“We’re looking for a few good 1987 Classic Animated Series Mutants!”
Ok so first things first, a little bit of housekeeping clarity. As you may have ascertained since this channel's inception, we at SpeekyGeeky maaaaybe just a little, y'know...kinda/sorta have a love for all things Ninja Turtles, you might have also noticed that since we started this channel, the world of Ninja Turtles and the resurgence of Turtle Mania has grown fairly exponentially.
To put this in perspective, on the toy front alone, it went from NECA first only putting Turtles figures out at conventions, then putting out maybe 18-20 Fred Wolf Style collector TMNT characters a year, to Super7 then pulling up to the party wagon, followed by Mondo, then Playmates coming back onto the scene in a major way, then Hasbro with their Power Rangers mashup figures, then The Loyal Subjects with their wealth of characters and iterations THEY are tapping into, heck, even Mattel is now joining in for a slice of the TMNT Pizza pie with their awesome Turtles of Grayskull Masters of the Universe mashup toy line, not to mention, all the while, NECA has been expanding their OWN TMNT scope to include video game characters, movie characters, more Mirage characters, Universal Monsters, Archie, Last Ronin, and now worlds of "What If"...and all this before we even bring up all the incredibly rad Turtle products coming out of the world of customizers yet, of which there are many, and we highly recommend visiting our previous episodes and reading the descriptions for lists of TONS of these wonderful folks and show their channels the love they deserve as well. As a fan, with the excitement of now getting such a wealth of character options that we've never thought in a million years could ACTUALLY be possible to get on our shelves, while at the SAME time having the co-mingled sense of dread for how in the heck we're going to be able to afford everything that we've waited over 30 years for, now ALL coming at once AND from a variety of different incredible companies, WELL, just call us WACKY ACTION BEBOP, because it's enough to make your head spin.
Now, our other deep dive series on the channel has always been intended as a way for fans (old and new alike) to sit back, wax nostalgic, and reminisce about fun characters we may have forgotten about, awesome characters we might not have realized existed to begin with, adding new layers to bond with a new generation of fans, and reveling in this rad community of folks that all come from different walks of life from all over the globe, yet have all found their way to this magical universe of Pizza-loving, wise-cracking, 4th wall breaking Turtles who fight injustice wherever they may find it, and thought to themselves "you know what? THIS speaks to me, this brings me joy, this is a sewer I wouldn't mind getting lost in and hanging out with for oh, I don't know, how about ALL of my decades?"
So here is ME breaking my OWN 4th wall for a moment to speak directly to YOU. Some of you I have had the great pleasure of getting to know personally through our premieres, through conventions, or through chats in our Turtle Talks over on Dave Wonder's channel, many of you have been supportive of the channel from the start, and still some of you might have just typed in "Mutant Mayhem" and this just came on after the video you intended to watch, only discovering the channel just this very moment. But each of you knows to some degree that you are part of something pretty dang special here, I'm not such an ego-maniac that I'm saying with MY channel SPECIFICALLY, but I AM saying with our love for our favorite shellheads (whichever color bandana most relates to you) and our collective passion for the fandom.
Before I started making these videos I only had an underlying sense that others like myself appreciated all that this vibrant world had to offer, and it was through my interactions with many of you and learning about all the incredible things you are doing with your OWN lives in the pursuit of better connecting in with this fandom that has brought so much joy to others that has taken my own appreciation to the next level as well.
I recognize and value that you appreciate the Turtles content I am putting out, and your support means the world to me, but it's also important to me that you know that this admiration and appreciation is incredibly mutual. You need to know that we see YOUR fandom shining through in incredible ways and we value what YOU do for this awesome community as well, and if there is a reason we DON'T know yet, we certainly WANT to fix that.
So if you have something Turtle-rific that you've been working on and are willing to share it, let us know in the comments, we'd love to take a look and Geek out with you about it. This is a wonderful time to be a Turtles fan, and this is a beautifully supportive community that we should all feel proud to be a part of.
And with that corny but heartfelt aside out of the way, let's get back to our original point which is that with the incredible growth of the lines, there are some amazingly fun videos we can't wait to tackle, and yes, some will ABSOLUTELY be NECA specific, buuuuut we plan to not only expand out our deep dive scope toward Playmates, Loyal Subjects, Mattel, and Super7's lines and THEIR epic Turtle possibilities, but ALSO to a wide variety of other companies with non-turtles specific videos, but fun videos worth doing nonetheless like Spero toys, Jada Toys, Lonely Cocunut, PremiumDNA toys, Jaxxs Pacific, Habro, and an ever-growing list more.
Could we have been not so coyly teasing in some of these expanded fandom deep dives in our polls on our Instagram and YouTube community page, OH 100% that could have been the case, but even those are very much just the tip of the geeky iceberg.
We imagine YOU have some lines that YOU would like to see us tackle as well, so be sure to make your voice heard in the comments... because who KNOWS, with as many worlds as we're passionate about, there is a decent chance that the future series you are hoping for MAY already be something we've been tinkering with for some upcoming content.
This might be a good time to remind folks here too that despite how many nerdy delights we'd LIKE to dig into, there is still only ONE Mr. Geek-E, and even though our channel is entirely free and accessible to all who would like to check it out, your VIEWING, LIKING, and SHARING go a LOOOONG way toward ensuring we get to keep making the uniquely dorky content you know and love.
