Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) - Cowabunga Shredhead

Lately I've been noticing that I've been sneaking a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles references into my other blog posts. So you know what? It's turtle time!

If you have no idea what this show is, then I feel nothing but immense pity for you.

I really can't really say much about this show as a whole that hasn't already been said by at least 500 other people. This show is one of those shows where, even if you haven't watched an episode of it, you know what it is. It remains one of the most popular animated television shows of all time. I personally don't think I've run into anyone over the age of 18 who hasn't heard of the turtles.

Also, well, there's a lot to cover about this show.
The average cartoon has 2 or 3 seasons, with around 26-50 episodes.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had 11 Seasons and 193 episodes.

To put this in perspective, think of all the merchandise Spongebob Squarepants has, and then double it. You still won't hit the amount of merchandise this show had. This show honest to god actually made pizza more popular. Dwell on that for a second. To say that this show was popular is an understatement and shames this cartoon. This thing was so humongogigantic in the early 80's that they haven't even invented a word as to how popular it was.

But it's not my job to be a ninja turtle historian. It's my job to digest one of their episodes and regurgitate it up in word form in a way that's at least slightly amusing.

The reason I went with this episode first as opposed to say, the first episode ever is that I've seen quite a few fans of this show, when they cover this show, conveniently only cover the major story arcs from Seasons 1 and 2 (and occasionally the Baxter Stockman arc that spans several seasons, but I'll hit on that later) and then just conveniently ignore the entire rest of the show like it's something that never happened. That apparently the show's best moments were when it was deep, thoughtful, serious, and all those other delightful metaphors usually applied to the 2003 TMNT series.

So because of this, instead of drama and intrigue, I'm going to show you an episode where a ninja covered in cheese graters is programmed by a laser beam to think that he's a giant mutant turtle with a verbal tic while other villains plan to kidnap the president with holograms. Behold how everyone in the 80's was on something in this glorious golden-plated trophy of an episode named...

Cowabunga Shredhead