Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle

Stream on Paramount+

Episode: 12 twenty one to twenty three minute Episodes

Rated TV-Y7

An animated series that picks up where Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem left off. The turtles are in school, popular, and are getting to go to their first costume party. Unfortunately, when you are a mutant ninja trouble seems to follow you. In the first half of the season a mysterious person known only as Bishop, is on a mission to destroy all mutants and the turtles are public enemy number one. In the second half of the season the East River Three are seeking revenge on humans and stealing an item from the New York Musuem.

Themes:

Mutants, ninjas, New York, turtles, biasis, traps, technology, teamwork, friendship, reputation, gangs, the Purple Dragons, heroes, fame, family, perspective, learning from one another, robotics, investments, disappointments, disabilities, tragedy, consequences, Pigeon Pete, anger, home, memories, choking on bananas, de-mutation, nerd knowledge, pop culture, fatherhood, blame, betrayal, perspective, stories, and evil plans.

Language:

Dang - 5 Heck - 13 Religious Exclamation - 5 Sucks - 2

Name calling such as dumb, idiots, etc.

One character says, “ow, you got it right in the junk” after a robot takes a fire axe to the pelvis.

There is a play on words in episode three - “get plucked!”

Stuff to be aware of:

Grossness - A dog is seen peeing in an alleyway. The dog’s owner picks him up and runs away causing the pee to go everywhere. A leopard is sick and keeps sneezing which causes snot to come out of it’s nose.

One of the turtles injects animal blood into a human with a syringe. In episode eight a cat gets eaten by a mutant frog and then spit out. IN later episodes a pigeon poops on a guy’s shoulder. He later gets pooped on by a mutant pigeon. He is seen multiple times covered in bird poop. The mutant pigeon poops multiple times on people and things in the last few episodes.

Violence - Lots of cartoon ninja fighting, much like the movie the show is based off of. Raphael talks a lot about fighting, punching, kicking people’s butts, etc. A character gets knocked out with a brick and another character tries to start a chainsaw next to someone who is tied up, but he is told to stop.

A character is told to cut off one of the turtles fingers as a “sample.”

A chicken gets hit by a car and is presumably killed. There is no blood or gore. There are some creatures with tentacles in episode seven and their tentacles get cut off, but there is no blood or gore. These creatures are in future episodes and are actually sea anemone.

In episode eight there is a robbery and people are held up by gang members with knifes and bricks. A girl is pulled under water briefly, but comes back to the surface. In episode ten some alligators chase some characters.

Sexual - A man is outside a hotel room or apartment talking to a woman behind the door. She tells him it is over. There is a hologram of a mutant and from the backside you can see it’s butt cheeks. In episode eight there is an older man and woman who seem to share a love connection by what they say and the way they look at each other.

A character that is a male seahorse mentions his wife and also mentions having fertility issues. His name is Mustang Sally, which seems to be a joke becuase male seahorses carry their babies.

Other - Splinter speaks in “vermin” to strengthen his relationship with his girlfriend, Scumbug. In one scene there is a little child sitting on a toilet and he has not pants on. No nudity takes place.

Overall:

Being a nerd, I will say that the series follows the idea of the comic’s tradition of the “Tales of…” series by having each episode focus on one or two characters. In the comics the “Tales of…” series often followed one turtle or other character in a stand along adventure that would later intersect or bring characters from that adventure into the main story. This series has two plot lines. One in the first seven episodes and one in the last five. It does a good job taking each turtle and having them be a part of an individual story in which the character learns and grows. The stories then interconnect.

If you didn’t like Mutant Mayhem, you probably won’t care for this show. The writers tend to use lots of stupid humor (which I laugh at), play into the ‘teen’ side of the turtles, and have a ton of pop culture references. The series, like the movie, tends to play more into the goofier side of the turtles instead of trying to ground it or have it appeal to adults.

All that said, it was a fun watch with my ten year old. We loved looking and listening for all the Ninja Turtle easter eggs in the show. The show is supposed to connect the first movie with the second movie that will release in the future. It does a good job giving us an idea of where characters are and what is happening in the down time.

Two things I didn’t like were that Rocksteady and Bebop are mentioned, but it never really tells us where they are and I didn’t really understand the radical changes to Bishop. I’m not talking about gender swapping Bishop, but the character in this show has no similairites to any of the Bishops before. She is more like a Baxter Stockman type character, not a Men In Black type agent. This is fine, it just makes me wonder why they didn’t come up with a new character or use a different one. The old Bishops never built robots.

Anyway, there are for sure better TMNT shows out there, but this one feels like a worthy continuation of Mutant Mayhem.