So, for those who are feeling especially generous, feel free to donate at the link here to buy me a cup of coffee (because, as you can imagine from the editing with these videos, not much sleep tends to happen over in the Geek-e lair... so your caffeine contribution goes a LOOOONG way as well).
But before we jump into a sewer's worth of fun new characters...WHAT'S that noise??
Ut-Oh that TMNT 8-bit victory sound in the distance can only mean one thing... it's time for our SpeekyGeeky Shameless Self-Promotion Extravaganza! ZA! Za! za!
That's right shellheads, there may only be ONE of me, but that isn't stopping SpeekyGeeky from spreading around the geeky goodness all around the streams...which YUP, sounded WAAAAY grosser said out loud than I THOUGHT it would and am instantly regretting that phrasing.
If you haven't already been watching Dave Wonder's excellent channel and equally bodacious Turtle Talk livestream series, well, he's giving you one brand spankin' new reason to check it out, pssst, IT'S ME, I'm the reason...that's right SpeekyGeeky's own Mr. Geek-E is now the ongoing co-host on Turtle Talk, so if you dig our deep dives and exclusive interviews over here on THIS channel, you'll probably also appreciate and enjoy our diving into all the latest and greatest on the Turtles toy and comic front over on Mr. Wonder's channel as well.
So if you haven't already, be sure to throw some Turtle love toward those LIKE and SUB buttons on HIS channel, and make sure to pass along the info to others who you know will appreciate it like it's a piping hot Marshmellow and Pepperoni Pizza.
You can also hear some of our vocals in the MOUTHS of all of your favorite characters over in some TMNT comic dubs over on TeddyGaming Review's channel...and yup, we just did it again with the unnecessarily gross wording and for that we both apologize and make the statement that we're PROBABLY going to do it again, so ALSO...y'know... fair warning. But def go give his channel some likes and listens as well, as he has a TON of rad Turtle content to keep you busy for a loooong while.
But that's not ALL, we've got some incredibly neat projects coming up on the horizon on the SpeekyGeeky channel including original Thundercats, TMNT, and TICK animations with Cerbero Arte, a couple top secret stop-motion animated projects with some folks many of you might know fairly well, tackling some subjects we know you'll appreciate quite a bit, and some deep dive episodes featuring art from absolutely stellar creatives we can't wait for folks to see.
Should we tease them? Yeah...we should probably tease them, we'll have a couple new ALL STAR episodes featuring characters from all across the Turtle board with an array of Rad artists like:
Mista_Jonz
Manuel Conde
and Wardog_Zero
We'll also have an episode focusing entirely on some bodacious concept characters with exclusive art by Mondo Roque
AND a Mirage-focused episode or two by the absolutely Stellar Turtle_Ginsu
PLUS some new Archie and Fred Wolf episodes by Sebastian Navas and Cerbero Art.
And if that wasn't enough, we'll also be having an upcoming Turtle Trivia series with Cowabunga Corner's Michele Ivey where our nerdom hits maximum overdrive, and we dig into some convos we absolutely can't wait to show you for a myriad of cool and dorky deep divey reasons.
The original art from today's episode was painstakingly crafted from the brilliant artistic mind of Sebastian Navas, you can see more of his stunning work in the ongoing series "Galactic Rodents Of Mayhem". If you aren't already following Sebastian's work, holy moley are you in for a treat. Be sure to check out this video's description for where to see all the goodies in his various creative stables.
With our overtly shameless shilling now out of the way, let's just leap right into our first option for Episode 10 of Which 1987 Fred Wolf Animated TMNT Action Figures We'd Like To See...
#6 BRUTUS
Let's go ahead and put this character under the "awesome mutants that were never heard from again, but ABSOLUTELY SHOULD HAVE" category!
Making his debut appearance in the episode "What's Michelangelo Good For?", this guy technically counts as not JUST one mutant, but two in that he is both a Gorilla and a Water Buffalo. We realize the mechanics of how this hybrid chimera could genetically fuze so seamlessly is murky science at best, and that there must be a ton of mixed emotions running around in this poor dude's head at any given moment, like "is now the time for peaceful grazing by the stream or is it beating my chest and rendering threats limb from limb O'clock?"
Though Brutus wasn't the ONLY hybrid mutant his creator, the thinly veiled "Island of Dr. Moreau" inspired Dr. Lesseau, brought to glorious mutant life, he DID have one of the coolest designs...but to be fair, the Tiger-Elephant, Wolf-Horse and Toucan-Rabbit weren't anything to scoff at on the freakin' Rad-O-Meter.
Some real quick backstory here, while Mikey is at the Zoo, he discovers that a handful of animals are mysteriously going missing, which, yup is both odd that it's happening AT ALL and equally odd that the zoo decided to share this strange and alarming factoid with him, but y'know, the plot needs to happen and there is only so much time to do it in a cartoon, so shhh less of those pesky questions and more of the "just sitting back and enjoying" that deus ex machina goodness that was the classic Fred Wolf cartoon.
Ohhhh and speaking of Deux Ex Machina, it just so happens that right after Michelangelo discovers this about the missing zoo animals, the rest of his Turtle bros go missing, so UT-OH, this Scooby Doo mystery can only mean ONE thing, (in best Scooby) "rat's right raggy" they're about to become a part of some of this scientific Turtle-Stew.
