NickToons TMNT Episodes 1 and 2 (one hour premiere)

 By Mark Rodriguez with thoughts from Johnny

Originally posted back in September 30, 2012

It's hard to believe we're a decade past when the 2012 TMNT first appeared on TV. It was the first new cartoon show after Nick/Viacom had purchased the franchise. I was able to find our original reviews of the first season, so I'll be posting them here. It's fun to look back and see what Johnny and I originally thought of the series when it first premiered. 

Keep in mind, these were our thoughts as they were back in 2012 when the show was new and was written shortly after seeing the episodes after their initial broadcast. At the time we had zero way or knowing what to expect.

'Rise of the Turtles' is a 2-part episode, but shown as one long episode for the premiere. It begins with Splinter and the Turtles celebrating their 15th Mutation Day, kinda like a birthday for the Turtles on the day they were 'reborn' as mutants. Splinter tells them he was once a human, Hamato Yoshi, and one day when he bought the turtles as pets, he ran into some strange men. As they attacked him, Yoshi accidentally got some glowing green ooze on him and the turtles, which turned them into their current form. Now that they are 15, they are eager to finally go out into the world above and Splinter reluctantly agrees.

On their first night out, they discover pizza for the very first time... but also notice a girl and her father being kidnapped by similar 'men in black' from Splinter's flashback. The Turtles try to stop them, but while they're trained to fight as individuals, they never trained to fight as a team.... so their constant bumping into each other and weapons getting tangled allowed the men to escape with the girl. They also found that the van the men used to escape dropped a vial of the same kind of mutagen that mutated them. Mike ran into one of the men and found out he was really an alien robot with an alien brain controlling him, but no one would believe him.

Back to the sewers, Splinter agrees that they should rescue the girl and after some thought he decides Leonardo should lead them. Splinter also tells them the story of how he and Oroku Saki, the Shredder, once fought for the love of Tang Shen back in Japan when he was still human. The life of Tang Shen and their daughter was lost in a big fire.

The Turtles stake out a building with the same logo that the getaway van had. They jump the van driver and find a punk named Snake, telling them that The Kraang are kidnapping scientists all over town. Snake manages to get away but Leo and Raph purposely mention that they will attack the Kraang in a van later that night. Later the van does show up, and Snake and The Kraang do attack it and blow it up, but it was empty and was a perfect distraction for the turtles to sneak inside. However, when the van exploded, Snake got some mutagen on him and gets turned into a plant monster.

Inside, the Turtles find the girl, April, and fight off a lot of The Kraang. However, the alien robots escape in a helicopter with April and her father. The mutated Snake (who Mike calls Snakeweed) appears and attacks the Turtles. Don, who developed a big crush on April, manages to rescue her from the chopper, but the aliens still got away with her father. Don returns with April and helps his brothers defeat Snakeweed, but it seems he survived the fight. The Turtles take April to a place she will be safe, and she is eager to go find her father, and the Turtles decide to help her out.

Back home, Splinter is happy that the Turtles rescued April. However, he is concerned when a shuriken used during one of the fights was found and shown on TV on a news reports about possible ninjas in the city. Somewhere in Tokyo Japan, The Shredder watches the news and recognizes the symbol on the shuriken as that of Yoshi... and decides to fly out to New York.

Mark's thoughts-

And so ends the premiere as the Turtles start off a new series adventures as they try to stop The Kraang but will also eventually run into the Shredder. The first thing I'd like to say about this show is WOW, Nick sure wasted no time in advertising the hell out of this. From early in the morning they would air constant commercials and preview clips of the show, even putting a countdown during ..ugh... Spongebob... to remind viewers that in 2 hours the show was gonna start. THAT'S how you advertise a show.

There are so many things I'd like to say about the show. One of the things I noticed most was that this is the  first time we see the Turtles explore the world beyond the sewers for the very first time. The 80's cartoon kinda/sorta did it, but they had April as their guide so it wasn't the same as them doing it by themselves. The Mirage comics already had Raphael able to find and infiltrate Shredder's hideout to deliver their challenge in the first issue. And the 2K3 Turtles just seemed too smart and prepared for their first romp in the city. Here we really see a completely naive and first-time reaction to the outside world... and the first time they ever ate a pizza. It appears all they used to eat before then were algae and worms... which makes me wonder if Splinter ate that too...

