#Get Shredder

[turtlethon]

“Get Shredder!”

Season 8, Episode 1 First US Airdate: September 17, 1994

The Turtles continue to hunt down a defeated Shredder while also dealing with a new enemy from Krang’s past.

“Get Shredder!” is the first episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season eight. David Wise is the credited writer for this adventure.

We get a new title sequence to mark the beginning of this final era of the show, its “Red Sky” period, and it’s... not good? For reasons we’ll get into later, no original animation appears here, instead we get quick-fire clips of the Turtles and other characters sourced from this season’s episodes. Sprinkled between these are shots from the first live-action TMNT movie, as if to try and borrow some of the credibility and acclaim it had accrued. Accompanying all this is a quasi-reworking of the original theme song. This is probably the best element of this ill-advised opening: I must admit it’s sorta catchy, but let’s not kid ourselves, this – all of this – is a massive downgrade.

Season seven was a testing of the waters for a more mature version of the series, subtly emphasising the action and sci-fi elements of TMNT while downplaying its reliance on wacky humour. This culminated in a big finale, “Shredder Triumphant!”, in which the titular villain was finally able to take over the city alongside Krang, the Turtles briefly banished to Dimension X. Upon their return, our heroes worked alongside their friends from Channel 6 and Splinter to finally deal Shreds a definitive defeat, the Technodrome itself being sent to Dimension X. That adventure closed with Shredder, Krang, Rocksteady and Bebop driving off into the sunset in an old pick-up truck having lost everything, their fortress, the Foot Soldiers, Rock Soldiers and the rest of their resources all gone; even Krang’s android body was badly damaged during the battle and won’t be in service moving forward.

Today’s adventure follows on directly from those events. It seems that the Turtles went down into the sewers after defeating Shredder as boys and emerged the next day as men; perpetually angry, snarling, glowering men. As if to rub it in, the opening shot of this episode has Michaelangelo – always the most light-hearted and affable of the Turtles – emerge from a manhole, warily looking around with shifty eyes. The team sneak into a nearby alley, where Leonardo explains that they need to capitalise on Shredder’s run of misfortune, hunting down him and the rest of the now ex-Technodrome Crew while they have the advantage.

Now drawn to be more intimidating than before, the Turtles meet up with April, who has also received a makeover, her facial features tweaked and her familiar banana yellow jumpsuit traded in for more grounded clothing. (She even gets to wear a coat while standing around outside at night, it’s a whole new world!) April points the team in the direction of a warehouse where a gang of crooks are hiding out; they had recently stolen vehicles from a used car dealership with the help of an advanced laser beam, suggesting a possible connection to Shredder. The Turtles smash their way into the hideout and capture the crooks; after grilling them, it becomes clear that they have no connection to Shreds, their laser generator made in Taiwan rather than the Technodrome.

The Turtles return to the Lair – which is now more moodily-lit than before – and seek advice from Splinter, whose design is curiously unchanged. He suggests to his pupils that Shredder won’t play by the rules in attempting to acquire new resources. Soon the team pick up on a radio transmission in Donatello’s workshop involving a gunfight in a research facility and a man in a metal mask, and so they rush off to investigate.

A laser gun shoot-out takes place in the research facility, with Bebop and Rocksteady using their blaster weapons – now running low on energy – to hold off the police as Shredder (now voiced by Bill Martin) steals chemicals. Mixing a concoction in a barrel, he hurls this in the direction of the cops, escaping with The Boys moments before the upper reaches of the building explode. Bebop remarks that Shredder “sure bluffed [his] way out of that one”, leading Shredder to respond that he never bluffs, a seemingly innocuous line that will prove to have some significance later.

The trio meet up with Krang in the remnants of a demolished electronics store nearby. The alien brain has found an unconventional solution to their problems in the shape of a dog-eared brochure from the 1964 World’s Fair. A pavilion in the Hall of Science has been left untouched for almost thirty years, and might contain the equipment the villains need to get out of their current predicament. Personally, I find it hard to believe that there could possibly be anything of value to Krang in human technology from the mid-sixties, but let’s just go with it.