A very quick aside, because it is also worth pointing out to fans of the IDW and 2012 Turtles series, this is also the episode of the debut appearance of a character who shows up in both of those series, even if it happens to be in a strikingly less mutant-y than how he appeared there, and that character is Pigeon Pete. In both of those series the character was indeed a mutant who aided the Turtles within his role in those versions iteration of the Mutanimals, HERE though, he is still coming to the Turtles aid, but as an ordinary Pigeon who sports an honorary Turtles bandana.
We discover that Dr. Lesseau has taken the idea of Pokemon a bit too far and is catching all the different kinds of animals and splicing them together with the intent of making animals with the best traits of each to try and make an army that will help him conquer the world.
We have SO many questions as always, like "IS it possible for there to just be a NORMAL scientist within the Fred Wolf universe? Sure there are other scientists introduced in the series, and some of them even good guys without a desire for world domination, but none of them are just in it for the sake of scientific discovery, which gives the impression to all the kids watching at home that if they decide to approach the world of science, there isn't a role that exists that ISN'T sexy, it's all GO BIG OR GO HOME...and that is just a recipe for disappointment for all those folks who actually work in that field who are each doing small but significant advancements.
I suppose this was more of a rant than a question, and the reality is that we ALL benefited as viewers from having these larger-than-life scientific blowhards within the series because they helped advance the plot in really fun ways, so it is by no means a slam on how the sandwich is made...just calling out that in the real world sometimes a sandwich can just be a sandwich and it still tastes delicious even if it doesn't have grand schemes to take over all of our taste buds." Are we seriously in the weeds on this train of thought at this point? Oh 100% we are! Was it a question worth asking? We dunno...MAYBE? We suppose just like real-world scientists, not every question needs to be an Earth-Shattering one either, but it's still important they exist so that it gets us thinking in interesting new directions.
And BOOM, that's what we call a callback!
A couple of important additional questions we found ourselves having all these years later that we are fairly certain we ALSO had when we first watched the episode ALL those years ago was "were we the only ones who were actually hoping we'd see, at least for a short moment, what the Turtles would have looked like had they been fused with these other animals?" and obviously, "what would those animals have been?"
Maybe it's just us in full-on mashup mania mode with this new Turtles of Grayskull toyline now out, but we couldn't resist an opportunity, so we took it upon ourselves to imagine a few options of what we THINK these COULD have looked like had these fusions with the Turtles actually came to fruition within the episode.
Again, this art is pure head cannon, but if you would have liked to have seen a story with these versions (if only fleeting), let us know in the comments. We'd also love to hear what you think those mashed-up names would have been if they were ACTUALLY ever made as action figures.
It is worth noting that we had another version of Donatello that we thought up too late where it would have been a Turtle/Mastadon hybrid called MASTA-DON (eh?...EH?), so if any inspired folks at home feel like they want to imagine what THAT character COULD have looked like, send us your fan art, we'd love to show it off in the next Fred Wolf facing episode!
Who were we talking about again? Oh right, Brutus! This is one of those characters where on the one hand, he's a fairly deep cut so it isn't assured NECA toy fodder (though looking at some of the accessory characters that are coming with their new Turtle Ultimates INCLUDING PIGEON PETE, it reinforces that absolutely nobody should be ruled "off the table."
In fact, in our multi-part interview series with NECA's TMNT Brand Manager Trevor Zammit (humble brag much? Geez, fine, we WILL link to it GAWSHHH), he both noted precisely that point as well as hinting at his own love of THIS specific character) and on the OTHER hand...whelp...we guess both hands are pointing to a likelihood that this character might not be too far off, because we just realized our other point was that the look of this character is incredibly toyetic and 100% FEELS like a character we could have expected to get in the original Playmates line, but never did...or DID but with two different figures as he straight up oozes hints of what an offspring of Groundchuck AND Sgt Bananas might look like. Again, the science is murky with Dr. Lesseau's creations.
While it's true this character didn't get a TON of screen time, the moments he WAS on, he straight up captivated the screen and left folks at home wanting to see more of this hulkish bruiser of a mutant with a heart of gold. Also, if we haven't sold folks yet on what makes this character so cool, did we mention that he is a hybrid between a freaking Buffalo AND a Gorilla? Oh...We DID? Like numerous times? Cool cool cool, it's always good to be sure.
So NECA, if you're listening, and we hope you are, how would we like to see this rad fella coming to us? First off, while he does feel fairly massive on-screen, realistically he's probably roughly around the same size as Groundchuck, so that means he potentially could be coming as a two-pack. While the episode itself had some fairly easy and logical characters to pair him with, including any of his mutated compatriots, one of the surprisingly rad animal-themed robots featured in the episode, or Dr. Lesseau (who looked an awful lot like if Dr. Robotnik got caught in Lesseau's Splicer Ray with Dr. Hugo Strange from Batman), but it might ALSO be fun to go a little outside the box on this one and pair this mutant that inexplicably formed from two animals with a HUMAN that inexplicably formed from a small Hamster...YEAH, that's RIGHT, we're playing the long game here and doing yet another callback to episode 4 of this series and bringing it back to another character we somehow haven't had in toy form yet, TATTOO. We had a LOT to say on this character and his deliciously weird origin story within the Fred Wolf animated series, so if you'd like a refresher on our argument for THAT character, make sure to check out episode 4 here. But also, let's just call it right now, some way, some how, TATTOO is coming in 2024. We promise this wasn't how we saw this segment ending, but yet here we are.
