I popped in an old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video before going to bed last night, primarily because I'm tired of watching infomercials as I wait for Mista Sandman. While this change of action led me to a terrific realization - Vernon bears a striking resemblance to Ron Popeil - it also brought one small problem. When the tape finished, I really wanted to review the episode here. But, apparently, I already did review this episode, in July of 2000. It's lumped in with some really bad T.M.N.T. overview I did, clocking in at around 400 words that say nothing and quite frankly embarrass the fuck out of me. Now I usually don't like re-reviewing the same exact stuff, especially on a show where there's zillions of episodes to pick from. But I really wanted to do this one. To make myself feel better, I've just instituted a new rule for the site: two years is the statue of limitations. After that, I'm allowed to redo older, crappier articles and not feel bad about it. You should be thankful - this new law affords me the chance to give you a lot more information on small monsters that hatch out of pizzas than I could've provided two years ago.
It's called "The Case of the Killer Pizzas." Obviously written in part as a tribute to modern horror classics like Aliens and Gremlins, the episode centers around the Turtles chasing around little monsters who hatch out of meatball-shaped eggs and grow enormously in water. So, you can see why I wanted to review it again so much. I'll assume you all know the lore of TMNT, but if you don't, you may want to read my review of the first episode before this one. Okay, here we go...
At this point during the series, the Technodrome was stuck in Dimension X. What's Dimension X? I'm not exactly sure - evidently some kind of parallel universe where the sky is always red and everyone looks like a pile of rocks. It seemed like a big deal when all the bad guys got stuck there, since they wouldn't be able to drive the Technodrome directly under their place of attack. But no reason to fear! Krang and Shredder have the ability to create dimensional portals, giving them easy access to any part of the planet at any time. I know it seems convenient, but who wants to waste ten minutes out of every episode showing Shredder on the great space monorail towards Earth?
Anyway, Krang has a hot new plan to take over the world. Eggs that look like meatballs. He hands them over to Shredder and explains that heat will hatch the creatures inside. You know, I don't think normal people could converse like this while passing around alien meatball eggs, it'd just be too surreal. But when you're in a room with a talking pink brain and guys who look like warthogs and rhinos, I guess it's a little more acceptable.
Awww yeah, it's a Baxter Stockman: Human Edition episode. My personal faves. Baxter has a long, storied history on the show. He debuted by constructing small silver robots called 'Mousers' who strolled around the city, but fans of TMNT remember him best for what happened to him in the episode immediately following this one: he turned into a fly. Nobody seems to remember him in his human form, but thanks to the pictures I've tacked all over the ceiling above my bed, I'll never forget. For a short string of episodes, Baxter was Shredder's right hand man. I guess they were trying to mix things up, since kids had to be getting a little bored with Bebop and Rocksteady. I really don't know how that could be, because no matter how many times you see one, a mutated warthog wearing sunglasses never stops being exciting.
TODAY'S EVIL PLOT: Shredder and Krang must go to Earth and find a way to get these meatball eggs to those treacherous Turtles. The assumption? They'll hatch and eat them. It's not the most intricate plan they've had, but you've gotta admire the style involved. They've got more guns than most national armies, yet they still keep trying to win their little wars using things like alien eggs and rayguns that make people think they're rabbits.
The terrible twosome arrive on the streets of New York, and check out Shredder's awesome disguise. Instead of removing all the sharp metal objects he's affixed to himself, Shredder just puts a monk's robe over everything. Real inconspicuous. Obscurity hasn't been personified this much since the Turtles tried to avoid unwanted public attention by spraypainting their company logo on the Turtle Blimp.
After finding some flyers for an upcoming 'Pizza Festival,' the villains realize that they've located the easiest way to draw the Turtles' attention. Soon they will be inundated with outerspace meatball eggs. They flood the sewer with the pizza flyers, confident that they're over the exact pipes needed to transport the stupid xerox sheets into the Turtles' lair. As a general rule, Murphy's Law applies in the TMNT universe.
It's a typical day in the sewer, with the Turtles practicing their ninja skills. Do you really think all four of them wanted to be ninjas their whole life? I always figured they were doing it out of respect for Father Splinter. I mean, they're gonna have a hard enough time making it in this world. They're green mutants, after all. But it's only gonna get worse if they pigeonhole themselves by studying ninja shit and only ninja shit. Donatello's the only smart one, at least he can be a mechanic or something else someday. What's Michealangelo gonna do when he needs to make a living? Contract himself out to parents who want to scare their kids?
Now if I was raising these guys, I'd at least teach them how to drywall or make crafts using pipe-cleaners to sell at Christmas fairs. I understand that Splinter loves his stupid ninjitsu, but all the HI-YAHS in the world ain't gonna keep his boys from poverty when the city folk stop handing them pity money and leftover chicken.
