TEENAGE
MUTANT NINJA TURTLES (2012) / TALES OF THE TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES
MAIN
CAST:
For the history of the Ninja Turtles, check out the post here.
In 2009, Viacom (now ViacomCBS) purchased all of Mirage Studio’s rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise; although Mirage was still allowed to publish a number of Turtles comics a year. They began production on new Turtles media, including a cartoon to air on Viacom-owned Nickelodeon. The resulting series was the first to feature the Turtles rendered in computer animation (with the 2007 animated film being the first time overall) that also served as a love-letter to the franchise; blending in elements of every incarnation to date.
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The new heroes in a half-shell. |
The series could be seen as a spiritual sequel to the 1987 animated show, as it was decidedly more light-hearted than the 2003 version with humor derived from a number of anime influences; such as extremely deformed features during emotional outbursts. Like the 1987 series, the Turtles were raised and trained by Master Splinter (Hoon Lee), a former member of the Foot Clan known as Hamato Yoshi that was mutated into a rat by the same mutagen that would mutate the Turtles from his pets into human hybrids. Leonardo (Jason Biggs) was the leader who took his role and training very seriously, often struggling with his own doubts about his abilities; Donatello (Rob Paulsen, who originally voiced Raphael in the 1987 series and only took the role after clearing it with former co-star Barry Gordon) was a mechanical genius and developed the various gadgets the Turtles would use, such as their communication devices, the T-Phone, that played a midi of the 1987 series theme.; Raphael (Sean Astin) had rage issues that he often took out on his brothers, but was fiercely loyal to his family; and Michelangelo (Greg Cipes) was the youngest in the clan and showed it with his intense love of video games, skateboarding and pizza. Aside from their bandana colors and the shade of their skins, each Turtle featured unique body features for the first time: Donnie was the tallest with a gap between his teeth and brown eyes; Leo was a bit shorter than Donnie and had blue eyes; Raph had a chip in his front shell and green eyes; and Mikey was the shortest with a childlike face adorned in freckles. The Turtles’ trademarked battle cry “Cowabunga!” was updated to “Booyakasha!”, proclaimed mostly by Mikey.
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April and her Tessen. |
Their primary human friend/ally,
April O’Neil (Mae Whitman), received the most dramatic changes of the series.
She was depicted as a teenager like the Turtles, leading to Donnie having a
tremendous crush on her (which eclipsed the one depicted in the 2003 series)
and attempting to impress her constantly and win her affection. She was also a
human/Kraang hybrid, the result of her mother (Renae Jacobs,
who played April
in the 1987 series) being experimented on. As a result, she developed strong
psychic powers that would grow as the series progressed. As with several other
incarnations, she began training with Splinter in order to better defend
herself and participate at times in the Turtles’ missions. She was given a Tessen
(war fan) by Splinter and later adopted a dragon tanto (short sword) as her
weapons.
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Casey Jones: vigilante. |
Similarly, their other human
friend/ally Casey Jones (Josh Peck) was made a teenager; becoming involved with
the Turtles after April was assigned to tutor him in school. He still wielded a
collection of sports equipment as weaponry and patrolled the city as a
vigilante, often helping the Turtles in their fights with the battle cry
“Goongala!” Casey also had a crush on April, which put him in a rivalry with
Donnie that lessened as the show progressed.
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The Kraang. |
The first and constant threat to the
Turtles was the alien race known as the Kraang (all Nolan North). Krang
(Pat
Fraley) was a villain created for the 1987 series based on
the aliens known as the Utroms
from the original Mirage comics. Like Krang, the Kraang resembled sentient
brains and piloted humanoid robotic bodies where their stomachs would be, which
were often disguised as the same man in a suit when operating in public
(although there were different types of bodies they could use for various
situations). They had no individual will, operating with a hive mind and
possessing a limited and repetitive grasp of the English language. They were
led by Kraang Prime (Roseanne
Barr
initially, Rachel
Butera later on), an Utrom scientist that discovered the
mutagen created within giant worm creatures and utilized it in evolutionary
experiments. There was also Kraang
Subprime (Gilbert
Gottfried), who served as the Kraang’s spy and spent a lot of
time posing as April’s best friend, Irma
Langinstein (created for the 1987 series and resembling
Velma
Dinkley, who was also voiced by Kate Micucci).