#5 GRYBYX
But wait Geek-E, we already GOT the Grybyx, didn't we? Well...KIND of! It's TECHNICALLY true that we got A Grybyx with the Neutrino set, but only in the same way that if you got a Mogwai Gizmo pet you technically also got a Gremlin.
But, similar to Gremlins, this big honkin' origin story for the "shoulda had a snickers" campaign Grybyx, which we most certainly did NOT get in toy form yet, only rears its monstrous head once something odd and incredibly specific happens to the smaller version.
With Gremlins it was when they got wet (which I guess we should have tagged an "almost 40-year-old spoiler" onto so y'know...WHOOPS) and with the Grybyx here, coming with a 35-year-old spoiler attached, it's when they eat the Turtles favorite food, Pizza! (Though to be fair it really could be ANY food, but let's face it, the chances it would be SOME form of Pizza in THIS series are odds we all could feel quite pretty comfortable doubling down on).
We've noted before in this series that just like the Turtles origins themselves being an Homage to Daredevil and Frank Miller's Ronin, the Fred Wolf series went out of it's way to tap into some of that cultural zeitgeist of the 80's. We had Robocop in Rex-1, we had Short Circuit in Big M.A.C.C., heck, we had full-on episodes that were generous nods to movies like Island of Dr Morraou like we mentioned with our previous character Brutus or West World (the 80's movie, not the recent show...but same story) with Season 7's "Combat Land"..and YES, we absolutely need to be talking about some of these other cultural nod characters in a future episode, but right now we are talking about the Grybyx, and the Grybyx were ABSOLUTELY one of those "not even trying to hide it" homages to the movie franchise Gremlins. Here though, because it was a kids show, they swapped-out the terror-inducing aesthetic of the Gremlins for something that felt like it could have jumped right out of another cartoon series of that era, My Pet Monster. Take a look at the Grybyx, then take a good look at Beastor...we mean...you see it too right?
What's that you're saying Imaginary contrarian? We're being unfair comparing it to Gremlins? Well okey dokey, let's do this, we'll walk folks through the plot of the episode and then you tell us if it in ANY way sounds familiar.
The inquisitive Grybyx are considered a pet from an ancient land, they possess mysterious powers and the Turtles are cautioned not to get them wet...ahem...we mean, not to let them eat, or it will be disastrous. Water DOES affect too, with the power to return them back to their original furby-sized selves. We don't ACTUALLY think there are that many folks out there trying to fight us on this point, but we like to bring receipts where we can.
Regardless of it's campy movie-inspired origins (and the fact that both live-action movies utilized Jim Henson puppetry magic), getting down to brass tax with this character is that he is just one freaking cool chonky, oh-so delightfully monster-ful looking figure that would look darn good tearing through our shelf.
It seems a natural that this figure would come as an oversized, perhaps along with a rerelease of the smaller version of himself so that those folks who might have been sticker-shy from the heftier-priced Neutrino's set could still have the ability to display him in full transforming glory. We also see this as a fun opportunity to sneak in some of those other more obscure pizza topping slices for the Grybyx to munch on, a teeter-totter for villain launching action, some electrical current attachments for its antennae (Antenn-AY? Is that how you pronounce that?), and since the Neutrino baby princess Tribble came with that other aforementioned set, it might be a sneaky and fitting way of completing the Fred Wolf Neutrino lineage here by packaging in a small scale version of King Zentar and Queen Grizzla as well.
#4 WILLY WOMBAT & ELMO ELEPHANT
Ok, so we're pretty dang excited to unpack these next couple of character selections for you (and YUP they ABSOLUTELY tie into one another), because this is another one of those episodes like Dirk Savage Mutant Hunter, where it's just jam-packed with incredibly fun characters from start to finish with each being so freaking rad for incredibly different reasons.
As long-time fans of Turtles know, and this is also something we've noted on this very series a healthy number of times, specifically in our recent Rex-1 episode as well as our episode with Creepy Eddie (which we'll pop the link conveniently for riiiiight here) the series was perpetually on the pulse of pop culture and story inventions, sometimes even decades beforehand like in the curious case of Willie Wombat and his Pizza Pan Theatre.
Ok let's just call out the Elmo Elephant in the room here and acknowledge that thanks to the devout fanbase of the Five Nights at Freddie's video game franchise and subsequent recent hit movie (go on, ask someone under twenty who Doug the Lawyer is, we can wait), today's generation might look at these characters and correctly identify that a struggling Pizza joint PLUS animatronics EQUALS a deadly good time, BUUUUT back when this show first aired when ACTUAL Animatronic themed Pizzaria's were popping up everywhere you looked, the idea that these joyous mascots could go all evil Krusty on patrons took us for a bit of a loop, AND, if we're being completely honest, might also be the reason why when we heard about FNAF (again, that's the proper pronunciation all the youths are calling this hip new series that we hear is quite the bee's knees...we dare say the cat's pajama's even) it had a distinctive air of "Why does this concept sound so familiar" and that's when we realized, "OH they took a page right out of TMNT and homaged retro culture" to make something new.
