Season 3 episodes 30-37 (1989) of the “TMNT” cartoon is a fun and toyetic stretch as it features the debuts of action-figure characters Leatherhead, Usagi Yojimbo and Metalhead – plus an episode so hilariously stupid that it actually ranks among my favorites.
Back to the swamp
Leatherhead is among the most reinvented characters, as he’s a friend of the Turtles in the Mirage and Archie comics, and purely villainous in the cartoon and video games. Humorously villainous, though, under the voice work of Jim Cummings. While the mutated gator’s use of “I guar-own-tee” gets to be a bit much, I love the slathered-on Cajun references.
One of the series all-time best episodes, “Leatherhead: Terror of the Swamp” (30, Michael Reaves), benefits from the Punk Frogs, who are funnier than in their Season 2 debut. Leatherhead enslaves the Frogs till the Turtles hop down to the Okefenokee to rescue them.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” Season 3, episodes 30-37 (1989)
Syndicated
Episodes: “Leatherhead: Terror of the Swamp” (30), “Michelangelo’s Birthday” (31), “Usagi Yojimbo” (32), “Case of the Hot Kimono” (33), “Usagi Come Home” (34), “The Making of Metalhead” (35), “Leatherhead Meets the Rat King” (36), “The Turtle Terminator” (37)
Producer: Fred Wolf
Writers: Michael Reaves (30, 35), Eliot Daro and Bill Wolf (31), David Wise (32, 34, 36), David Carren and J. Larry Carroll (33, 37)
It’s not so much that the Frogs are helpless, but rather that they’re so polite in that Southern way. My favorite gag finds two of them sinking in quicksand while they both insist that the other grab the rescue rope first. Aside from a bizarre ending where Shredder reverts to toddler form via a fountain of youth — something that’s never resolved, although he’s normal in the next episode — this is a great 22 minutes.
“Leatherhead Meets the Rat King” (36, David Wise) isn’t as strong as I recalled, although Townsend Coleman has perfected his Rat King voice and Wise leans into the chaotic character’s insanity. The Rat King thinks he’s creating a zombie potion (despite having no scientific know-how), but it turns out he only created an explosive chemical that’s going to blow up his lair.
Killer robots
Another elite action-figure introduction is “The Making of Metalhead” (35, Reaves), one of the episodes that most stuck in my brain line-by-line. It’s a funny conceit to have the Turtles be sick with turtle pox, an illness that Splinter somehow knows “only affects mutant turtles.”
This Metalhead has so little in common with Peter Laird’s Metal Head from Mirage Issue 15 that no one considers them to be branches of the same character, like the various Leatherheads. Krang’s latest invention, he’s a Terminator who looks like a Turtle.
That riff recurs in “The Turtle Terminator” (37, David Carren and J. Larry Carroll); throw in “Attack of Big MACC” and “Super Bebop and Mighty Rocksteady,” and Season 3 is big on deadly robots (even though, oddly, Foot Soldiers rarely appear). Shredder makes a killer-robot version of Irma, and it should be hilarious. It’s amusing to hear Jennifer Darling do a monotone version of her character, but the writers get stuck on the joke of klutz Irma stepping on people’s feet.
Absurdist humor connects … sometimes
“Case of the Hot Kimono” (33, Carren and Carroll) is the best work from this writing duo so far because it embraces how dumb it is. It parodies old-lady sleuths via April’s aunt Agatha Marbles, who does things like climb a ladder to run a magnifying glass across a ceiling, looking for clues.
A lot of humor can come from exaggerated voice work, and I enjoy the job done by Splinter actor Peter Renaday as mobster Don Turtelli (thinner than his last appearance, but still torturing people via tickling), plus his goons played by Pat Fraley (Krang) and Rob Paulsen (Raphael).
This rare non-Shredder episode is absurdly plotted. At one point, the Turtles open a kimono store and run a TV ad — with Donatello in the guise of “Kimono Kal,” and the others singing a jingle — simply to draw out Turtelli. This is almost Zucker Brothers level, albeit through a cartoon lens. Given that it has a scene of Splinter in a bathrobe (since his kimono has been stolen), “Hot Kimono” knows how goofy it is, and I kind of love it.
This breezy, absurdist approach plays better than pounding home one gag, as happens in “Turtle Terminator” and “Michelangelo’s Birthday” (31, Eliot Daro and Bill Wolf). The lesson for kids here is “Know when to end a practical joke.” Mikey – who leaves his brothers when they fake-forget his birthday — nearly gets melted by acid via the Flushomatic. I didn’t acquire this torture-themed toy, as I didn’t want to coat my action figures in slime.
Rascally rabbit
I was excited to watch the two-parter that brings Stan Sakai’s samurai rabbit into “TMNT”: “Usagi Yojimbo” (32, Wise) and “Usagi Come Home” (34, Wise). As a kid I found it weird that the Usagi action figure looks like a badass whereas the animated Usagi is short and unassuming in appearance (the right choice, as he looks closer to Sakai’s drawings).
I appreciate that Usagi is so bound by honor that he confuses the hell out of himself, believing he is honor-bound to kill the Turtles (!) after Shredder tricks him. And there’s no toning down of Usagi’s skills, as he’s a better fighter than each of the four Turtles and even Splinter – except when the ninja master pulls out his slapstick moves. It’s frustrating, though, how slow Usagi is on the uptake, considering how sharp he is about other things, such as speaking English.
Wise tries to be relatively serious in the “Usagi” duology, and that’s a better approach than one-gag comedy. But this batch proves “TMNT” is at its best when the jokes have flavor, as I most appreciated the over-the-top aggressive dialog of Leatherhead and the absurdist romp that is “Hot Kimono.”
The expansion of the character roster seems to be good for long-term storytelling, as Usagi settles down nearby with an old sensei who is a friend of Splinter, and a reprogrammed Metalhead resides with the Turtles.
For whatever reason, though, Usagi never appears again, and Metalhead only once more. Leatherhead makes only two more guest turns, but at least the writers go back to the Rat King several more times. And if you liked teenage Turtle fan Zach from earlier in Season 3 (“The Fifth Turtle”), you’ll like the final batch of Season 3, as he appears in three (!) more episodes.