by Frank Calvillo
Long before Michael Bay committed amphibicide by slaughtering the legacies of my favorite childhood animal superhero friends, there was a short lived Fox Kids show from Saban Entertainment called Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation. The 26 episode run had strong ratings yet was cancelled after only one season.
I’d like to claim ignorance. I’d like to simply say that I had never seen it and that was why I raised my hand and volunteered to cover the DVD release of the series. However, that would be untrue. While I was in my “too cool for kids TV” teenage years upon the initial release of this show, I had watched most of the series on Netflix over the past few years.
It’s not good. This much is true. It’s said to have been fully disowned by Eastman and Laird. No true blue TMNT fans that I’m aware of have ever admitted to enjoying this show; in fact, many go out of their way to trash it. But to look past the value the series has in both TMNT history and children’s TV of the 90s would be completely unfair.
The basic conceit is that there’s a 5th Ninja Turtle, a girl turtle named Venus de Milo who joins the ninja team during the first portion of the series, a 5 episode arc called “East Meets West” that serves as the foundation of the series. This premise is not altogether a bad one, seeing as the late 90s was a time where it was important to start getting more strong female heroes on screen (something that is still needed, in fact). The issues are much more in the execution than the concept.
The Ninja Turtles look much like they did in the films (though with some weird costuming change choices, as it were), but the flawed design of Venus is quite frustrating. Most notably, instead of a traditional turtle shell, she has ample bosoms on her under side (which make absolutely no sense). Her character flaws begin with her odd (male gaze inspired) appearance, but she has a lot of other issues in how she acts and how the writers wrote her in.
In fact, in order to shoehorn her in, they made other conceits like eliminating the premise that the four original turtles are brothers. Some other changes seem even less necessary, perhaps even completely random: replacing important characters like April and Casey with new characters, changing the plot lines and origins of other characters, and introducing wholly unconnected villains. A lot of the changes felt familiar, in that they followed the Saban formula in a lot of ways.
But… I said that this series should not be fully dismissed. I meant that, too!
The show is first and foremost a great snapshot of its era. It reeks of mid to late 90s in style and aesthetic… not to mention they drive a Hummer instead of the good ole turtle van. In that way a show like this is a great time capsule to capture the look and feel of similar children’s programming.
A second reason this show is important (well “important” could be going too far) is that it somewhat prepared us TMNT fans for the complete rewrite that is Bay’s hunk of garbage from 2014. Bay also contorted origin stories and messed with the appearance of the Ninja Turtles. He, however, took it to newer, weirder, and far more divergent heights.
I will return full circle here to remind everyone that this is not a good show, but seeing as it’s still more tolerable than a good deal of the things my children try to make me watch with them, I’ll remain thankful.
The Package
I will note that the DVD set came with a few special features that my children adored and I appreciated as perfect little slices of the 90s (reinforcing my point above). There is a music video of the theme song, which apparently can provide hours of dance along fun for a Pre-K child.
The other main feature is a two episode arc from Power Rangers in Space that features a Ninja Turtles crossover (being able to make this was probably a large inspiration for Saban in deciding to obtain rights to make a TMNT show). These are delightfully cheesy, as most Power Rangers episodes are. Astronema, the villain of the show who is akin to the original villain Rita, kidnaps the Ninja Turtles and brainwashes them. Of course, after fighting with the Rangers, they snap out of it and help save the day. Before they head back home, they do request that the Rangers help them do a little bit of space surfing. Cowabunga, indeed!
The long and the short of it is that you should grab a copy of this if you’re a TMNT completist or if you think your kids may dig it. I doubt that there are many other reasons to get it, though. The Complete Series DVD is a Walmart Exclusive, so head over to Walmart.com or your local store to pick it up for under $15. But if you choose to pass on it, I can’t say I’d blame you.
Also: don’t forget to check out the plethora of other TMNT coverage here at Cinapse.
