April's Story

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Is this true?

https://turtlepedia.fandom.com/wiki/April's_Story

Never heard of it before!

[neatoman]

The only sources listed on that Wiki page are facebook posts, one of which is two days away from april 1. If that alone doesn't set off alarm bells that this was a screwed up April Fools prank, I don't know what will.

The second episode does show video but there are clear signs it's not real. The problems are as follows:

1. The video is on what looks to be VHS, when Betacam or Betamax would have been the standard for airing TV shows.
2. The video is filmed off a CRT TV instead of just being digitised.
3. The bulk of the video just shows the intro.
4. The clip of April sitting at the computer has no voice clip and looks just like one from another episode.
5. Then a fully voiced clip from the very first episode is shown uncut.

The problem with these factors are:

1. If it is indeed a VHS tape, then it likely wasn't ever going to be used for a broadcast.
2. Filming a CRT TV is known to be one of the worst ways of making a copy of video and the alternatives are not hard to figure out, which is likely intentional because it can hide obvious edits.
3. The intro could be sourced from almost any random episode since it would have been playing at the start of multiple ones.
4. The lack of a voice in the computer clip when there is audio everywhere else and the relatively short length is an indication that this is just covering up the lack of appropriate narration.
5. The clip from the first episode is way too long for a clip show and would most likely have been shopped up more.

Short answer, no, this likely a fake and has no business being on a wiki.

Not saying it's impossible that there was going to be a clip show finale, it just isn't likely that this particular thing is real. If it was real then the guy might as well have leaked the whole thing, not just two long clips with a tiny bit of easily edited footage in between. Hell, a clip show might be the easiest thing to fake ever, you could probably fake an entire 20 minute episode if it's a clipshow. We have AI now, you could probably even make convincing AI narration to fill the gaps.

[ToTheNines]

My instinct was to say it was FAKE, but there is this: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6005...36779495275346

No dialogue dubbed into the opening scene, just music and April at her computer, then it flashes back to "Turtle Tracks". So it does appear to be some kind of incomplete clip show.

Could still be phony. One of our Red Sky heads might be able to tell us if that first couple seconds with April at her computer is lifted from an existing episode or not.

[Heyowakka]

This creepypasta sucks. April doesn’t even bleed through her eyes photorealistically at the viewer.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

GI Joe ended with two clip-summary episodes in January 1992 ("Basic Training" and "The Legend of Metal Head"), so it wouldn't be surprising if this at least was plannned.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

My instinct was to say it was FAKE, but there is this: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6005...36779495275346

No dialogue dubbed into the opening scene, just music and April at her computer, then it flashes back to "Turtle Tracks". So it does appear to be some kind of incomplete clip show.

Could still be phony. One of our Red Sky heads might be able to tell us if that first couple seconds with April at her computer is lifted from an existing episode or not.

No, it's almost certainly fake, April's home office is shown multiple times and has that same layout. I have yet to find an exact match but I don't feel like combing through every single episode for one but it should be a very easy thing to source. That would be the one thing that would indicate that this is real, that no released episode has an exact match of the home office, not that it couldn't be faked anyway but an actual shot of that would have been too easy to source for a fake that it would just be a waste of time for a prank.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by neatoman

No, it's almost certainly fake, April's home office is shown multiple times and has that same layout. I have yet to find an exact match but I don't feel like combing through every single episode for one but it should be a very easy thing to source. That would be the one thing that would indicate that this is real, that no released episode has an exact match of the home office, not that it couldn't be faked anyway but an actual shot of that would have been too easy to source for a fake that it would just be a waste of time for a prank.

Yeah, I agree. The way that Anferni Jankins clown is talking in the comments of the post from months back, he definitely comes off as disingenuous. He also seems like some wannabe influencer if you click on his page.

And logically, TMNT was in the toilet from 1994-96, especially the cartoon. They were getting 8 episode season orders. I don't see anyone wasting the resources on some kind of special episode. Even a clip show.

[neatoman]

OK, yeah I found the clip. It's from "The Day the Earth Disappeared" about five minutes in, this alleged clip show is totally fake.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Also, the title screen misses "written by"

[oldmanwinters]

It certainly is fascinating. I'm inclined to believe it is a real tape, but I'll guess we'll wait and see if the supposed owner shares anything else about it. A bit surprised it got a TurtlePedia page being in such an unverified state with only a couple of Facebook pics/vids as sources.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by neatoman

OK, yeah I found the clip. It's from "The Day the Earth Disappeared" about five minutes in, this alleged clip show is totally fake.