Arriving on the scene of the warehouse fire caused by Shredder, the Turtles are about to sneak in and look for clues when they spot that the boarded-up electronics store nearby has its lights on, the front door wide open. Inside, they find footprints from Krang’s bubble walker – those are a thing now, apparently – and the abandoned World’s Fair brochure. Figuring this is where the villains are headed, the Turtles head off to confront them.

Shredder, Krang and The Boys arrive outside the remains of the Hall of Science. Before they can even enter, the Turtles roll up in their van. A battle between the two sides kicks off – with Bebop unable to put up a fight, his gun now entirely drained of power – but everyone involved is forced to take cover as a brightly-coloured villain named Berserko shoots blasts of energy at them from the top of the building, concluding the first act.

Act two opens with the villains attempting to escape, but Donatello is briefly able to restrain Krang, yanking him out of his bubble walker. Identifying the alien brain by name, Berserko immediately orders his robotic drones to capture him. A blast from Berserko’s roof-mounted gun brings down a nearby building, which topples in Raphael’s direction; what happens next is a truly baffling moment, as rather than showing the bricks bury Raph the scene hurriedly dissolves to a shot of the Turtle Van, the other members of the team lugging him inside. The Turtles try to rush an unconscious Raphael back to the Lair, but Berserko fires upon their van. Badly damaged, the vehicle is left on its side after crashing, our heroes forced to escape on-foot.

Shredder meets up with Rocksteady and Bebop, the group noting that Krang has gone missing. Rocksteady mentions he last saw Donatello restraining him, and so the trio assume the Turtles are now holding him hostage, and begin plotting to strike back. Back in the Lair, a still-recovering Raphael refuses to rest, removing his bandages and insisting they continue with their mission of hunting down Shredder.

Berserko removes his helmet to reveal his true identity to Krang. Once known as Drakus, he was the alien brain’s weapons engineer and helped co-design the Technodrome before being double-crossed; Krang even went as far as destroying Drakus’s home world to spite his old collaborator, as a means of making sure no-one connected to him got involved in their feud.

Krang is shown Berserko’s latest innovation: a huge vehicle called The Annihilator, said to outclass even the Technodrome in terms of firepower. Berserko requests his old partner assist him in making the final modifications required to the drive system, but Krang refuses. The alien brain is placed under a heat ray within a domed booth in the Hall of Science, with Berserko pledging to finish off his Annihilator on his own.

We briefly check in with Shredder, who carries out a raid on a chemical supplies warehouse with Rocksteady and Bebop, before returning to Krang. Feeling the pressure from the heat ray, the alien warlord provides the needed details on how to fix the drive system. Having now acquired the information he needs, Berserko has Krang tied up, a group of robotic drones ordered to monitor him.

Returning to the surface, Donatello begins performing repairs on the Turtle Van. Meanwhile the other Turtles check in with April, still intent on getting a lead on Shredder’s activities. A radio transmission reveals that Shredder and his henchmen have been spotted breaking into a building while carrying explosive devices; to the horror of April and Irma, it soon dawns on them that the address mentioned is that of the Channel 6 building itself, Rocksteady and Bebop emerging to confront them.

The familiar Channel 6 players – April, Irma, Burne and Vernon – are locked in a room together as the villains carry out their plan. Vernon reveals that he saw the trio carrying the explosives down to the basement, and when questioned by Burne as to why he didn’t intervene responds that “a good reporter isn’t supposed to get involved with the story”. 

Shredder reaches our heroes via a Turtlecom transmission, addressing them in his new charmless monotone voice; out of all the changes that the show has seen in these later years, somehow the departure of James Avery continues to be one of the most damaging. He tells the team that he’s placed “a very large explosive device” at Channel 6, demanding that Krang be handed over within the next thirty minutes; if the green teens don’t comply, he’ll blow the building up, with April, Irma and everyone else inside it. Splinter overhears this incoming transmission from Donatello’s workshop and decides to intervene on his own. Meanwhile the Turtles are perplexed as to why Shredder thinks they have Krang. Determining that Berserko must have kidnapped the alien brain, the rest of the group rush back to the Hall of Science to confront him, while Donatello continues fixing up the van.