And here's the deal, this isn't even the ONLY time TMNT used this particular trope with the animatronics slant, if you want to get technical, it was essentially the origin of Metalhead, was pretty much season 4's Turtlemaniac concept (though, to be fair, THAT episode also seemed quite inspired from the Vincent Price movie House of Wax, which becomes fairly evident once you compare the main villain "Monroe Q Flem"'s to that era's Vincent Price...We mean...yeah, it's like looking at a wax museum replica with how uncanny that resemblance is...but we digress and you know us, we go the long way around if it means getting to sneak in an awful pun).
...Where were we going with this again? OH yeah, the animatronics go evil trope was well used within TMNT and come to think of it was even 100% the plot of season 7's episode "Combat Land" (which again, was also a nod to the 80's flick West World), and holy moley did it come back with a vengeance in Rise of TMNT with the character Albearto...who... yeah, by that point in the game absolutely feels DIRECTLY FNAF inspired... and you better believe we'll be coming back to that character in a future "ALL STARS" episode (because, cough cough...we MAAAY already have the art).
Backing up for just a second because we'd be remiss if it went unsaid, but there were a handful of additional animatronic characters that were equally as fun that made their first and ONLY appearance within the episode too, including Cassius Cow, an unnamed Hippo, Walrus and Female Bear Cub, as well as a giant vest wearing bunny, a raccoon skin hat wearing Squirell and a spinning beanie wearing Aardvaark.
The funny thing about these characters was that even though they stole the spotlight of this particular episode, they weren't the primary focus of the plot, BUT, again... that plot was pretty dang familiar to fans of Five Nights at Freddie's...sorry... FNAF! (which yes, are very well aware sounds like you have just sneezed when you say the acronym out loud).
So here was the episode in a nutshell and this is also where we organically get to our NUMBER 3 option as well, the Pizzeria theatre was brought to life by two businessmen, one was Rufus Higby and the other was a man named Bogart Flywheel. Bogart was the inventor of the animatronic characters who performed for the Pizza Pan Theatre but once the establishment was realized as a success, Higby went the classic greedy villain route and saw an opportunity to end their partnership.
Understandably Flywheel wasn't having it, he knew that because of his engineering know-how, he was central to there even being performers for their theatre, so, of course, a tussle ensued resulting in Flywheel having a purple substance heaved at him, which he believed to be chemicals that left his face disfigured and sent him down into the sewers to haunt the pizzeria and plot his revenge, but 30-year-old spoilers here, what he mistook for a disfiguring agent, in reality, turned out to be just run of the mill purple paint.
The area where this story goes entirely its own path here is that the animatronics are being used to pull heists after the curtain falls and the customers go home. In one of the most adorable bank heists we've seen in the world of entertainment even decades well after the fact.
Let's take a moment to break down how could see these figures coming. First off, it's incredibly difficult to ONLY choose one or two of these delightfully silly animatronics, because they are all uniquely toyetic and COME ON, if you want to recreate an old-timey pizza place, everyone knows, you gotta have the whole ensemble.
That said, do we think these characters are recognizable enough that NECA is going to go ahead and do something like put out the whole animatronic cast complete with a stage as a SDCC exclusive?
It doesn't seem likely, but NECA has been known to go above and beyond with hitting some of those deep-digging fan-favorite characters in the past, some who even took the stage if we recall, so maaaaybe it's not as much of a long shot as we might think.
But BEFORE Polarisoids or Krangazoids or heck, even another logical variant set of the Turtles or their allies, well...THAT remains a big unknown. The accessories seem simple enough, we'd expect to see alternative heads for the respective evil modes, as well as an extra set of laser blaster hands, with Elmo the Elephant we could see a swappable blaster trunk to go with his evil version face, maybe a couple of classic dollar sign money bags, and an accessory or two that taps into the Pizzeria itself like a performance curtain or the mechanism which Higby used to control the animatronics for his evil schemes.
This would also be a logical moment to point out that the name of this episode is "The Phantom of The Sewers" and not "Willy Wombat's Wacky and Wild Crime Spree Ride" so this was all a long way of saying that while the animatronic characters hit us all in the nostalgic feels..IS this ACTUALLY a story that's about all these character Geek-E or Nah? And to that we'd say, well...kinda/sorta, but the other part of this episode's story is equally as fun, and that is our NEXT option Bogart Flywheel himself, the Phantom of the Sewers!
#3 BOGART FLYWHEEL: PHANTOM OF THE SEWERS
Firstly, let's call out the obvious here, which is that this character's name is waaaay too much fun to say. Go ahead, give it a go, say BOGART FLYWHEEL ten times fast, and see if it doesn't just give you a big smile afterward having just said a name so silly and word salad-like it makes you feel like you're at a carnival asking to ride the newest ride..."yes, I'd like two tickets to the Bogart Flywheel please". Would this character have worked as well had his name been Fabio Boweevil Pumpernickle-Marmalade? We'll never know, but what we CAN tell you is that this dude was one incredibly fun character.
As we noted just a moment ago, ALL the way back in our previous character recap about a minute ago, after a business partner tried hoisting him out of the venture they created together, Flywheel retreats to the sewers to hide from the public (ala the story of which this is loosely based, "the phantom of the Opera"). It is initially believed that Flywheel is orchestrating his past animatronics to go on a crime spree on the city above due to being forced out of his business, but the Turtles realize they had him all wrong and end up teaming up to stop the animatronics rampage on the city and return Flywheel's GOOD name...well...er...uh...at least his NAME to good standing.
