Being a fan of the classic series I was excited when I heard that the original mini series was being released on DVD, and rushed out to find it when it was released. This is classic ninja turtles with all the cheesy ninja goodness from the 80’s that you crave. Plus 4 bonus episodes not seen in most areas (they where shown in mine because I know I’ve seen the glob father).

The original mini series contained 5 episodes in which we meet all the main characters both the good and the bad. It’s a bit cheesier then a lot of people will probably want to remember but the turtles antics are still has enjoyable has they where back in the day and I would still prefer watching most of the episodes of the classics compared to the new one. With the exception of the last few seasons of the original but more on that when I get to the 4 bonus episodes

Turtle Tracks.
This is the first episode of the turtles, and it covers pretty much the basics of the classic turtles. In this 22 minute episode the turtles meet April, and we learn how the 4 came into being.

The episode starts off with April giving a news report of the recent wave of crime, and how it looks like a mysterious gang of ninja’s are involved. But when a gang of hoodlums corner and tell her not to make anymore reports she get’s chased into the sewers by them. It’s there that the turtles rescue her and after she faints (this is basically the one thing that both cartoon series and the movies all in common) they take her home. When she wakes up in the turtles layer she asks who they are and Splinter tells her about in Japan there is a clan of ninja’s known has the foot, once lead by Hamoto Yoshi. However schemes by a disloyal student named Oraku Saki Yoshi was fired and fled to America. Because he was poor he had to live in the sewers where one day 4 baby turtles dropped on in his head. Meanwhile in Japan the foot became an army of crime (or more like an army of petty vandalism and ice cream thieves). Back in America Yoshi and the turtles managed to come in contact with a strange ooze, the ooze turned the turtles into humans, and turn Yoshi into a mutant rat. April by this point figures out that Splinter is Yoshi and Yoshi explains that his pupils now call him Splinter. Since they don’t know what to do with April they decide to help her find these ninja thieves has long has she keeps them out of the nightly news and they agree. At the scene of where they rescued April they find a matchbook that contains the address of ninja pizza. After a few mishaps in getting there they find the restaurant and the turtles sit down to there favorite food pizza. Meanwhile April who is snooping in a building nearby get’s captured by the foot. It doesn’t take long before the guys noticed that she is missing and they quickly find out where she is being held. She is guarded by foot ninja’s who they quickly discover are nothing but robots. After they defeat the foot Shredder calls them back to the technodrone and then destroys the building they where in my flooding it. The turtles escape of course and they proceed in grossing out April with there bizarre pizza toppings.

My thoughts.
This is the first episode of the series so they cover the basics of the good guy characters first for the most part. We meet the turtle and we get there origins in a story by Splinter, and how he became Splinter and they became the turtles. Of course there’s plenty of editing and of 1980 action cartoon rules going on in this one to. Some of this is a bit laughable to boot. In a rare scene we actually see the turtles tangle with the foot solder but do to the rules back then they can’t beat up real people so they of course turn out to be robots (this actually kind of help the video games that came from the classic series). Another thing that’s funny is when Splinter describes the foot has an army of crime, the crime shown are vandalizing a pop machine and stealing ice cream, this is funny in just the fact that it’s so cheesy.

I should also note that the story has been changed to where Splinter is Yoshi because we couldn’t have anybody dying in an action cartoon either back in those days.

Favorite line from this episode.
Donatello to April: you wouldn’t last 5 minutes in a ninja pizza parlor… Always wanted to say something like that. This line is good just because it shows a few of the cheesy things that happen in the older series.