While Splinter infiltrates the locked-down Channel 6 building the Turtles do the same at Berserko’s makeshift headquarters. Genuine attempts are being made by the animation team to up the standards of the fight sequences here within the constraints placed upon them; Leonardo deflecting the laser blasts of a drone robot with his katana before destroying it is a particularly polished sequence, the kind of thing it’s hard to imagine seeing in the show during its middle seasons. Leo and Raph find the still-restrained Krang, and on the way out reunite with Mikey, who has learned of the construction of The Annihilator; with the clock against them the team put that issue aside for the moment.

Now with Krang in tow, the three Turtles return to their van as Donatello makes the final repairs required. Drones open fire upon them, but the group nevertheless escape. Berserko emerges to watch the Turtle Van drive away, still confident that the completion of the Annihilator will assure his victory. Meanwhile, Splinter finds the room with the Channel 6 regulars inside; only a minute remains until the explosives go off, and so he resorts to using a well-placed chop to shatter the metal bar holding the handles in place.

Shredder stands in front of the Channel 6 building, flanked by Rocksteady and Bebop, as the Turtle Van arrives. Before the team can hand over Krang, he announces that it took them thirty-one minutes, failing to meet his demands within the agreed timeframe. The Turtles – used to always saving the day in the nick of time, and to the arch-villain invariably fumbling his way to a humiliating defeat – note that the station premises are still intact, and that clearly he was bluffing the whole time. Shredder responds with three words that will forever alter the direction of the series: “I... never... bluff.”

In easily the most shocking moment of the show’s history, the Channel 6 building is obliterated in a massive explosion, only a pile of rubble left behind. Unsure of the fate of their friends, the furious Turtles attack the villains. The battle that follows again sees the production crew pushing to up the quality of the fight choreography beyond what we’re used to, but climaxes in the comical sight of a scowling Michaelangelo lording it over a defeated Shredder, shaking his fist in the villain’s face and inexplicably declaring “Cowabunga, dude.”

The Turtles have the upper hand over their enemies, but are distracted by the arrival of Berserko’s Annihilator. Using their extensive experience of breaking into the Technodrome, the group work their way into the enormous vehicle and confront Krang’s old collaborator. Along the way the controls for the tank-like contraption are damaged, and so the group are forced to escape with the now-restrained villain as it rolls downhill into a nearby river.

Returning to the rubble of the Channel 6 building with a now tied-up Berserko, the Turtles lament the assumed demises of their friends April and Irma - “and even Vernon”. All three soon emerge, alongside Splinter, Burne and the rest of the station employees (which seem to consist of a weirdly slimmed-down Stan and one other guy.) Furious at the loss of his station, Burne launches into a full-on tirade, blaming the Turtles for everything that has transpired and pledging that, when Channel 6 gets back on its feet, he’ll make it his mission to expose the threat they pose to the city. The Turtles counter that Shredder is the true threat, but unable to get through to April’s boss they soon use their ninja skills to vanish when his back is turned. April goes on to give a stirring speech of her own, sticking up for her friends. “No matter what you say, they’ll keep on fighting to save this city from the forces of evil! Especially Shredder.”

Wow. I think it’s fair to say this episode is... a lot. What we’re witnessing here is something almost akin to a soft reboot, doing away with so much of the bread and butter of what the show was from its inception through season seven. The brightly-coloured environments, the appealing and friendly character designs, the zany humour, even the endless pizza talk... all of that is gone now. It’s evident that the gradual maturation that we saw last season was thought to be still not enough to keep the Turtles relevant in the marketplace, and so now things have escalated considerably. Beyond even where they were in the first season, the team and the world they inhabit are now grim, perpetually aggressive, almost downright miserable. In adopting this new attitude, the Red Sky Turtles, incredibly, come across as less welcoming and friendly than even their counterparts from the 2003 4Kids animated show, who were positioned as tougher than the Fred Wolf Turtles but could still crack a joke now and again. In all this, there’s a sense that while David Wise was probably happy to make small tweaks to the vibe of the show through season seven, this new round of changes was likely the result of executive meddling, all of it feeling like a step too far.