This was definitely one of those stories where it is lovingly and intentionally used to poke fun at the source material, (and we're entering spoiler territory now, so y'know, in case you've managed to keep the secret reveal for over 30 years now, be warned)... it turns out when all is said and done that Flywheel DIDN'T have a disfiguration at all and simply had to wash his face to realize it was paint all along, which, as a poorly hygiene'd kid we just accepted as "Ooooh now I get it, THAT seems plausible that he wouldn't have figured that out immediately and I will just move on to the next cartoon having accepted this plot device because now there is a commercial for a toy and I want to buy it...and also, what's the smell...ohhh it's me"...but as an adult rewatching this...it stands to reason we might have some questions, probably something along the scope of "How??" "HUH???" "WHY???" and then "HUH" all over again. we could unpack the silliness of it, but we'd rather just relish in the fact that this was an ACTUAL in-canon story that as adults we can now look back at and just appreciate for the fever dream of sheer delightful absurdity it was.
Character silly factor aside, we still 100% stand by our belief this would make one heck of a fun figure on our shelves. The fact that we now have a Business Suit Casey coming to us from the Fred Wolf line opens up for quite a bit of potential regular human parts reuse as well. Technically we also have that Phantom of the Opera Casey from the Universal Monsters line that one would think would also have some shared parts as well, but other than some potential creative retooling on the head it would largely be a very different sculpt.
We imagine this character coming with a poseable cape, a sophisticated magazine to read while hanging out and hiding in the sewer and naturally would come paired with one of his animatronic creations.
#2 THE POLARISOIDS
If you don't get the veeeery era-specific reference in the name, fear not, you may just have been born after the early 2000s. The Polarisoids were a direct nod to the instant film type of camera that was so HUGE in the 80's and 90's that, well, it had a family of cartoon characters named AFTER it. The reason here being that this family in particular was essentially meant to be commentary on obnoxious American Tourists at the time, but substituting Americans for Aliens and having them share the personality and quasi-appearance of another uniquely quintessential American family of the era, "The Simpsons." YUP, if you saw these characters back in the day and thought to yourself, "HEY, they look kind of familiar, I wonder if they are meant to lampoon another property", well a big ol' virtual high five to you buddy, you got it in one as this is INDEED that.
Calling them "the Polarisoids" also helped to immediately identify the "I want it NOW" type of mentality that fit hand in hand with that type of demographic that understandably largely preferred that type of instant gratification camera to capture moments of leisure for them, that ultimately meant headaches for anyone else AROUND them.
Specifically, in their debut appearance "Camera Bugged" the father, FRIPP was brought in to be the counterpoint to the Turtles own vacation, helping the bros take a crash course lesson on the importance of demonstrating gratitude and appreciation for spending leisurely bonding time together.
Like we noted a moment ago, the Polarisoids with Fripp the Dad, Millimeter the Mom (though Milli to her friends), and their two kids F-Stop and Saycheez were 100% meant as a parody of the Simpsons family, which was made abundantly clear even BEFORE we see all the members themselves, with our first images of their approach toward EARTH appearing to be an other-worldly vehicle that is the spitting image of the Simpsons family car...y'know, fit for interstellar travel capabilities.
The fun thing about the Polarisoid episodes are that these...well, we hate to say "villains" here because the damage they cause is more brought on by absent-mindedness rather than trying to commit ACTUAL harm, but the fun thing about these episodes is that they are classic "fish out of water" where they are doing things that are seemingly innocent and trying to follow the rules of this new environment, but somehow manage to perpetually do the most wrong thing imaginable. We see this right out the gate in "Camera Bugged" when Fripp unzips his tent-like landing pod and reads from his Earth manual that while on Earth you should compliment their pets as a way of making productive small talk, to which he promptly leans down to a bulldog and asks him if his elderly woman owner bites (to a very Pearl clutching 80s response of "well, I've never") and then begins taking pictures of everything he sees.
The problem? The cameras on Polaris where the Polarisoids hail from, work a bit differently than the cameras on Earth, in that they steal away the item they take a picture of into the camera when they snap the image, and like most tourists, Fripp wants to take pictures of EVERYTHING! From statues to trees, to City Hall, to police officers and people rollerskating by (a reminder to those folks born in the 2000's, that things like rollerskating, bike riding, or jamming away to a boom box was quite a common thing to witness back in the 80s and 90s).
Also, just an aside to which WE certainly don't have the answer, but it's worth asking... where do the folks captured in the camera ACTUALLY go? Is it like a Negative or Phantom Zone type of situation? Are they sealed off in stasis tubes while inside or do they have to fend for their lives from the other dangerous creatures that have been captured from other planets? This in itself is worth an episode to explore what this actually looks like from the unwitting prisoner's perspective, right?
Anywho, with that nostalgic trip down memory lane, much like the roller rinks themselves, now firmly but a distant memory, we return to the backstory where unsurprisingly, this magical device that traps all sorts of things within a dimension of its own, does not go unnoticed by Krang (an Alien himself trapped in OUR Dimension, with the apparent power of not being able to recognize irony in any form).
We don't want to spoil any of the fun by laying out EVERYTHING that happened in these episodes, because, as always, our goal is to give folks enough of the highlights where it might paint an exciting enough picture to get you rummaging through the ol' VHS, DVD, or streaming with loved ones so you can re-experience the fun or experience it for the VERY first time for those lucky duckies who are just discovering all the fun this very moment.
