After the March 1990 “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” movie, the cartoon’s move to CBS Saturday Mornings in the fall was much-hyped. As a kid, I was well aware of it. The overall advertising of “TMNT” cartoons was shoddy, though, as 13 brand-new syndicated episodes overlapped with those CBS episodes. I’m pretty sure I missed all of them on their initial airings, in Fall 1990.
Officially known as episodes 1-13 of Season 4, this batch starts off as a slog. “Plan Six from Outer Space” (1, written by David Wise) peppers in some new music, the pacing is slower, and the animation is worse than average. These episodes are done by Murakami Wolf Dublin, which had also done a handful of previous installments. The animation tends to be gumby-like, with awkward running and walking motions.
(In 1993, the Irish studio would do the even-more-infamous “Vacation in Europe” side season, 13 episodes that chronologically take place right after “Plan Six,” building on the Turtles’ announcement that they’re going on vacation.)
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” Season 4, episodes 1-13 (1990)
Syndicated
Episodes: “Plan Six from Outer Space” (1), “Turtles of the Jungle” (2), “Michaelangelo Toys Around” (3), “Peking Turtle” (4), “Shredder’s Mom” (5), “Four Turtles and a Baby” (6), “Turtlemaniac” (7), “Rondo in New York” (8), “Planet of the Turtles” (9), “Name that Toon” (10), “Menace Maestro, Please” (11), “Superhero for a Day” (12), “Back to the Egg” (13)
Producer: Fred Wolf
Writers: David Wise (1), Misty Taggart (2, 6), Ted Pedersen and Francis Moss (3, 5, 8, 12), Antonio and Carmela Ortiz (4), Rowby Goren (7), George Shea (9), Susan Stewart-Taggart (10), Martin Pasko (11), Dennis Marks (13)
Dublin down on the Turtles
Some episodes pad themselves out to reach 22 minutes, most notably “Peking Turtle” (4, Antonio and Carmela Ortiz), which stretches out the beginnings and ends of each scene, and in which Krang forgets he already has an army of Rock Soldiers and doesn’t need to bother with a scheme to get more. Without the fast pacing that’s a basic necessity for cartoons, never before has “TMNT” been so hard to sit through.
However, the back half of this batch picks up, even featuring bursts of good fight scenes that use multiple camera angles rather than one wide shot – for example, when the Turtles battle Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady in “Name that Toon” (10, Susan Stewart-Taggart).
Although the censorship started in Season 3, we’re now firmly in the time when Michaelangelo uses a grappling hook rather than nunchucks (to appease European stations airing this worldwide cartoon), but at least he uses the hook for logical purposes a fair amount.
The writing of dialog remains at the Season 3 level, with Raph more comfortable than ever with quips, and Krang reminding us this is a TV show almost as often as he reminds us the Technodrome needs energy to escape from its Dimension X asteroid. Absurdist gags become more common – such as Shredder calling NYC from a payphone inside the Technodrome in “Plan Six.”
The plot logic leans dumber than Season 3, but a viewer begins to expect it, and it’s merely worth a shrug after a while. More harmful to the tone: Any pretense that the bad guys have a chance to (or even desire to) kill the Turtles is totally gone. Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady regularly bemoan the predictability of having their plans quashed by the Turtles.
Nothing fazes these guys
Some premises are quite good – or taken from good movies – but the execution is often half-baked. “Plan Six” oddly has nothing to do with “Plan Nine from Outer Space” (1957), except that it’s similarly bad (although it’s amusing that Bebop and Rocksteady, in human form, have success as TV programmers).
“Turtles of the Jungle” (2, Misty Taggart) is a “King Kong” riff, with Donatello so nonchalant about turning gigantic to fight a huge monkey that it ironically feels like a small episode.
“Planet of the Turtles” (9, George Shea) – not to be confused with Season 5’s two-part “Planet of the Turtleoids” — takes the nonchalance a step further. Donnie discovers a planet of Turtles (aliens, but they look the same as our mutants) via his interdimensional TV antenna, and everyone is nonplussed. Even when our heroes meet these Turtles – including Scandinavian-accented wrestlers Hans and Fitz (a play on “hands and feets”) – they don’t consider it significant.
This is a prime episode for illustrating the nonchalance of the scripting, too. In a fight, Hans removes his shell and uses it as a weapon. And Mikey pulls a laser gun out of Fitz’s shell, as if he knew it would be there. By this point in the series, the writers have no qualms about dreaming things up on a whim.