There you have it. He's probably trying to scam some schmuck into paying top dollar for it.

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

It certainly is fascinating. I'm inclined to believe it is a real tape, but I'll guess we'll wait and see if the supposed owner shares anything else about it. A bit surprised it got a TurtlePedia page being in such an unverified state with only a couple of Facebook pics/vids as sources.

TurtlePedia sucks ass.

[oldmanwinters]

I'll preface this by saying it's hard to believe anything you see or hear on the internet in 2026. This is about the most unbelievable Turtles thing I've seen this year.

Originally Posted by neatoman

OK, yeah I found the clip. It's from "The Day the Earth Disappeared" about five minutes in, this alleged clip show is totally fake.

Yeah, I think it's clear whatever this episode was it would include no new animation. Even the framing device would be clips from Red Sky episodes of April at her computer (using THE INTERNET no doubt!) with the flashback clips being entirely pilot season episodes or some others tossed for the Dregg storyline.

The show's run was finished, so they weren't gonna spend any more money on animation.

However... it's not inconceivable they could have edited all that into a clip show and then paid Renae Jacobs (or somebody) to come in and do a few fresh voice over lines of dialogue. Even though April's mouth wouldn't match the dialogue, it could have been in context of "inner monologue." Whether she ever did or not is another story.

Could it have been conceivable this was a last-gasp project to make a home video release instead of a TV broadcast?

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

TurtlePedia sucks ass.

Dude...

[sdp]

It's real. That apartment footage is original. The dialogue clearly would've said "I'll tell the story of how I met these TMNT"

It would be a clip show of the origin of the turtles and some of the bigger fights against shredder, lord dregf and others. Of course focused on April and how she has grown over the years after finding them. But still a god look at the 87 cartoon as a home. A true send off as a last episode.
Rejoice that it finally surfaced.

The king lost episode April's Story. Fully animated but no dialogue.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by oldmanwinters

Dude...

where's my car?

[MikeandRaph87]

It was produced over a year after Divide and Conquer aired according to the information. It's as real as Shredder In Love, when it is really a case of changing from Fox syndication to CBS which got the production number off by one.

[neatoman]

I suspect people here are just trolling but I might as well reiterate that there is really no reason to believe this is real.

Do I really need to remind people that the only sources we have for this thing are Facebook posts from a guy claiming to have a tape of it? Or that 89,5% of what's shown is unedited footage from other episodes, with the intro being expected to be there in every episode? Or that the remaining 10,5% is also a recycled clip with some editing but mysteriously misses the crucial redub? Or that it's shown to us in the crappiest way possible?

If this was real, why stop short of the first flashback concluding? Or at least make a digital recording instead of filtering us through camcorder footage of a CRT screen? Having it on a video format that would have existed back then doesn't prove dick, there are likely countless unused blank tapes out there someone could have coded a bullshit edit onto for this.

A credible source, like a former editor on the show, and decent capture of this would go a long way but neither seems to exist. With a credible source we'd have a good indication that there really was one final clip show, as opposed to just some guy on Facebook. With a decent capture, we could at least analyse the footage for signs of legitimacy, though all we have is the notoriously worst possible way of making a copy.

A real source might be tight lipped due to NDAs but I don't think anyone cares about confessing to having cobbled together a clip show for a 30 year old cartoon from a dead company, and making a decent digitisation of this episode would have really easy.

[CyberCubed]

I don't even think TMNT was still airing on CBS by 1997. Once Next Mutation started on Fox I don't think the original cartoon ever aired on regular TV in the U.S. again.

Also it's times like this that makes you wish there were some "lost" original TMNT cartoon eps out there. I remember the "Shredder in love" rumored missing episode from 20 years ago, people said it was supposed to air sometime in Season 4 or 5. Sounded believeable enough since we had love potion episodes before.

God the original cartoon should of lasted 10 more seasons.

[ToTheNines]

2006 then? Just in time for Fast Forward lol

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

God the original cartoon should of lasted 10 more seasons.

[Heyowakka]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

God the original cartoon should have lasted 10 more seasons.