So rather than explaining away the whole plot we'll just call out a couple of additional fun things the Polarisoids have going for them that make them prime candidates for getting NECA's toy treatment.
The first is that unlike other notable characters like TATTOO, SHREEKA, COBRATO or ALIM KOELAKANTH (AKA MERDUDE) who each only appeared in one episode of the series, but who obviously all also still desperately need figures, the POLARISOIDS made a big enough impression with the viewers at the time that they were asked to come back in another episode "Welcome Back Polarisoids" two seasons later.
Heck, even Ace Duck only appeared in one episode and has his own figure, so from an "importance to canon" level, one could argue this family of aliens has double the reason to make it onto our shelves than that beloved anthropomorphic Duck. In all transparency here though folks, we might only be coming off with such a BOLD statement because we victoriously ALREADY have a stunning Ace Duck in our geeky grasp, but that said, case in point here, one need only look at what incredible life those imagination magicians brought to a simple cameo character like Ace, when we think about the thought and nuance that might go into finally bringing THIS family of adorably silly aliens to life after all these years. Dare we say it might even be warranted here that when we think about the possibility of NECA making these figures, our excitement levels rise (ahem) simply out of this WORLD!
So how would WE see these figures coming? Potentially a couple of different ways. Our initial thought might be that this might make a fairly easy choice for a Comic-Con exclusive set. Four characters, a whole bunch of accessories, and a couple of additional "scary looking faces" for those moments they morph, but the tricky part about this route is that these characters don't have as much immediate fan recognizability. So where we DID see characters outside the Turtles themselves as con exclusives in years past, like channel 6 and the premutation set, those were central recurring players that even the casual fan might immediately recognize as being from the world of the Turtles.
From that LENS (stop with the camera puns geek-e), it might make more sense for these to be a FOCUS (dangit geek-E, what did we just say?) on each member of the Polarisoid family paired with notable character variants that DID appear between these two episodes.
For instance, in "Camera Bugged" we are also treated to one of Shredder's many delightfully silly "100% not fooling anyone, except YUP he seems to be fooling EVERYONE" type outfits as a hotdog vendor, so BOOM, that might be a natural pairing with the central Polarisoid of THAT episode FRIPP, for the other family members, considering their camera pulls in items from other worlds, perhaps it might be fitting to see them paired with RAD and much needed extraterrestrial characters we have yet to see in plastic like Captain Dredd, Medusa, Hans and Fitz, or Lord Dregg, or HECK, they could be paired with other logical "Tourist" themed characters like Swamp tourists Bebop and Rocksteady or Big City's Sunday Best tourist Genghis Frog.
Think these characters might be a bit deeper into the woods than some of our typical classic options? Perhaps, but we'll direct your attention to the recent interview between NECA's TMNT brand Manager Trevor Zammit and Nic Wood from the youtube channel RoboDontKnow where Trevor notes that we might start seeing some long sought-after characters we never thought we'd see starting in 2024.
In the video it was strongly implied one of these characters he was referring to was the long-sought-after final unreleased member of "The Night of the Rogues" Tempestra (our deep dive on THIS character can be found HERE for convenience), but for many, POLARISOIDS also taps into that same "how have we never had figures of these characters before" bucket.
We have a feeling as more reveals come to light in 2024, we may just see a larger FOCUS on these characters as well...what do you mean "we already used FOCUS as a camera pun?" FINE, how about...we SHUTTER to think of these characters NOT being revealed in 2024? NO? That's a MUCH worse pun? Well just keep up the sass mister, we'll turn this spaceship right around and head back home and then no new toys for YOU, does that sound BETTER? Yeah, that's what we THOUGHT! And with that little car ride vacation reenactment detour we provided there, THAT'S called having DYNAMIC RANGE...aaaaand BOOM, THAT's how you milk camera puns ALLLLL the way into the ground folks!
#1 CAPTAIN KRULIK & GRILLOX
Step right up! Step Right up! Ladies and gentle-geeks, to the greatest show this side of the galaxy! What? NO, not OURS, don't be silly! We mean....that's KIND...but still... SILLY...we WILL settle for planet Earth though. Imagined compliments aside, we ARE however talking about that RAD ringleader and his faithful Chewbacca-like assistant Captain Krulik and Grillox of course!
Ok, just to get this out of the way immediately before even saying one solitary thing about these characters. Take a long hard look at them and tell us with a straight face that if you were a kid you wouldn't have snatched these up off the shelves IMMEDIATELY if these were featured as options alongside characters like Groundchuck, Dirtbag Walkabout or Scaletail, would you have wanted to create yourself your own imaginary mutant-based circus with Krulik as the evil ringleader.
It boggles the mind that Krulik and Grillox were never out to us as figures back in the early Playmates dates as they would have fit in absolutely seamlessly with some of those off-the-wall Arshawsky-designed characters, heck, we even already had a crazy clownin' Mike and Raph the Magnificent magician figures to get that circus troupe teambuilding in motion.
Yup, we realize we seem to have a theme this episode on the space-faring visitor department, and also GEEK-E, what's the deal with not having even ONE gangster this episode? Don't you hear the chatter, the folks NEED some gangster love too!
