Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Season 1
5 listed hours · 1987–1996 · Syndication
From the desk
How this season is filed
Cowabunga as a business plan: four pizza-eating sewer mutants, a rat sensei, and a toy glut that owned late-decade Christmas lists. The cartoon sanded the Eastman/Laird comics into kid-friendly martial-arts slapstick and accidentally minted a franchise religion. The 1987 series is the voice, the theme, and merchandising as plot.
TV Flash files Season 1 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987–1996) on Syndication as the first listed season of 10 — 5 listed hours, 1987-12-14–1987-12-18 from “Turtle Tracks” (S01E01) to “Shredder & Splintered” (S01E05). Titles, dates, and synopses on file — no invented recaps.
Desk essentials in this season
- S01E01 Turtle Tracks
Turtle Tracks is four pizza-eating mutants and a rat sensei: the 1987 voice, the theme, merchandising as plot, Eastman/Laird sanded into slapstick.
- S01E02 Enter the Shredder
Enter the Shredder is night-two villain: Shredder as the brand antagonist, kid-friendly martial-arts already a Christmas-list religion.
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S01E01 Turtle Tracks
The Turtles meet April O'Neil for the first time. Splinter explains the origins of himself and the Turtles.
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S01E02 Enter the Shredder
The Turtles find out about the Technodrome and try to find it. Splinter finds the Technodrome and ends up getting kidnapped by Shredder. When the Turtles find the Technodrome, Shredder tells the Turtles who is responsible for covering them in the ooze that mutated them.
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S01E03 A Thing About Rats
A scientist named Baxter Stockman has created a robot meant for hunting rats, called Mouser. Shredder mass produces the robot and programs them to hunt the biggest rat in New York - Splinter. Shredder wants Baxter dead because he knows too much. Michaelangelo finds out about Krang.
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S01E04 Hot-Rodding Teenagers from Dimension X
The Turtles take over what's left of Baxter Stockman's equipment, to help them track Shredder and the Technodrome and create the turtle Van. Shredder opens a portal to Dimension X in hopes to obtain new weapons. Instead, The Neutrinos - Three Teenage Hot-Rodders, and two of Krang's militant Stone Warriors, General Traag and one soldier, come through.
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S01E05 Shredder & Splintered
Shredder creates a retro-mutagen gun that can undo any mutation and dares the Turtles to come get it. As Donatello tries to create a fuel source for the vehicle that The Nutrinos left behind, Splinter and the Turtles eventually make their way to the Technodrome just in time to discover Krang in his new body.
More from the 1980s.