Why did Krang team up with the Shredder in the first place?

[neatoman]

Yeah yeah, I know. "Bwuild mwe a bwaaaaawdy, Saaaaki!*burping noises*".

But why him in particular? He's a wannabe warlord who's itching for the opportunity to overthrow Krang as soon as possible, he's simply not trustworthy in the least. There's also the fact that Shredder, the guy who presumably spent his entire life dedicated to martial arts training, even has the skills to build a robotic body like that. When did he even have time to study advanced engineering? Even if he did find the time, it's doubtful he'd be anywhere number one in the field, or even above mediocre.

It kind of seems like Krang should have gone with someone who:

1. Does not have such an obvious personal agenda.
2. Is primarily skilled as an engineer to build the body and not martial arts and/or tactics.

And then you remember that Baxter Stockman was part of this show almost from the beginning and that really hammers home how strange this choice was.

Maybe it was for the best that subsequent iterations of Krang were instead made Shredder's enemy rather than ally...

[Galactus]

While there wasn't much mythology behind the '87 show I do think they missed a trick not telling us how Shredder and Krang formed their partnership.

I would imagine that someone more trustworthy wouldn't be so evil as to team up with an evil alien warlord in the first place.

Also '87 Shredder did display technical knowledge at times so it's entirely possible Saki could be a decent choice to build a new body after all. Also he was in charge of the Foot Clan who at one time was filled with actual human members. You have to imagine some of them might have been good with tech or they could have kidnapped and forced scientists to work for them.

[ABrown]

Seemed like a logical team up to me.

[Mad Dog McMutt]

I would imagine that it would be helpful for krang to have a human insider to inform him about the world before he took it over. It helps that shredder was dumb and had the same common goal as him. Maybe he planned on betraying shredder after he got what he wanted. I would bet that he wanted to keep the partnership though after seeing how good the ninja turtles are at foiling evil schemes.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

I think a good answer to this can be inferred from "Beware the Lotus", an episode where Krang fires Shredder for his incompetence, only to rehire him at the end. Basically, Shredder is the only one evil and spineless enough to work with Krang.

That, and Shredder was (relatively speaking) the most dangerous villain on earth in a show where most of the baddies are either goofy/incompetent mad scientists and mob bosses, clearly not as threatening in comparison.

[Leo656]

Shredder probably had the best pot connection.

I mean, when you move to a new town, once you're done with all the minutiae of getting settled in, what's Priority One? Find ya'self a weed man, duh. And Saki obviously had connections.

Anyways. I always felt like the show was teasing an eventual full-blown Saki/Krang "divorce" and feud that the show simply never got around to paying off properly. That could've been cool.

[FredWolfLeonardo]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Anyways. I always felt like the show was teasing an eventual full-blown Saki/Krang "divorce" and feud that the show simply never got around to paying off properly. That could've been cool.

If anything, their relationship only got stronger as the show progressed, to the point where Shredder risked his own life in order to save Krang when he didn't need to in the Red Sky seasons.

[Leo656]

Yeah, that felt weird. Early on it was clearly relationship of convenience, with two "people" who openly hated each other working together only for mutual benefit. It would have been far more believable for one of them to eventually betray the other, and in turn the Turtles having to combat threats from both ends. Kind of a Skeletor/Hordak thing. There's a lot they could've done with that, if they'd bothered.

I mean, I guess one could say that they just gradually legit grew fond of each other over time, but... in truth it was just plain Villain Decay.

[Prowler]

Honestly, I can't find a reason for it.

Shredder had everything to gain from partnering up with Krang, but Krang had nothing much to gain by partnering up with Shredder.

Normally I like to overanalyse things a bit, but in this case I'll have to take the lazy way out and flat out say:

...because David Wise and Co. wanted it to be so. Probably because Shredder would have been rather easy to defeat if he was just simply a lonely villain without having access to the kind of technology Krang possessed.

It also made it easier to write the story by having two major villains working together than working separately, I guess. Especially considering they had no way of knowing the show would be airing for a whole decade and nearly reach 200 episodes. The entire 1st season is kinda like a super long pilot episode.

How did both meet and how the technodrome came along? The writers most likely didn't think much about it... hell they probably didn't even bother, hence why they haven't explained to us ever. And before someone mentions Berserko, that guy only appeared in that one episode of the EIGHT season. No way David Wise had him in mind in 1987 already.

[Galactus]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Yeah, that felt weird. Early on it was clearly relationship of convenience, with two "people" who openly hated each other working together only for mutual benefit. It would have been far more believable for one of them to eventually betray the other, and in turn the Turtles having to combat threats from both ends. Kind of a Skeletor/Hordak thing. There's a lot they could've done with that, if they'd bothered.

I mean, I guess one could say that they just gradually legit grew fond of each other over time, but... in truth it was just plain Villain Decay.

They were written like an old married couple from season 3 onwards. They definitely loved each other.

[Andrew NDB]

As best as I can tell... in virtually any universe (as in the ones where Krang actually exists) it doesn't make any sense. I can see some aspects as being fudged enough that one can go, "Oh! Right! Evil. They share that, I guess?" but not really enough. And the further things go, the less that it does and the more it just seems like, "But... that's what the old cartoon did, right?"