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The Utrom High Council: Pawn, Queen, Rook and Bishop. |
The
Utroms
in this universe were those who resisted Kraang Prime’s mind control and fought
back against them. The Utroms were led by the Ultrom
High Council comprised of members named after chess
pieces: Bishop (North), loosely based on antagonist Agent
Bishop from the 2003 series, was the original designer of
the exo-bodies the Kraang used and was Subprime’s brother; Queen
(Cassandra Peterson),
who piloted a recolored version of the autonomous Kraangdroid Ms.
Campbell (also Peterson) who posed as a scientist with an
interest in April; Rook
(Miccuci), who created the Irma droid model and held a grudge against Subprime
for stealing her design; and Pawn (North), who piloted an undisguised exosuit
that had an additional curly mustache and spoke with a French accent.
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Shredder and Karai. |
Eventually,
the Turtles’ customary foes of the Foot Clan would provide trouble for them as
well; sometimes at odds with the Kraang, other times working with them. They
were led by Splinter’s old friend, Oroku Saki, aka The Shredder (Kevin Michael
Richardson). This Shredder was adopted by the Hamato Clan after the original
Foot were defeated, but became angry and bitter upon learning his origins and
unrequited feelings for Tang
Shen
(Minae Noji), Splinter’s
wife. A conflict saw Saki accidentally kill Shen and end up badly burned, and
in retaliation he stole their daughter, Miwa, and raised her into this show’s
version of Karai
(Kelly Hu).
Leo became infatuated with Karai despite her being their sworn enemy, but her
allegiances changed once she learned the truth about her origins. Both she and
Shredder would end up mutated by mutagen; Shredder willingly to heal battle
wounds, making him grow more massively muscular with natural retracting claws,
and Karai accidentally, turning her into desert horned viper although she was
able to shift back into her human form and assume hybrid variations of both.
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Bebop and Rocksteady in the hizzy. |
The
Foot was initially comprised of actual human ninjas but were eventually
supplemented with various versions of Footbots
(like the 1987 series, which allowed the Turtles to commit limited acts of
violence against them). Shredder also had several mutants in his employ. Bebop
(J.B. Smoove) and Rocksteady (Fred Tatasciore) were his primary muscle. Bebop
started as Anton Zeck (named after comic artist Mike Zeck),
a professional thief with high tech gadgetry that used his dancing skills in a
fight and was eventually mutated into a warthog. Rocksteady was Ivan Steranko
(named after comic artist Jim Steranko),
a Russian arms dealer and artifact collector that was mutated into a white
rhinoceros (the fact that he’s Russian was possibly an allusion to the Marvel Comics villain Rhino).
Baxter
Stockman (Phil
LaMarr) was a brilliant scientist brought in to
reverse-engineer Kraang’s technology. He was mutated into a humanoid fly after
too many failures and was put in charge of mutagen experiments. A running gag
had the Turtles always misremember his last name. Newly created for the show
was Xever Montes (Christian Lanz), a crime boss of the Brazilian mob in the
city, and Chris Bradford (based on Chuck
Norris, voiced by Clancy Brown), a world-famous martial
artist who used his dojo chain to recruit for the Foot. Eventually both were
mutated: with Xever becoming a giant snakehead dubbed “Fishface” and requiring
a breathing apparatus and robotic legs, and Bradford into the humanoid Akita
dubbed “Dogpound”. Bradford was further mutated into the near-skeletal
werewolf Rahzar (based on the creature
that debuted in the 1991 film Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze). Eventually
allying with Shredder was Tiger Claw (created in 1985 for a Turtles
tabletop RPG by executive producer Brandon Auman,
voiced by Eric Bauza), a Japanese assassin and bounty hunter that was mutated
into a tiger. He was the most competent of the mutants, and the most dangerous.
