one last time, and used Krang's android body to battle Dregg.

[Avatar Yuffie]

I actually like the direction of the Red Sky season... although it's kinda jarring if you watch the ending of season 7 (which is my favorite, right up with season 1) then go switch to the first episode of season 8 to the brand new character design.

But then again 2K3 ended in season 4 jumped the Lost Season to FF, so I guess it coulda been worse.

It's interesting to see Raphael and Donatello wondering if they're really should be bothering helping with humans, April going freelance and Leo getting an uncontrollable second mutation. Instead of Carter, they should have used Casey (w/c is funny because as much as I like Serling, if the Turtles needed a permanent robot in the lair, 4Kids should have just used Honeycutt). I also wish David Wise stayed with the series until the end, but well, what can one do...

Dregg is an ok villain. But I prefer the series ended with Shredder instead of him.

[Wildgoose]

Originally Posted by Avatar Yuffie

I actually like the direction of the Red Sky season... although it's kinda jarring if you watch the ending of season 7 (which is my favorite, right up with season 1) then go switch to the first episode of season 8 to the brand new character design.

But then again 2K3 ended in season 4 jumped the Lost Season to FF, so I guess it coulda been worse.

It's interesting to see Raphael and Donatello wondering if they're really should be bothering helping with humans, April going freelance and Leo getting an uncontrollable second mutation. Instead of Carter, they should have used Casey (w/c is funny because as much as I like Serling, if the Turtles needed a permanent robot in the lair, 4Kids should have just used Honeycutt). I also wish David Wise stayed with the series until the end, but well, what can one do...

Dregg is an ok villain. But I prefer the series ended with Shredder instead of him.

+10
I didnt really liked the Carter character...especially the fact that he could mutate too.
Dregg had a nice role as a villain, something that Shredder could do too, so I really would like to see Shredder in his place.

[VaughnMichael]

I'll take the designs in the Red Sky series over anything in the 2k3 series anyday.
Mung is one of the coolest looking tmnt chracters ever.
He may be typical mad sidkick "yes master" but still he really had his moments.
As much as I enjoy Shredder and Krang in the later seasons the show needed some more stable bad guys and Dregg gave us just that and he wasn't after fuel in every episode which got old fast with S & K.
Anyway that's just my 2 cents..I loved when the turtles mutated again.
I could have done without Carter but the rest of the series is ace in my book.

[cartoonistaaron]

Nice to see some discussion on this.

I thought the 2nd mutation thing was kind of a neat idea, but I'd like to have seen more April and maybe Casey Jones - heck, even an older version of Zack - versus some dude who had never been on the show suddenly pulling a Poochie and moving in.

The red sky look I thought was kinda neat, I guess it just "felt" weird. Certainly the Turtles themselves looked better than the 2k3 Turtles, but not as good as the old designs.

April's change was good. The Turtle designs were good. The thing with Rat King in the top hat was silly. The replacement of Shredder and Krang with two poorly designed villains filling the exact same role didn't work.

I think it would have worked better if they moved into more serious threats... things like the Rat King, or "Turtles in Space" type of stuff, versus the still-fairly-light stories with darker design elements.

[VaughnMichael]

Originally Posted by cartoonistaaron

April's change was good. The Turtle designs were good. The thing with Rat King in the top hat was silly. The replacement of Shredder and Krang with two poorly designed villains filling the exact same role didn't work.

I think it would have worked better if they moved into more serious threats... things like the Rat King, or "Turtles in Space" type of stuff, versus the still-fairly-light stories with darker design elements.

Did you seriously even watch the entire Dregg series?
Because in the short period of time he was on the show he and Mung did things Shredder & Krang could never even come close to doing in the entire series run.
I also find it funny when people complain about them when they brought the 2 (Shredder & Krang) back and then they betrayed him in typical fashion.
I love how desperate Shredder & Krang are in the final episodes, it really adds more to their character in my opinion.
Oh and p.s. Rat King looks bad ass in his new outfit, A dudes gotta get some new threads at some point lol

[CyberCubed]

Most people agree Lord Dregg becomes a much better character in Season 10. At first he just seems like an alien who befriends the humans and turns the world against the Turtles, but then in Season 10 he pretty much goes insane.

Season 10 was fantastic, and a great way to end the series. Here's hoping it gets released on DVD so more people can experience those episodes again.

[cartoonistaaron]

Originally Posted by VaughnMichael

Did you seriously even watch the entire Dregg series?
Because in the short period of time he was on the show he and Mung did things Shredder & Krang could never even come close to doing in the entire series run.
I also find it funny when people complain about them when they brought the 2 (Shredder & Krang) back and then they betrayed him in typical fashion.
I love how desperate Shredder & Krang are in the final episodes, it really adds more to their character in my opinion.
Oh and p.s. Rat King looks bad ass in his new outfit, A dudes gotta get some new threads at some point lol

I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree!

I thought the Rat King just looked silly in the hat. I don't mind a redesign but that one I thought just didn't work.

As far as Dregg... Dregg shows up, tricks humans into liking him, Turtles are forced to defeat him... Not much new to see there. And shoehorning Carter in just made it that much worse. Dregg may have been tolerable if he'd had some connection to other characters or stories that had taken place earlier - perhaps some attempt to time him in to the Eye of Zarnoth or something.

I just would like to have seen something totally different. The Turtles in space for an extended period, for example. If they're going to change something, do something beyond cosmetic changes to longterm characters and the introduction of fill-in-the-blank villains with terrible character designs.

[shuriken]

I thought it was awesome when it first aired. The show was totally getting stale by season 8 imo. But then dramatic changes took place in the TMNT's lives and their core characters and all that. Dregg was pretty cool, Carter was really vanilla, even with his bogus mutation. Which I thought was kinda wierd that the TMNT had those hulk moments. I love the episdoe where they go into the future where Dregg takes over, SAINW sort of reminded me of it. Not the best season IMO, but defenitely not the worst.

[Ninja Turtles 25 Years]

I was neutral with Carter, but Dregg and his alien minions was the big error. Back in the day, when Dregg was new, I used to avoid the Saturday morning episodes on CBS until an episode where Shredder and Krang had returned. Several weeks later, I learned that it was over for Shredder and Krang, and I learned to get along with Dregg. And it's too bad that Shredder's role during the "Red Sky" seasons ended so soon into, because his role and voice got much more enhanced. I felt that this dark time in the 1994 - 1996 series would of been better for Shredder's appearance rather than looking for an excuse to eliminate him and Krang.

[Spitfire]

Oh I get it. People didn't like Dregg because they wanted 2 more seasons, to add onto the pile of 8 or so, where Shredder and Krang were the main villains. I think it's very important a series stays exactly the same for as long as possible so it can be stale and boring. I mean some of the best episodes of season 7 totally weren't the ones without Shredder and Krang. I guess it's more creative to make up some lame mad scientist or toy maker to fight the turtles then an alien with an army who actually poses a threat. One who uses tactics to stop the turtles besides kidnap April and attack New York. It also totally sucked in Red Sky that Dregg wasn't even the main villain in every episode like Shredder and Krang were. They made up new and creative ones and even if they worked for him he wouldn't pop up until the end. That was just horrible.

[gobo]

Originally Posted by Spitfire

That was just horrible.

You can say that again!

[Spitfire]

Originally Posted by gobo

You can say that again!

I know I loved watching 6 seasons of the same story being told over and over again in a different setting. It's super engaging. Really creative too. I mean it's not like they had a huge successful toyline full of characters they could use besides Shredder and Krang.