The Turtles' personalities are also different and for the first time reflect the fact that they actually are teenagers. They also have noticeable visual differences, like Raph's shell having some cracks in it and Don having a gap in his teeth, so they're all not exactly the same.

Leonardo is still serious and focused on his martial arts and even knows some Japanese... but he's also eager to be a brave and dramatic hero, copying lines he hears on tv shows about heroes. His overdramatic lines and exaggerated heroic mannerisms and such helps him act as young and silly as the other Turtles, since he's usually the most mature and serious of the bunch.

Donatello is in awe of computers and all things science, and has a big crush on April this time around. He's also voiced by Rob Paulsen, the voice of the original Raphael from the 80's cartoon, so this version of Don also seems to throw in some sarcastic quips here and there. This mixed with his awkward reactions around April brings a new take on him besides just being the tech guy.

 As for Raphael, he's a tough-guy and eager to kick some ass, and also a bit of a bully... though it's nice to see that he picks on all of the Turtles and not just Mike all the time. There's a scene where he interrogated Snake into telling them about the guys in the suits, and threatens to pour mutagen on him if he doesn't talk. How did he know the Mutagen was so thick it would work that way... for all they knew, it coulda been watery and splashed all over Snake before he even started to interrogate him... And then it was inches away from his face and yet somehow Raph was able to pull it away the second Snake started talking without getting any on the guy or on himself? Still don't know what I think of that scene but like Leo said, Raph is kinda twisted. And Raph also owns a pet turtle named Spike.... which is a little weird to have a mutant turtle own a normal turtle as a pet... but it does show a soft side.

As for Mikey... hoo boy... while he does have some funny lines here and there, he seems to be turned into 'the dumb one'. As the long time Mike fan, it was kinda 'blah' to watch the scene where the Turtles had to explain to Mike their plan of using the empty van to distract the bad guys, and he still didn't get it. That and the line of wanting to drink the Mutagen they found... C'mon guys... he might not be the smartest of the bunch, but don't make him downright stupid...

Splinter plays the usual role of serious sensei. Like the 80's cartoon, he was once Hamato Yoshi himself before being mutated, instead of being a pet rat. He still suffers the great loss and sadness of Tang Shen and his daughter, but is thankful he has a new family with the Turtles. It seems he has a humorous side too, as seen in one of the trailers with his 'remember to kick the pants out of evil... but remember that evil doesn't always wear pants'.

April is a teenager in this version, and even though she's a kid, she wasn't one to take her kidnapping sitting down. Her attempted escape plan would have worked, if the bad guy wasn't a robot. And it's cool to see a strong determination to save her father, even after seeing mutant Turtles, alien robots and a plant monster.

There's not much to say about Snake, except the question of why the Kraang were using some street thug to do their dirty work... and if they have other humans working for them as well. His blaming the Turtles for his accidental mutation gives him a strong motivation to return.

The Kraang are basically the Utroms from the Mirage comics... but evil this time... and named after Krang. They did make this episode sorta feel like a new adaptation of the 'TCRI alien' saga from both the Mirage comics and 2K3 series, except of course... they're evil this time. They seem to have nothing to do with Shredder this time, since he's doing his own thing in Tokyo before he found out that Yoshi was alive,

Since the Kraang were robots and Snakeweed is a regenerating plant, the Turtles got to kick ass with no holds barred, slicing and dicing everything in sight. The fight scenes were just epic, however, we'll have to wait and see how they handle fighting human Foot Ninja.

Minor nitpick of Mikey being the dumb one and getting used to Splinter's weird-ass design aside,  the show is very cool, not too childish and dumbed-down considering it is on Nick and aimed at the kiddies, and the story is intriguing. I liked it.

Johnny's Thoughts-

I was skeptical at first since it's now owned by Nick with the fame of cartoonish shows like Spongebob and such, but once I got into it, it was really a decent toon. In fact this is perhaps what the older fans were looking for after  the 80's fans disliked the 2k3 series. The CGI looks awesome and better than I expected. The turtles actually act like teenagers in this version, and they can whoop some ass compared to the original 80s cartoon. 

However, despite having great story telling and making it action packed, it still contains the comedy style the 80s TMNT once had, and it kinda brings back memories of those days. I'm looking foward to more eps and hopefully it can make it to a few good seasons. This is not only the formula some of us older TMNT fans were looking for, but its also a great formula for Nick to compete with CN.