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| Available at Amazon.com |
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Teen-age Mutant Ninja Turtles! Teenage Mutant Ninja TURTLES! Heroes in a half-shell…TURTLE POWER!
No matter who you are, you’ve had to have heard of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Years ago, a canister carrying a radioactive liquid ooze fell into the sewers. It broke apart and spilled all over the ground and also onto four small turtles. They mutated into human-like formed turtles that were soon found by a karate master who was living in the sewers. The ooze also got onto him and turned him into a human-like rat that would train the turtles to be teenage ninjas fighting for what is right. They would keep the streets, and underground, of New York safe from Splinter’s arch-enemy Shredder and his evil Foot Clan. The story in this animated series is a bit different from what the origins in the comic books were, but we’ll stick with this one since it is what I’m reviewing.
The turtles were given the names of Splinter’s favorite artists Raphael, Leonardo, Donatello, and Michelangelo. Their closest friends are a helpful vigilante known as Casey Jones and a local reporter named April O’Neil who gives them a hand now and then when the bad guys get too overwhelming. Besides dealing with their big enemies and some common crooks, the Turtles sometimes have to deal with situations that are out of this world like in the episode entitled “Nightmare In The Lair.” Donatello has built a machine that can make someone’s dreams become reality and of course Michelangelo gets in way over his head.
The Turtles each have their own unique personalities. Leonardo is by far the leader and most level-headed of the group. Donatello is probably the one with the most book smarts and can build just about anything you can think of or not even imagine for that matter. Raphael is more the enforcer of the group and he is sometimes looked at as a loner that can take care of himself. This is evidenced more in the live-action films. Michelangelo is fun loving and always looking for an excuse to have a party. The four of them all have a strict love affair with pizza and having a good time, but can really stand firm when it comes time for a fight.
Season six portrays episodes that showcase how fun the Turtles were in the beginning. For instance, they still actually use their weapons against the bad guys in some of these episodes. In 1990, the live-action film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came out and it was awesome. For years fans had been watching their animated heroes kick butt on the small screen, but now we could see real live versions of them taking out Shredder. The film was a great success and followed up by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze in 1991 and it was mostly downhill from there. The turtles were made more family friendly and relied on objects around them to fight with instead of actually using their weapons. Weapons which they still carried by the way.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III came and unsuccessfully went in 1993 which ended the string of live-action films. But just last year after a fourteen year absence, a computer generated film called TMNT hit theatres and the Turtles were rejuvenated. It was a great success and a sequel is already being planned. But the transition from comic books to the big screen couldn’t have happened with this great animated series that was still in its prime by season six. It wasn’t at least for another year or two that things would drastically change and that included the very popular and well-known theme song.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a series that is loved by virtually all those who are in their late twenties to early thirties because we grew up with them. Kids today have realized just how cool the Turtles were thanks to 2007’s TMNT and it brings up the subject as to whether they’d think the original animated series would be just as cool. If you ask me, I think they should be introduced to it because the episodes are awesome and loads of fun. Season six is full of some really great episodes and lots of butt-kicking action from our four pizza eating heroes.
Episodes
Disc One:
Rock Around The Block
Krangenstein Lives!
Super Irma
Adventures In Turtle-Sitting
Sword Of Yurikawa
Return Of The Turtleoid
Shreeka’s Revenge
Too Hot To Handle
Disc Two:
Nightmare In The Lair
Phantom Of The Sewers
Donatello Trashes Slash
Sleuth On The Loose
Polly Wanna Pizza
Leonardo Is Missing
Mr. Nice Guy
Snakes Alive!
The episodes are shown in Full Screen format and they look almost exactly like they did when they first aired. I’m willing to bet that none of the episodes were touched up at all when put on DVD. All of the animation is simple and the colors still look good so no real complaints.
The episodes are heard in Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo Sound and all the hits, slashes, pizza eating, and “Cowbungas” come through loud enough and perfectly clear. Not much more is needed for a series such as this so the stereo sound is more then adequate.
Trailers – 24 x 24: Wide Open With Jeff Gordon, DishDogz, and Doctor Strange
Young and old alike should be able to enjoy the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles because they combine aspects of both comedy and action and roll it into one enjoyable ball of fun. I’m willing to bet that most twenty-something year old guys can still tell you what color masks each turtle wore and what their weapons were. It was cartoons like these that made our childhood so enjoyable and it is fantastic revisiting them again. They bring back great memories and are also still really good to watch even now. Share them with younger generations and let them appreciate the cool cartoons they aren’t blessed with today. Saturday mornings are a total mockery of what they used to be and I’d be ashamed to let my children watch them…if I had any. It’s a good thing I now have DVDs like this to let them (when I have some) enjoy cartoons how they used to be. Look at all of us…we turned out alright, right? COWABUNGA!
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Lionsgate presents Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Season 6. Starring (voices): Jim Cummings, Renae Jacobs, Beau Weaver, Townsend Coleman, Pat Fraley, James Avery. Written by: Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird. Running time: 384 minutes on 2 discs. Rating: Not Rated. Released on DVD: April 8, 2008. Available at Amazon.com
About Danny Cox
