Finally getting around to writing my review for this episode.
This is one of those episodes where you feel the plot is rushed at the beginning to get it started. Right away they show us Don's new invention and that he's a little fussy about turning it up a little for Michaelangelo to have some waves. If they had more time, this would of been a good area where Don could of came up with a real reason, as if an early test it didn't work or something like that. Instead of just that it's a new invention, I just don't think Don wouldn't have tested it before putting Michaelangelo on a surf board in front of it.
Michaelangelo doesn't heed the warning of his brother, and decides to turn the machine up any how. He doesn't just set it up one higher he pulls all the levers not even knowing what he's doing. Though they don't show Michaelangelo walking back to his board, instead they show him walking back to the machine and then realizing that he shouldn't have turned it up so high. It just seemed like something was cut or missing right there, otherwise Mike would of been walking to the board. The wind picks up and blows him and his board out of the sewer, enjoying this ride.
Back at the lair the other three Turtles are training with Michaelangelo. Now they all know that Mike was just with them in the sewer, and wanted to do surfing... why would they keep training, without sending one of them back to get him? They even make mention of him not there helping them spar against Splinter. If the Turtles took the time to react like normal, one of which would of went back for Mike before he was blown away... so this again is just rushing the plot along.
Next comes the perfect example of how rep that the Turtles got in the original series, the Ninja Turtles that walk outside in day light... if the Mirage, 4Kids or even movie Turtles saw this Michaelangelo surfing out in the open, they would of died right there trying to find away to knock him into the water before he's seen. So while out surfing Michaelangelo watches a ship that almost ran him over (that big of a ship, Mike should of seen a long time before it reached him...) get shrunk in front of him, after he makes comment about it being shrunk down. At this point, Mike just makes a remark "Talk about service" instead of calling to say "Hey bros... A SHIP JUST TURNED TINNY!"
Now we meet the villain of this episode, as he puts his new tinny ship in a bottle... to add to his collection. Talbot Breech (Heh, this should be a name Mirage fans can remember, at least the first name as one of our Mirage Artist's is Eric Talbot
) His reason for doing this is because the Navy said he was too small, and now he's making them smaller than him. Cheesy reason, guy needs a shrink... get it? *G* He wants revenge, and this is his way of taking it. He has his cat, Claude (who looks a lot like Cynlee's cat, Claude) going along his side as he shares the plot line for everyone watching. He shoes Claude away because he'll get hair on his uniform....
Claude jumps onto the shrink ray controller and sets it off... Talbot gets mad at him, though the target... who should of called his family during the time he had as Talbot explained why he shrinks ships to us... instead he's talking about telling the dudes about this and worried that people won't believe him... though Michaelangelo is hit with the strink ray thanks to Claude. He gets zapped into a bottle with his little surf board. Talbot is telling Claude off, when he sees Mike in the bottle he doesn't seem to know about the Ninja Turtles, and just takes it for granted that he has some sort of new turtle. For a man of science he isn't keeping up with NYC's current news, seeing as how the Turtles have been making news since Season 1. And he didn't think that this Turtle's size to the surf board isn't off by a tad to what a normal turtle would be? If he realized, guess the plot would of went in a different direction than they wanted...
One thing cartoons should never show is people in their bath tubs! .... what can one say about this other than, it's something I never needed to see and thankfully I'm not blind
He's sitting there playing with his boats in the water.
We go back to Michaelangelo who is trying to get out of the bottle he's locked in. Claude gets up and starts paying attention to the the bottle Mike is in... wonder why the other bottles didn't catch Claude's attention seeing as how each of those bottles should have crews of sailors in them. Claude knocks the bottle to the ground as hit shatters Talbot hears the noise... they just had to give us another shot of him in the bathtub *cries*.
Michaelangelo is now free of the bottle though has to get away from Claude. Mike is able to get away long enough for Talbot to come out (wearing ONLY A towel) and pick up Claude getting after him. Talbot sees the broken bottle and surf board and kicks Claude out, telling him he can come back when he learns not to break things.... and heads back towards the bathroom.... Mike now feels it's all too big for him to handle and finally decides to call his brothers in. Though the Turtle com isn't working being so small.
