Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles

TEENAGE MUTANT HERO TURTLES
Made by: Mirage
Shown on: BBC
Years shown: 1987-96

Theme tune: “Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles/ Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles/Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles/Heroes in a half-shell, Turtle Power!/They’re the world’s most fiercesome fighting team/They’re heroes in a half-shell and they’re green/When the evil Shredder attacks/Those Turtle boys don’t cut him no slack/Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles…Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines/Raphael is cool, but crude/Michaelangelo is a party-dude!/Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles/Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles/Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles/Heroes in a half-shell, Turtle Power!”

Cowabunga! The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were the comic-book creations of Americans Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird back in 1984, but it was a few years before this diluted cartoon version reached our screens. But once the Turtles landed, they were everywhere: lunch-boxes, pencil-cases, T-shirts, bum-bags, trainers, action figures, trading cards, and even their own line in frozen pizzas (including the surprisingly good apple and cheese flavour.) Their name had to be altered to Hero Turtles in the UK, although as the cartoon itself wasn’t altered, it is unlikely this would have done much to deter playground violence - it just made them seem more harmless to concerned parents.

So, what was the back-story to this mean, green fighting machine? Set in New York, Hamato Yoshi is cheated out of the leadership of his martial arts school by a treacherous student, and is forced to flee and live in poverty in the sewers. Why he didn’t settle for the YMCA is not made clear. Anyway, he is all alone until, one day, a young boy stumbles on the street and his pet turtles fall from their tank and into the sewers. Somehow, the tiny turtles land in the spilt radioactive contents of an old canister, and were metamorphosed into humanoid turtles. At the same time, Yoshi was transformed into a humanoid sewer-rat, and took on the name Splinter. He trained the turtles as his students, teaching them to be a Ninja force for good, and also introduced them to their staple food of pizza. Leonardo, in the blue bandanna, was the natural leader; he was the strong, silent type, was serious about his studies, and fought with a katana sword. Equally studious was Donatello, a science enthusiast, who wore a purple bandanna, and was responsible for inventing most of the Turtles machines and weaponry. Then there was Raphael, who was undoubtedly the coolest; he fought with jitte knives, wore red, and had a quick-witted and sardonic reply for everyone. Finally, there was the youngest of the bunch, Michaelangelo (Eastman and Laird misspelled his name, but it was never altered), who wore the orange bandanna, spoke like a Californian surfer, and liked nothing better than a par-tay.

The Turtles seemed to have two purposes in life, which usually coincided in some way: to protect April O’Neil, and to defeat Shredder. April was a jump-suited reporter for Channel 6 News, who first encountered the amphibian teenagers when she climbed into the sewer to escape some of Shredder’s henchmen. Shredder is also known as Oruku Saki, Splinter’s wayward student, and having turned the martial arts school against their old master, and renaming them The Foot, he plans to take over the world. But he in turn was doing someone else’s dirty-work, namely Krang, a repulsive brain-like alien, who lived in a tank in the underground Techno Drome. In order to add muscle to his crusade, Shredder got hold of a couple of street hoodlums, Rocksteady and Bebop, and somehow combined them with a rhino and boar he happened to have around the place, creating a humanoid punk rhinoceros, and a humanoid New Wave boar. Needless to say, what they had in muscle, they lack in grey matter.

Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles also spawned a number of live-action films, critically panned but commercially fairly successful. I am loath to say it, because on paper the concept and content are less than mind-blowing, but the Turtles somehow surpassed the majority of shoddy action animations (Dungeons & Dragons, Defenders of the Earth etc.) because there was something likeable about them. Certainly superior to the vastly amusing-for-the-wrong-reasons Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, who came along during the twilight of the Turtles career.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 4/10

(Thanks to www.badfads.com for the borrowed pic)

T-Bag

T-BAG
Made by: Thames TV
Shown on: ITV
Years shown: mid 80s-early 90s

Elizabeth Estenson starred as the tea-addicted witch Talula Bag, who somehow lived in a teapot in an antique shop. Her objective: total world domination. But unfortunately for her, the only aid she had in this task was a blond kid, T-Shirt (John Hasler), who she’d somehow trapped in her little world.

Each of the seemingly innumerable series progressed in exactly the same manner. A young girl would enter the antique shop with the intention of buying something nice for her mum/granny/therapist, but would be zapped into the teapot by T-Bag as soon as she touched it. Once inside, the girl would be dispatched on missions by T-Bag to collect a different object every episode, which gave the whole thing a bit of a Crystal Maze feel, but which somehow forwarded the witch’s chances of become the supreme world dictator. Midway in the series, T-Shirt would secretly join forces with the girl, and they would always succeed in thwarting T-Bag, and sending her spinning back into the teapot for another series, although T-Shirt never managed to liberate himself. Still, his double-dealing was so predictable that I always wondered why T-Bag didn’t just have the little brat vaporised, or at least turned into a ferret? After the fourth series, Talula was replaced by her sister, Tabitha Bag (Georgina Hale), although the now teenage T-Shirt still moped around waiting for the next stage-school girl to arrive down the spout.

For those who fondly remember these luke-warm paranormal antics, here is a comprehensive run-down of the series we were treated to by writers Lee Pressman and Grant Cathro: T-Bag Strikes Again, T-Bag Bounces Back, T-Bag and the Revenge of the T-Set, T-Bag and the Pearls of Wisdom, T-Bag and the Rings of Olympus, T-Bag and the Sunstones of Montesuma, and Take Off with T-Bag.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 5/10

Superted

SUPERTED
Made by: S4C
Shown on: BBC
Years shown: 1982, plus repeats

Bizarrely, Superted began life as a mascot for the South Wales Electricity Board, but would later on appear on both my toothbrush and space-hopper. He was an unstoppable furry merchandising machine. The cartoon began in the same way every episode, by telling the tale of how Superted came to be imbued with super powers: he was made in a factory, but because he was faulty (see also The Raggy Dolls), he was chucked into a store room. One night, a Spotty Man from another planet came and sprinkled ‘magic dust’ on him, meaning that he could quite freakishly unzip his furry skin and reveal a bright red superhero outfit. Considering that this wasn’t animation or storytelling of a very high quality, Superted was hugely popular in playgrounds up and down the country, and it attracted a host of voice artists. Derek Griffiths played the titular ted, while Jon Pertwee was the yellow and green Spotty Man; the villains were an malevolent cowboy, Texas Pete, and his sidekicks, Skeleton (Melvyn Hayes) and Bulk (Roy Kinnear.) Although the series is now a frightening twenty years old, I noticed in my local Superdrug that Superted is still alive and kicking in the form of children’s chewable vitamin tablets. That must at least be a unique claim.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 5/10

(Thanks to www.abbeyhomemedia.com for the borrowed pic)