Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles “The Croaking”

God damn it, I cannot get away from Jon Heder cameos.

 Spoilers Below

If you were a fan of Napoleon Dynamite, or a fan of Ryu from The Legend of Korra, or that shitty Napoleon Dynamite cartoon, you are going to have a field day with this week’s episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Jon Heder reprises the voice and vocal patterns of Napoleon Dynamite, again, because that hasn’t been played out yet. However, Napoleon Bonafrog brought us the introduction of a group of frogs I thought were lost to oblivion: The Punk Frogs! Their intro in this series was surprisingly close to their origin in the 1987 series.

Going in, I was a little taken back by having to deal with the cheap out of getting Heder to voice Bonafrog. It seems like he can’t land a part anywhere unless he’s doing a different take of Napoleon Dynamite. I hate to say this, but Bonafrog’s story is eerily close to Jar Jar’s in The Phantom Menace. However, I loved the makeover that Genghis, Rasputin, and Atilla got. They look and sound like real additions to the new series.  The most work went into Atilla, where he was made into the leader of the Punk Frogs, with Rasputin being the alchemist, and Genghis being the general. I hope more is done in the future with the Frogs, because this was a great intro.

Unfortunately, this feels a continuation of what started last episode, “Buried Secrets,” with Mikey getting shit on by the other Turtles for being a slacker. Well, this time, it was because he trashed the living area. Hopefully this is the end of it, because the “Mikey is shit on for being a slacker / retard” story is getting old. I was hoping for the other Turtles to get the character growth that Leo got, but I guess he only got that because of the change in voice actor. The focus on the Turtles is a little biased, and should come back around.

I came up with a funny theory while watching “The Croaking.” What if the time at the farm house was used for introducing more of the mutants that we haven’t seen yet? The Dream Beavers would be a great example. There has been multiple spots where the mutagen has been found, now, so the how is answered. Plus, it’s a forest, so there’s millions of animals that are possible to run across a puddle of the ooze. Also, it’s been eerily quiet on the Kraang front, and I would be expecting to see them soon, especially since they gang have a television, and I am sure that they can get the news. What the hell has happened in New York?

By the end of “The Croaking,’ I was down with the Punk Frogs and their reintroduction. I thought there was enough of an open window to bring them back, possibly in force with a bigger army of frogs, and even bring back Heder-Frog. I can get over it if the Frogs had another episode of this quality. The origins were great, and almost the same as the original, like I said above. The writers really are fans of the show, and episodes like “The Croaking” prove it. I have had my reservations about this, and this is something I have no problem in saying I was wrong about. This really isn’t a cheap cash in like the 2003 series was. Nick is finally taking care of a property it has, and pushing out quality episodes. We’re almost a quarter of the way through the season, and there are still big things coming. I can definitely dig. “The Croaking” was great, in spite of a mailed in performance by Jon Heder.