Enter the Shredder.
While the first center around the creation of the good guys, this episode concentrated on a bit of the bad guys. We see more of Shredder, and meet Krang, Rocksteady, and Bebop. This one starts off with the turtles letting April turn to the top side but not before they find the techno drone. They go to where the underneath the foundation of the building that was destroy but all they find is huge tire tracks. April heads up while the turtles go back to talk to Shredder. Meanwhile Shredder has to have a word with the person (or alien brain in this case) that gave him all his technology, Krang. It seems that Krang wants Shredder to build him a robotic body and to do that he’ll help Shredder destroy the turtles. His suggestion is to dump some ooze on a few of the thugs he has lying around and mutate his own people. Using two robots (Roadkill Rodney for anyone who has played the video games) he captures a warthog and a rhino from the zoo. He then mutates 2 of the thugs that lead the attack on April. Meanwhile the turtles search for the Technodrone but when they reach the dead end the turtles decide to go up out of the sewers, while Splinter crawls through. After crawling through Splinter finds the tehcnodrone but is imeadily captured. Topside April gives them the news that she is forced to cover a zoo robbery, but this one has a twist to do it the animals where captured by robots. The turtles break in to the techonodrone and after a brief fight with some weird robots they find Splinter tied up and Shredder appears and introduces himself has Oraku Saki. He offers them a deal to join the foot clan and of course the turtles tell him to go suck a lemon. Shredder sicks the now mutated Rocksteady and Bebop on them. The turtles of course easily defeat them and get out of the tehcnodrone. Where a 2nd battle ensues between Rocksteady and Bebop, this one’s a bit harder since there both packing heat. The turtles manage to trick them into zoo cages and trap them there. The episode ends with April appearing and finding out that she missed all the good parts of the story.

My thoughts.
Rocksteady and Bebop probably the two dumbest non Disney henchmen in the history of cartoons. While these guys did make a brief appearance in there human form last episode we finally see there pig and rino forms that there stuck in the rest of the series. These 2 where never that dangerous mainly because there both idiots. We also meet Krang the brain, we don’t learn much about him in this episode other then he’s the brains of the operation (no pun intended), and Shredder doesn’t trust him. We learn a little bit more on him in the next few episodes though.

Favoirte line.
Rockstead: will this give us all those powers you promised us man.
Shredder: Absolutely but you might have trouble finding a date for Saturday night.

A thing about rats.
This episode begins with Splinter now being safe at home but the turtles have missed there opportunity to destroy the Technodrome. Meanwhile Shredder has sent little helicopter things out to find a way of finding and destroying Splinter. He finds it in a bumbling scientist named Baxter Stockman, who has invented a new robot called the mouser. Shredder dupes Baxter into building a control panel for the mousers while Shredder mass produces them. He decides to sent a small wave after the injured Splinter. Luckily the turtles return to the layer in time to keep the mousers from finishing off Splinter. Since Shredder printed Baxters name on the bottom of the feet they decide to go to April’s place so she can help follow up on there lead, and it’s a safe place to hide Splinter away for the time being. April finds Baxter place and the turtles catch him and tie him up, he informs them that Shredder has several of them, and Don deduces that the mousers might be able to pick up on Splinter again and they rush to Aprils house. They get there just in time to destroy every one of the mousers and rescue Splinter, but due to the mousers eating away at the walls April apartment collapses and they all barley manage to make it out of there alive. Using some of Baxters information they track down Shredders hide out in an abandon mansion. They send Mikey in to find the control panel but Shredder captures him and sends the mousers against the other turtles. While the others deal with the mouser army, Mikey get’s rescued by Krang who’s motive for rescuing him his because he’s ticked off that Shredder hasn’t build him a body yet. A battle begins between Mikey and Shredder, with Shredder shooting at him with a blaster and Mikey dodging. Of course the cliché of the bad guy shooting his own control panel while good guy stands in front of it plays out and Mikey flees the scene. Don sends the mousers in to destroy Shredder. And Shredder quickly high tails it back to the Technodrome.

My thoughts.
We meet Baxter Stockman who’s a big name in the new series but is only a cameo villain who later get’s turned into a fly. Like the new one we see his name associated with the mousers also. The rest of the episode plays out ok with Krang getting more annoyed about Shredders refusal to build him a body that he actually sabotages Shredders plan.

Favorite line.
Shredder: being this bad makes me feel so good.
While still no match for the classic Skeletor it proves that Shredder to can ham it up.