After eight years, it’s clear that somebody – within Fred Wolf’s camp, at CBS, in the Mirage / Surge Licensing camp or mostly likely a combination of the aforementioned – had decided that certain elements that had been long present within the series were now a millstone around its neck. Turtles has always been centred around three principal locales: the Lair, the Technodrome and the Channel 6 building. With the Technodrome written out of the series last season, and the Lair the most dangerous of the three to meddle with given its proximity to the main characters, that leaves April’s workplace the most obvious place to make further changes. The destruction of the station building – where so many zany stories and comedic B-plots have taken place - is a symbolic gesture, a statement of intent informing viewers that whatever they thought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was in the past is gone now, with no means of turning back.

The transition to this new era is jarring, but “Get Shredder!” isn’t the disaster I feared. As with season seven, there’s a sense that everyone involved in the production is working hard to try and save the show, perhaps even more so now, and from that we get some solid action sequences and landmark moments. Burne’s fury at the loss of his station and vow to get back at the Turtles is the most authentic moment of characterisation he’s ever received, his anger here based in something real rather than his usual empty bluster, and it’s exciting to see these characters who have been going through the motions for so many years now forced to move on. There is the prospect in here of a new, more mature TMNT that could be good, and over the final three months of Turtlethon we’ll explore how that plays out.

SAY HELLO TO THE PLOW KING: A MIGHTY MORPHIN’ INTERLUDE

I trust that everyone reading this is familiar with “Mr .Plow”, a season four episode of The Simpsons. In the unlikely event that this one passed you by or you’re too young to know of it, the premise involves Homer being convinced by a salesman to buy a pickup truck with a snow plow mounted to it, on the basis that the vehicle will pay for itself if he uses it to clear driveways in Springfield during winters. This works out well for a while, as Homer adopts the moniker of Mr. Plow and is celebrated by the townspeople for his help with their snow-related problems, but along the way he ends up inspiring his friend Barney to show some initiative himself. Declaring himself to be the Plow King, Barney purchases an even bigger vehicle and immediately makes his intent clear by using a gun to blow out the tyres on Homer’s truck. His operation is bigger and better than Homer’s, effectively rendering Mr. Plow an irrelevance overnight.

The reason I bring all this up is that I often use “Plow King” as shorthand to describe a situation where a formerly successful venture – typically a business, brand or TV show – is destroyed almost immediately by an emerging competitor that’s able to take everything the established entity did and one-up it. Nintendo (with help from the 1983 video game crash) Plow Kinged Atari. Blackberry was Plow Kinged by the introduction of the iPhone. And in our space, within the realm of comics, toys and animation discussed in this project, The Real Ghostbusters was Plow Kinged, irrefutably, by the ascending Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles around 1989 or so. Everything that Ghostbusters had pioneered in terms of its marketing and positioning as a series that blended comedy and action, alongside a toy line that incorporated gross-out elements which alarmed parents, was built upon by MWS and Playmates so effectively in TMNT that their counterparts at DiC and Kenner were hopelessly outgunned. I say this as someone who loved Ghostbusters obsessively as a child, but nevertheless, objectively the Turtles were positioned to be cooler, to connect with children in a more relatable and direct way. They weren’t grown men running a business, they were simply teenagers hanging out and getting into adventures, with a sort of renegade appeal that Peter, Ray, Egon and Winston could never have.

To borrow a line from another cartoon, as Megatron tells Starscream at the conclusion of the original Transformers mini-series, “if you dispose of me, there will always be someone waiting to dispose of you”. Half a decade on from the Ninja Turtles supplanting the Ghostbusters at the top of the kidvid action hero hierarchy, there’s no doubt that as we kick off season eight, the Turtles have been Plow Kinged by Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. To accomplish this, Saban took existing footage from the Japanese series Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger and wrapped it in elements of previous series that had been popular in terms of marketing, positioning and presentation – a drop of TMNT, a dash of Transformers, and even a smidge of Saved by the Bell-style teenage high school fluff, which was performing well on Saturday mornings at the time – and again this approach of building upon what the market leader had done paid dividends. Power Rangers made its debut on Fox a few weeks prior to season seven of TMNT commencing over on CBS, which regular Turtlethon readers may recall was hampered by spending almost two months on the dire European Vacation arc before the new episodes originally intended for broadcast in 1993 got underway. By now – a year on – MMPR has become a phenomenon that poses an existential threat to the Turtles, in much the same way that the green teens outperformed every competitor in the space back in 1990.

