5 missing old tmnt toon episodes? EXPLAINED

[gobo]

Hi. I'm the one that started this chatter. Since then, I've been told that the concept of skipped production numbers also came up in the original Transformers, and was due to reediting and such. That would be enough for me to believe otherwise if these gaps didn't also leave plot holes. To answer some questions I've read, it was supposed to be the syndicated batch. Here's the letter I posted to a newsgroup back in the March when I discovered the pattern:

While working on a project to arrange the eps of the original
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series by production number, I discovered
that there are at least five episodes that are missing. Even as a ten
year old, I thought it was strange that the Technodrome would crash
head first into a Cybertron lookalike in 'The Big Blowout' at the end
of the '89 syndicated season, and appear upright on an island complete
with a volcano floating in space in 'Plan Six From Outer Space', the
next new syndicated episode in '90.
The first thing I noticed about the list was that the bunch of
European cruise eps that USA Network had liberated three years later
actually occured between the two affore-mentioned eps. The second
thing I noticed is that the European cruise eps didn't quite fill the
gap. After 'The Big Blowout', there are three blank spaces before
'Tower Of Power' in which the turtles start their European cruise.
And, at the end of the last known European cruise ep, 'Elementary, My
Dear Turtle', there is no clear indication that they ever ended their
trip. But, skip two more unaired eps, and then we see 'Plan Six From
Outer Space'.
This brought to mind a previous attempt to create a similar episode
list from information taken from the Library of Congress's catalog of
copyrights. That time, I had found information on an unused teleplay
for an episode called 'Shredder In Love'. I'm thinking that this
could have been one of those episodes, but I am not included in those
who could say for certain. In as much as they were assigned
production numbers, I would imagine that they are at least in the form
of animatics somewhere because I don't recall ever hearing of
production numbers being assigned to unused scripts.
Anyhow, I asked Mr. Dan Berger of Mirage Studios about this in an
e-mail message. He knows little about this issue, but says that
asking the holders of the distribution rights, Artisan Entertainment,
would probably be my best option. Maybe we can convince Artisan to
release them on video/DVD someday. I'll update if I find out anything
else.

~Jo

[GK Punk]

I could be wrong, but if you look at the copyright on the "Missing episodes" it says they are just scripts, not episodes though.

[Tetsu Deinonychus]

It'd still be neat to read those scripts though! especially "Shredder in Love".

[GK Punk]

Yeah that'd be cool if we could get our hands on the scripts ^^

[PWDESAI]

That's cool, missing eps

[gobo]

BTW, 'Shredder's in love' has an author named Scott Pate Hilley. That name doesn't ring a bell as a common writer of the show, but he has other copyrighted, unused scripts for Star Trek: TNG, Beavis & Butt-Head, In Living Color, a few misc scripts, as well as some music. I found out about it at http://www.copyright.gov/. I don't recall ever hearing of him as a writer though.
About the missing eps, I did an extensive search at copyright.gov and loc.gov, and made an ep list with all the most official production numbers and publishing (air) dates I could find. Still, these five, 9059-048, 9059-049, 9059-050, 9059-064, and 9059-065 seem to have been skipped over. I've never found anything suggesting that these are unused scripts, so if grunger_kittie wouldn't mind letting me know where this info was seen, I'd be very appreciative. It would make a perfect addition to my list.
That's all for now. If I dig up anything on Scott Hilley, I'll update here. Lata, yo.

[gobo]

Welp, I did a quick search, and I saw a Scott Hilley credited as a game developer, an actor, and a animation voice-artist (who voiced ATHF's Flargin, who I believe was a leprechaun from the second ep). I'm not sure which of these might NOT be him, but that's what I found. Sleep time now. Buh-bye.

[GK Punk]

Krang (The admin for this site) Actually was the one that posted about them being copywritten as scripts, and it is in this forum somewhere...

[Krang]

Here's my post. I only said that "Shredder's in Love" was copyrighted as a script, I didn't say anything about the missing 5 episodes.

[GK Punk]

Originally Posted by Krang

Here's my post. I only said that "Shredder's in Love" was copyrighted as a script, I didn't say anything about the missing 5 episodes.

Well as I said

I could be wrong

Jeez Im like the one person to ever admit when Im wrong, but people still jump on me when I am

EDIT:
Ignore that last line if you want, I just had the worst night possible

[gobo]

So, it's pretty safe to say that "Shredder's in love" is NOT one of the episodes that were skipped over. Since it was created in '91, that was a year later than these needed to be aired. But, then againg, the Euro-Cruise eps are recorded as being created in '92. Maybe I just need to contact Fred Wolf Films Dubblin about them. Thanks.

[Reznorite420]

AHA! So maybe both Deathknight AND I are right: they were probably written in '92 and aired in Europe the same year, but weren't aired in the US until '93.

So yeah, DK, I'm guessing the official site is listing the eps by US airing years, not original airing years.

[Nturtle]

weird... well if anybody finds anymore info on this, then cool...

[gobo]

Originally Posted by Reznorite420

AHA! So maybe both Deathknight AND I are right: they were probably written in '92 and aired in Europe the same year, but weren't aired in the US until '93.

So yeah, DK, I'm guessing the official site is listing the eps by US airing years, not original airing years.