Hot rodding teenagers from Dimension X.
Well in the term of cheese this has to probably have the most cheese per minute then any episode on the disc. But even though it’s cheesy we see the neutrinos and the turtle van for the first time ever in this episode.

The episode begins with the turtles taking over Baxter’s lab, since Baxter is doing hard time for helping the Shredder he won’t miss it. They also took Baxter’s souped up van and having Don soup it up even more in turtle fashion. With guns, lasers, and equipment they can use to track the Technodrome. With there new ride though they quickly find out where the Technodrome is hidden. Meanwhile Krang is cussing Shredder yet about not building him a body in which he can lead his troops from Dimension X over to earth to conquer it. Shredder get’s the idea that he can call some of Krang’s solders over from Dimension X and opens a portal in the Technodrome. A bunch of kids with hotrods come out of the portal follow by some stone warriors. But the kids escape and the rock warriors tell Krang who they where chasing after. It seems that these kids are known has the neutrino’s, and while the rest of the Dimension X is at war these kids have decided to not join any armies. The turtles on the other hand meet the neutrino on the way to the Technodrome and decide that there one of Shredders latest schemes and chase after them. After using the catapult that Don build in the turtle van they manage to catch there flying cars and bring the neutrino’s down. The neutrino’s explain how they got here and tell them where they come from. While they find a pizzera to stop and talk things over they get attacked by the two stone warriors and a battle ensues with Leo defeating a tank that Shredder at given them and fleeing from the area when the cops arrive. The stone warriors decide to use a weather maker to destroy the city. Meanwhile the neutrino’s tell them about the stone warriors a race that only obeys there leader Krang, who was banished from Dimension X and is now just a brain. Mikey remembers hi encounters and they deduce that they must go back to the Technodrome and make sure that the stone warriors get put back into Dimension X. With the help of the neutrino’s car they easily get into the Technodrome and a battle ensues. After getting rid of Rocksteady and Bebop (doesn’t turn out to be very hard) they manage to use some oil to give the stone warriors to slip through the portal. After saying there good byes the Neutrino’s go back home, but they give one of the cars to the turtles. The turtles use the flying car to stop the weather maker that is in the sky above new york city and is causing all kinds of havoc. After the weather maker is destroyed everything returns to normal. Back at the Technodrome Shredder is annoyed at once again being beaten that he gives in to Krang’s request and builds him a body.

My thoughts.
Not a great episode and it’s a bit on the chessey side, we learn a bit about Dimension X but there really no details ever given though the series on why Dimension X is always at war, and what sides there are. But it’s defiantly shown through out the series that it’s not a place that you want to take up permit resistance.

Favorite line.
No really good one liners but I thought that the weather maker has a total chaos setting is kind of goofy.

Shreddred and Splintered.
The last episode of the 5 part mini series and the last really good episode on the disc. This one finishes off the little bit of story that connects the episodes together. Well thanks to the weather machine incedient half the city saw the turtles and now everybody’s afraid of them. Sick that Shredder is still out there doing the real harm they decide they must go and defeat him once and for all. But not before Shredder interrupts there TV to announce to them that he has developed an anitmutageon ray that undoes mutations. It can make Splinter human again, but it can also send the 4 back to the pet shop. They decide to go and attack the Technodrome but the weapons from the neutrinos cars don’t work when the gas is all out, and since it runs on the plutonium the turtles are out of luck. Don decides he can head to Baxters workshop and build something that might help them. Meanwhile the other head to the Technodrome on foot and manage to run into Rocksteady and Bebop and the group manages to get into a fight. While the villains get an upper hand on them at first the turtles manage to beat them by pouring cement on them. The 3 and Splinter head to the Technodrome, while Splinter searches for the antimuntagen ray the turtles confront Krang in his new robotic body. Krang shows one of the abilities of his new body is the ability to make him grow into a giant. He manages to force them out of the Technodrome he grows into a king-size proportions. Donatello shows up with his new turtle blimp and he and Leo decide to sneak into Kranges body thanks to a huge hole that has open up in his arm due to his growth. Inside his body they find the part that’s making him grow and take it out. Krang shrinks down to regular size. Meanwhile Shredder and Splinter start to fight but it get’s interrupted when Krang cries from help from Shredder. Shredder takes his anti mutagen gun and starts to head for the turtles, Splinter gives chase. At the surface the turtles corner Krang but when Shredder shows up they quickly panic when he points the ray at them. Splinter shows up and destroys the ray saving them. Shredder and Krang decide there best bet is to fully open the portal to dimension X and get all of Krangs stone warriors to conquer the planet. The turtles quickly get to the Technodrome to see an army of stone warriors emerge from the portal. Don quickly get’s to the portal control and decides to change controls of the portal and winds up sucking the entire Technadrone into Dimension X. Of course the turtles all escape to see the Technodrone vanish. Meanwhile in Dimension X Shredder discovers that he must now follow Krang’s orders.

