Turtles like i'm sure alot of you I grew up watching the the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series. As such I thought that it would be interesting to take a look back at one of the shows episodes mostly because over the years the show has become known more for it's errors and I wanted to see if I could spot any in this episode as such here is my review of the episode "April Fool" which is from season 3 and if episode 11 of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated show and so enjoy the review.
The plot of the episode is April is going to a posh party and so Irma gets her dressed up as a princess meanwhile Shredder tries to get his hand on some valuable science stuff and mistakes April for a real princess and so it's up to the turtles to stop him before it's to late. Plot wise as to be expected from this show the story was pretty thin but to me that's part of this show charm since it then allows for the characters to interact with each in a more natural way but at the same time I would have liked it if the story was better.
Starring in the episode is Cam Clarke as Leonardo and Rocksteady , Barry Gordon as Donatello and Bebop , Townsend Coleman as Michelangelo and Rob Paulsen as Raphael and Second Malacurian Guard. Also starring in the episode is Peter Renaday as Splinter and First Malacurian Guard , Renae Jacobs as April O'Neil and Princess Mallory , Jennifer Darling as Irma , Uncle Phil as Shredder and Pat Fraley as Krang and Emperor Aleister.
I will fully admit I had no idea what to expect from this episode acting wise as such I found the acting to be at best OK. Which really does pain me to say since like I said I grew up with this show but I have to be fair and that does mean finding bad things in things that I love and one of those things is the acting in the episode which yes for the time isn't bad but when you compare these performers to other actors who have played these roles in animated form then these actors come of looking bad which is a shame because these guys had to build up all the characters personalities from the ground up.
Now then since this show had alot of different animation studios working on it for each season and I cannot find who did the animation for season three so i'm just not gonna look further into it. As for what I thought about the animation it was honestly really good at least for the time that the show was being made and given that alot of the shows made around this time had fairly average to bad animation to see a show where the animation was actually good is a good thing.
There is one scene in this episode which is really freaking trippy and that's the scene where the turtles enter the party threw the window. Since the party there going to is a costume we see costumes such as Superman and Batman which is fine but then we see someone came dressed as one of the Ninja Turtles which is just so freaking weird to see and it makes you wonder why the turtles tried to break into the party when they could have just walked in through the front door.
There is no way in hell I could talk about any episode from this show and not talk about the fact that in several countries around the world including my home country the UK this show isn't known as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but is instead known as Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. The reasoning behind this has something to do with the word Ninja apparently people thought that an action show with the word Ninja in the title would cause kids to do some Ninja stuff which is just stupid as all hell and it didn't end with the show either since the first movie over here in the UK was called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles as well.
I will say that this episode is pretty predictable I straight up called one of the plot points in the episode which is never a good thing. I say that because if you can very easily say what that plot point is then it makes the episode predictable and boring to watch which should never be the case you should always never see the plot point coming as it keeps things interesting and thus makes the episode alot more fun to watch.
As the title would suggest this is an April centric episode and for once we actually see her out of her banana outfit. Which yeah is a good thing because my god does April look hot as a princess but even tho it's an April centric episode we don't really get to find out that much about the character which is a shame but given it's about Ninja Turtles and not about her I guess it makes sense but at the same time there's no need to put her name in the title if the episode isn't going to be that much about her but the title did make for a nice pun.
Speaking of the comedy since this version of the turtles leaned more on the comedy it makes sense that I talk about the comedy in this episode. Which I really fell is the episodes weakest aspect since alot of the jokes were made at April's expense which just made the turtles and Splinter seem like d**ks and they just weren't funny but Michelangelo being able to sniff out pizza is something that is both funny and is actually in character.
Now then boys and girls this is also an action show and so that means that we have to talk about the action that's in this episode. Which I honestly feel is the episodes strongest point since the action is really fun to see and is in my opinion when the animation truly comes alive which makes sense since it is an action show and so that's where you want your best animation to go and it helps that they give the turtles some really cool action moments.
Overall yeah this was a pretty bad episode but the issues that I had with the episode could also be given to every episode of this show' Like I said several times there are some good things in this episode there's just not as many when you stack them up against the bad things which is a shame because when this episode wants to be fun it can be a fun episode as such this episode gets a 7.5 out of 10 from me and all the images that I used in this review were gathered from either Google Images or the official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fandom wiki page