Meanwhile his brother's are taking out the trash and complaining about Michaelangelo. Donatello even mentions that his wind generator was left on. Yet he was concerned about it being turned up high earlier, so if he found it on... why didn't he go searching to make sure Michaelangelo was ok? All Raph can say about is that Mike will show up soon now that the work is done.
Poor Michaelangelo is thinking his brothers are worried about him... one should think they would be... he sees a phone and decides to make his way to that to reach out and touch someone. Though on his way, his rout up opens the blinds to show that the window was left open and Claude is there ready to jump in. So now Mike must avoid Claude again, while trying to phone home. Though since home doesn't have a normal phone, he calls Channel 6. Nice to see Vernon answering the phones, though he doesn't do a good job at understanding Mike's message. This is used a plot device as we learn that Vernon has to head to the Harbor to help April with a report.
Mike is now on the run as Claude stopped him from talking on the phone... he races around Talbot's desk, with the cat hot after his shell. He escapes into a mouse hole, only to be greeted by a gray rat. So Mike decides he'd rather face the cat and runs right back out of the mouse hole. Just as Claude pounces Michaelangelo, Talbot comes out picking up the cat freeing Michaelangelo again... as he gets after the cat for the mess. You learn that Talbot was having lunch, then he walks off to kick Claude out again and Michaelangelo learns that Talbot was having pizza. He uses a spaghetti stick to help him jump up on a table... I don't care how light Mike thinks he is... that would of broke! Mike loves that he just found a pizza...
The other Turtles are also eating pizza, and still making comments about Mike being gone. Leonardo recommends they go find Mike, but Raph reply was to save Mike a slice. Raph turns on the TV as April is doing a report on a ship. At the same time Talbot is watching the same ship, as he sets it up to shrink the ship. Michaelangelo hears the shrink ray fire up as he knows that sound. He goes over and notices that Talbot is about to shrink another ship, and thanks to the report Mike sees that April's on board.
With this being a live report the other Turtles see the beam going around the ship and take concern... as the ship with April and Vernon shrink down. Seeing April in trouble, like normal, the three decide they have to do something. Raph makes another comment about Mike not being there...
For some odd reason this ship doesn't appear in a bottle. Guess they didn't have an excuse to break another one with the cat out. Talbot is all excited about this one, with this line about he can not wait to get this into the bathtub... what is wrong with this guy, doesn't he even think of the people on the ships? Again... a scientist... made a shrink ray... but is this dumb? April and Vernon make a break for it, going down a ladder which is way too short.... I guess if I heard a guy say he was going to put the boat I was in, in the bathtub with him, I would run too. Though I'm not sure I could do the jump that April wants to do. April and Vernon land in the cat food and water... what luck for them... if they don't mind the smell of cat food...
Michaelangelo sees them jump down and gets excited to see them, but a noise pulls his attention away. He turns to see Claude coming in a cat door... why didn't Claude use that earlier instead of the window... oh that's right, plot twists... right... ok... Claude goes after Mike, though Mike is standing in a door way and just moves out of the way closing the door... glad the door was light enough for him to move that fast *G* With the door closed, Mike hides... though Claude is a clever cat who can open doors without doorknobs as he goes into the room.... the door closes back on his tail.... he's some how able to open it again to free his tail... such a smart cat.... he tries to follow Michaelangelo's scent but instead notices the two near his cat dishes.
Vernon is more concerned about getting the cat food off, than looking for the cat. But the cat finds him rather quickly. Mike sees the cat is right at April and Vernon, knowing his friends need help he gets into action. Using the spring from the chair he's hiding in to give him the right lift to jump all the way onto Claude's back. Mike rides Claude around the room as Claude keeps trying to get Mike off his back... he jumps up into a glass box that was left open... as Mike jumps off and traps Claude in the glass display box. Gotta love plot devices left there to make for an easier win right? What was dumb was how long Claude got to stand there before the door shut, if they wanted Claude to get away right there, he had plenty of time.
Mike finally gets to talk to April, who has suddenly realized that every ship on the ocean is in trouble, when all she really knew about was the one that she was on. Mike says he needs a plane.....