None of this happens in isolation, of course. The rise of Power Rangers followed on from the arrival of Batman: The Animated Series and X-Men, both debuting in 1992, two hugely successful and influential shows that shifted a lot of units in the action figure space, making the Turtles look safe and perhaps antiquated by comparison. All of this was also happening during a boom in gritty, excessively violent comic books and the increasing popularity of fighting games such as Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. Hit from all sides, Turtles as a brand is faced with only two viable routes for survival: either go down the route of being even campier, zanier, and sillier than before to win back the very young end of its target audience lost to Power Rangers, or make a concerted effort to keep pace with the teenage boys who grew up with the property during the prior seven seasons, giving them the edgy, brooding, violent Turtles that they want – or at least, that they think they want. For now, and for the remainder of the Fred Wolf era, TMNT will be taking the latter route.

As the barebones new intro suggests, this reinvention of the Turtles is taking place on an incredibly small budget. In the Turtlethon entry for “Shredder Triumphant!” we touched upon the idea that episode may have been intended to work at least as a possible finale. It seems the thriftiness ongoing at CBS, in an ironic twist, might have been what led to the continuation of their Saturday morning cartoons: the significant loss of broadcasting rights to the NFL to Fox reportedly freed up resources to keep long-running shows such as TMNT and stablemate Garfield and Friends on the air for a little longer.

Turtles, then, continues to just about survive in late 1994, if only on name value, an almost mortally-wounded property granted a reprieve and a last-ditch chance to reinvent itself for the second half of the nineties. There are a mere seven episodes to follow in this season, the next marking the final appearance of one of the show’s most enduring second-string villains, in “Wrath of the Rat King".

[untitled-tmnt-blog]

... why did it take me this long to realize that the Shredder tore a hole in their old lair, deep enough that it goes all the way down to the Hidden City???

[heartorbit]

stay warm! 🌟🍬🤖🎈

[kovalitics]

<- Part 3 ->

[deadtiredghost]

we deserved more of 2018 Casey

[forgetful-nerd]

After rewatching TMNT 2012 I had an epiphany

[tmntkiseki]

Somehow, the moments that most scream "these mutant ninja turtles are also teenagers" for me aren't the ones where they're fooling around with sports equipment, tossing water balloons at each other, or just being a bunch of goofballs in general.

No, it's the moments where we see them passed out on the floor, empty pizza boxes and soda cups scattered around them, absolutely and completely tuckered out after doing what they do best; being kids.

[professional-d]

@corvusphobia ‘s devyat mouthwashing au inspired me…. So …uh… brainrot.

Anya: Wanted to become a feather for K corp, rejected numerous times, so started working with the devyat to become more traveled and gain experience in order to increase her chances of getting into a wing. Has less combat experience due to using syndicate protections for the most of her life in order to get by. From Y corp. Daisuke: Nest dweller who was put into the association forcibly by parents in order to “toughen him up” a bit before he’d eventually get a job at a wing. Anxious about doing work for any association or wing. Would prefer to make cool weapons in a workshop. Little combat experience, but getting a knack for weapon fixing. From U corp. Sweansea: Seasoned fixer who’s worked for a number of different associations, but has been with the devyat for the longest out of everyone here. Experienced combatant, but his real specialty lies in working on weapons. Could easily start his own successful workshop if he was willing to quit being a fixer. From T corp. Jimmy: Former syndicate member (pinky) who is trying to go on the straight and narrow. Found this job thanks to curly. Decent combatant, though his real specialty lies in strategy, and is known for finding ways to bypass restrictions in poludnista’s AI. He tends to use it selfishly, unbeknownst to the rest of the crew. Originates from X corp. Curly: The captain. The leader. An excellent combatant who joined the devyat early on into adulthood. Picked up combat quickly and has a knack for working with the carrier case’s benefits and deficits. At times a strange woman speaks to him in his head, and he has to do a lot to resist her temptations. Originates from M corp. i had a lot of fun thinking abt this….i have fun…….