It's true, we HEAR you imaginary voice in our head that is currently representing the NECA toy-collecting community, and we are 100% in agreement on this matter, so, for now, we'll just point you in the direction of our Globfather deep dive here, while reassuring you at the same time that we do indeed have some additional gangster love in some upcoming episodes. don't believe us? How about a tease of Maddog McMutt from the wonderful Cerbero Art to prove it.
But let's back up for a moment to Krulik and Grillox, who are very much NOT those aforementioned gangsters, but were still incredibly bad news for the Turtles just the same.
As we started digging in a moment ago, in the episode "Back to the egg", while out grabbing some pizza, Mikey and Leo ingest a de-aging concoction devised by Krang which was administered by the captain of an interdimensional circus named Krulik with the intent of having the four Turtles turn into helpless toddlers where they would then star as attractions in Krulik's traveling intergalactic circus (alongside some other fairly neat looking aliens we might add, but which very much is not the point and which is more of a "See Mr. Geek-E's neuro-divergence coming to life in real time" type of thing).
Now, we KNOW this is totally off-brand for us, but we have a TON of questions about this intergalactic circus, that sadly we'll likely just never know the answers to, like "what's the story with how Krang knew Krulik?" Considering Krang is a world-dominating alien and Krulik runs an interdimensional circus we're guessing it wasn't that they struck up a friendship while standing in line waiting on some Balaraphon coffee...this is one of those moments where you KNOW this story PROBABLY involves Krang conquering some dimension x planet and selling off it's resistance forces to Krulik as attractions... but THIS narrative was probably too sad or dark for a cartoon aimed at kids, so the end result was, "hey look, they just have a past together ALRIGHT, now sit back and enjoy the silly". Like most cartoon shows during this era, it tended to be less about the "how you got to the place of the action, and more about just having an excuse for that action to happen...because...well obviously...the merchandise needs to happen!
Full transparency? This episode's primary focus was largely the baby Turtles here, but the scenes Krulik and Grillox were in, and especially the interactions between Krulik and Shredder which made it apparent that Shredder was jealous AF at Krulik's immediate connection and trust from Krang, and this level of almost sibling rivalry like tone made us want a whole lot more of these characters.
Episodes like this were really fun because we were so used to seeing Shredder in his element as bossing around Bebop and Rocksteady while in turn being bossed around by Krang, that when we got characters that could throw it right back at him, it was always a treat to see where that story element could take us...though in this particular case we may never know as this was Krulik and Grillox's ONLY appearance in the series.
Both of these characters had an incredibly fun aesthetic to them, we don't yet have any sort of circus-themed baddies in the line, and it doesn't take a car full of clowns to realize the fun to our shelves that this duo's distinctive roles could play to while adding some incredibly fun expanded playability themes into the line,,,not to mention we now have those adorable Turtle Tots that came with the accessory set and need to have the characters involved in that episode so that we can recreate those Turtles de-aging and re-aging scenes as intended.
Ok so how do we see these Conspiring Carnies coming to us should NECA decide to give them some toy love? Grillox seems self-explanatory, he's a big, cool-looking alien beast, if NECA were to include a flaming circus hoop and performance cone stand that MAY be all we need for that character to pose him in various type of feats. For Krulik it may make sense to include the de-aging gun, some pizza's with the substance smeared on them, an extra head without his ringleader hat on it, and his accompanying whip.
SPEEKYGEEKY'S TMNT POLLS
Since we're already talking about wholly new characters in plastic, we figured we would take a moment to ask you the viewer who YOU would like to see in one of our upcoming videos. We have been running polls on our youtube community page, as well as our SpeekyGeeky Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit pages as to which TMNT characters from various iterations we might want to see as Toys.
Here are some options from our latest polls, which you can weigh on here in the comments or head on over to any of our socials for the full list of option names to weigh in over there as well, and stay tuned because these winning options and more may very well appear in an upcoming TMNT deep dive or two.
There are also some incredibly talented TMNT customizers who are already creating some of those characters who appear on our polls, and it is a beautiful thing to see, here (in our video) are just a few of those absolutely creative folks that you are definitely going to want to keep up with so make sure to follow them on THEIR socials as well.
Don't forget, we mentioned this last episode and it's still not too late, but we'd love to feature your amazing Turtle art in an upcoming episode. You can either submit it to us here directly at our SpeekyGeekyofficial Instagram page or tag us in the post with the hashtag "SpeekyGeekyTMNTFanArt". Again, this is open to all ages and we just ask that submissions keep in mind that it should be all ages appropriate content.
Finally, we wanted to give you a very brief tease our brand new TMNT project we've got brewing on the channel that will be featuring some epic and familiar-sounding voice actors, incredible artistic talents, and perhaps an easter egg or two scattered into the mix for good measure. So, seen for the very first time, here is some concept art for our upcoming TMNT X The TICK animation and webcomics series, art shown here from the astoundingly talented Cerbero Arte.
If you are digging Cerbero's style be sure to show his socials listed in the description some love and be sure to check out more of his TMNT x The Tick art on our Instagram channel as well.
Alright, Shellheads, that's it for this episode, but don't stray too far from the Turtle Lair, because episode 11 is right around the corner.
We have no doubt you have some characters that top off your list as well, so make sure to make your hopes known and join the discussion in the comments below.
We realize you could have gone anywhere and you chose to nerd out with us... and we appreciate that, so…
As always, I am Mr. Geek-E and Until Next We NECA Turtle Speeky, Keep it Geeky Folks!