Nightmare Fuel / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)

WATCH OUT FOR SHREDDER!

This iteration of the turtles is interesting, for one it was produced by 4kids, a company who was notorious for its heavy censorship and editing practices. And second, it is the first and currently only animated adaptation to be faithful to the original comics. While the show still did its best balancing out these aspects, it still manages to get away with a lot of dark and disturbing moments, even for a kids show, with few exceptions - one of which was an episode full of so much Body Horror that it was taken off the air. Needless to say, this show will make you know how much Darker and Edgier it is.

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

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General

• THE SHREDDER. Everything about him. An extremely drastic departure from the comedic and bumbling Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain that he was portrayed as in the 80s cartoon. He is one of the rare cases of a cartoon villain that makes good on his promise to punish someone for their failures. So you failed him? Killing you will be the more merciful option. Ch'rell is also an Ax-Crazy Omnicidal Maniac who is also a skilled fighter.

Season One

• At the end of "Attack of the Mousers", Baxter Stockman is the unfortunate victim that ends up losing an eye after failing the Shredder too many times. He's shown with an eyepatch the next episode, and it gets worse from there with each failure.
• The fates of the people mutated into monsters by the Foot in the "Notes From The Underground" series. They were kidnapped, turned into monsters, imprisoned in glass tubes for awhile, and then escaped. They gradually are going to go insane and turned into mindless monsters. And when they lead the turtles to a forbidden area of the underground, the still-sane ones start disappearing one by one.
  • The Apocalyptic Log left by the lead Foot scientist is straight out of a sci-fi horror movie. The test subjects are completely unwilling but have no choice, and can only scream in agony as they are injected with the serum that transforms them into monsters, their human voice soon transitioning into an inhuman roar. The lead scientist even notes that while the patients are in discomfort, this is being regarded as a minor annoyance.
  • The final log has the scientist frantically reporting that the monsters are still intelligent and are now rampaging and killing their captors in revenge. The scientist screams about how the monsters have been watching and studying them the whole time, waiting for the right moment to escape. And then he's finally cornered by multiple monsters, ending the transmission.
  • After finishing this final log, Mikey understandably has a Freak Out and quotes another horror movie line that applies to their situation: "GET ME OUTTA HERE!" Raph and the others agree with him and decide the fun's over and it's time to book it back to the surface, before immediately being cornered by three mutant monsters.
  • The monsters who have already lost their minds receive a lot of build-up and they are well worth the hype. We only hear their roars, and then see their shadows approaching. Quarry frantically tells the Turtles their weapons will do no good thanks to the monsters' sheer size and strength. Raph, Stonebiter, and Razorfist run to try to hold the door, but they do nothing but delay the inevitable. The monsters are also more monstrous versions of the heroic trio, and by monstrous we also mean more terrifying.
  • When the Turtles and Quarry's group agree to team up and head to the world below, Stonebiter and Razorfist cower, but Quarry gently asks them to be brave. Mikey points out that the group is heading for a place that even monsters are afraid of.
• The Shredder trapping the Turtles, Splinter, Casey, and April in April's antique shop closet by setting the place on fire using the gas pipes. It set up a big two-part episode cliff-hanger for the show, which no doubt scared a lot of kids back in the day. Even worse, when they initially aired, this was the exact moment the show ended up going on hiatus.
• The scene where the Shredder gets decapitated, and then he picks his head up and walks away! This is before he's revealed to be an Utrom, so it leaves viewers wondering 'what the shell IS he?!'

Season Two

• Secret Origins Part 2 has the ending shot of the Shredder, alive and well after a decapitation, and the shocked reactions of everyone, especially Leonardo, aghast at just how the hell he survived. The Shredders response is appropriately bone chilling.
  Shredder: (Evil Chuckle) You merely separated my head from my body. A courtesy I will gladly extend to you all!
• The first part of "Rouge in the House" has Hun’s welcome gift: It’s Baxter Stockman. That’s not why this moment is here though rather it’s Hun revealing that to get Baxter’s cooperation, he issues controlled shocks to the doctor. A disgusted Karai tells her master to stop the torment but Shredder being himself coldly rebuffs her.
  Shredder: Do not presume to question me Karai! Stockman is a perfect example to those who betray me! Is that clear?