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: death mention / strangulation mention / stabbing mention / blood mention / self-sacrifice / codependency mention in tags / ]

I think a lot about how common it is for Raph to be the one to have direct focus put on him when Leo gets into all his near death experiences.

Like, when Leo is thrown off a building, it’s Raph who’s right there jumping after him, not even thinking about the consequences to himself when he does. When Leo almost gets skewered by the Krang, Raph’s right there to take the blow and send Leo to safety without a second thought. When Leo’s being strangled to near death, it’s a Krangified Raph doing the job, doing exactly what Raph would never, ever want to do. When Leo is telling Casey Jr to close the portal, it’s Raph who tries desperately to convince Leo otherwise.

Likewise, Leo is consistently very single minded when Raph gets forcibly separated from them. Both when in the sewers and by the Krang, Leo is dead set on finding Raph first and foremost.

I also think it’s interesting that during each of Leo’s near death experiences, the lightheartedness of his words during them goes directly hand in hand with both how close Raph is to him physically and how much danger Raph is also in in that moment. From a literal “I told you so” as Leo’s falling away from Raph to a soft joke about how “hero moves” are Raph’s style - both of these are on the more morbidly carefree side and both of these notably take Leo farther away from Raph and, in turn, have Raph not in immediate danger.

On the other side of things is the apology from Leo, heedless of the danger he himself is in as he seriously and genuinely speaks to a Krangified Raph face to face. Then there’s Leo’s freezing and desperation as Raph takes a hit meant for him and sends just Leo to safety, leaving Raph himself behind. Both of these involve much closer proximity and Raph being directly harmed - these together make Leo much more vulnerable in his words and actions, something not even the threat of death can make him.

These two care about each other so much, and they’re way too much alike for their own good.

[shreddeddescent]

you know how infuriating it is when your little brother shoots up in a year? and you've already got enough body issues going on? and hes fucking RUDE about it on top?

raph doesnt cope well. he needs a fucking outlet. (next)

[ananxiousgenz]

I honestly do not think I've ever experienced as much agony over a fictional character as I have over oscar malevolent. he's just the winning combo of religious trauma, blood, devotion, queer pain, endless kindness and optimism, and vengeance yk?

[cupcakeslushie]

Leo’s mind-scape

[hylianane]

It might seem like I’m joking when I say that Batman VS the TMNT is my favorite movie of all time but you need to understand that to me. to me? This movie has it all. The Gotham City Rogues all get fursonas. Two poorly voiced lesbians tearfully break up in a pizzeria right before Batman throws Michealangelo through the window. Donatello sees Damian Wayne and yells “What are you, five?!” Leonardo calls him “Little guy” and Damian fucking breaks his knees with a bo staff. Harley’s in her jester outfit telling Joker that eight years of college and three years of residency make her overqualified to be the sexy nurse. Raphael of all turtles lectures Batman about not being direct and trusting with his family. Leonardo kicks Ra’s al Ghul in the balls. Shredders asks Batman to say his last words and he goes, “Cowabunga”

[butterflyscribbles]

Loved and Lost

After an intense run in with the Purple Dragons, Terra gets brave enough to ask about Shelldon, something that Don has been notoriously reluctant to talk about with her…

Epilogue:

[sweeneydino]

you got some more krang x cherell stuff? 🛐

"What do you see in that creature?" 🤨

"He makes me laugh."😑

Bonus under cut

Look, blame my sibling. They showed me a character in a maid outfit and- yknow wat, nvm I have no shame.

[deadtiredghost]

to this day i have yet to find a reason why Donnie hates him so much... like not the Shredder, not the Kraang but this mf

edit: i got some really good responses to this one and have no come to a reasonable reason.