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The Turtles and the Mighty Mutanimals. |
Other
characters included The
Purple Dragons, a street gang led by Fong
(Andrew Kishino)
in the absence of Rahzar or Fishface and later Hun (modeled after Bruce Lee,
voiced by Bauza), who had a rivalry with Casey; Don Vizioso
(Brian Bloom),
an obese crime lord in the Italian mafia; The
Rat King (Jeffrey
Combs), a sleazy scientist that was mutated into being able
to control any kind of rat and could only see through the eyes of his white rat
companion, Aristotle; Metalhead,
a sentient turtle bot created by Donnie from Kraang tech; Newtralizer
(created for the show based on rejected toy designs by Ryan
Brown and a character executive producer Ciro Nieli
created as a kid, voiced by Danny Trejo),
a member of the alien Salamandarian
(humanoid newts and salamanders) race and an intergalactic bounty hunter that
hated pretty much everyone; Ice
Cream Kitty (franchise co-creator Kevin Eastman),
a stray cat that ate mutagen-covered ice cream and became cat made of ice cream,
living in the Turtles’ freezer; Kirby
O’Neil (Keith
Silverstein), April’s father and a scientist (like
the 2003 series) who was briefly mutated into a bat; and the Mighty
Mutanimals, a team of mutants brought together by private
investigator and journalist Jack
J. Kurtzman (based on Jack Kirby,
voiced by Robert
Forster) to fight the Kraang which included Slash
(Corey Feldman,
who voiced Donnie in two of the movies), Raph’s mutated former pet tortoise, Leatherhead
(Peter Lurie),
a flushed pet alligator mutated by the Kraang, Pigeon
Pete
(A.J. Buckley),
a dim-witted mutated rock dove obsessed with sourdough, Mondo
Gecko (Robbie
Rist,
who voiced Michelangelo in the films), a high school skateboarder that
accidentally had mutagen dropped on him and his pet gecko (and who adopted the
“Cowabunga!” cry), Muckman (a nod to The Toxic Avenger,
voiced
by Nolan North & Grant
Moninger), a sewer worker turned into a walking pile of
garbage and had a partner in the form of his sentient left eyeball, Joe
Eyeball (also Moninger), and Doc
Rockwell (Frank
Welker for vocal effects, Tom Kenny
for speaking), a neuroscientist mutated into a chimpanzee that gained telepathy
and telekinesis.
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Character model art for Leonardo. |
Leading up to its debut, production artwork of the character designs was leaked on the Nick website before being taken down. An official trailer was released on June 21st. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles finally arrived on Nickelodeon with a preview on Friday night, September 28, 2012, and the full one-hour debut episode the next morning. It garnered high ratings for the network, easily earning multiple renewals to let it run for 5 seasons. The series was written by Auman, Eastman, Joshua Sternin, J.R. Ventimilia, Jeremy Shipp, Joshua Hamilton, Tom Alvarado, Russ Carney, Ron Corcillo, Kenny Byerly, Jase Ricci, Pete Goldfinger, Todd Garfield, Eugene Son, Kevin Burke, Chris “Doc” Wyatt, Thomas Krejewski, Nicole Dubuc, Gavin Hignight, Johnny Hartmann, Mark Henry, Peter Di Cicco, John Shirley, Christopher Yost, Doug Langdale, Henry Gilroy, Randolph Heard, Greg Weisman, Todd Casey, Andrew Robinson, Elliott Casey, Stan Sakai and Jed MacKay, with character designs by Nieli, Jose Garibaldi, Felipe Smith, Dou Hong, Irineo Maramba, Rusty Tracy, Steve Jones, Glenn Wai Lim Wong, Mayumi Nose and Jose Baribaldo. Series composer Sebastian Evans II also composed the show’s theme with Stan Martinez, which essentially introduced the characters much in the same way as the 1987 theme. The intro would incorporate changes that occurred to the status quo (designs, new characters, etc.), but would always end with the Turtles striking a pose similar to the cover of 1984’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1. Layouts and CG animation was handled by Bardel Entertainment.