Titles promise more than they deliver
A lot of the syndicated Season 4 titles are intriguing, though. “Shredder’s Mom” (5, Ted Pedersen and Francis Moss) doesn’t do what it could with the premise, but the voice actors for Shredder (James Avery) and his nagging mother (Irma actress Jennifer Darling) have a blast, and it’s amusing that Krang is impressed by Shredder’s mom’s penchant for evil.
“Four Turtles and a Baby” (6, Misty Taggart) riffs on 1987’s “Three Men and a Baby” but copies the plot of Season 3’s “The Grybyx.” We have a telekinetic Neutrino baby instead of a telekinetic Neutrino pet. It’s a rare Neutrino episode without Kala, Dask and Zak (instead, we meet the king – who resembles Elvis – and queen), and it’s weak enough that I actually miss the trio.
“Turtlemaniac” (7, Rowby Goren) plays off Vincent Price’s “House of Wax” (1953), with a rich guy who collects Turtles memorabilia. He has made wax figures of Shredder, Leatherhead and others. But the episode is a missed opportunity to comment on the Turtles’ publicized adventures so far.
One good thing about the syndicated part of Season 4 is that the citizens of NYC now accept the Turtles as part of the landscape. There’s no more of the weird back-and-forth where they are celebrities in one episode and trying to hide in the next. No single episode signals this change, but the writers seem to have agreed on it, at least subconsciously.
More cultural riffs
“Rondo in New York” (8, Moss and Pedersen) lightly makes fun of Slyvester Stallone and Rambo – including a gag where the short movie star is walking on crates while being interviewed by the taller April – but it doesn’t commit.
Don Gilvezan voices Rondo like Clint Eastwood, and blond hair softens the Stallone resemblance. One interesting tidbit is that the premise of a movie hero entering the real world follows 1985’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo” and predates 1993’s “Last Action Hero.”
“Menace Maestro, Please” (11, Martin Pasko) is a take on “The Phantom of the Opera.” Although the animation in general is weak in this baker’s dozen, the settings (the background cels) are often colorful and evocative, including this grand but rundown haunted theater.
“Superhero for a Day” (12, Moss and Pedersen) actually predates the DIY superhero boom – stuff like “Special” (2006) and “Super” (2010) – with Gadget Man, a washed-up superhero voiced by an uncredited actor in the manner of Bob Newhart.
Aiming for even younger viewers?
Broadly, the syndicated part of Season 4 aims for even younger kids than Seasons 1-3, if you look at the themes and young guest characters – the aforementioned “Four Turtles and a Baby” being an example.
“Michaelengelo Toys Around” (3, Pedersen and Moss) makes a half-hearted attempt at commenting on spoiled children via Mikey’s new pal Kevin. And it features the amusing – in the abstract — sight of Mikey pretending to be a life-sized toy and being lugged around.
Although not the first episode to feature a Turtle’s name in the title (Season 3 had “Michaelangelo’s Birthday”), this could’ve been one of the back-half episodes of CBS’ hourlong block, most of which feature a single Turtle in the title and an extra-light storyline.
This batch closes out with its most memorable episode, “Back to the Egg” (13, Dennis Marks), wherein Leo and Mikey are turned into children by a potion dosed onto their pizza by Shredder. Actually, Shredder is the second-in-command here to Captain Krulik (rather ominously voiced by an actor uncredited on Turtlepedia).
Krulik is one of a fair number of guest villains and allies in this batch, but none of them rose to the level of Playmates action figures nor NECA (the new nostalgia line) action figures. Nor are any of them even cult favorites.
Howie does it
The best of the guests, certainly, is Howie – a Woody Allen lookalike and soundalike (surprisingly, Krang actor Pat Fraley does the voice rather than Donnie actor Barry Gordon) who also has Buddy Holly elements.
He writes and sings original songs – including one about the Turtles themselves — in “Name that Toon” and “Menace Maestro, Please.” This two-parter broadly riffs on “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” in that aliens communicate via musical notes.
Howie is the boyfriend (or at least a pal who would likely be open to dating her) of the lovelorn Irma. It’s a cute notion and gives “TMNT” a smidgen of planned continuity that for the briefest moment makes it seem like a normal, non-rushed TV show.
This batch of 13 gets less bad as it goes along, getting back to Season 3’s baseline level. It drops the extra music cues (none of which are as good as the original catalog) and restores energy to the pacing. The lack of action-figure characters or toy-line vehicles plays the biggest part in making these 13 episodes into also-rans. But that will change when we get into the CBS portion of Season 4.