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turtlethon · 2 years ago

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“Snakes Alive!”

Season 6, Episode 13 First US Airdate: December 5, 1992

The emergence of a half-man, half-snake villain forces Leonardo to confront his deepest fears.

“Snakes Alive!” is the thirteenth episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season six. David Wise is the writer of this story, concluding a stretch of back-to-back episodes written by the show’s most prominent contributor.

In the training area of the Lair, Leonardo presses Splinter about the one combat move that, until now, the Turtles have not been taught. Some hilarious animation follows as Splinter agrees and demonstrates the viper attack, limbo-ing around before launching himself at his student. Leo makes a couple of attempts to perform the move himself, failing each time, and is offended after it’s suggested he may have “some hidden fear” stopping him from doing the move.

Joining the team in the living room area, Leonardo watches a report by April about the theft of 600 snakes from a reptile house. After nervously declining to view any more of the coverage, the leader of the team heads over to the bookcase, where Donatello suggests they might learn more about the crime by reading an illustrated book about snakes. In the kitchen, Mikey and Raph find the sink to be blocked, and request the use of the [drain] snake from Donatello, the mention of which unsettles Leonardo further.

The group head up to the surface to begin investigating the robbery, with Leonardo doing everything in his power to avoid having to deal with the task at hand. Our heroes spot a technology firm’s premises being raided, and make their way into the building to confront the robbers. Inside they find a group of snakes, which somehow seem to have been carrying out orders to steal the items. Leo continues to go out of his way to not get involved, unable to bring himself to tell the other Turtles about his crippling fear. This leaves Donnie, Mikey and Raph to handle things themselves, placing a tracking device on one of the snakes so that the team can follow it back to its home base.

April and a reluctant Vernon are also looking into the snake theft story, patrolling the city in one of Channel 6’s news vans. Along the way, they happen to witness Pinky McFingers and his two underlings breaking into a sporting goods store to steal diving equipment. The two reporters decide to track Pinky’s car to learn what’s going on. Meanwhile the Turtles follow their captured snake back to its home in the abandoned botanical gardens. Michaelangelo, Raphael and Donatello find themselves surrounded by snakes, and look to Leonardo for help. It’s at this point that the team leader finally declares that “snakes scare the living daylights out of [him]”. He goes on to faint, falling through the floor in the process.

Act two opens with Mikey, Donnie and Raph being captured by the snakes and dragged away. Leonardo comes around and realises that the others are in trouble, but becomes overwhelmed by the thought of facing an army of snakes. He flees the scene only to run face-first into the side of the news van. April explains to Leonardo that the robbery carried out by Pinky led her, along with Vernon, to the botanical gardens as well.

Inside, Pinky and his men are seen talking to Cobrato, a mysterious figure with a Cobra Commander-like voice whose face remains obscured by a hood. The mob boss is ordered to place a machine Cobrato has assembled in the east river, heating up the water so that the snakes can thrive. April, Vernon and Leonardo spot the mobsters leaving in their car and decide to track them once again.

Fourth-wall breaks are part-and-parcel of the 1987 TMNT experience, but what happens next must be the first time we’ve ever had a scene that seems to exist entirely to have a character address the viewers at home. Splinter is in the Lair having a vision of Leonardo’s current predicament. He recaps the story so far, before appearing to stare into the camera and telling us that “to conquer one’s fears, one must face them, not run away”. Yeah, we get it already, thanks for contributing absolutely nothing here, Splinter.

Leonardo confronts Pinky and his men at the pier, easily defeating and restraining them. The mobster informs Leo that Rudolph Cobrato is the man behind the operation, but refuses to say more than that; the shadowy villain’s machine has now been successfully deployed in the river. As Cobrato begins heating up the water from his headquarters, the Turtles listen in from the large glass cage restraining them. Realising that the cage is held down only by a series of bolts, the team begin the slow process of freeing themselves, using Michaelangelo’s grappling hook as a makeshift screwdriver.

As Pinky is taken away by the police, April learns from Channel 6’s files that Rudolph Cobrato was a famed herpetologist, an expert on all things snake-related who went missing the previous year following a laboratory accident involving snake venom. From April’s perspective, the only thing left to do is return to the botanical gardens, a suggestion that forces Leonardo to admit to her his phobia of snakes. Vernon takes this opportunity to laugh in Leo’s face, declaring him to be a “scaredy turtle”, but backs down after being confronted with the prospect of dealing with the snakes himself.

At April’s suggestion, Leonardo returns to the Lair to seek guidance from Splinter in dealing with his phobia. Leo is told that hypnosis is off the table, as it would place him in danger should it wear off. Splinter attempts to reframe this as an opportunity for his student to face and overcome his deepest fear, but Leonardo remains reluctant. Meanwhile Cobrato’s device has heated up the water enough that temperatures in the city are also increasing, with April and Vernon seen struggling with the heat back in the newsroom.

