Friday, July 22, 2011

"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.)

8 comments:

  1. Yeah, I'm glad this didn't happen. "Back to the Sewers" was a much better final season for the show, even if the whole cyberworld aspect felt very "Tron" like.

    Just curious, but did you guys know at the time that Season 7 (Back to the Sewers) would be the final season for the 4kids series? I remember at the time it seemed like the 4kids series was winding down and Playmates toy sales were declining.

    One thing I am disappointed with is Rat King never got another episode after his debut in Season 4. I know we see a "cameo" of him watching April/Casey's wedding in the finale, but I really wish Rat King got another full episode in the series before it ended. He was really underused in the 4kids series. Were there any other Rat King episodes planned?

    Also, thoughts on the way the final season played out as a whole?

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  2. This was absolutely worth reading to the end. :)

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  3. "precita said...
    Yeah, I'm glad this didn't happen. "Back to the Sewers" was a much better final season for the show, even if the whole cyberworld aspect felt very "Tron" like.

Just curious, but did you guys know at the time that Season 7 (Back to the Sewers) would be the final season for the 4kids series? I remember at the time it seemed like the 4kids series was winding down and Playmates toy sales were declining."

    As I recall, we hoped for a season to follow "Back to the Sewers", but there was a sense that this would be the last one.

    

"One thing I am disappointed with is Rat King never got another episode after his debut in Season 4. I know we see a "cameo" of him watching April/Casey's wedding in the finale, but I really wish Rat King got another full episode in the series before it ended. He was really underused in the 4kids series. Were there any other Rat King episodes planned?"

    I think we wanted to bring him back at some point, and probably would have if there'd been another one or two seasons, but I don't recall and specific episodes that were planned for Rat King.

    

"Also, thoughts on the way the final season played out as a whole?"

    I was never really crazy about the "cyber world" bit, but I think it worked okay. I do remember there were a lot of logic problems to work out during the development of that season. In retrospect, I think it was very fortunate that we were able to follow up "Back to the Sewer" with the "Turtles Forever" special -- that really capped off the 4Kids years quite nicely. -- PL

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  4. I'm glad for what we got instead. I do feel that it was left incomplete though. I'm referring to never seeing "The Shredder War" happen as it was alluded. Also, I was surprised a year had passed since they were taken by Cody since when it comes to time tavel they could have come back a minute later.

    I agree on the worst idea. Runner up would be CBS suits shaking up the '87 series with Dregg and Carter when it was a frantastic direction just launch the previous year.

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  5. I think the show direction of post-Fast Forward was discussed over Murphy's blog. Unfortunately his post have been deleted and I can't look it up. I think there was a few different directions if I recall and Overload was one of the proposed ones from 4kids and Mirage guys had something else in mind. At the end there's a compromise and the final product was Back to the sewers.

    Of course it's just a vague memory from what I've read so please correct me if I am wrong Pete.

    J.

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  6. Back to the Sewers Problem: Why was the Rat King in person at April's wedding? And why did Evil Bishop seem happy about the wedding?

    RK was shown only once, so there should be no reason why he'd be there. And wouldn't it have made more sense to have the good President Bishop watching with Cody, and maybe a restored Baxter, than evil President Bishop?

    Those two little moments always stand out for me..

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  7. I don't know that I'm sold on this potentially not being the most mass-media-damning incarnation of the TMNT, even next to things like NT:TNM and otherwise, but I have nothing against Turtle tots. Some of the most fun story arcs and one-shot comics that've arisen have been Young Turtles stories.

    Which is kind of (probably) what this might have worked best as: a short story arc in a season or a one-shot episode. I'm just not convinced the kind of audience this would attract would necessarily be... you know... the kind of audience you would want.

    But who knows. Mighta been fun.

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  8. Final chapter from the 2003 series: Why April didn't invite her sister Robyn and her Uncle Augie to her wedding and what about her parents? In a wedding your family is very important.

    Why Michelangelo wants to be "Maid of Honor" for April's wedding? I found no sense in this. First at all Mikey is a boy, second Robyn should be Maid of Honor because she is the bride's sister and third Mikey should be April's Ring bearer, that's for boys.

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