#merdude | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

turtlethon · 1 year

Text

“Atlantis Awakes”

Season 7, Episode 23 First US Airdate: December 4, 1993

Bebop is declared the King of Atlantis and the Turtles must help a half-man, half-fish to claim his rightful throne.

We’re into the final five episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season seven. “Atlantis Awakes” is credited to David Wise and first aired in a double bill with "Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter".

It’s rare to see the Turtles using a vehicle other than their van these days, with even the blimp popping up only occasionally. Today’s show is an exception, with one of the sewer tubes and a new dinghy carrying our heroes around underground. Michaelangelo is on a surfboard and breaks off from the team to travel down a winding tunnel, but winds up losing his footing. He narrowly avoids going over a steep drop when a mysterious figure emerges from the water to save him.

Michaelangelo’s rescuer is a half-man, half-fish called Alim Coelacanth. Providing him with a snappier (and more marketable) name, an astonished Mikey dubs him “Merdude” before reuniting with the other Turtles. The rest of the team find this talk of a fish-man dubious, but Alim emerges from the water to greet them, explaining that he’s from the city of Atlantis. Regular Turtlethon readers will know that the green teens encountered the sunken city first-hand during a visit to Greece in “The Lost Queen of Atlantis”, an episode that aired in the US mere weeks prior to the broadcast of this one. The Turtles seemingly have no memory of such an adventure now, with Raphael dismissing Atlantis as “just a myth”. Apparently either David Wise was unaware of the existence of that episode, or considered its events to be non-canon, which itself is perhaps the best possible indicator that the entire “Vacation in Europe” side-season exists outside of the proper TMNT timeline.

Alim explains to the Turtles that the other Atlanteans are human, with him being the exception; he left the city over 200 years ago in search of others of his own species. This quest has proved unsuccessful, and so he seeks to return to Atlantis, but has lost track of it. The Turtles agree to help Alim return home, and the group swim off together in search of the city.

The Technodrome is rolling around at the bottom of the sea, and Krang has discovered interesting energy readings from a location nearby. Rather than driving the fortress there, Shredder leaves on a scouting mission with Rocksteady and Bebop in an amphibious transport module. The villains are stunned to discover the lost city of Atlantis under a giant dome, and demand to be granted entry. Once inside, the citizens begin bowing upon seeing Bebop, declaring that their “king has come”.

As Alim summons a group of sea creatures for the Turtles to ride so they can keep up with him, the people of Atlantis explain that they’ve waited for generations for the prophecy of a beast man to emerge who will be declared their ruler, and so Bebop is now made their king. Rocksteady is upset at this, wondering why his friend was selected for the role over him. Giving orders doesn’t come easily to Bebop, and so he leans on Shredder for advice as a dissenter called Hepax Lagamina declares this to be a farce; at the suggestion of Shreds, the new king has her dragged away to be clapped in irons.

The Turtles and Alim take an underground passage into the city, emerging in the throne room as Bebop is made king in an official ceremony. A group of spear-wielding men encircle the group as the first act ends.

Act two opens with our heroes attempting to point out that Bebop is no king, before ultimately being forced to retreat into the water; with no breathing equipment, the Atlanteans are unable to pursue them. Later, Rocksteady complains about being passed over for the role of king to a disinterested Shredder as the two discover a room containing a giant jewel. Shredder informs Krang of this discovery, and he suggests it could be used to supercharge the Technodrome’s main cannon. Though the jewel is too heavy for Shredder and Rocksteady to carry on their own, Bebop’s influence will allow them to have the Atlanteans move it instead.

Power is beginning to go to Bebop’s head by the time Shredder returns to address him, and it doesn’t take long before the new king turns his troops against his old boss. Meanwhile Alim explains to the Turtles that the advanced equipment kept in the palace is used to power the Hammer of Atlantis. Before he can expand on its purpose, the group are distracted by cries from a voice nearby. The group find Hepax Lagamina trapped in a jail cell. Upon seeing Alim, she declares that he must be the true beast man the prophecy spoke of, and that he must challenge Bebop for the title in the Atlantean Arena. Before they can break her out, a group of guards approach, and so the Turtles and Alim are forced to escape into the water once more. This time the guards have breathing equipment, and pursue the intruders underwater.

King Bebop has Shredder get down on his knees in deference to him, alongside a now-weeping Rocksteady, who seems to be developing an inferiority complex as he watches his old buddy throw his weight around. Shreds eventually decides he’s had enough. Calling Krang via com-link, he orders that the contents of the former henchman’s room be burned. Bebop is aghast at the thought of his action figures, bubblegum cards and comic books being destroyed. He agrees to carry out Shredder’s mission, and has his troops begin the process of transporting the oversized jewel.

The Turtles battle the royal guards in the waters outside of the city, but find the odds against them. Alim uses his special powers to turn things around, calling on a group of nearby sea creatures to restrain the men. With their path now clear, our heroes head back inside.

Emerging inside the palace, Donnie and Raph split off to confront Shredder, while Leo and Mikey are tasked with freeing Hepax. Alim heads to the throne room, where he confronts Bebop; The King’s advisor Malathor informs him that he must accept this challenge, or he will have to forfeit his crown.

As Leonardo and Michaelangelo battle Rocksteady for control of the keys to Hepax’s cell, Alim and Bebop begin doing battle in the arena. Shredder is confronted by Raphael and Donatello, but uses a laser blaster to bring the roof down upon the Turtles, leaving them in a pile of rubble as act two ends.