Amazingly, Shredder's flood of Pizza Festival (Pizza Festival?!!) flyers makes its way into the Turtles' bedrooms, and they're obviously thrilled. I think the Turtles eat pizza because it's their only way to rebel against Splinter. Sure, they'll play his dumb ninja game. Sure, they'll be virtuous 24 hours a day and wake up at dawn to practice their skills. But they draw the line at living on the rat's damn sashimi. In their unmutated form, yeah, the Turtles could've just loved raw fish. But since they're mutated - and since they've got to do all this crazy ninja shit, wear eye masks, and save the world every day - why not upgrade their diet? Splinter can't deny them that. Radical rat my ass.
At the festival, Baxter sneaks some of the alien eggs onto the prize pizzas. See, you give away prize pizzas at a Pizza Festival. Apparently, that's all you do - everyone is either standing in silence or staring at the three jackpot pizzas. You'd think they'd at least hire an entertaining clown or show the history of pizza by way of an intricate path of illustrated signs. Maybe a 'Guess That Topping' competition? I don't know who put this little soiree together, but I hope they had enough sense to keep the admission prices low.
As an added bonus, Baxter gets to announce the winners of the free pizzas. For reasons that still remain a mystery ten years later. Of course, he rigs the contest so that the Turtles are the winners. Now our favorite green heroes, aside from the Hulk and that little troll that used to fly around Fred Flintstone, are the proud owners of three large pies with meatball toppings. Only they're not meatballs. They're eggs. And they're alllive.
The Turtles decide to give April one of the pies, since she's been such a good friend and since she obviously can't afford any pizzas of her own. Same outfit for twelve years? I mean sure, the yellow bio-radiation suit does work for her on some strange level, but come on. Channel 6 must pay really low wages. April's happy to take the pizza, but if you look closely enough, you'll notice that she makes sure to take the only one the Turtles haven't pawed their slimy green hands all over. Salmonella is a dangerous thing.
So, April and Irma share a quiet pizza night. If you've never seen Irma before, she's some kind of secretary at the news station who wears really awful socks and occasionally provides innuendo that would suggest that she's interested in having sex with Donatello. Now I'm not saying there's anything wrong with having an attraction towards someone green and amphibious, but let's face the facts. You don't have to be a pecker checker to realize that the Turtles didn't gain a dick in their mutations. At best, Irma would have to convince Donatello to wear a strap-on. And that's just crass.
Anyway, Irma puts the pizza in the microwave to heat it up, which is amazing for two reasons. First - the entire pizza box fits inside the microwave, which would have to make Irma the esteemed owner of the world's largest microwave ever. Secondly, as the pizza heats inside the holy god enormous oven, the eggs hatch. Now we can see Krang's evil plan start to unfold...
The aliens are actually kinda cute. I'd want one if I could get a guarantee that it wouldn't bite my fingers off. That aside, they're definitely devious little creatures, who live to pester while eating everything in their path. What's worse - they grow as they eat! April contacts the Turtles, and after some more tomfoolery, a few of the aliens escape onto the streets of New York. It's up to them to catch the monsters before they eat anyone.
I'm gonna have to skip around a bit here since I couldn't follow the action. In one scene, an alien is trying to attack Irma, so she chases it through a wash machine that's somehow connected to a huge pipe, leading to the sewer. Elsewhere, the Turtles are scouting the city in their blimp, and they too end up in the sewer. Baxter and Shredder are also still visible, with a remote control that allegedly commands the aliens to do whatever they want. I'm not sure what Splinter was up to during all this. Probably navigating his way out of a maze or something.
So now everyone's chasing each other around the sewer, and just before anyone completes their mission, the aliens hop into the water and start transforming...
It's the Gremlins gimmick, but they end up looking more like something Ripley would give birth to. Now legitimate killers and not just small nuisances, the aliens are an even bigger threat. They're also the most fantastic shade of khaki I've ever seen!
The Turtles are forced to make a temporary treaty with Shredder, since neither team can take on the aliens themselves. Shredder has no choice but to accept, since his remote control device fell in the water and went kaput. While teaming, the new friends don't really come up with any great conjunctive plots - they just sorta run around the aliens while yelling a lot. Noticing that we're real close to the 22-minute mark, that'll have to do.
I'm not exactly sure how they defeat the aliens, but it had something to do with Leonardo throwing live wires in their faces until they reverted back to their egg forms. Works for me. To be completely honest here, I've had a busy weekend and I've been putting together this review by bits and pieces for the past few days. The end results have made me pretty tired of even thinking about this episode, much less writing about it. My sickness is devotion. My cure is Oroku Saki. The villains take off before the good guys can bring them to justice, so really, the only thing left is telling Splinter about today's adventure.
Splinter asks the Turtles what they learned today, and the answers are relatively obvious. Don't trust Shredder, don't take free pizza from your sworn enemies, things like that. But you know Splinter, he's a pretty gruff teacher. He's not satisfied with simple words. So, he makes each of the Turtles prepare a short essay about what lessons they learned during their latest adventure. Most of them write pretty illegibly and use a strange shorthand that I found incomprehensible, but Leonardo's was concise enough to read...
I hope the other kids in the world picked up on these important moral messages as much as I did.