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The Triceratons invade. |
Each season was broken up into story arcs. The first season largely introduced the world and characters as the Turtles learned about and put a stop to the Kraang’s invasion of Earth. The second season featured the Kraang’s second, more successful attempt with a greater focus on mutagen and the mutants it created. The third season began the practice of splitting the season up into two arcs that generally connected into an overall story. The first arc saw the Turtles driven out of the city and having to go to April’s family’s farm in Northampton, Massachusetts to recover and retrain themselves for a rematch with the Kraang. There, they encountered a group of mutated frogs bent on world domination known as the Punk Frogs, but were turned off of the idea through Mikey’s friendship with the super-chill Napoleon Bonafrog (Jon Heder, who played Napoleon Dynamite). After returning to the city for the second arc of the season, they encountered Renet (Ashley Johnson), an immature and rash Assistant Time Master in Training who took them back in time to rescue a pre-mutated Hamato Yoshi, and the alien Triceratons, who were willing to destroy the Earth to eliminate the Kraang.
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Leo recovering from his injuries. |
During
production of the second season, Biggs was in the midst of an alcohol abuse
problem when he fired off a series of offensive “jokes” on social media. They
were offensive enough that a number of people contacted Nick in displeasure.
When the tweets didn’t stop, Nick was finally forced
to fire Biggs from the show. Dominic Catrambone was brought
on to finish out the season, doing a near-perfect impression of Biggs for
consistency. Seth Green auditioned for the part--claiming because Leo was his
wife’s favorite Turtle--and won
the role. To explain away the noticeable difference in his
voice, Leo’s throat was “damaged” in a battle and didn’t heal correctly,
resulting in a change in his vocal cords.
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Promo art of the Turtles in space with Fugitoid and a looming threat. |
The fourth season’s first arc saw a major change for the series as a friendly robot scientist named Professor Honeycutt, aka Fugitoid (David Tennant), rescued the Turtles, April and Casey and took them into space 6 months in the past to prevent the Triceratons from succeeding. They encountered and battled against a variety of aliens, as well as made new friends: such as Raphael’s crush, a fight-loving Salamandarian he nicknamed “Mona Lisa” (Zelda Williams). The Turtles even found time to traverse dimensions and team-up with their 1987 counterparts, with Cam Clarke, Gordon, Townsend Coleman and Paulsen reprising their roles of Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael, respectively (the 1987 Turtles cameoed before in a season 2 episode). Succeeding in their mission, the Turtles returned to the city for the second arc which dealt with April’s growing powers, new mutants such as Tiger Claw’s estranged assassin sister Alopex (first introduced in the IDW comics, voiced by Noji), and the return of Shredder enhanced by mutagen as a nod to his form in the second film. During a winter break in the season, a special, Kicking Shell and Taking Names, aired on November 25th, 2015, which caught viewers up with the story so far.
The fifth season ended up being the most dramatically changed of all. The original plan was always to end the show at five seasons, and Nickelodeon made no efforts to extend that as they were looking to do another reboot for the franchise. The season was split into seven different story arcs that didn’t necessarily connect, the show was renamed Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which was the name of a companion comic series), and given a new opening title sequence and theme song (the sequence was also modified depending on which arc it aired within). Seven episodes would also make their debuts on sister channel Nicktoons rather than Nickelodeon proper. “Tales from the Beyond – The Kavaxas Saga” saw the Foot taken over by Tiger Claw and attempting to resurrect the Shredder with the aid of mighty demodragon Kavaxas (Mark Hamill). “Alien Tales – When Worlds Collide Saga” was a two-part storyline that saw Mona Lisa and her superior, Sal Commander G’Throkka (Keith David) arrive on Earth looking for help to deal with Newtralizer. “Samurai Tales – The Samurai Turtles Saga” had the Turtles travel to an alternate Feudal Japan inhabited by anthropomorphic animals where they had to aid samurai rabbit Miyamoto Usagi (Yuki Matsuzaki) in accomplishing his quest. Usagi was created in comics by Stan Sakai, which were eventually published by Mirage. Usagi had crossed over with the Turtles multiple times, with the first being in the anthology Turtle Soup, and has been featured in all three Turtle cartoons. “Tales from the Past – Lone Rat and Cubs” was a one-shot flashback episode that showed how Splinter came to find the Turtles. “Tales from the Future – Raphael: Mutant Apocalypse Saga” was originally intended to be the series finale, following Raphael in a dystopian future reminiscent of Mad Max, to put a cap on the timeline the crew had built and not allow anyone else to add on to it. However, it was decided to render the episodes non-canon and taking place in an alternate dimension. “Monstrous Tales – Monsters vs. Mutants Saga” featured the return of Renet as she took the Turtles back in time to battle against the classic Universal Monsters and prevent them from taking over the present. “Crossover Tales – Wanted: Bebop & Rocksteady Saga” became the true series finale, with 1987 Shredder (Richardson) and Krang (Fraley) employing the 2012 Bebop and Rocksteady and finding that their plans became infinitely more successful.
