Brett and the Ninja Turtles #1: Turtle Tracks (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) Season 1 Episode 1: Turtle Tracks)
I am but a simple man. There are only two things that I need in this life, Timothy Olyphant and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I wanted to start a new series, and my first choice was going to be an investigative/research blog about trying to discover Olyphant’s home address, but it turns out that the middle-aged and divorced mother community already has that topic covered. After experiencing weeks of grief, I have decided to instead make this new series about my second favorite thing, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I have been a fan of the amphibious ninjas my entire life, but somehow I have yet to see a majority of what has been released. I plan to fix that with this series. This series will be about me spending one on one quality time with the Turtles by going through everything that has been released, one by one. Will this series be long? Yes. Will it be boring? Maybe. Will I enjoy it? Probably not. Let’s try it anyway!
One Watch Later:
Please give me a minute to pick my jaw off of the floor. Does anybody want to tell me WHAT I JUST WATCHED! I have so much to say. Going into this, I was expecting a hard to watch cringe fest, but instead I got the best 20 minutes of my life. I’ll go into it all in a minute, but first I want to give a quick overview of the episode.
Plot: April O’Neil is close to something...Shredder I guess, I’m not really sure. She gets attacked by Bebop and Rocksteady (Whom of which by the dear living lightning of Zeus we will be discussing later). She gets chased into the sewers and meets the Ninja Turtles.
Annoying Theme: No, not yet. I’m making this part of the article because this series has almost 200 episodes and I assume by the end of it I’ll be wanting to cut my ears off with my Dad’s metallic shoulder.
Does Leonardo lead?: Yeah...I guess. He cut a guy’s table in half, and honestly if that doesn’t show good leadership then I don’t know what does.
Does Donatello duz machines?: NOT ONE BIT! Do you wanna tell me way this motherf***er’s whole damn thing is duzing machines, but he doesn’t duz one machine?!?
Is Raphael cool, but rude?: No. For some reason DONATELLO is the rude one in this episode. That amphibious dickwad is doing someone else’s schtick. I got the feeling that Raphael was less rude and more pursuing a career in stand-up comedy.
Is Michelangelo a party dude?: Does liking pizza make you a party dude? No, I don’t think so.
Rating: I think the rating for this episode is pretty obvious. I would give it 8 Pepperoni and Ice Cream pizza’s out of 10, 6 Jelly Bean and Mushroom pizza’s out of 10, and most importantly, 7 anchovies and peanut butter pizza’s out of 10. None of that should be surprising if you’ve see n the episode yourself.
Now, let’s get into it.
10 minutes later
I have no idea where to start. I just have so much to say. Let’s just start at the beginning and maybe we can get a foothold. The episode start off with some guy who is called the professor, but is VERY obviously not a professor. April asks the man who is responsible for a chain of break-in’s that have been occurring and the man instantly goes:
“NINJAS!!!”
And we’re just supposed to believe him?
“Why would you say ninja’s?” April asks in her tight yellow jumpsuit (Too tight by the way, with the bad lighting and audio I almost thought it was porn).
What does this “professor” say in response? THE ROPE THEY USED WAS MADE IN JAPAN.
Do you know what the worst part about that was? Star reporter, April O’Neil was like: Yeah, THAT CHECKS OUT. Ninja’s in New York City seems like a reasonable explanation!
Then 5 seconds later we have Bebop show up and he has a popped collar that is higher than his mohawk. I don’t really have anything else to say about that, but like...that’s weird right? You know what though, one of his guys had a pirate sword so I guess maybe weird is their thing.
I’m not even going to mention Shredder’s terrible plan to get Splinter kicked from the foot, THAT WORKED. Oh look at that, I mentioned it. Listen, I genuinely can not explain how ridiculous that scene is. Not only is it painfully funny, but also a bit racist. Watch it.
Next up is my favorite scene in the entire episode.
Splinter: Back in Japan, under Oroko Saki’s evil leadership, the foot clan turned into an army of crime.
Foot Ninja: Kicks Soda Machine.
Brilliant.
I have one more scene that I would really like to talk about., then I’ll give you my actual review. I don’t know if this was a mistake or if it was intentional, but it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. Near the end of the episode, the turtles make it into Shredder’s base. Underneath the base is the Technodrome (which is like a big Ninja Turtles thing, don’t worry about it right now). Shredder begins to talk to himself.
Shredder: I can’t let them find out about the Technodrome.
*Get on intercom*
Shedder: All foot report to the Technodrome.
Raphael: What’s the Technodrome?
SHREDDER YOU INCOMPETENT CHEESE GRADING PIECE OF NINJA ASS. What are you thinking?!? You would have gotten away with it! Look, I don’t want to blame anybody’s parenting style, but maybe Mr. and Mrs. Saki could have made sure that their child didn’t consume the things underneath the kitchen sink. I have never...NEVER in my life seen someone so stupid as Shredder, and this is not a new thought. That man is so stupid that his idiocy follows him through generations, reboot after reboot. It’s painful how dumb he is. I better stop ranting about Shredder or else I’ll never stop.
All in all, this was a very enjoyable episode. It took me a while to find, but don’t worry I definitely watch it legally and in no way did I risk giving my computer a virus, so I don’t even know why you would bring that up. This is a solid beginning to the Ninja Turtles. I know obviously the comic came first and I know that the Turtles have a pretty rocky road for a while, but this episode is the foundation to what I love today. If you get the chance, I absolutely think you should watch it. It’s ridiculous and silly and THE VILLAIN IS DUMBER THAN RALPH WIGGUM GOING TO SUNDAY SCHOOL, but it’s a lot of fun. Check it out and let me know in the comments what you thought!