My thoughts.
The last episode of the mini series and this is the best one of the bunch if you ask me. We see the turtle blimp, we see Krang’s new body, and we see what the story was building up to. While not much of a climax there are some good things going on. Seeing Splinter fighting Shredder is a good part, has well is the turtles battle with the Godzilla size Krang. Of course it’s easy to note that the turtle blimp wouldn’t go in the newer series has the turtles in the new series never go advertising themselves with a big blimp with there names on it.

Another note the Technodrome getting stuck in dimension X is a beginning of a running gag, at every season finale Shredder would finally get it on the move so he could conquer something and the turtles would get together to strand it in the other place. Besides various places in Dimension X there’s been the Antarctic, underneath the Atlantic, and the middle of the earth just to name a few places the turtles have stranded Shredder.

Has far has the series we do see a few things that are in the mini series that are unfortunately not really done in the actual cartoon. Splinter trying to become human, Shredder hating him because he’s Yamto Yoshi. And then of course you actually see foot solders which have a few appearances in the series when you consider how many episode it had. We also see a Vernon that’s actually honest and trustworthy, not the whiny, snotty, comic relief that he’s going to become in future seasons.

Favorite line.
Shredder after being caught in dimension x: But I don’t want to conquer this place I want to conquer the earth. While this is funny to start out with the fact that he says it like a whinny 2 year old you just can’t help but laugh at that line.

Animation
The animation for the mini series that stared the turtles wasn’t that great for many reason. There are frame rate problems all over the place but that’s not really half of it. The turtles are drawn inconstant all the time, while in the classic this was a bit natural, but it’s really bad in the first season. Seeing the turtles change every time the cameras on them does seem kind of odd. But what’s odder is there odd body proportions, there heads often seem to be bigger then there body making them look goofy. And then there is of course the fact that there are several times where the animators draw the wrong turtle speaking. We hear Donatello speaking with Raph on screen moving his lips. It happens a lot in other season but it’s really bad in this opening mini series. But even with the sucky animation it’s still a lot of fun to watch after all these years.

Bonus Episode.
The last few seasons of Ninja turtles sucked, my guess they where trying to compete with the fact that the audience that where watching them has 6 year old’s in the 80’s where now teenagers in the mid 90’s and decided to change the forum. The end result sucked because it destroyed everything that was likeable in the turtles and got rid of it. While the animation is better the backgrounds are horrible and the red backdrop they give the city makes it look like it’s gone through world war 3.

If that’s not bad enough Shredder is now MIA and a new alien enemy named Dregg is now trying to take over the earth. The turtles are now feared because all the humans believe Dregg is good and the mutants are bad. Now throw in a bit of the hulk to make it even more sucktackuler the turtles now have hyper mutations where they hulk out and get all ugly. They also have a new friend named Carter a human who came in contact with some mutagen that Dontalleo was playing with and is now able to transform into a big yellow guy at will. They also have changed the theme song to and it’s not has good anymore, but I’ll give the DVD credit for putting in the CBS action zone part.

