Series / Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation

The first and so far only live-action TV series starring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, produced by Saban Entertainment. It only lasted a single season of 26 episodes, from September 12, 1997 to March 20, 1998. While supposedly taking place after the 1987 cartoon series, in reality, it follows the live-action trilogy by New Line Cinema. Confused yet?

The series begins with some familiarity: The four iconic anthropomorphic reptiles do battle with the Foot Clan and its leader, the Shredder. The turtles' master, Splinter still aids his sons with advice, and Leonardo and Raphael bicker amongst themselves. Suddenly, Splinter's spirit is rat-napped by an army of dragon warriors called the Rank. Led by their ill-tempered dictator, the Dragon Lord, the Rank ruled the world before they were banished to the Realm of Dreams by a mystic mirror. Splinter's friend, Chung I, a Shinobi master from China, was killed by the Rank, but not before telling his apprentice Mei Pieh Chi of her origins.

Turns out Mei Pieh Chi is really a pet turtle from Chinatown in New York who was covered in mutagen and became an anthropomorphic, 5 foot tall, talking turtle. Mei returns to New York, meets the other four turtles, uses her Shinobi magic to Mind Rape the Shredder right off the bat, effectively leaving the Foot without a leader, and rescues Splinter's spirit. Unfortunately, she accidentally helps the Rank escape, who take up the mantle as the new major threat to the turtles. Mei joins the four brothers and is given the nickname Venus de Milo.

The show ended up in Disney's hands when they bought Saban Entertainment, but Saban Brands later got the show back, along with the other Toei collaborations (Power Rangers, VR Troopers, Beetleborgs, and Masked Rider), and in turn went to Hasbro when they bought Saban Brands. Meanwhile, the franchise itself is currently owned by Nickelodeon. The show was on Netflix for a while, and in Shout! Factory released the series on DVD in 2012. Prior to that, the series had previously seen a Region 2 DVD release, although in a heavily edited form (and under the "Hero Turtles" banner used in the UK at the time.) It also got back on the airwaves in 2013 via The Hub as that network was partly owned by Hasbro at the time until it rebranded to Discovery Family.

For more details on the TMNT franchise in general, visit the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles page. For a list of some of the characters in the series, and the tropes that apply to them, visit the franchise character page. For the old cartoon, see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987) for the second cartoon (which like this series aired on Fox) see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003), for the third cartoon see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012) and for the latest cartoon see Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Now With A Character Page Under Construction

No connection to the PC game Space Quest V: The Next Mutation.

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Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation provides examples of:

• Aborted Arc: There are some plot threads that ended up unresolved because of the show's cancellation.
  • Early episodes had the Turtles trying to find a way to reimprison the Dragon Lord and his army in the enchanted mirror they escaped from, but this was eventually forgotten.
  • "Enemy of My Enemy" ends with the implication of Oroku Saki becoming the Shredder again and re-forming the Foot Clan, but nothing came of it.
  • "The Good Dragon" suggested that there were many other good dragons still in the enchanted mirror and that they would one day emerge to overthrow their evil master.
  • Vam-Mi's two minions decide to stay in New York after she's turned to dust, and they make a point of keeping her remains, but they never appear in any other episodes.
  • Despite it being featured commonly in the first couple of episodes, the latter half of the series largely drops the idea of the turtles trying to win the affections of Venus, and she's treated more or less like any other turtle.
• Adapted Out: While they were planned to appear in the scrapped second season, this continuity stands out as the only major incarnation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to not feature Casey Jones and April O'Neil.^note In "East Meets West, Part 2", Splinter mentions he knows several good humans, likely referring to April and Casey.
• Action Girl: Venus de Milo.
• Actually Pretty Funny: In "Truce or Consequences", Donatello uses a lie detector he built on Leonardo, which ends up going off when Leonardo insists that he's never lied. This amuses Donatello and also turns out to tickle Splinter's funny bone, much to Leonardo's annoyance.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: In "Silver and Gold," Michelangelo reports his encounter with Silver, a yeti. The other mutants express disbelief that an ape could talk. Michelangelo himself expressed disbelief during said encounter until being reminded by Silver that he's a talking turtle.
• Arc Villain: The vampire Vam-Mi was the villain of the four-part episode "Unchain my Heart" until she is killed.
• Artistic License – Linguistics: In this show, the word "shinobi" is treated as being a kind of magician, with Venus being trained to use shinobi magic and having no experience in ninjutsu. Not only is "shinobi" a synonym for "ninja" in real life, but it also specifically means a male ninja.