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Four of the five cartoons the Turtles frequently enjoyed. |
Over the course of the series, there
were several traditionally animated shows that the Turtles would watch; their
adventures often tying into the episode’s storyline. The first was Space Heroes, a
parody of sci-fi shows, especially Star
Trek: The Animated Series. Mikey had found the second on a set of
discarded VHS tapes: Super
Robo Mecha Force Five! It was a parody of 1980s anime such as Voltron and Science Ninja Team Gatchaman,
as well as more recent series Super Robot Monkey Team
Hyperforce Go! (on which Cipes voiced the lead character and was created
by Nieli). The third was Crognard the
Barbarian, which parodied Thundarr
the Barbarian and He-Man and the
Masters of the Universe while taking its name from Conan the Barbarian. The fourth was received
via signals while the Turtles were in space: Chris
Bradford’s 2 Ruff Krew, a 1980s cartoon centered around the exploits of
Bradford and other expert combatants. It was a parody of the weird 1980s trend
of turning rated R movies and action heroes into cartoons, specifically Chuck Norris: Karate
Kommandos as well as Rambo: The Force of Freedom
and Mister T. The final show was Space
Heroes: The Next Generation, a parody of Star Trek: The Next
Generation and a sequel series to the original Space Heroes;
also found on VHS by Mikey. Bloom, North. Scott Menville and Ben Cross provided many of the
featured characters’ voices along with members of the main Turtles cast.
Ninja Turtles was critically
acclaimed throughout most of its run, racking up numerous award nominations for
Daytime Creative Arts Emmy Awards, Annie Awards, Kids’ Choice Awards, Producers Guild of America Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award and a British Academy Children’s Award. It
ended up taking home three of the of the Creative Arts awards. In 2015, Nick
produced a 2D special called Half-Shell Heroes: Blast to the Past, which
was done in the style of Playmates Toys’
Half-Shell
Heroes action figure line that was directed at younger fans.
Beginning in 2016, Nick would produce a series of shorts by various creators
and done in various animation styles. The first three debuted at 2016’s San
Diego Comic-Con before heading to YouTube. The following year, Nick released a
series of “Summer
Shorts” on YouTube expanding on the concept. A sub-series, TMNT
Team-Up, had repeated entries;
totaling six altogether.
Long-time franchise merchandising partner Playmates Toys released a new line of toys that began before the series aired its first episode. Seven waves of figures were released between 2012 and 2014, which included playsets and roleplay toys. LEGO produced several sets in that timeframe as well. In 2014, Build-A-Bear Workshop released a series of plush versions of the Turtles and themed accessories. Diamond Select Toys produced a series of Minimates mini-figures. The first wave released in 2014 as blind bags at Kmart and comic shops and in 2-packs at Toys ‘R’ Us, with both retailers getting their own exclusive characters along with the common shared ones. The second wave in 2015 skipped Kmart. Other merchandise included clothing, bedding, bookbags and more. At San Diego Comic Con in 2024. NECA announced they would be producing new figures based on the series beginning in 2025.
