Why bother mutating thugs when you stole the Rhino and the Warthog?

[neatoman]

Why did Shredder bother to mutate Bebop and Rocksteady when he went ahead and stole the animals? Even if we assume the rules are that a blood sample isn't enough and you need the whole animal around to make the mutation work, you could still cut out the middleman (middle test subject?) and just mutate the animals. One could argue that the animals wouldn't be skilled enough but the Turtles can't have been mutants for more than a few weeks (unless Shredder has had the Technodrome for years and never used it for much) and they seem more than skilled enough, and it's not like Bebop and Rocksteady can be considered skilled... Or even intelligent. And even if he really felt like mutating the humans was necessary, why not also mutate the animals? That way you have two sets of Rhino/Warthog mutants.

What happened to the animals anyway? They weren't returned to the Zoo, so where did they go? Is the implication that they somehow fused to the thugs, creating Bebop and Rocksteady? Were there actually two sets of Bebop and Rocksteady all along even though we only ever saw one at the time? Did Shredder turn the Warthog into hotdogs? Did the turn the Rhino into boner pills?

Spoiler:

Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that Bebop and Rocksteady actually were the Zoo animals all along, and that Shredder only needed the thugs to strip naked so he'd have a set of clothes for the new mutants?

[Leo656]

I like to pretend that Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady simply ate the animals. Getting take-out down in the Technodrome had to be a real bitch.

[sdp]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that Bebop and Rocksteady actually were the Zoo animals all along, and that Shredder only needed the thugs to strip naked so he'd have a set of clothes for the new mutants?

How do we know this isn't the case? We see human rocksteady and beebop walking as civilians in Turtles Forever. You just solved the continuity error and long lost secret.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

And to make matters even more confusing, Bebop and Rocksteady seemed to have forgotten they were once humans in "Planet of the Turtleoids" when they went to the zoo and remmebered it as being the one they came from as animals.

[Coola Yagami]

I just figured a mutated rhino and warthog would waste a lot of time learning how to talk and act like humans do (even though it falls apart because characters like the frogs just learned to talk and whatnot right away) and it would be faster with just mutated Bebop and Rocksteady since it's just powering up established thugs.

But yeah it's kinda weird, if we go by OT logic, it's like they dragged the animals all the way from the zoo to underground just so Bebop and Rocksteady can idk... pet them for a few minutes, and then have the Mutagen poured all over them?

Yeah the cartoon never went into that manner of detail. Like explaining what happened to the animals?

[IMJ]

Maybe the animals ate Bebop and Rocksteady and the animals were the ones mutated instead of a combining of the two living creatures! BOOM! Mind blown!

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by neatoman

Wouldn't it be funny if it turned out that Bebop and Rocksteady actually were the Zoo animals all along, and that Shredder only needed the thugs to strip naked so he'd have a set of clothes for the new mutants?

Originally Posted by sdp

How do we know this isn't the case? We see human rocksteady and beebop walking as civilians in Turtles Forever. You just solved the continuity error and long lost secret.

Only catch is that when B&R as mutants run into their old gang members in an ep they know who the individual people are. Otherwise, I still really like that explanation.

[sdp]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

Only catch is that when B&R as mutants run into their old gang members in an ep they know who the individual people are. Otherwise, I still really like that explanation.

But aren't those gang members different from the ones from the pilot? What if those gang members they meet were the other animals from the zoo that got mutated into humans by mutagen and lived on like humans

So now it makes sense why those gang members were different from the pilot, they are just animals.

[neatoman]

Well I did also add in the joke answer that there are two sets of Bebop and Rocksteady, one that are former humans and one that are zoo animals. In other words, we think we are seeing two characters throughout the series but we are actually seeing four, just two of them only ever show up on screen in any given episode. You know, like the three jokers thing, everybody reading had always assumed it was only ever one guy because those three guys were the only ones in-universe to know the truth.

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by sdp

But aren't those gang members different from the ones from the pilot? What if those gang members they meet were the other animals from the zoo that got mutated into humans by mutagen and lived on like humans

So now it makes sense why those gang members were different from the pilot, they are just animals.

I suppose that works...but now I have to go check. lol


edit: Too lazy to break out the DVDs, but from info online it seems like it is different people in those episodes but are still supposed to be different segments of the same gang. One page reminded me that some other members of B&R's gang, the part that they led, were also mutated and seen later, though not used by Shredder for whatever reason. So the other part of the gang are the remaining members who were not involved with Shredder.

Still a fun theory though.

[FrederikWolferson]

Originally Posted by FredWolfLeonardo

And to make matters even more confusing, Bebop and Rocksteady seemed to have forgotten they were once humans in "Planet of the Turtleoids" when they went to the zoo and remmebered it as being the one they came from as animals.

Doesn't something similar happen in Adventures? They raid the zoo to free the animals or something like that? Different continuity,ofc.

[Galactus]

Boy this thread went down the cannibalism route much quicker than I thought.

[neatoman]

The weird thing about the Archie version is that they seem to be a bit confused about who they are. On the the same exact page they make reference to how they came from a zoo but also how they used to be human. I think the implication is that they somehow gained the memories of the animals when they mutated, but they also fail to make any clear distinction between themselves and the animals, so... Who really knows?

[IndigoErth]

Well that just makes mutation all kinds of complicated. Did the human and animal bodies merge into one?

And how would Archie explain the TMNT along the same lines, since the TMNT didn't gain the memories of any one particular human. Hmm.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

Well that just makes mutation all kinds of complicated. Did the human and animal bodies merge into one?

And how would Archie explain the TMNT along the same lines, since the TMNT didn't gain the memories of any one particular human. Hmm.

I mean, in the Archie comics it sure sounds like it.

[Leo656]

That page always bugged the crap out of me as a kid, and I can't say it sits much better now, either. I *think* I get what they were going for? But I don't think it makes much sense.

Originally Posted by Galactus

Boy this thread went down the cannibalism route much quicker than I thought.

Anybody who thinks it's "wrong" has simply never been THAT hungry.

[shredder orokusaki]

So what are you saying is.. that for my future Bebops and Rocksteadys to try and mutate some animals instead of humans. This is an idea i have thought a lot about. And why not sooner or later i will try it. And see if these mutated rhino and pig will be more powerful and intelligent that my current Bebops and Rocksteadys that are all mutated humans.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

If the animals were kept inside the Technodrome, they were either:

1 Abandoned on that rocky planet in Dimension X between Seasons 1 and 2
2 Staved to death between Seasons 1 and 2
2 Kept inside and fed all the time until Krang and Shredder left the Technodrome on Balaraphon during the Red Sky seasons