• Big Bad: The show's main villain is the Dragon Lord, the ruler of Dragons, who were banished to the inside of an enchanted mirror 15,000 years ago. The Dragons used to rule the world before their imprisonment, and following their escape, Dragon Lord seeks to reclaim what was once his.
• Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Though mostly the subject of ape and monkey jokes (including his own), Silver is actually a yeti from the Himalayas.
• Blind and the Beast: Splinter is friends with an elderly blind man named Andre. The two of them play Chess together and Andre even lived with Splinter and the Turtles when he was evicted from his apartment.
• Blunt Metaphors Trauma: Venus. Well, she is new to American culture.
• Bottle Episode: "Going Ape" mostly takes place in an old abandoned house, with Raph being the only turtle to get involved with the action.
• Bowdlerize: For broadcast in the UK, a number of scenes were cut and/or edited, usually to remove references to or threats of violence or words that would be deemed "inappropriate"; for instance, in "King Wick", most instances of Wick calling Dragon Lord "weenie" were edited out.
• Bragging Theme Tune: Both of the introduction theme songs. The latter gets points for the "mess with green, it's gonna get mean" lyrics. The end credits song also reminds us that the "turtles don't lose". This is basically what happens when you have a TMNT show produced by the company that gave the world Power Rangers — another children's entertainment franchise known for bragging theme tunes.
• Broad Strokes: Certain visual cues such as Splinter missing an ear and the Turtles living in an abandoned subway station seems to imply that the series takes place after the live-action films by New Line Cinema (the subway set is even recycled from those films), but certain details (such as the Shredder still being alive, Michelangelo using tonfa instead of nunchucks, and April O'Neil and Casey Jones seeming to not even exist) suggest that the films' events may have happened differently.
• Canon Discontinuity: TMNT, which itself is considered by many involved to be a tenuous continuation of the live-action films, doesn't reference this series, not even subtly, and there's enough differences in continuity to make the two incompatible. According to the film's director Kevin Munroe, this wasn't an accident.
• Canon Foreigner: Venus is the most notable character created for this continuity, but there's also Dragon Lord, Wick, Dr. Quease, Silver and Bonesteel.
• Crossover: These versions of the Turtles appeared in Power Rangers in Space during the episodes "Save Our Ship" and "Shell Shock".
• Clip Show: The series had two clip show episodes.
  • "Like Brothers", which focuses on Raphael and Leonardo fighting, each one using clips to show the other's foibles, while the other turtles, mostly Venus, use clips to try and stop the fighting.
  • The final episode "Who Needs Her", where the Turtles reflect on their experiences with having Venus de Milo on their team.
• Clumsy Copyright Censorship: On the DVD releases, though the original theme song is scrubbed from the show proper, it does play on the front menu and in a music video.
• Co-Dragons: The Dragon Lord had three Dragons: A small dragon sorcerer named Wick, the Rank Lieutenant, and Dr. Quease. While Dragon Lord himself is literally a dragon, he is not an example of this trope.
• The Corrupter: Dragon Lord. He was once the only bad member of the Rank, until he turned the rest of them against mankind.
• Death by Origin Story: Chung I is killed by the Dragon Lord and tells Venus to go to New York on his deathbed.
• Denser and Wackier: Than the previous cartoon and film series.
• Draconic Humanoid: The Dragon Lord is from a dimension of draconic humanoids.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The first two episodes downplay the more cartoonish aspects the show would exhibit not long after, with just as many scenes played straight as there are comedic moments.
  • The first two episodes similarly tone down the over the top sound effects during the fight scenes, this is dropped almost instantly afterwards.
  • "East Meets West" and "The Staff of Bu-Ki" shows Donatello being supportive, or at least not as opposed, towards Venus's magic. He does not exhibit this trait later on, "The Enemy of My Enemy" in particular making him downright hostile towards it.
• Enemy Mine: In "Going Ape" Raph finds himself trapped in an old house with a Killer Gorilla on the loose and the Rank after him. He is forced into an uneasy alliance with Bonesteel until they can escape. Ultimately Raph earns the Ape's friendship when he saves them from the Rank and Bonesteel tries to double cross him.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Dr. Quease tries to invoke this by pointing out his method of destroying his nearly robotic clones of the Turtles is painless. Naturally, the Turtles disagree.
  • In "The Good Dragon" episode after The Rank Lieutenant informs The Dragon Lord that a Rank Foot Soldier stopped him from killing Venus; The Dragon Lord specifically reminds him to be sure of his accusation because " A fellow brother dragon's life is in your claws."
