As we get into Season 5 of our “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” reviews, some housekeeping is in order. The Hokum Hare two-parter — “The Turtles and the Hare” (episode 1, written by Misty Taggart) and “Once Upon a Time Machine” (2, Michael Maurer) – and the “Planet of the Turtleoids” hourlong special (3-4, David Wise) didn’t air as part of the CBS Saturday morning block.
Both were released in 1991 – the former as a VHS tape (“The Turtles’ Awesome Easter”), the latter as a primetime special — before the fall TV season started, to cash in on the post-“Secret of the Ooze” period. Then things got more confusing in the DVD era, as “The Turtles and the Hare” is in the Season 4 set, and the other three are in the Season 10 set.
I’m counting them as the first four episodes of Season 5, because they aired first. The Hokum two-parter definitely takes place first (the Technodrome is on the asteroid), whereas “Turtleoids” takes place after the CBS Saturday morning premiere, “My Brother the Bad Guy” (5, Dennis O’Flaherty), wherein the Technodrome gets trapped in the Arctic, where it remains for the duration of the season.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” Season 5, episodes 1-11 (1991)
Syndicated (episodes 1-2) and CBS (3-11)
Episodes: “The Turtles and the Hare” (1), “Once Upon a Time Machine” (2), “Planet of the Turtleoids, Part One” (3), “Planet of the Turtleoids, Part Two” (4), “My Brother, the Bad Guy” (5), “Michaelangelo Meets Mondo Gecko” (6), “Enter: Mutagen Man” (7), “Donatello’s Badd Time” (8), “Michaelangelo Meets Bugman Again” (9), “Muckman Messes Up” (10), “Napoleon Bonafrog: Colossus of the Swamps” (11)
Producer: Fred Wolf
Writers: Misty Taggart (1, 8), Michael Maurer (2), David Wise (3, 4, 7, 9), Dennis O’Flaherty (5, 11), Gary Greenfield (6), Francis Moss and Ted Pedersen (10)
Interestingly, the animators must’ve gotten some notice that “Turtleoids” would air as a summer special, because they color the ice like it’s rock. However, the villains’ use of transport modules betrays the fact that they are on Earth.
Further confusing things, the Season 5 DVD episodes are in an order that can only be described as totally random. I think it’s simplest to go by air-date order, so I’ll be reviewing the first 11 of the 22 Season 5 episodes here.
Rascally rabbit
Mike Templeton over at the Ninja Turtle Power Hour podcast is a one-man cult following for the Hokum Hare two-parter, but he’s not entirely off base. Both episodes have strong premises and fast, fun pacing. (Expertly crafted stories are so rare with “TMNT” that strong premises and fast, fun pacing is usually the best we can do.)
“The Turtles and the Hare” features the Fairy Tale Dimension, and the even better “Once Upon a Time Machine” sends the Turtles and their enemies to 2036, which is of course an Eighties-style future with punk fashions and flying cars with “Jetsons” sound effects.
The Mirage continuity posits a dark future for the Turtles and Earth in general, but the toon Turtles have eradicated crime, so the future is clean and peaceful. Since this is a kiddie show, there’s no dark, “Minority Report”-esque undercurrent. The Turtles should be about 60, but they’re hunched over and coughing like they are 90, all in service to a running “Ha-ha, the Turtles are old!” joke.
Wise do-overs
“Planet of the Turtleoids” could be Wise’s do-over of Season 4’s “Planet of the Turtles,” a George Shea episode where the Turtles are bizarrely underwhelmed upon learning that alien Turtles exist. This time, they are appropriately excited, and Donatello even wants to settle on the titular planet, paralleling Michaelangelo’s later feelings about ancient Japan in 1993’s “TMNT III.”
Wise’s “Michaelangelo Meets Bugman Again” (9) similarly could be seen as a course correction after Season 4’s “Michaelangelo Meets Bugman” by Dennis Marks. That episode finds Mikey as a “Bugman” comic fan but he nonsensically is surprised to find Bugman is a real person.
This time, we learn that a Jerry Seigel parody/homage (named Jerry Speigel) is the writer of “Bugman,” but he’s finally been sued by Bugman himself for copyright infringement. Speigel, dressed as The Swatter and speaking like the Rat King, intends to write a “TMNT” comic next. In a bit of meta goofiness, the Turtles laugh that off as a ridiculous idea yet Mikey ends the episode by reading a “TMNT” comic.
Ideas from the toy aisle
This marks the first time the cartoon actively promotes another medium of “TMNT,” but – as has been the case perhaps since the beginning of cartoons — it has always shilled for toys. In Season 5, the writers seemed to be pushed by Playmates to particularly focus on this angle.
“Turtleoids” features Tattoo, Groundchuck, Dirtbag and Chrome Dome, all part of the 1991 wave of action figures. Tattoo is incorporated in extremely odd fashion. He breaks into a pet store, aiming to “go home,” and when zapped by electricity, he turns into a hamster. As such, even though he looks like a totally human sumo wrestler, he canonically was a mutant rodent.