It turns out that Raph and Donnie just happened to be standing near a canal outlet while being fired upon, and were able to dip into it to avoid the impact. Though the two are unharmed, they emerge to find Shredder has escaped with the crystal. Elsewhere, Leonardo and Michaelangelo outsmart Rocksteady, trapping him in a neighbouring cell as they free Hepax. The trio head to the arena and offer words of encouragement to Alim: Hepax instructs him to grab the Trident of Power, a weapon mounted nearby, which will only be of use to the true King of Atlantis. He uses the Trident to force Bebop to admit his rule is illegitimate, leading to cheers from the city dwellers. Before Alim can celebrate, Raphael and Donatello arrive to inform him of Shredder’s theft of the jewel, which Hepax explains is the “Star of Atlantis”.

Bebop finds Rocksteady and frees him from his jail cell before tracking down Shredder and asking for his old job back. Shreds has his former henchman get down on his knees and grovel, but soon has bigger issues to deal with, as the Turtles arrive to confront him, accompanied by Alim and Hepax. As a going-away gift, he punctures the protective dome of the city with a blast from his laser weapon before escaping in his module. Alim again uses his psychic powers, this time summoning a giant squid that covers the hole and prevents any further water from getting in.

The Turtles ride a pair of whales as they follow Alim out of the city, preparing for their next move. Meanwhile Shredder’s module arrives at the Technodrome and a group of Foot Soldiers unload the Star of Atlantis. As our heroes approach Krang’s fortress, it dawns upon them that he’s about to use the crystal’s power to open fire upon Atlantis. The group push the eyeball atop the Technodrome out of alignment, leading the blast to miss its target; after retrieving the jewel, our heroes and a group of sea creatures summoned by Alim safely transport it back to the city.

Back in Atlantis, Alim is officially declared king, and announces that Hepax will be his royal councillor. The Turtles are unconvinced by his subsequent speech about this being the start of a new, peaceful era for the Atlanteans, given that Shredder and Krang remain nearby, and their fears turn out to be well-founded: as they speak, the Technodrome is approaching the domed city and about to launch an attack. Alim is unconcerned, as the power of the Hammer of Atlantis is revealed, the large crystal being the energy source for an array of hidden weapons surrounding the city which emerge to open fire on the Technodrome. Shredder and Krang watch as their systems overload, and are forced to make a humiliating retreat.

With the day saved, Alim makes special arrangements to take our heroes home, introducing them to a quartet of giant sea turtles. Upon arriving back in the Lair, Leonardo remarks that the team has had a lot of adventures, “but this one tops ‘em all”. Michaelangelo emerges with a pizza made in Alim’s honour, the “Merdude Special”, covered in seaweed and other maritime items that leave the other Turtles queasy. The “disgusting pizza” ending, once such a fixture in the series that it was getting tiresome, has largely been taken out of rotation at this point; It’s almost nostalgic to see it dusted off for one more go-around.

I mentioned at the outset of this entry that we seldom see the Turtles use a vehicle other than their van these days; new characters popping up to coincide with their introductions to the toy line is also something that doesn’t happen as much as it did in seasons one through five. Alim / Merdude is an exception, having had a toy released a year prior to the broadcast of this adventure. My hunch is that Playmates largely didn’t care about the specifics of what went on in the cartoon by now as its drawing power had long since diminished. Moving forward, the toy line will move away from introducing new characters anyway, instead focusing on different versions of the Turtles (and occasionally Bebop and Rocksteady) with a never-ending array of bizarre gimmicks. This leaves Alim as one of the last members of an old tradition, the Mutant Guest Star of the Week: another of the many half-human, half-animal buddies that the Turtles cosy up to for twenty-two minutes, talk about maybe seeing again one day at the conclusion of the story, and then never speak of again.

Following on from “The Legend of Koji” a few weeks back, this is only the second episode ever to not feature April in any capacity. That story at least allowed Renae Jacobs to take on a different role as one of Shredder’s hired maidens, but here she’s not present at all. April’s absence is understandable as structurally it’d be tough to work her in. There’s very little wiggle room in this adventure, which kicks things off with the introduction of Alim staggeringly quickly; the fact that this is one of only a few of the Saturday morning TMNT episodes to use the shorter thirty second opening title sequence rather than the standard one-minute version is another tell-tale sign of the production team struggling to fit everything into the allocated broadcast time.

We can’t leave this adventure without returning to the thorny issue of this being the second Atlantis TMNT episode to air (for US viewers) in the space of seven weeks. But which is better? It’s no contest really: “The Lost Queen of Atlantis” had some fun stuff going on with the Turtles taking on the Atlantean cult, but it was hampered by the same ropey production values and general mediocrity that the entire Vacation in Europe side-season suffered from. It irks me to no end every time the Turtles speak as if they have no memory of prior adventures, but when it comes down to it an episode with adequate time and money spent on it like this one, from the main writer of the show, will always take precedence over what was effectively a single filler story from an entire side-season that accomplished nothing.

Next time, we’ll see the Punk Frogs and Mondo Gecko return for their final appearances in “Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter”. PLUS: The belated TV debuts of Tokka and Rahzar!

#Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #TMNT #TMNT 1987 #1993 #Atlantis Awakes #Alim Coelacanth #Merdude #Hepax Lagamina #Ninja Turtles #Turtlethon

3 notes · View notes