Season Three

• The opening arc of the season shows how vastly unprepared the Earth would be if a full-blown alien invasion occurred. The Triceraton Republic completely outclasses everything and anything at Earth's disposal. The military? Minor annoyances for the Triceraton foot soldiers. The fully assembled Justice Force? All easily defeated by their superior weapons. The full nuclear arsenal of the planet? Completely fails to breach the Triceratons' shields. The failed nuclear strike is when the President of the United States surrenders, conceding that the Earth has lost.
  • As the failed nukes go off in space and provide a haunting light show to the planet, the Shredder is asked by Karai what they will do. He simply says they will wait and see what they can do. The Shredder is a warmongering crime lord who as we will later learn has wreaked havoc across the universe, but even he knows he can't afford to make a wrong move in the face of a full-scale Triceraton invasion. That the Shredder refuses to budge after seeing the Triceratons defeat Earth's defenses proves how dangerous the Triceratons are.
• Ultimate Drako, a gnarly fusion of Ve-Sama and Drako after they fell into the cosmic rift they unwittingly unleashed at the end of "The Big Brawl". Splinter had hoped that with the endless wonders of the multiverse they might pull through, but with the state they're in, mangled together by eldritch forces of the cosmos, they might've wished they were dead. And they get their hands on Lord Simultaneous's Time Scepter, ready to wreak havoc for their revenge.
• The episode "The Darkness Within", which is basically a Lovecraft Lite story in a kids cartoon. There is a mansion in New York that has been there as long as anyone can remember. One day, Angel, the troubled girl the Turtles saved from joining the Purple Dragons early in the series, tells them that her brother found a gold coin during his construction work in the area, and has been missing for three days after going there to look for more, and asks the Turtles to find him. Turns out the mansion was built on top of an Eldritch Abomination that draws in followers by preying on their greed, and it has been luring in victims to feed on for centuries. The Turtles are trapped in their own nightmares, and when they manage to escape their torment, they find a chamber filled with thousands of skeletal remains, trapped in pods like theirs. Leo manages to kill it with a magic spear, and everyone escapes with their lives. Seems like a happy ending, right? Until a nearby payphone starts ringing, just as a random pedestrian walks by...
  Voice On the Phone: COME TO ME. SERVE ME AND I WILL GIVE YOU POWER AND WEALTH. I WILL GIVE YOU THE WORLD. the man's eyes starts to glow red, and then he laughs evilly
  • Oh, and said abomination's design? Basically Cthulu, only blood red.
  • The Turtles nightmares:
    • Leonardo dreams that Splinter had sensed his peril and come to rescue him, only to be mortally wounded by the Abomination. Then Leo dreams that Splinter has turned evil and he accidentally kills him.
    • Donatello dreams of running into Angel, who runs off and jumps into the abyss.
    • Michelangelo dreams that Leo has joined with the Abomination and wants him to follow.
    • Raphael dreams of running into what appears to be the Shredder... until he manages to knock off the helmet. Rather than Oroku Saki's face, Raph sees his own underneath.
  • Oh, and did we mention that the basement leading to said chamber is inhabited by living, screaming skeletons? That's right, the gateway to the chamber where the abomination lives is teeming with the undead.
  • As Donnie translates, the gateway has an inscription in Italian: ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE. Yup, you just saw the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles descend into HELL ITSELF!
  • And then there's the fact that there's this old guy living in the mansion that was built on top of said abomination. While he has the decency of being kind to the turtles and Angel, it turns out he's none other than C.F. Vopelhart, who's been continuing to live for centuries since he started letting the creature control him. He's regretted letting it control him, but he hasn't been able to kill it, and now he's relying on the turtles to do the job for him. When they finally do it, he rots away into a skeleton, lets loose one last scream, and crumbles to dust (at least he's happy that he's finally free from the creature's control, of course).
