"TMNT: Overload"

      This question was posted on my last "Ask PL", and I thought it might be worth a whole post to try to answer it.

"Andrew NDB said...
Did you really approve this:


http://ninja-pizza.tumblr.com/post/7812397034/before-tmnt-back-to-the-sewer-was-conceived"

The "this" in question is the "TMNT: Overload" proposal for the season of the 4Kids TMNT TV series intended to immediately follow the "Fast Forward" season. It was to feature the Turtles getting involved in adventures -- somehow -- with their younger selves, the so-called "Turtle Tots" who had appeared in several flashback episodes in previous seasons.

I confess I don't have many clear memories of this project, though I am fairly sure I did approve of it, with reservations. I searched through my emails and could only find a few mentions of it. The longest comment I made was in an email to Lloyd Goldfine and the 4Kids crew which I sent on June 28, 2007, at 11:16PM. Here it is...

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"P. Laird comments on "TMNT: Overload!" ideas


The idea of the four "grown-up" Turtles having to deal with their "Turtle Tot" younger selves has some potential, though I am not completely sure it's worth a whole season. It also raises some sticky questions, chief among them being: If these are REALLY the Turtles' younger selves, how do they grow up to be the Turtles we know without being aware that they met their older selves? I mean, we've NEVER heard about this before in the series.


One way to completely avoid that problem is to establish right from the start that these are NOT our Turtles as little kids, but Turtle Tots from a parallel dimension.


I think it is probably more important to quickly get the Turtles back to their own time and establish that in so doing they have somehow brought along the Turtle Tots from somewhere/somewhen, than to go through all of the "time hopping" gyrations in the first part of the "Tempus Fugit" episode, with all of the wacky "looking for a temporal anchor" (?!) stuff.


[One alternative scenario: What if, in returning to their past, the Turtles -- via the results of Viral's interference with their Time Window -- arrive with the minds intact... but their bodies have been transformed by some weird, inexplicable (for now) temporal phenomena into those that they possessed when they were, in fact, the Turtle Tots! And now, until they (mostly Donatello) can figure out how to reverse the process, the Turtles have to relive their childhood... all the while trying to figure out how to deal with the menace of Viral and the revived Shredder (among other things) while being reduced in size and strength by half or more.]


One major problem I have with this idea is that by essentially doubling the number of Ninja Turtles we have in the show, we reduce their uniqueness. It's similar to the old problem of the "Fifth Turtle", i.e. "If four Turtles are good, wouldn't FIVE be better? Or six or seven or eight...?!" It's the main reason I have always avoided introducing new Turtles unless they have some unique point of origin SEPARATE from our boys (as in the world Mike visits where he meets the super-powered Turtles).


Lloyd, I think we may have had this discussion when you were up here recently, but regardless I feel the need to mention this idea again.


Remember back in the early days of the "Fantastic Four" comic book when the FF lost their powers and Reed Richards tried to create gizmos and devices which would allow them to simulate those selfsame powers, so they could try to defend themselves from their superpowered foes?


I keep coming back to the idea that when the Turtles return from the future, Viral's interference causes them to hop dimensions and end up in the world of the Super Turtles... where, unfortunately, those four Super Turtles have been rendered helpless/frozen/paralyzed/whatever by some evil force. Our Turtles show up and are forced to try to "fill in" for the superpowered Turtles, possibly using (or trying to use) some gizmos cooked up by Don to make it seem like they have super powers. But they quickly come to realize that that ain't happening... and they must pit their ninja training against a world of super villains, until they can figure out a way to bring the Super Turtles back.


-- Pete"

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As you can see from these comments, I was not wholeheartedly behind this plan, but did think that -- if handled with care and intelligence -- it could work. Would it have worked really well? Hmmm… that's difficult to answer. It could have been unbearably cheesy, although it could also have been fun, sweet and potentially full of poignancy. Am I sad that it never saw the light of day? No, not really. But as ideas for things to do with the Turtles go, it is, in my opinion, FAR from the worst… and the worst, in my opinion, DID see the light of day. -- PL

(Yes, I am referring to "The Next Mutation". -- PL)

        (Note: the artwork at the top of this post is of the proposed Turtle lair from "TMNT: Overload", and was created by artists at 4Kids.)