The beginning of the end.
Ok technically this is supposed to be the 2nd never before seen episode but someone screwed something up. But anyways in the next episode on the disc we’ll learn that the turtles are now curing themselves of there hyper mutation and in the last one something went wrong when Leonardo got zapped by the device that was supposed to cure him and now his mutations are out of control.

At the beginning Dontello and Carter once again zap Leo and change him back to normal. Thinking they cured him they let him out of his cage but it isn’t long before Leo transforms again and runs out destroying everything. After a chase through the streets and a fight in the hockey ring Dregg shows up and captures Leo. His plan use his mutation and combine it with plutonium and have Leonardo explode. Luckily Donatello sneaks aboard Dreggs ship when Leo is captured and he can follow him. While the other turtles search for them the now unemployed April is now trying to get a story has a free lance and decides to go check out some chop shop. Unfortunately the one that she is checking out is now Dregg’s new hide out and she quickly get’s captured but not before giving the call to the other guys about where she is. Dregg uses the plutonium on Leo and he immediacy shrinks down to his normal size and thinks that he is cured. The other turtles show up and rescue the rest of the gang. But Dregg tells them that Leo is going to go nuclear in about half an hour and then runs away. Leo starts to get sick and transforms again and manages to capture April in the process. Don and Carter give chase and rescue April and imprison Leo in a garbage truck, while Ralph and Don sneak aboard Dregg’s ship to get the antidote for Leo. The episode ends with Leo being turned back to normal but Dregg announces that Leo is far from normal and that he’ll be using his alter mutations to his advantage, whether or not he does I don’t remember but it’s not on this disc.

My thoughts
Well this episode is far from great and the whole chase Leonardo around while he destroys stuff is getting old and we get to see plenty of that the next episode since it’s the first episode. But on the good news though we see that several years have indeed past since the turtles began and a new invention has popped up making life’s more convenient. The internet is mention no less then 3 times and it looks like the turtles have a link to the web even in there turtle van. Also just to mention it April being a free lance reporter is used to much for pretty much the same thing she finds something on her computer and she runs out to report and bumps into the turtles, get’s dull the first dozen times you seen it. Two bad the channel 6 building got blown up because she really needs a job.

The return of Dregg.
The episode that comes before this is supposed to be the one that comes after this one. The turtles are trying to cure themselves of there hypermuation and thanks to a piece of a special crystal they stole from Dregg, and some of Donatello genius they have finally manage a way to do it. It doesn’t work on Carter though. While the turtles go around curing themselves Dregg now has a new 2nd in command named Mung and he has little micro bots that are cable of building anything in seconds. He sends a small bot to steal a piece of the crystal while Leonardo is getting zapped by the crystal. This causes Leonardo to mutate out of control and become even uglier then usual. The turtles give chase to Leonardo and eventually catch him but not before bumping and doing a small battle with Dregg. Meanwhile April is looking on her computer when the lights go out and she decides to check out the power plant. This leads her to Dreggs newest scheme to build a special transporter, and which case she calls the turtles to tell them, and then like usual she get’s captured.
The turtles come to her rescue of course but thanks to Mungs microbot they and Carter eventually get captured. That’s when the mutated Leonardo shows up and beats up all of Dregg’s crony’s and free’s the other turtles. But Dregg has one of his microbots steal a piece of Leonardo’s shell before running away. The turtles have to put Leo in a cage with a do not feed mutant sign hung on it.

My thoughts:
This one we see Dregg change minions and lackeys from the mechanical high-tech to the insect like mung at the beginning of the episode. Mung seems to be some sort of brown nosing alien slug creature. The turtles also have cured themselves of there mutations so there is no mutating for the rest of them in this episodes, just a giant Carter and Leo are the only super mutants we see. The episode is ok but it get’s dull just watching Leo destroy stuff and April getting captured it’s the same thing we saw the episode before. I guess you can’t give any points for originality in these episodes.

Alien from dimension X.
Ok I think there is a 2 episode spilt in which we see a Shredder make a cameo appearances and some people from the future take Carter with them to there time so they can find a cure for his mutations. However it’s still Dregg and the turtles duking it out.