A better choice from that wave would’ve been Sergeant Bananas; granted, a pet store wouldn’t have a baby ape, but at least he is a mutant to begin with. Other figures from that wave who never appeared in the cartoon are Walkabout (kangaroo) and Wyrm (tapeworm).
Groundchuck and Dirtbag are great action figure (and video-game end boss) designs, with the bull charging and the mole flinging dirt, but the personalities and voice acting leave something to be desired. Their relatively blank impressions make me appreciate the reliable hijinks of Bebop and Rocksteady.
Bad mutants turn good
Infamously, when adapting action figures to the cartoon, the writers never cared about lining them up with their Archie portrayal. This led to Man-Ray creator Ryan Brown successfully getting the toon to change Man-Ray to Ray the Fish Man in Season 4’s “Rebel Without a Fin.” He was annoyed that his good-guy characters always became bad guys for the toon.
But the cartoon held the office-political power after that, apparently. Or perhaps the character designers were OK with it as long as the character turned good by episode’s end, as is the case in “Michaelangelo Meets Mondo Gecko” (6, Gary Greenfield), “Enter: Mutagen Man” (7, Wise) and “Muckman Messes Up” (10, Francis Moss and Ted Pedersen).
Watching these as a kid, I was both excited and trepidatious, and I recall generally feeling that the cartoon didn’t get the characters “right.” Although Mondo Gecko is a teen turned into a mutant in the Archie comics, and a gecko turned into a mutant here, I liked him on this viewing. He had only known crime, thanks to being raised by villain Mr. X, but deep down he knows it is wrong – and Mikey pushes him to the side of good. That’s a nice message for young viewers, and John Mariano does good guest voice work.
Powering up
With Mutagen Man and Muckman – two figures that could’ve been in the “Toxic Crusaders” line, the writers had the difficult task of giving them some kind of power, rather than merely looking disgusting. So Mutagen Man is a shapeshifter, and Muckman exudes a field that saps energy from the Turtles.
“Enter: Mutagen Man” is notable for being unusually dark, as Shredder thinks its funny that Seymour Gutz has gone all to pieces (although, oddly, Shredder immediately has a life-support body available for him) and later outright attempts to kill him by disconnecting his mutagen hose. It’s Shredder at his most evil since Season 3’s “Michaelangelo’s Birthday,” when he intends to drip deadly acid on Mikey.
Garbage mutants Muckman and Joe Eyeball fall for Shredder’s usual ploy (also used on the Punk Frogs, Usagi Yojimbo and Lotus Blossom) wherein he tells them the Turtles are their enemy and they believe him. Moss and Pedersen nominally aim for a comedy routine, except that they can’t come up with more than Joe Eyeball grandly announcing his name. I’m always happy for an Irma storyline, though, and it’s amusing that she has to fend off the interest of Joe, a rare male Irma isn’t attracted to.
Mondo, Mutagen Man and Muckman are instances of the cartoon playing catch-up. All were part of the 1990 action figure wave, as was Napoleon Bonafrog. So like the other Punk Frog to get a Playmates toy – Genghis in Season 4’s “Big Bug Blunder” – Napoleon gets a solo episode with “Napoleon Bonafrog: Colossus of the Swamps” (11, O’Flaherty), my favorite of this batch.
Interestingly, the Napoleon action figure looks unusually fierce, and here Napoleon mutates into a Hulk under the effects of Shredder’s ray beam. They don’t look the same, although NECA would produce this hulking Napoleon in 2023. This stands as another good message episode for kids, as the frog is under the influence of the ray (which causes obedience to Shredder) yet he always breaks free of it because the Turtles are his friends.
A more reasonable pace
Cartoons of this time period were required to have one instance of educational value in order to pass the censors. These instances are usually hidden, but it comes bluntly in “My Brother, the Bad Guy” when Shredder’s do-gooder brother instructs the Turtles to obey traffic laws even if it means Shredder gets away.
The Turtles don’t usually need to be told to do the right thing, as demonstrated by Donatello when he gets tricked by the criminal Badd family – pretending their truck had broken down — in “Donatello’s Badd Time” (8, Taggart). Again, this is a good message episode, as Donnie learns he should not lie to his brothers about the Turtle Van being stolen. The problem is it’s pointless and out of character; Donnie is usually the one with a good head on his shoulders.
Aside from Splinter actor Peter Renaday jarringly being absent for two episodes (Mikey actor Townsend Coleman steps in), the professionalism of the first half of Season 5 is respectable – especially from the voice crew, which continues to be the best part of “TMNT.” Forty-seven episodes were produced in 1989 and 39 more in 1990, so the standard 22 episodes of 1991 might’ve seemed refreshing to the writers and animators.
As noted, an episode’s impact rarely matches the promise of the premise. For instance, there’s no thematic resonance to Shredder having a good younger brother or the Turtles experiencing a culture of their own kind – just pointed lines of dialog, at best. It would’ve been nice if the cartoon had matured along with its viewers, but we have to settle for a consolation prize: seeing action figures getting their stories told.