The times 4kids (aka Foxbox) screwed up Ninja Turtles

The 2003 incarnation of Ninja Turtles is a great addition to the franchise. While 80s/90s version is the most popular version, it is very very loosey based on the original comics that it spawn from. The 1990 film was the closest thing we got to the comics till the 2003 show came around. It started adapting stories from the comics but soon divert and became it's own thing.

The show aired on the 4Kids block on Saturday morning. 4Kids Entertainment was very very infamous at the time. They were popular for bringing Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh but other than that, most of their shows were not good. In order to see a preview of next week's Ninja Turtles, you had to sit through half of Cra(m)p Twins.

I admit, I thought it was weird when I 1st heard people called 4Kids the devil for it's censorship when all I saw was Leo beheading the Shredder on a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

Ok, he survive due to being an alien in a robot suit but we didn't know at the time.

Little did I knew, outside of Turtles was the extreme measures the company does to their shows.

I never watch One Piece but from what I heard, it was very badly translated and extremely censored. I was channel surfing one time and saw this kid pulling out these poison suction cups out of his legs. I rolled my eyes on this obvious bad edit. I can tell it was arrows or needles or something.

As much I like Kirby games or playing Captain Falcon on Super Smash Bros. I wasn't into their animated adaptations. I only thing I watched on the channel was Ninja Turtles.

So what screwed up Ninja Turtles? I plan to tell you a few things, some obscured but 1st, I must mention the most obvious thing you will hear on what most fans say 4Kids did that screwed up Ninja Turtles. It's the last two seasons. Fast Forward and Back To The Sewer.

After four seasons, the last episode had the show on a cliffhanger. All of a sudden, the show went into a massive rehaul. Suddenly the animation style changed and well as the storyline. The Turtles were transported 100 years in the future. Most of the stories were mediocre and whatever unfinished storylines from the early seasons were missing.

After a year and half of Fast Forward, they finally aired the missing 5th season that continued from the season 4 cliffhanger. This season's production was finished long before Fast Forward aired but 4Kids chose not to air these till later. Can you imagine went through the heads of the TMNT fans? It must of killed them on what happen during the missing episodes.

The show again went through another rehaul for season 7 and they went back to the present era. It may look like it's in the step of the right direction, however the show was still subpar.

They did have a TV movie afterwards where they did crossover with the classic cartoon and the original comics and it was far better received than the last two seasons.

Now for other things that 4Kids did that screwed up Ninja Turtles.

Well for one thing, season 4 aired some episodes out of order when they premiered. There was one episode where the Turtles were training and Leo mentions to Mikey that did he forget his Battle Nexus rematch. I was like, "What?!"

Season 2 ended in this outer dimensional tournament arc and well spoiler alert, the winner was Mikey.

A few weeks later, the actual episode where Mikey's rematch at the Battle Nexus was finally shown.

I am a little more forgiving of the Halloween episode. That was meant to air near the holiday and there weren't any references to the other episodes other than Leo's attitude which was a character arc he was going through in the 1st half of season 4.

There was another episode that people didn't see right away that that led to confusion. At one point, the Turtles have a new Turtle van with no introduction as well as Agent Bishop retrieving Baxter's body from the bottom of the river and Baxter cries, "Why didn't you let me rest in peace? Why?!" I don't remember Baxter falling into the river at all. Did we miss something?

Well the thing is, it's not an episode that aired out of order, 4kids choose not to air Insane in the Membrane. The only way to watch it was on DVD. It didn't air on TV for several reasons.

Well I'm going to explain Baxter's history real quick.

Due to Baxter's multiple failures working under the Shredder. Baxter lost an eye, then confined to a wheelchair, and then to the point he was nothing more then a talking brain in a jar. He finally got away from him and worked under Agent Bishop of the Earth Protection Force.

In Insane of the Membrane, Baxter created a clone body and transfer his conscience into it. However his new body doesn't last long and it was falling apart. His pointy finger literally melted off. It got to the point you can see his shadows on the wall hamming nails on his body, just to keep it together.

He ended up looking like Frankenstein.

And to make the episode more dark, he had flashbacks of his innocent childhood with his mother and then towards the end of the flashbacks, he was holding her hand as she was bedridden and coughing. You can see why 4kids didn't want to air this.

And this what became of him after Agent Bishop retrieve him the river. He did finally gets closure in Fast Forward with the future tech that helps makes him get a new body.

However, this isn't the 1st time that content was cut from the series. Season 5 had a episode on it's line up called Nightmares Recycle but wasn't TV or DVD. The episode was never completed and only the script and the beta animation was done. 4kids pulled the plug early on.

The episode would have the lame villain Garbageman make his 3rd appearance and confront the Turtles and Shredder's former right-hand man Hun.

Turns out that this needs to be forgotten baddie has some connection to Hun's backstory. It turns out they were conjoined twins.

Hun went to an underground doctor to remove his bro off of him and then he was thrown into the garbage. It's technically not canon since Casey and April got engaged in the unmade episode. They officially got engaged in season 7.