  • In the episode "King Wick" after Wick takes over and orders The Rank Foot Soldiers to call Dragon Lord a Weenie. The Rank Lieutenant refuses to do so. He changes his tune after Wick zaps him with eye laser beams.
  • In The 4 Part Episode series "Unchain My Heart" The Vampire Vam Mi goes on a bender at a Blood Bank. She steals and drinks at least a dozen Cold Plasma Packs; and her minions chastise her for doing so saying it's not dignified and vampires should hunt and kill their food.
• Evil Knockoff: Dr. Quease creates evil Cyborg clones of the Turtles in the episode "Mutant Reflections".
• Expository Theme Tune: It really wouldn't be TMNT without a theme song explaining the premise, but the Next Mutation theme gets major points just for starting with the line "FOUR GREEN TURTLES!"
  • Followed by - "Check it out, another one found, made her way to Chinatown..."
• Eye Scream:
  • In "Mutant Reflections", Dr. Quease apparently tore out one of his eyes to use it in a scouting robot. He later has to destroy the eye to get Venus' DNA. This just seems to merely annoy him since he just clones a new one.
  • The fourth part of "East Meets West" had Dragon Lord threaten to suck out the eyes of one of his minions.
• Eye Spy: Dr. Quease's scouting robot uses his eye as the camera.
• The Farmer and the Viper: In "Enemy of My Enemy", Splinter finds that the Shredder has become a vagabond since his defeat in the series premiere. Against the Turtles' wishes, Splinter takes Oroku Saki in and tries to rehabilitate his old enemy. By the episode's end, the Shredder isn't the least bit grateful that the Turtles begrudgingly helped him out and presumably gets started on preparing his next attempt at defeating them.
• Five-Episode Pilot: The series premiered with a five-part episode titled "East Meets West". The five episodes set up various aspects of the show's plot, including the Dragons' escape from the enchanted mirror, Venus joining the turtles team, and the defeat of the Shredder.
• Flanderization: Michaelanglo's "Surfer Dude" personality is amped up to the point of him becoming either The Ditz to Too Dumb to Live for this series. Except in a few episodes where he's The Only Sane Man of the group or has at least one reasonable thing to say in spite of his rampant idiocy.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The "Unchain my Heart" episodes had a vampire named Vam-Mi as the main antagonist, but she briefly summons some kind of elder vampire god to ask him for help.
• Gretzky Has the Ball: Occurs in the episode "Meet Dr. Quease." Venus is new to American sports, so after getting a strike in bowling, she incorrectly calls it terms like "goal," "hole in one," and "touchdown."
• Groin Attack: A particularly sadistic one in The Good Dragon episode occurred when The Rank Lieutenant has Venus cornered and tries sawing her in half with a laser starting at her crotch. She could have moved because he started at the ground and worked his way up the wall; but she just stood there and let it almost happen. She was only saved because a turn coat Rank Foot Soldier stepped in and tossed The Lieutenant aside
• Guys Smash, Girls Shoot: All of the turtles are skilled in fighting at close range but while the male turtles use melee weapons Venus uses either magic or smoke bombs in conjunction with her martial arts.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: After his Mook–Face Turn The Rank Foot Soldier who saved Venus from The Rank Lieutenant and deserts The Rank; decides to kidnap Raphael and briefly considers even outright states his intention to kill him to prove his loyalty to The Dragon Lord and the rest of The Rank. He fully joins the side of good when he willingly surrenders' himself to The Dragon Lord and walks back into the enchanted mirror that had imprisoned The Rank for millennia.
• Hopeless with Tech: Leonardo's attempt to use Donatello's tracking equipment results in him blowing up Donnie's computer.
• Hypno Fool: The episode "Sewer Crash" has Silver use a computer to hypnotize Donatello into stealing stuff for him whenever he hears the word "banana". Saying "banana" again undoes the hypnosis.
• Hypothetical Fight Debate: In "Mutant Reflections," Raph and Mikey debate what would happen if Batman and Superman had a fight. Raph thinks Batman would win, while Mikey thinks Superman has the advantage.
• I Ate WHAT?!: In part three of "East Meets West", Leonardo is grossed out when Venus informs him that the eggs he's eating on the Turtles' picnic are pigeon eggs.