  • One of the most disturbing moments is seeing Leonardo, traditionally the most steadfast of the brothers, become briefly corrupted by the tentacled monstrosity. For a second, he tosses the spear aside and grins evilly, his eyes glowing red (this is even Harsher in Hindsight if you recall his corruption in City Fall.)
• The Bad Future, as shown in Same As It Never Was. The world is a dystopian nightmare, the Shredder has conquered the Utroms and spread his evil across the universe, the Turtles have split up and lost all hope, Splinter and Casey are dead, and April is one of the handful of people still desperately fighting as part of the resistance. By the time the episode is over, EVERYONE except Don and April are dead, including Shredder and Karai.
  • The Shredder's colossal new exosuit. What it lacks in speed it makes up for in a huge arsenal of ranged and melee weapons, and Ch'Rell's Utrom face has grown wiry and gnarled, and he's wearing a Shredder helmet on his Utrom body. He's a pure nightmare to look at.
  • Hun is living a miserable life fused to Stockman. While the doctor is at least being productive as The Smart Guy of the resistance, Hun has lost his strength and ability to fight, rendering him a decrepit, depressed mess. The pair join the Turtles and April for the assault on the Shredder, and Hun races to his old master, and begs to be allowed to serve him again, while Stockman cries for him to stop and run for it. Ch'Rell is completely unmoved and declares that killing the two is just an extra treat for him, and he stomps the two to death under his exosuit's foot, grinning wickedly.
  • Shredder's death: Torn in pieces by a sonic drill.
  • Even though this Bad Future is saved from the Shredder, the horrors of it should still linger in the viewers' minds given that only two episodes later, we get to the "Exodus" two-parter, in which the Shredder tries to leave Earth to restart his campaign of terror on the universe. This episode is why the Turtles and Splinter agree to sacrifice their own lives if it means stopping the Shredder from doing so. Don got a taste of the future that will come to pass should they fail, raising the stakes and then some.
• Leatherhead's Big Damn Heroes moment in "Bishop's Gambit". Just as the turtles are about to be executed by Bishop's goons, Leatherhead shows up, very angry after the sound wave the soldiers activated agitated him. As the soldiers crap themselves in terror, Leatherhead lunges at the camera, and all we hear after the screen blacks out is the sounds of ripping and screaming. Thankfully, we see no blood in the next scene, but we can only assume he killed them in a very messy fashion.
• Bishop getting impaled in "Bishop's Gambit".
• For the final battle between the Turtles and Ch'Rell, the latter holds nothing back. Family-Unfriendly Violence abounds to show that this battle is for keeps.
  • Splinter pushes his sons out of the way when Shredder takes some loose, cut wires out of a panel in the ship, and is electrocuted for several seconds, badly burning his fur and leaving him charred and unconscious.
  • Though Karai didn't mean to do it, Ch'Rell kicks Leo into her katana, impaling him with a nauseating squelch as he looks stunned and saddened, before he collapses. This attack also leaves permanent damage to Leo's shell until the redesign in Fast Forward.
  • Raph tries to run to punish Karai for her part in Leo's stabbing, but the Shredder gets a hold of him, and nearly breaks his back with deadly efficiency. It's over in just a few seconds, and Raph is taken out of the fight.
  • Mikey tries to fight the Shredder, who violently kicks his knee the wrong way, before pounding him to the ground.
  • Finally, Don is quickly overwhelmed and suffers a nasty chop to his neck, and he weakly whimpers as he collapses. And the Shredder simply laughs maniacally, surrounded by the incapacitated bodies of his enemies.
• The Shredder's eventual fate after the Turtles foil his plans to escape Earth and take his war to the Utroms: He's exiled to an ice asteroid belt in deep space, far from any life-bearing worlds, where he'll remain alone for eternity. Especially chilling since it seems that the Utroms are immortal. An extra layer of nightmare fuel comes up if you notice that the courtroom scene is heavily reminiscent of the Nuremberg Trial. He is freed at the beginning of Turtles Forever, but still.
  Ch'rell: No... you are not fit to judge me! I AM THE SHREDDER! I AM INVINCIBLE! I... I...! NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! gets banished to Mor Gal Tul
  Utrom Jury: May your actions haunt you forever...
  • The actions that brought Shredder that punishment. He has spent centuries laying waste to countless worlds in his endless greed and cruelty. Millions have died under his tyranny and fascism.

