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Fridge / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)

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Fridge Brilliance:

  • The Turtles' frequent use of Totally Radical dialogue is often mocked. However, in the first episode, Donatello tells April that they learnt all about humans by watching a lot of TV — where they probably picked up the dialogue.
  • The Turtles' interesting tastes in pizza actually make a lot of sense when you realize they probably don't have human taste buds or tongues.
    • And they've never been around human beings until they met April, so they probably don't know what food combinations are considered socially acceptable.

Fridge Horror:

  • Baxter Stockman's demise. Probably one of the worst cases of And I Must Scream ever.
  • The organization H.A.V.O.C. from season eight becomes somewhat disturbing when it is revealed that they capture people and turn them into mutants. Some of the H.A.V.O.C. members may have also been humans that were captured and mutated, then forced to serve Titanus against their will.
    • Also from Season Eight: Krang basically committed planetary genocide (for incredibly petty reasons) if what Bezerko said is true. Talk about a Not-So-Harmless Villain!
  • "Donatello's Duplicate" becomes a bit more unsettling if you consider that Donatello's clone had free will. Donatello just destroyed a living, sentient being.
    • A Fridge Tear Jerker; it's been pointed out at least once by a fan (fanfic here) that the clone had Donnie's intelligence, memories and skills so why wouldn't they have had similar opinions? This could mean that the other turtles might genuinely believe that any insults the clone hurled at them are genuinely what Donnie thinks of them.
  • More Fridge Horror from the Red Sky seasons occur in the ninth and tenth seasons, which reveals that the Turtles' mutagen has become unstable, causing them to periodically become monstrous behemoths. If longtime viewers remember the episode "Michelangelo Meets Mondo Gecko", where Mondo Gecko was a gecko exposed to the same mutagen that mutated the Turtles, this means that somewhere Mondo Gecko is also becoming a monstrous beast every now and then. It doesn't help that the Turtles don't seem to remember Mondo Gecko and we only see them cure themselves and try to cure their new ally Carter.
    • Don't forget Bebop and Rocksteady. They may have been eaten by the creature that destroyed the Technodrome in "Turtle Trek" since we never see them again after that episode.
    • Actually, we do.
    • Debatable, considering that the Red Sky seasons don't seem to be canon to Turtles Forever and still has the 1987 Turtles and their enemies depicted as silly characters with wacky mannerisms.
  • "Shredderville" had the Turtles end up in an alternate timeline where they never existed and the Shredder succeeded in conquering New York. The Fridge Horror is that Splinter is not seen in the reality, and then you remember that Shredder dumped the mutagen down the sewers because he intended to kill Hamato Yoshi...
  • The uptight, gullible original elders of The Foot Clan were either killed off by the student they placed in charge when they kicked Yoshi out, or were forced to watch as their clan's members were replaced by soulless machines and all their works were made the front/vanguard for an alien invasion.
  • The Shredder threatens to our heroes by telling them that he was going to dine on turtle soup. Sure, it sounds silly, until you think about what that means. He basically said he was going to kill, cook, and eat our heroes.
  • The Rat King. Not his appearance, what he does or any of his traits, his name. If you don't know what a real life rat king is, do yourself a favor and do not look up the answer on wikipedia.
  • The first encounter with the Foot Clan is this. In the scene, the Turtles are assaulted by people wearing uniforms that they have not met yet. Raphael stabs a mook in the stomach, revealing it's robotic origins. This of course, allows the violence of the show, as only inanimate robots are ever harmed. The horror sets in when you realize that Raphael just stabbed a guy. If it hadn't been a robot...


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