• I Call It "Vera": Bonesteel has many weapons with girl's names, such as Mary Lou the crossbow and Susanna the whip. The Turtles even lampshade it, with Leonardo asking what kind of weirdo would name his weapons and Donatello coming to the conclusion that Bonesteel has an infantile attachment to inanimate objects.
• Idiosyncratic Wipes: Scene transitions are done using ninja weapons.
• Idiot Ball: Donatello in "Trusting Dr. Quease" decides to try working with the titular doctor after he releases the Turtles from a trap due to what is obviously an accident, shortly after expressing his will to dissect them all. Donatello spends the rest of the episode in Quease's lab, only avoiding capture due to the mad doctor's incompetence with his traps. It's only when he's being drug away by the other turtles as he narrowly escapes yet another capture attempt that Donatello understands he's got it all wrong.
• I Have No Idea What I'm Doing: Stated verbatim by Wick in "King Wick" after the Dragon Lord forces him to whip up a potion to restore his powers.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: Slight variant in "Silver and Gold."
  Leonardo: We're ninja, not Power Rangers.
• Inconsistent Dub: This actually happens a few times throughout the show's UK release, as occasionally certain things that usually get cut out (like Mikey or Don yelling "Shotgun!" during the Stock Footage) are left in. For instance, when "King Wick" was broadcast in the UK, the episode was edited to cut most scenes of Wick calling Dragon Lord "Weenie". However, at least one instance of "Weenie" was accidentally left in.
• Insistent Terminology: Venus is not a ninja, she is a shinobi. (For Japanese speakers this very much Distinction Without a Difference.)
• Insult Friendly Fire: In "The Guest", Andre refers to the landlord who evicted him as a rat, unaware that his friend Splinter is a mutated rat because of his blindness.
• Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Chung I is a shinobi master... despite being Chinese.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: Power Rangers in Space crossed over with this series in the episodes "Save Our Ship" and "Shell Shock".
• Kid-Appeal Character: Mikey
• Killed Off for Real:
  • Chung I is permanently killed off via Death by Origin Story.
  • Arc Villain Vam-Mi stands out as being the only villain on the show to be permanently defeated, as she turned to ash when the Turtles prevented her from restoring her heart in time. Since her minions made a point of keeping her remains, it's possible she was intended to be revived in the future if there had been more than one season.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: Venus.
• Lady of War: Venus again.
• Lame Pun Reaction: In the third part of "Unchain My Heart", Donatello makes a bad pun only he finds hilarious when he studies Vam-Mi's heart and asks Venus if she knows how to beat the heart. The other Turtles walk away in disgust.
  Donatello: Get it? Beat this heart? Heartbeat?
• Left Hanging: The series ends without any resolution toward the ongoing conflict with the Rank.
• Licensed Game: There was a Tiger Handheld LCD game based on this show as well as a PlayStation title that ended up becoming Vapor Ware shortly after it was announced.
• Lie Detector: Donatello once invented a lie detector in the episode "Truce or Consequences". He used it to see if their enemy, Wick, was serious about defecting. However, Wick was also gushing about Michaelangelo's radio show at the same time he said he wanted to defect, so the lie detector read his statement as true, causing the Turtles to walk into a trap. It didn't help that Wick genuinely was a fan of the radio show to the annoyance of Dragon Lord.
• Literal-Minded: Venus tends to take figures of speech literally due to her naivete.
  Venus: I'm feeling unnerved by all the attention I am getting from the boys.
  Michelangelo: Who could blame them? You're some babe!
  Venus: Babe? I'm exactly as old as you are! And one boy said I was quite a fox. You'd think he'd got his species mixed up?
• Mad Scientist: Dr. Quease is enlisted by the Rank to study the cause of the Turtles' mutation and he has a pretty deranged fixation on experimenting on the mutated terrapins.
• Malicious Misnaming: The Turtles often refer to Bonesteel as Bonehead.
• Market-Based Title: It's called Hero Turtles: The Next Mutation in the UK.
• Men Are Generic, Women Are Special: In "The Good Dragon", Venus is almost killed by The Rank Lieutenant. She's only saved when a turn coat Rank Foot Soldier comes out of nowhere and tosses The Lieutenant aside. He even asked her if she was injured before Raphael dropkicks him. Later Venus seeks him out to thank him and get an explanation for why he helped her. He tries brushing her off by rudely telling her to go away before explaining that thousands of years ago all of The Rank except for The Dragon Lord were good and lived in harmony with humans. Raphael comes in and starts fighting with the former Rank Foot Soldier who then decides to kidnap Raphael by tossing him in a dumpster and hitching it to his motorcycle. Later while he's holding Raph hostage he even verbally states that he plans to kill Raphael and beg to be accepted back into The Ranks of The Rank. It's quite likely that the only motivation this Rank Foot Solider had for saving Venus and then deserting The Rank is the fact that she's a girl.