Season Four

• T9581 and his backstory, he was a normal man who was implied to be turned into a monster by Bishop and is trapped in his mutated body. His appearance is also quite terrifying, even the Purple Dragons and Hun are scared by it, particularly when he puts himself put back together after Hun split him in half with a gattling gun.
• Just everything with the rats and The Rat King in "I, Monster", particular when we see a shot of HUMAN BONES implying that the Rat King has taken several victims, then there's also the shot where it looks like his own rats have devoured him.
• Leo's vicious "Reason You Suck" Speech to his brothers and Casey and the end of "Dragons Rising," not just because of how it represents his steadily deteriorating mental health, but how it also hammers home the fact that their recent string of losses could lead to something much worse.
  Leonardo: HALF! We stopped half, and only because we got lucky! Is that good enough for you? IS IT?! We're always one step behind! We act like a bunch of amateurs! How many times are we gonna get beaten before you guys wise up and realize THIS ISN'T A GAME?!
• INSANE IN THE MEMBRANE. ALL. OF. IT.
  • So much it never aired on network television and only aired on Nicktoons on cable later on. For starters, Stockman's new body starts to melt. And blood and flesh are apparently visible, and he later starts hitting his own arm with a hammer and a nail. Although he attempts to study and repair himself through a mixture of reattaching his diseased limbs and cybernetic prosthetics, his efforts end in failure. Driven to desperation and madness, Stockman attempts to trace back to the source of his trouble. First, the punishments at the hands of the Shredder and Hun, then the humiliating defeats at the hands of the Turtles. Then he finds what he believes to be the source of his troubles: April O'Neil. Stockman believes that if April had not run off and met the Turtles, the Mouser program would not have failed, and the Shredder would not have tortured Stockman. Filled with anger and revenge, Stockman jumps to the helicopter and uses it to fly to the New York City where he can get his revenge on April O'Neil!
  Baxter Stockman: THIS EXPERIMENT IS A CATASTROPHE!!! How could I have been so stupid?! Why was I in such a rush?! Why didn't I listen to Agent Bishop?! WHY?!?!?! Why am I a failure, my whole life?! Oh, mama... I've started with such promise! Where did it all go wrong?! WHERE?! The horrible degradation at the hands of the Shredder... his horrific thug, Hun... or those despicable turtles... no... NO! Before them... it was HER!!!! I trusted her and SHE BETRAYED ME! SHE brought in those turtles and ruined EVERYTHING! My glorious Mousers failed because of HER! And THAT FAILURE is what brought the Shredder's wrath down upon me! Yes... YES! SHE'S RESPONSIBLE! SHE DID THIS TO ME! AND SHE IS THE ONE WHO WILL PAY!!!!!!!
  • One of the more subtly creepy moments comes when Stockman kidnaps April, believing her to be to blame for every bad thing that ever happened to him, and drags her back to the lab they used to work at. It's frightening enough to see her being kidnapped by a half-rotted, utterly insane man, but when they reach the lab, he goes nuts again and now thinks that they're still working there, she's still his assistant, and everything that happened to him in the series never happened. Not to mention the fact that, as his mind degrades, he slips into calling April "Momma". Cue a horrified April watching as Stockman seems completely unaware of his disintegrating body, cheerfully telling her about all the stuff they need to work on today.
  • And then there’s the scene where April tries to defend herself on the cable car by kicking Stockman in the jaw... and ends up completely dislocating it to the point that it literally is hanging by a flap of skin on his face. Which he responds to by casually putting it back in place.
  Baxter Stockman: You've been a VERY naughty girl...
• In "The Trouble with Augie", we learn that the Brotherhood tricked the original tenants of the planet into transporting them en masse there... and they immediately turned on them. Not really for conquest, not really to advance their civilization... but for food. And they ate every last sapient member of the planet's original dominant species. It's implied this isn't even the first planet they did this to, and now they're ready to try again with Earth thanks to tricking Augie into helping them. They're sapient creatures who know exactly what they're doing, and they're doing it purely for their stomachs. It's revolting and terrifying.
  • We get to see what happened to the original tenants of the Brotherhood's planet. As in, massive piles of skeletons with flesh eaten clean-off. This also clarifies exactly what the leader was having for lunch earlier when he was gnawing on a bone.
  • The end of the episode, despite ending in the Brotherhood's defeat, is still pretty nasty. The leader and his party are trapped in the giant wasp dimension where they themselves end up getting eaten for their troubles, and the rest of their people are left to starve to death on their planet. Karmic Death indeed, but it's still a nasty way to go.
• In Outbreak. Stockman helps transfer Bishop's consciousness to his new body. His old body screams in pain, before his flesh disintegrates, leaving behind his skeleton, which also disintegrates shortly afterwards.
  • Plus all of the creature mutations from the genetic materials left over from Bishop's aliens clones, especially when the Turtles find a mutant that's partially human who keeps repeating the last words he said before getting attacked. Then there's the ending with some poor citizen getting attacked by a mutant pigeon.
• HOLY FUCK!! Where do we begin with "Adventures in Turtle Sitting"/"Good Genes"?:
  • For starters, Don's leg wound from the mutants created by Stockman and Bishop mutate him into a freaking red eyed prehistoric monster of a turtle. The worse part: IT'S DONATELLO THAT'S INFECTED! Meaning that the turtles are forced to get help from not only Leatherhead, but also Bishop and Stockman as substitution for Don.
  • And when they enter Bishop's base, Monster Don breaks free, forcing Leatherhead to fight him. During the fight, Monster Don tosses Leatherhead near the operating table, triggering a flashback of the torture that Leatherhead suffered by Bishop. It gives him a nervous breakdown with a monster Donatello hellbent on killing everyone and about to hit Leatherhead from behind. Good thing Leo got there in time to knock Monster Don out.
  • Not only is the monstrous Don a rampaging monster, but he is dying! Having TWO kinds of mutation is too much for anyone and one has to wonder what kind of pain he is enduring.
  • Add on top of that the pure, unmitigated wrongness of Baxter Stockman, having finally found peace in death, being brought back by Bishop. Baxter's only response is this:
  Stockman: Why you couldn't let me finally rest in peace? WHYYYYYYY?!
  • The ending of "Good Genes, Part 2". It turns out that the relic that Bishop wanted was keeping the REAL SHREDDER'S HERALDS chained as Foot mystics, and now they are free. To say that both sides had messed up doesn't even begin describe it. We learn there is a "true" Shredder who is going to be resurrected, and the Foot Mystics want to see to it that he is.
    Foot Mystics: The crystal is destroyed, and with it, Karai's hold over us. She thought because we could not touch it, she was safe... but now it is dust. And we are free! Free to resurrect the true Shredder! And a new age of chaos shall begin!
    • With the final episode of the season, "Ninja Tribunal", there to set up the new season, the original 2006 "Season 4" DVD actually ended with this episode. It's already one hell of a cliffhanger, but it'd be even worse if this was the actual season finale.