Actually, all 13 of the Euro-cruise eps were first broadcast in the US on USA Network in a marathon Sunday, 01 November 1992. i remember I was channel surfing that day when I found it. I left it on that channel to watch, thinking the whole time, "What the heck? How did I ever miss this one?". So, they aren't of the 1993 season regardless. However, their production numbers put them in between The Big Blowout and Plan Six From Outer Space. Please forward any complaints to the Library of Congress or my Journal if they have the wrong date. Have a nice day.

[gobo]

Oh, and I forget what TheShredder1 had posted about these eps way back when, but I remember there were things in it that I never said. AFAIK, no fan knows what the missing 5 were about, so the lacking in action part was either speculation or something else he was referring to. All that is currently known about them is that after The Big Blowout, 3 prod#s were skipped before the turtles left on their Euro-cruise. That left us in the dark as to how the Technodrome got from being upside down on that little metal planet to being upright on that island. At the end of "Elementary, My Dear Turtles", there was no clear conclusion of the cruise. Skip 2 more prod#s, and we see "Plan Six From Outer Space". That would make them of the syndicated bunch, and possibly previously aired in the UK. But, that was the whole reason for suspicion in the first place. If they do exist in any form (script, animatics, or finished toons), I plan to try getting them released in any form I can on DVDs.

[Psycho Da Turtle]

Scott Hilley is most likely a name used by writers who wish to remain anonymous. There are several names such as this in the entertainment industry, sort of a John Doe. Simply it is a name known by the industry, and people credit their work to this name.

[Savanti Romero]

Who was Shredder in love with? Sounds like a good Valentines special.

[Lord Vega]

Man, season 4 has a lot of holes and discontinuity...
"Dimension X Story" was meant to be episode 66... if you count it till "Slash, The Evil Turtle From Dimension X" it will lead you to episode 74, which its number was told us later in "Donatello Trashes Slash". In "Dimension X Story", the Technodrome is totally defunct (and kinda destroyed inside), therefore, the portal isn't working so the next episode must be "Son Of Return Of The Fly II", that's when the portal gets fixed. Also in "Dimension X Story", the Technodrome gets stucked in a lava bed... and if you pay attenction, the episodes that follow "Plan Six From Outer Space" (like "Turtles Of The Jungle" for example) the Technodrome is shown in a lava bed...
What might have happened is that another bunch of episodes were written and placed BEFORE "Dimension X Story". When that happened David Wise made a episode to debut 1990 season: "Plan Six From Outer Space". (If I remeber well, those episodes that have the title screen with the wall in the background were aired in different stations, the "Dimension X Story" don't have the conventional title-screen anymore, and thus was aired in another station) David Wise probably made some mistakes, you can tell that by the whole episode.... In the beginning, the Technodrome looks like trash being bombed by the Stone Warriors. Later, the turtles says that Shredder was trying to steal the communicator equipment from Channel Six, but Krang makes a plan to.... bring the whole building to Dimension X so he could STEAL THE COMMUNICATION EQUIPMENT!!!! Even there are missing eps, they never repeated a story 2 times in a row. Also, the Technodrome was in front of the World Trade Center in ep 65, not in front of Channel Six.... if you pay close attention, the only thing that links this episode to "The Big Blow Out" is the beginning were the Technodrome was bombed by Stone Warriors. Also, it's in the end of this episode that the turtles gain their tickets to Europe...
The Cybertron-like planet isn't a mistake at all. Remember that, before 1990 season, Dimension X was never really explored... so you can't say that it was a mistake. Also, you have to admit that "Big Blow Out" (Just like "The Shredder Is Splintered" and "Return Of The Technodrome") was initially meant to be the series finale. but then again, the show gained a new season, but "The Big Blow Out" was already made, so... Also, if you're gonna complain about it, we could complain that in "Return Of The Technodrome" the Technodrome sinks in lava without being destroyed....
The european episodes.... I read on the deceased KC and Sunshine TMNT site, that those episodes were written in 1990, copyrighted in 1991 and first aired in 1992 in europe, but in US it only aired in 1993. You can say that even the enimation is different... I wouldn't be surprised if those episodes were made back in 1990, but only aired in 1992.... (I remember seeing them in 1992 here in Brazil, and there must be at least 1 year between the first airing of it on it's origin country and here, I can tell that cuz "Escape From The Planet Of The Turtleoids" originally aired in September of 1993 in US, and I got it here in Brazil in Aug/Sep of 1994...)
The copyrighted number isn't a reliable source for the episodes order... you see: by following the production number, "Shredder Triumphant" comes before "Atlantis Awakes" and "Invasion of Krangezoids" and we know that isn't true.
You cant trust the TV airings either... Here in Brazil we got season 2 tru 4 and then the european episodes rerunned repeatedly (I think they only shown the 6 first episodes only once), but here were some gaps... "Green With Jealousy" only aired after the third rerun in 1994, the same happened with "The Ice Creature Commeth".....
And, "Mutagen Monster", "Planet of the Turtleoids part I and II" were only aired in 1999 followed by "Revenge Of The Fly" till "The Showdown" (the series went off air in 1994 with "Escape From The Planet Of The Turtleoids", a very few eps were shown in 1996, and 1999, I was told that they aired TMNT again for only 2 weeks in the beginning of this year...)
And we know that not even the writters could answer our questions...

[PizzaPower]

man does anybody know where we can find these scripts?

[Shreddette]

Yeah who was Shredder in love with??

I'm kinda glad it didn't go through. That episode woulda broken my fragile little heart when I was a kid.
Hell, it does now