• Monster of the Week: The Unknowables gang from the episode "Turtles' Night Out" stand out as being the only antagonists in the series who only appeared once.
• Mook Lieutenant: The Rank Lieutenant, lead soldier of the Rank, differs from the other dragon soldiers in that he wears a magenta veil over his mouth in contrast to the others' purple veils.
• Mouth Taped Shut: In "Turtles Night Out", Bonesteel uses duct tape to seal a pizzeria owner's mouth shut and ties him up so he can take over the place and lure Michelangelo in.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: The episode "The Good Dragon" featured a member of the Rank who was benevolent. In the end, the Dragon Lord attempts to imprison him in the enchanted mirror, but the soldier does it himself, but not before the good dragon makes a vow to find other dragons like him to amass a rebellion against the Dragon Lord. Like many other plot threads, this never got resolved.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Several to the 1987 cartoon: The turtles wear buckles with their initials on them as well as bands on their arms and legs matching the colors of their bandannas, their taste for weird pizza toppings, and they ride in a van with a license plate that reads "TRTL PWR."(Turtle Power!)
  • Some of the dance moves of the turtles in the intro and the outro are recreations of their dance moves from the intro of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.
  • In the first episode, Leo and Raph are introduced, as they argue, only by their shadows on the walls, similar to how Leo, Mike and Don were introduced in the first live-action movie.
• Nature Tinkling: When Splinter informs his blind friend Andre that he needs to go in part one of the five-part premiere episode "East Meets West", Andre misinterprets Splinter's statement as saying that he needs to use the bathroom and replies that since they're the only people around, he can just use a bush.
• Non-Mammal Mammaries: Venus is a turtle with breasts, but it's more like her shell is curved in.
• Non-Mammalian Hair: Dragon Lord has visible hair when he's not wearing his helmet.
• Not Blood Siblings: Not the first continuity to suggest it, but the one that is remembered for outright saying it. Apparently, they made a point of saying this specifically so Venus could play love-interest to the brothers.
• Our Vampires Are Different: The four-part episode "Unchain My Heart" dealt with the Turtles having to contend with a vampire named Vam-Mi who was out to restore her heart so she can fully recover, aided by her two childlike servants Bing and Chi-Chu. They seem to be based on the Chinese mythos with some elements of the American interpretation of vampires thrown in (afraid of sunlight, can turn into bats, etc).
• Painting the Medium: At one point, Leo almost seems startled by the Sword Idiosyncratic Wipe and rushes out of frame.
• Power-Up Food: The Dragon Lord wants to eat the turtles, so he can have the "magic" that made them what they are, believing it will make him stronger.
• Retcon: The show retconned the established backstory of the Turtles. They are no longer siblings (though, this is inconsistently applied throughout the show, sometimes, they would refer to each other as family, otherwise they would say they are not related and are like family). And there was a fifth turtle with them in the glass jar all along. Splinter just missed her and she floated away.
• Re-Release Soundtrack: The DVD releases and Netflix had to replace the show's theme music because of copyright issues. Despite this, the Shout releases include the original theme in the menus and a music video that contains it.
• Right Behind Me: Zig-zagged in "Truce or Consequences". Wick calls Michelangelo during his radio show Sewer Hour as part of a plan by the Dragon Lord to lure Mikey into a trap. To make it sound convincing that Wick is on Michelangelo's side, he makes several insults directed at the Dragon Lord, who turns out to be standing behind Wick when the call ends. Dragon Lord isn't at all happy about Wick insulting him, but Wick saves his skin by explaining that he had to make it sound convincing. Wick later clarifies to Michelangelo that while he and the Rank legitimately do like his radio show, their leader still wants to eat him.
• Sarcastic Clapping: In the "Unchain My Heart" four-parter, Venus botches a magic spell that was supposed to fire a blast of energy at Vam-Mi and her minions Bing and Chi-Chu. The three vampires respond by giving insincere applause.
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: Doors leading characters to improbable pathways is used in "Going Ape".
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Dragon Lord and his army of dragon warriors were imprisoned in an enchanted mirror before breaking free in the Five-Episode Pilot. The "Unchain My Heart" episodes introduced a vampire named Vam-Mi, who was locked in her casket by Chung I 17 years before the events of the series.