Season Five

• Splinter's recurring nightmares and visions about Tengu Shredder riding on a demonic horse and killing the Turtles
• The bone demon's ultimate form in "Fathers and Sons." Dear God...

Season Six

• The Fast Forward season, despite its lighter tone compared to the rest of the series, gives us Sh'Okanabo: An alien overlord with a biology reminiscent of the Thing and who consumed entire solar systems in the backstory of the series. On top of that, the first major interaction with the turtles is basically a homage to a slasher movie, and in the second one has him basically start what amounts to an entire zombie apocalypse with his own spawn. A zombie apocalypse whose first victims and main victims were the turtles themselves. If it wasn't for his weakness to earth sunlight, he would have basically consumed the entire planet then and there, something he gets dangerously close to doing in the penultimate episode of the season.

Season Seven

• Viral's fate in "Tempus Fugit". She was evil and all, but to watch her be ASSIMILATED AND CONSUMED by a backup copy of the Utrom Shredder's personality, pure Body Horror as she's invaded from within, screaming the whole time, was downright horrifying. Not that she didn't deserve it, especially after she blasted Master Splinter into digital bits, but she was practically murdered in one of the most agonizing ways possible for an AI virus to go. And of course, the Cyber Shredder's laugh as he emerges from Viral's body only adds to the effect.