There was a planned 2nd season of Fast Forward but it didn't fall through and Back to the Sewers happen. While Fast Forward wasn't all that great, it did had some decent episodes. However there were some loose plot threads that weren't wrapped up. The 1st five minutes of Back to the Sewers immediately sends the turtles back to the present era, so we never saw the Darius Dun or the Dark Turtles storylines wrapped up. It's kinda a shame, the Dark Turtles' last episode hinted they turned towards the good side and go against Darius Dun.

There is a debate if we were better off with a 2nd season of Fast Forward instead. Fast Forward wasn't great and Back to the Sewer wasn't great either. So there is no clear answer.

One episode would introduce Usagi's descendant called, well Space Usagi.

Season 3 ended with Utrom Shredder imprisoned on an ice asteroid never to be seen again(supposedly). If FF did get a 2nd season, we would of got a Triceraton Shredder. The Utrom Shredder would come back and controlled the body of a Triceraton.

However this was never canon to begin with. The TV movie, Turtles Forever which was the grand finale of the 2003 series brought back Shredder. He was teleported from his icy prison from Shredder and Krang from the 80s/90s cartoon.

Scary Shredder meets Clownish Shredder

Enough about cut content, now it's time for some obscured stuff that 4kids did that screwed up Ninja Turtles.

During in the middle of season 1, the episode premiere of Notes from the Underground aired. In the middle of the 1st ever showing, this appear.

Applegator

After he showed up for two seconds, he disappeared and never seen again.

The thing is that 4kids(or Foxbox at the time) was doing some sort of contest. You had to spot this ugly mutant of animal food thing in three separate shows for some prize. Applegator is from some show called Fighting Foodons. I never cared about this show in the slightest.

Not everyone watches the commercials, so when this monstrosity show it's face, viewers were confused on what this thing is.

Also people like to record and keep episodes in their private collection. So they had to wait for the repeat to air next week just to wash away this bizarre thing that shouldn't be in the show.

If you want proof this happened. Click the link to see. Skip to 0:40 to see the actual commercial that talks about Applegator's contest.

Now for the other obscure thing.

4Kids sometimes has special hosts for their channel. One time is Hulk Hogan and his daughter.

Even if your not into wrestling, Hulk Hogan is a big cult icon. Everyone has heard of him.

This guy's YouTube channel has a collection of commercials that had Hulk Hogan on FoxBox

The two lead kids from Spy Kids were also special hosts at one point. Their movies were playing at theaters at the time.

Edit: I admit, it's been years since alot this was broadcasted but I found recently that Frankie Muniz was also a host.

Here's the video. The channel is a collection of most of the stuff from the Foxbox/4kids era

Then one day, they had this unknown weirdo hosting the channel

What in the shell is this guy? Who is he? Why is his singing terrible? I don't like him  >:(

Ok, I don't watch American Idol. I seen several episodes here and there but I didn't follow it. I found out that Carrie Underwood and Chris Daughtry got popular from American Idol years later. The only time I paid some level of interest was Kris Allen was a finalist and that's because he was from Arkansas(my home state). My TV guide had him on the front page(this was before most people had DVRs). My TV guide will usually promote Arkansas-born celebrities like the voice of Sephiroth/Superman appearing on some movie on Freeform(formerly Fox Family)

Anyways, William Hung is a weird odd choice to host. He's only popular due to his infamous bad singing. Why are they using a joke to host some shows? During the hosting, he did several "music videos" with footage from the 4kids shows. One was about space traveling and used footage of the Turtles fighting Triceratons in space. 

If I want to laugh at Hung, I do elsewhere, not while I watching shows where I least expect a joke like him appearing.

Here's a clip of of a FoxBox promo that had the two Spy Kids and William Hung.

I'm not sure if Johnny English is a host as well. That was a long time ago.

Here's some links to some forums that discussed about William Hung.
Link 1

Link 2

And that's how 4Kids ruined Ninja Turtles, with apple pie leather purses things and terrible singers with bad teeth. Oh and subpar seasons to end the show on.

Most people may of forgotten about these moments. Specially since the show went on DVDs and later generations may of never heard of these. The forum links above was pretty much the only thing on the search engines will show about William Hung on Foxbox. You can do the same for Applegator and find the same forums from back in the day. I had to dig deeper looking up FoxBox commercials.

Edit: Ok, as of November of 2022, I found Toon Along's Youtube channel which contains videos of William Hung hosting the FoxBox. You should give the videos a shot.

There's one video of the Turtles about to watch Hung's performance of She Bangs. I really hope their comments about his singing were meant to be sarcastic

If anyone wants me to talk about Nick screwing up the 2012 series, well...There were disputes between my cable provider and Viacom(that owns Nickelodeon, Spike, and all the Music(less) channels). By the time my cable got Nicklodeon again, the final season was happening and the remaining episodes were on a secondary channel that I didn't have. So I didn't see it live and I can't tell you guys if some on the levels of Applegator or William Hung showed up.