[slashpieturtlemix]

I didn't really think to hard about this and I am trying not to. They didn't explain a lot of anything in the 87 show.

[DarkFell]

Because someone thought that it would be funnier to have an Earthling and an extraterrestrial torment each other with their own shortcomings

In the 1990 movie, Danny as a Foot Soldier found the
Turtle's lair. There's no telling how many Foot Soldiers found the Technodrome, or if they even found it at all to begin with.

Shredder seemed to drag his feet with the construction of Krang's android body as he mutated Bebop & Rocksteady and eventually reeled in Baxter Stockman and the Rock Soldiers.

I guess alien technology and alien soldiers in exchange for a henchman's services. It's too bad that this option wasn't handled as serious as the IDW comic, despite the fact that both Krang and Shredder were at odds with each other.

[sdp]

nearly 200 episodes to dwell into it and instead we get random mobster of the day episodes with characters we wouldn't see again or some lame krang/shredder plot.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

David Wise created the Shredder and Krang alliance to let Krang to privde Shredder with Dimension X technology to build Foot robots. So the turtles could get rid of them pemanently and the cartoon still being children- and family friendly.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

David Wise created the Shredder and Krang alliance to let Krang to privde Shredder with Dimension X technology to build Foot robots. So the turtles could get rid of them pemanently and the cartoon still being children- and family friendly.

1. That is the creative decision behind the alliance, not the in-story justification. The in-story justification, that Shredder would build an android body, is what is being discussed here.
2. The creative decision can be discussed but only in so far as what might have worked better or if the people behind it had a good in-story justification.
3. I seriously doubt David Wise was responsible for even a quarter of what he claimed, including the decision to have robotic ninja. It's more likely the Network, Fred Wolf or Playmates had decided on that long before he was brought onboard.

[Leo656]

And what the hell gave Krang any idea that a random ninja in a suit of fetish armor who ran a pizza joint and a security company would have ANY expertise whatsoever in being able to build a f*cking giant android body in the FIRST goddamn place?

In my head, the story basically goes that Shredder was literally the first human being Krang ever met upon coming to Earth, however the hell he got here. And Krang's like "HEY, you! I wanna take over the Earth, and if you help me do it, I'll give you and only you access to ALL my super-advanced alien technology! HOWEVER, for some reason even though I have the resources to build humanoid robots, tunneling machine transports, inter-dimensional transporters and a GIANT F*CKING DEATH STAR TANK that lives underground, for SOME reason the one thing my engineers can't figure out how to do is build a giant suit of mech armor that I can hang out in the belly of and walk around. Again, I can figure out regular-size robots, it's just the twelve-foot tall ones I can't manage to figure out. But I assume you can, because I have no reason to think otherwise. You'll do this for me, yes?"

And Shredder's all like, "Uhhhh..... YEAH, sure. I can do that." And Krang of course being an idiot is all like "GREAT, when can you move in?"

Seriously. Knowing what we do know, there is no way anything BUT that happened. That's exactly how that story must have gone, and they never told us because they were embarrassed how dumb and illogical it was.

[Coola Yagami]

From the first few eps we can assume Shredder has a ninja army, control over the local thugs and punks in the city and also ran his fake protection racket (which was kinda similar to Mirage, now that I think about it).

Krang and the Technodrome were underground around the time and probably saw this on his view screens and thought to himself 'this guy got control of the city, let's see what he says'.

I mean in the beginning it made sense, Shredder had no intention of building Krang his body and was just dragging it out while using all the alien technology to his advantage. It got to the point where Krang purposely sabotaged his plans when he was too close to killing the Turtles for the sake of getting his body.

I mean, it kinda went on from there. In season 2, Krang used Shredder as his errand boy to get whatever he needed to bring the Technodrome back to Earth. Afterwards it was to get whatever they needed to get the Technodrome either off of wherever they were stuck in or to re-power the Technodrome.

I think the main reason is, Krang hates doing his own dirty work and he needs someone to do all the stuff for him. That's why it's kind of a big deal whenever he actually gets involved.

[Leo656]

But again... HOW is it that Krang can build All This Sh*t - including cyborgs... Christ, including the TECHNODROME - but he can't find a way to build a giant mech? Why does he need SHREDDER for that? Does Oroku Saki have a degree in advanced robotics? Why the hell WOULD he? Wouldn't building a giant gutless robot be easier than building a giant Death Star Tank?

None of this makes any sense. WHO BOOKED THIS SH*T???

I know that's a ton of the "fun" of the old show, but... seriously. It makes NO sense at all. And the more you try and think about it logically, the less sense it makes!

[FredWolfLeonardo]

Krang didn't build the Technodrome, Beserko did. Even if we ignore Beserko though and pretend that season 8 never happened, Krang had a body in Dimension X and rock soldiers at his command so he would've been much more able during the time to build the Technodrome and things like Cyborgs.

Krang was relatively helpless in the first few episodes, with Shredder doing alot of the driving, surveillance, mutations and construction of the Foot soldiers. How Shredder was such an engineer in addition to being a Ninja master is another question, but the point is that there is some internal logic and continuity to the story.

Its not all a complete farce.