• Secondary Adaptation: This 1997 live-action television series used the technology of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) film trilogy (which synthesized elements from the original comics and the 1987 cartoon) to continue the storyline after the events of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.
• Shout-Out:
  • In the "Unchain My Heart" episodes, the villain Simon Bonesteel reveals that he has hunted vampires in addition to endangered animals. A vampire hunter named Simon? Now, why does that ring a bell?
  • In "Like Brothers", one of the sets of weapons Leo and Raph use during their duel are Lightsabers.
  • This exchange in the Five-Episode Pilot:
    Donatello: Uh, Excuse me, Dragon Lord? I have a riddle for you.
    Dragon Lord: Surely you jest?
    Donatello: Don't call me "Shirley".
• Sixth Ranger: Venus is introduced as the fifth Ninja Turtle.
• The Starscream: Wick became this to the Dragon Lord in the episode "King Wick" after accidentally drinking a potion that gives him new powers. He uses his new powers to steal Dragon Lord's powers and become the new leader of the Rank, but eventually is tricked into losing his powers.
• Stock Footage:
  • "East Meets West, Part 3" uses the opening clip from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.
  • Within the series itself, the Activation Sequence featuring the motorcycle and Hummer get played a lot.
• Stock Sound Effects: There are many, often ill-fitting, laced throughout the show. Usually during fight scenes, the opening credits, and almost every few seconds to the point of obnoxiousness.
• Stupid Sacrifice: What happens to the random Rank Foot Soldier who saves Venus from a Cruel and Unusual Death at the hands of The Rank Lieutenant is supposed to be extremely dramatic. He willingly gives himself up to The Dragon Lord and walks back into the enchanted mirror that had imprisoned The Rank for centuries. But he really didn't have to do that. It was a pretty dumb thing to do. He does try to justify it by saying he'll be back with an army of good dragons to fight Dragon Lord the next time they encounter each other, however.
• Surrounded by Idiots:
  • The Shredder is shown to have little patience for his Foot Ninjas' screw-ups in the series premiere.
  • Silver constantly bemoans the idiocy of his henchmen.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Dragon Lord has many traits and characteristics in common with The Shredder. Dr. Quease is also similar to Baxter Stockman, namely in that both are mad scientists. Simon Bonesteel is this series' version of Jack Marlin, another big game hunter from the Mirage comics who tends to give his favorite weapons female names..
• Title Theme Tune: Though the words "Next Mutation" aren't in the song, it does mirror the omission of the words "Teenage Mutant" from the title.
• Theme Tune Rap: The original opening and ending themes were raps, but the Netflix and DVD releases had to replace them because of copyright issues.
• Toilet Humor: Some of the sound effects are rather disgusting belching and wet snot effects.
  • "East Meets West, Part 1" has Splinter tell Andre that he has to go, Andre interprets this as Splinter needing to use the bathroom and tells him to use a bush as he leaves.
  • "King Wick" has Dragon Lord give Wick his own personalized throne — an actual toilet ripped out of a bathroom. Wick spends a fair amount of screentime both on and in it and even comments on how it fits him.
• Toku: Despite being a western series, it uses live effects like a typical Tokutatsu. It may be due to being made by Saban, the same company that adapted Super Sentai into Power Rangers. Dragon Lord himself even looks like a Power Rangers villain.
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: While there was rarely a distinction on whether the Turtles were brothers by blood relation or by adoption, this series notably made it so that none of them were related by blood so that the male Turtles could have Ship Tease with Venus de Milo and have Venus established as mutating with the other four before being separated from them without raising incestuous implications.
• Vampire Episode: The "Unchain My Heart" four parter, where the turtles have to deal with a vampire and her child-like minions trying to find her heart.
• Vampires Hate Garlic: One of the weapons Donatello makes to prepare the Turtles for a battle against Vam-Mi and her minions Bing and Chi-Chu in "Unchain My Heart" is a squirt gun loaded with garlic juice.
• Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: The show has Dragon Lord a large imposing villain, and his puny minion Wick.
• Villainous BSoD: The Shredder, post-Mind Rape.
• Vocal Dissonance: Vam-Mi's minion Bing looks like a young boy, but has a deep and gravelly voice.
• Your Costume Needs Work: In "Turtles' Night Out", the Turtles hold a rave to raise money for animal welfare and pretend they're humans in turtle costumes. When confronted by the Unknowbales, one of the thugs remarks that the Turtles look like they were ripped off by the store they bought their costumes from.

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