Upon their return to the lair after a day of dealing with Shredder, the Turtles go to sleep, wishing that they were never born in the first place, when they wake up in what appears to be an alternate world where the Turtles never existed in the first place. In that world, Shredder is now the ruler of the world, Bebop and Rocksteady are still humans, April O'Neil and Irma are now servants to Bebop and Rocksteady, and humans and mutants are now mutual enemies of each other because of Krang and his Dimension X allies. On top of all this, everything in this world is falling apart.
Tropes:
- All Just a Dream: As most of the episode turns out to be.
- Alternate Timeline: What Donatello believes that they have stepped into until near the episode's end.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: An Aesop of the episode.
- The Chains of Commanding: Played for Laughs. All throughout the episode we hear about how Shredder rules the world but never actually see him until the end, with the Turtles spending most of the episode fighting his mooks and Krang. At the very end the Turtles meet him in person... and find out he's miserable as the ruler of the world, considering all the paperwork and responsibility involved. Upon hearing the Turtles come from another world where he doesn't rule, he gets down on his knees and begs the Turtles to take him with them.
- Crapsack World: Shredderville doesn't look very good when the Turtles first appear in it and it only gets worse from there.
- Downer Ending: Played with. The Turtles nearly fall to their doom, with only April and Irma attempting to pull them up... until they realize what the whole thing really is.
- Dystopia Is Hard: The Shredder of that dream's alternate world finds out that running the world is so difficult, he would rather be in the world that the Turtles came from where he was never in charge of anything.
- Egopolis: Shredderville. He even has his face appearing on that world's currency.
- Enfant Terrible: Shredder, as shown in the clips of his life in this alternate world. He is seen angrily breaking toys as a baby and picking fights with other kids when he was a child.
- Evil Overlord: Shredder in the dream's alternate reality. As it turns out, not a very good overlord.
- False Reassurance: This exchange from the episode, when the Turtles encounter the unmutated Bebop and Rocksteady.Human Rocksteady: Turtles, huh? We like turtles.Michelangelo: That's a relief.Human Bebop: Yeah. We like you for lunch!
- Fantastic Racism: Towards mutants, due to Shredder using them as scapegoats for all the problems.
- Fascist, but Inefficient: Shredderville is a terrible place to live, not because Shredder is evil, but because he is incompetent. He didn't notice the repair order for the Technodrome because he had an endless list of repair orders.
- It's a Wonderful Plot: The Turtles were never born. As a result, Shredder took over the world, and his ineptitude as a ruler turned into a Crapsack World.
- Shared Dream: All four of the turtles had the same dream that comprises this episode, a situation which they lampshade the improbability of when they realize it.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Or in this case, rat. Splinter is absent from Shredderville. It could be that he died as Hamato Yoshi from the mutagen.