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Danger of the Ooze game cover. |
Several video games were released in relation to the show. The first, Rooftop Run, was a mobile game developed by Nickelodeon Interactive in 2013 that featured the characters constantly moving forward with screen taps controlling various actions based on their location and what obstacles are in range. Out of the Shadows (not to be confused with the 2016 film of the same name) was released by Red Fly Studio and Activision for home consoles. While not a direct adaptation—utilizing different designs and voices for starters—it was heavily inspired by the mythos of the cartoon and featured elements introduced in it. Another mobile game, Mutant Rumble developed by Swappz Interactive, utilized a toys-to-life model and required the purchase of figures in order to get the whole experience of the game. The second console game, simply titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, was released a month later from Magic Pockets and Activision. This game was a direct adaptation, using both the show’s aesthetics and season 2 voice cast. In 2014, WayForward Technologies and Activision released Danger of the Ooze, which was set between seasons 2 and 3 and introduced the Salamandrians before the show did. Battle Match from Tiny Castle Studios in 2015 was a mobile block-matching puzzle game based on the space theme from the 4th season. Red Fly returned in 2016 with a new mobile game called Portal Power, where a player could control one or all the Turtles with various dragging and swiping motions. In 2017, Ludia, Inc. released the mobile game Legends, which was a turn-based RPG that used an in-game collectible card system to award items and characters. China got their own exclusive game with RÄnzhÄ GuÄ« OL, which was a 3D action brawler. Additionally, Leap Frog had several educational games featuring the Turtles and they appeared as playable characters in 2018’s Nickelodeon Kart Racers. Lee would reprise the role of Splinter—albeit the 1987 version—in 2023’s Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2.
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Worlds collide. |
IDW
Publishing, the current comics licensee of the franchise, published two series
based on the show. The first, New
Animated Adventures, began in 2013 and
ran for 24 issues before it was cancelled and replaced by Amazing
Adventures. Along with the 14-issue
regular series, there was a one-shot
featuring NBA
player Carmelo
Anthony, a three-issue mini-series called Robotanimals,
and
a crossover with Batman:
The Animated Series titled Batman/Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (not
to be confused with the other three-chapter
crossover series that was running around the same time and
served as the basis for a direct-to-video movie).
2013 also saw the release of European magazine Nickelodeon’s
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from
Panini Comics,
which featured activities and comics.
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DVD cover. |
Nickelodeon
released the entire series onto DVD, typically by breaking up a season into
various volumes before releasing the season as a whole. Domestically, each
season was split across three
volumes while international releases were expanded into four.
The international releases eventually resulted in a complete
season released shortly after the final volume, while only
the first
and second season saw any full release domestically until the complete
series was finally released in 2022. Additionally, a
compilation DVD, Pulverizer
Power, was released containing
all of the appearances of the Pulverizer
(Roger Craig Smith)
character; a teenaged fan of the Turtles who tried to be a superhero and ended
up mutated into Mutagen Man. Half-Shell
Heroes was released on its own in 2016, and three episodes
were made available for download onto LeapFrog’s LeapPad as Turtle-y
Epic Face-Offs. The series could be streamed on Hulu, with episodes
available for purchase on Amazon
Prime Video and iTunes,
and was gradually added to Paramount+
season by season.
Season 1:
“Rise of the Turtles” (9/29/12) – On their first trip to the surface, the Turtles witness April and her father being taken by the Kraang and a smitten Donnie convinces the others to rescue them.
“The Mutation Situation” (10/12/13) – Stopping the Kraang’s mutagen shipment to Shredder leads to the Turtles accidentally causing Kirby to mutate into a vampire bat.
“Within the Woods” (10/3/14) – The Turtles are driven out of the city and spend the next 3 months recovering and planning at the O’Neil farmhouse.
“Beyond the Known Universe” (10/25/15) – The Turtles travel back in time with the Fugitoid to keep the Triceratons from completing the weapon they’ll use to destroy Earth.
“Scroll of the Demodragon” (3/19/17) – The Turtles may have defeated their old foes, but a new threat begins to rise.
*Released on DVD on September 12, 2017.
“Half-Shell Heroes: Blast to the Past” (11/22/15) – The Turtles accidentally end up back in the Jurassic era and must find their way home.
“Don vs. Raph” (7/22/16) – Don and Raph have it out to prove who’s the better between them.
1 comment:
This show needs to come back for a proper series finale ending.
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