This one begins with the turtles going to see a new neruo computer that Don is all hyped up about (it’s inventor looks a lot like Baxter Stockman on the new cartoon). But when the hoods come to steal it the turtles wind up having to save it. Later they get an early warning alarm that someone is beaming in from Dimension X. Don traces it down and finds one of the gangsters they fought is now a glob of green ooze he tells them about the computer and the glob father. They go to the military base where the computer is being held but the Globfather get’s there first and the professor hides the computer in his sons car before he get‘s captured by the goons. After a battle against the glob father is over the turtles look at the security camera and find where the computer is and they search the city. Meanwhile the Globfather is also searching the city for the computer. He finds the kid first but the turtles step in and rescue but they looks the car in the fight and the glob father runs off towards the national phone switching network. He then connects to all the military computers over the world before giving it to the person who hired him, who to no surprise is Dregg. Dregg demands the world surrender. Meanwhile Donatello figures out that more then one person can jack in to the neuro computer and makes another helmet device in which to control it. They get to the phone network and Don hooks in and his able to over power Dregg with a little help from the professor son. The glob father get’s sucked up in a vacuum and the episode ends with Dregg high tailing it out of there.

My thoughts.
Not a good episode now there has been a lot of lame villains in the turtle serious but the glob father has to be downright the lamest. A giant buger somebody had to be running out of ideas on cool villains. The final battle with Dregg also ends to easy, and it also seems that the turtles can sneak into anywhere and break through a glass ceiling has they do it at least twice in this episode. This includes a military base and a national phone network controlled by aliens. Well whatever this episode sucks and that is why it wasn’t aired in most places.

The day the earth disappeared.
I take it that this was the last episode of the original series. In this one Dregg decides he can pull the earth through a portal and into Dimension X, where he can then conquer it (wasn’t this done in an earlier episode with the Trciertons). The turtles of course get wise to this and open a portal of there own to stop it, but Dregg catches them and sucks them through it, but not before April gives them a call to tell them about the vortex in the sky. She see’s what’s going on and hurry’s to the turtles layer to see the last of them get sucked. Leo and Donatello fall onto a different planetoid that Raph and Mikey wind up on, meanwhile Splinter manages to wind up on Dregg’s ship. The turtles deal with the elements of whatever planet they wind up while traveling through different portals that lead to different places. While Splinter battles Dreggs commando’s and eventually is able to teleport a piece of a portal into Dregg’s ship damaging it and sending earth back home. The 4 turtles manage to find there way onto Dregg ship and April who arrives at there layer manages to open a portal that brings them home. Dregg ship spins out of control and then blows up. Back at the layer Don tells them he fixed the portal and opens it only to have a giant creature try to step out, Leo destroys the controls and the creature disappears. And Don promises never to open it again, it’s obvious he does keep his promise because he’s of course just been canceled.

My thoughts.
The last episode of the Ninja turtles wasn’t a bad one considering out bad the glob father one turned out. This one is actually kind of entertaining. With a bunch of different creatures and hazards the turtles go thorough has they try to find each other on the weird planet. We also get to see a rare occasion to see Splinter to whoop some butt. And finally we get to see an end to Dregg.

Video quality.
Not great on this DVD there’s some fuzz and the video far from what I call sharp. But it’s still a lot better then those detracting VHS tapes that Turtle fans have collected over the years.

Final Recommendation.
Well the classic turtles are back with an entertaining mini series, and some not so entertaining episodes from the last seasons. But for 10 bucks you get to see some classic ninja turtles in all there chessyness in 9 full episodes. I hope that this isn’t the last of the classic series we see on DVD either I hope they have full box sets coming out. With this and Garfield and Friends coming out on DVD it’s like I am watching all my favorite Saturday morning cartoons all over again

And just for the few who haven’t heard there is a new series read my review of it here.
http://www.epinions.com/content_145448144516

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up to Age 4