And what comes up another bathroom scene!!!!! This time there's even LESS water in the tub!!!!! Sorry, but not something I need to see at all... .... and him bringing the ships up and down the way he's doing so in his game.... yeah.... make it stop
Again I feel sorry for Michaelangelo in this episode as he has to go into the bathroom while Talbot is taking a bath... lucky for him Talbot got soap in his eyes... Mike gets onto the air craft carrier and starts to take off on a plane.... Talbot looks really surprised to see the plane moving, he grabs the plane saying nobody plays with his toys but him. April and Vernon are now also standing in the bathroom.... what a room for the start of the final battle, eh?
April has great aim with just jumping on the shaving cream as it sprays Talbot in the face.... he lets go of Michaelangelo. Mike starts to fly around the room, even goes pass Claude. Michaelangelo shoots a hole through the glass and flies out of the building... leaving April and Vernon who get caught by Talbot.... nice to see how fast he can clean his eyes and get out of the tub... even remembered to at least put a towel on. Talbot is too happy about having some tiny humans as he starts his evil laughter.
The other Turtles are near the news vans, with a ship disappearing on live tv no one else is near the news van. They're lucky to have it all to themselves. Mr. Thompson just finally calls to find out what's going on. Of course Mr. Thompson has to point out when ever there's trouble the Turtles are there. Mike shows up at the news van, even though he didn't really know anyone was there... and finds his brothers so he buzzes around trying to get their attention.
Raph is swatting at him, as Mike is calling them on his Turtle Com. The Turtle Com works now that he's close enough to them, Leonardo points out that it's Mike as Don wants to know what happened... so Mike goes to lead them to where Talbot's hideout is. The Turtles follow the tiny airplane, using the Channel Six Van... did Don hot wire it or were the keys left in it? Only the writers will truly know
Talbot got April and Vernon in a bottle and is going to put them on a shelf, though when he opens the display case Claude now decides to jump out and goes right onto Talbot's head... causing him to fall and drop the bottle... which did not break this time...just rolled. Mike flies back in, and starts to buzz Talbot who is now dressed and ready to take Mike on.... Talbot uses the hands on his machine to try and catch Mike, Mike gets worried and ejects from the plane, as the plane crashes into the wall.... and bounces backwards before falling... it explodes when it hits the ground... and Mikey stuck on hanging on the desk... as Talbot goes to talk at him he hears the van outside, heading to the door. The Turtles drive it right into the building.
The Turtles yell their insults and upset Talbot by calling him a shorty. Talbot sends out some new robots to attack the Turtles, not too surprise to have giant talking Turtles attacking him. The Turtles are out of the van now, fighting the robots.. guess that's for the best if they kept driving around in there they could of destroyed the shrink ray. A robot hand helps Mike by mistake... as Talbot is full of himself thinking he's got the upper hand. He sees Michaelangelo and grabs a fly swatter to try and take care of him.
While going after Michaelangelo with the fly swatter, Talbot broke his own machine. Which starts to blast things returning them to their normal size, including Vernon and April. It then hits Michaelangelo, who for some odd reason is no longer fighting Talbot but has his chucks out fighting Claude. Mike yells to the others about leaving as the ships start to return to normal size through the building. You see the van make it out before the first ship changes and destroys the building, the other ships some how appear in the water at the dock, back to full size... with Talbot hanging from one of them....
In the end of the episode Splinter give's Michaelangelo a gift, his pre shrunk sailboard to remind him that bigger is not always better... though wasn't that broken earlier in the episode? And why didn't it return to normal size? How did Splinter get it? *G* Mike makes a comment about the size of the board than a big shadow of a cat came into the room, Mike got ready to fight and it shows a small cat coming into the room. Splinter made his point, as Michaelangelo admits that small is cool with him.
That's the episode... over all, I'm not a fan of this episode. I don't normally see episodes as fillers, but this one really felt like it. As a lot of things could of been done to avoid the events of this episode, characters reactions were totally off at points, and really.... seeing Talbot in the bathtub... a memory I wouldn't mind forgetting.
As much as I love the original series, I can't see this episode as one to reflect my feelings of that series on. It's not the worse episode, that goes to the 95 and 96 seasons for me, but it's deff not one that I'll rewatch to often. Out of a star rating of 1 to 5, I give this a 2. For some fun jokes.