A fatigued and beleaguered Leonardo wanders the streets mulling over his options, still not ready to take on Cobrato. Out on the town, too, are a trio of children just hanging out in New York by themselves at night. The kids are star-struck upon seeing THE Leonardo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and encourage him to do something about the worsening temperatures. When he reluctantly declines, the group respond by calling him a chicken. Somehow this is enough to finally snap Leo out of it – I guess it just hits different coming from his young admirers than it does coming from Vernon. The kids cheer Leonardo on as he leaves for a final confrontation with Cobrato.

Leonardo charges through the botanical gardens, initially losing his nerve after finding himself face-to-face with the snakes. Remembering Splinter’s earlier advice about finding courage, he presses on, ultimately finding himself able to get past the snakes and overcome his fear. Cobrato is ready to do battle with the Turtle, revealing his true form as a half-man, half-snake, the result of his botched venom experiment. Now, the villain declares, he is both one with the serpents and acts as their ruler. He explains that the tropical environment caused by his device will be perfect for his snakes but will prove intolerable for humans, forcing them to flee the city. Getting his shots in, Cobrato adds that snakes “are superior to turtles in every way”. This is enough to enrage Leonardo, initiating a physical struggle between the two reptiles. Using the viper manoeuvrer, Leo knocks his enemy to the ground, going on to tie him up.

Donnie, Mikey and Raph have almost managed to free themselves when Leonardo arrives, opening the door from the outside. When quizzed as to how he got past the snakes, the team’s leader explains that he’s learned “fears are just in our minds, and we have the power to overcome them”. The Turtles are about to sabotage the machine controlling the thermal device when Cobrato attacks once more. Leonardo hurls the villain into a control panel, and a resulting electrical shock transforms the snake-man back into his regular human form. Devastated by the loss of his powers, Cobrato tries ordering his snakes to attack the Turtles, but they no longer listen to him; Instead, he finds himself briefly trapped in his own cage with the serpents before being pulled back out. Donatello goes on to destroy the controls for the thermal device, restoring temperatures to normal.

Back in the Lair, Splinter congratulates Leonardo for overcoming his fear. The leader of the team invites the other Turtles to join him in watching “Killer Snakes from Outer Space” on TV, but after their experience everyone reluctantly declines. Left by himself, Leo concedes that even if he isn’t afraid of snakes anymore, he still doesn’t have to like them.

“Snakes Alive!” is a surprisingly well-handled exploration of phobias for an episode of a Saturday morning cartoon from more than thirty years ago; while Leonardo does receive some mockery for his fears ultimately everyone involved, even Vernon, winds up admitting that his feelings are understandable. More than that, what impresses me here is how well this works in relation to Leonardo’s character, specifically: having played the role of the “fearless leader” for so long, his reluctance to be honest with his friends about his anxieties (and the sense that perhaps they would think less of him) is entirely understandable. In that sense, this is a story uniquely suited for him, working in a way that it wouldn’t to the same degree with the other Turtles.

Rudolph Cobrato further confirms my suspicions that the TMNT crew is finally getting to grips with creating additional villains outside of Shredder & Company. His mutated design (with concealed snake form) recalls King Hiss from Masters of the Universe, as well as The Lizard from Spider-Man, and is one of those rare villains that originate in the cartoon but feel like they could work within the gaudier Turtles action figure line by Playmates; in fact, an unrelated and much more extravagant snake villain called Scale Tail would join the range in the same year that this show was initially broadcast. Having served his purpose by the end of the episode in allowing Leonardo to overcome his fear, it comes as no surprise that Cobrato is de-mutated here, never to appear again. So long Rudolph, we hardly knew ye.

Symbolically, it feels fitting that the fantastical Cobrato is paired with Pinky McFingers, who over the course of the last three seasons has become Turtlethon’s official poster boy for mediocre villains. Pinky’s usage has been telling, as he began as a stand-alone bad guy in “Raphael Knocks ‘em Dead” and was presented as capable enough to screw over the Rat King in “Donatello’s Duplicate”, but his star would fall rapidly after that, his remaining appearances all having him either act in service of another more powerful villain or being easily defeated. His departure from the series here closes the door on the recurring mob boss archetype: as the Turtles struggle to retain viewers in the face of fresh competition in the next few years (and the number of episodes CBS order each season continues to decrease), there’ll be little room to accommodate such characters moving forward.

Three episodes remain in this season for us to explore; of these, the final two are both from new writers, but before then we have another adventure from series regular Jack Mendelsohn to cover, as Michaelangelo goes back to the pet shop for “Polly Wanna Pizza”.

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