Super Bebop & Mighty Rocksteady (episode)

	Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1989 Season; September 25, 1989 - Feburary 9, 1990; List of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episodes
	Episodes: "Beneath These Streets"; "Turtles on Trial"; "Attack of the 50-Foot Irma"; "The Maltese Hamster"; "Sky Turtles"; "The Old Switcheroo"; "Burne's Blues"; "The Fifth Turtle"; "Enter the Rat King"; "Turtles at the Earth's Core"; "April Fool"; "Attack of Big MACC"; "The Ninja Sword of Nowhere"; "20,000 Leaks Under the City"; "Take Me to Your Leader"; "Four Musketurtles"; "Turtles, Turtles Everywhere"; "Cowabunga Shredhead"; "Invasion of the Turtle Snatchers"; "Camera Bugged"; "Green With Jealousy"; "Return of the Fly"; "Casey Jones - Outlaw Hero"; "Mutagen Monster"; "Corporate Raiders from Dimension X"; "Pizza by the Shred"; "Super Bebop & Mighty Rocksteady"; "Beware the Lotus"; "Blast from the Past"; "Leatherhead: Terror of the Swamp"; "Michelangelo's Birthday"; "Usagi Yojimbo"; "Case of the Hot Kimono"; "Usagi Come Home"; "The Making of Metalhead"; "Leatherhead Meets the Rat King"; "The Turtle Terminator"; "The Great Boldini"; "The Missing Map"; "The Gang's All Here"; "The Grybyx"; "Mister Ogg Goes to Town"; "Shredderville"; "Bye, Bye, Fly"; "The Big Rip-Off"; "The Big Break In"; "The Big Blow Out"; 1987 Season – 1988 Season – 1989 Season – 1990 Season - 1991 Season – 1992 Season – 1992-1993 Vacation in Europe sideseason – 1993 Season – 1994 Season – 1995 Season – 1996 Season

“Super Bebop & Mighty Rocksteady”
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987 Cartoon) episode
	; Title Card
Season Code:	3
Episode:	27
Original airdate	November 24, 1989
Written by	David Carren ; Larry Carroll
Producers:	–
Episode chronology
"Pizza by the Shred"	"Beware the Lotus"

Super Bebop & Mighty Rocksteady is a season 3 episode of the 1987-1996 series.

Synopsis

Bebop and Rocksteady are seen climbing the Tower to Channel 6 News's building during the middle of a Thunderstorm. As they are climbing the tower, Rocksteady is seen carrying Krang's newest creation: The Mesmerizer. A device that will hypnotically enslave everyone in New York City to serve Krang and the Shredder. The two are successful in setting up the Mesmerizer, and shortly after the people at Channel 6 News (including April, Irma, Vernon, Burne, and an Anchorman) are under the control of the Mesmerizer, much to the confusion of the Turtles and Splinter, whom they, (as well as Bebop and Rocksteady,) are unaffected by the Mesmerizer's Ray due to their mutant nature. They are quick to determine that Shredder and Krang are behind the News Crew's behavior.

Shortly after setting up the Mesmerizer however, a bolt of lightning frightens Bebop into sabotaging the plan. He, Rocksteady, and the still-active Mesmerizer crash through the roof of the building, exposing themselves, and Shredder's plan to the Turtles, who quickly spring into action. Once the Turtles have arrived at the building, the mutants have awoken and have realized the power of what the Mesmerizer gives them. Trying to use it's power against the Turtles, Bebop and Rocksteady try to use the hypnotized news cast to protect them, but of course the plan backfires and as a result, the Mesmerizer breaks. With the Mesmerizer disabled, the crew snaps out of the hypnosis and Bebop and Rocksteady make a quick escape, with Burne quick to blame the Turtles on the commotion.

Fed up with the constant failures of Bebop and Rocksteady, Krang has them both restrained and cloned into Robot Duplicates known as "Super Rocksteady and Mighty Bebop". Ten times stronger and smarter than the originals, Super Rocksteady and Mighty Bebop quickly dispose of their fleshy counterparts, which quickly impresses Shredder. Shredder prepares to leave with the new robots at his command, as well as an amulet that will shield him from the Mesmerizer's influence, unaware that it is still broken. Meanwhile the Turtles take refuge at a Local Pizza Shop, keeping a close eye on April and the Channel 6 building to see if Bebop or Rocksteady would return to try and set up the Mesmerizer. Unknown to them however, Shredder and the Robot Clones dig into the interior of the Channel 6 building. Shredder leaves Super Rocksteady and Mighty Bebop to guard the entrance while he goes off to setup the Mesmerizer himself.

However the broken Mesmerizer's effects quickly begin to show. Rather than enslave the population into serving Shredder, the victims instead mentally regress to their childhood, and their spoiled behavior makes them well out of Shredder's control. The Turtles also catch wind of the Mesmerizer's effects as well, but as they leave to stop the Shredder, they are confronted by Super Rocksteady and Mighty Bebop. The Robot Mutants swiftly overpower the Turtles and leave them incapable of stopping the Shredder.

Krang too learns of the Mesmerizer's damaged state and thus is forced to send the real Rocksteady and Bebop to assist Shredder in fixing it by bring him a disk that will fix the mesmerizer. However once they resurface, the turtles manages to steal the disk from them and they manage to study the disk, discovering that it is capable of disabling Super Rocksteady and Mighty Bebop. As the real mutants are left to "fix" the mesmerizer without the disk, they damage it even further, causing its victims to starts acting like animals, much to Shredder's annoyance. The Turtles return to face Super Rocksteady and Mighty Bebop once again, but thanks to tapping into the disk's information, the Turtles are able to override the control over the robots and instead, use them against the Shredder. Allowing them to disarm them of the Mesmerizer.

With the Mesmerizer off the tower once again. Super Rocksteady and Mighty Bebop explode, having overloaded from their programming being hijacked by the turtles. However the Shredder manages to grab the Mesmerizer, gloating with victory. With the distraction, Donatello notices the amulet protecting him from the Mesmerizer's influence and quickly manages to swipe it off of him. Now no longer protected, Shredder falls victim to the Mesmerizer, forcing Bebop and Rocksteady to try and bring it back by climbing up Channel 6's tower after him after the former believe he has become a monkey, ultimately, their combined weight is too much for the tower to handle and both Shredder and the mutants plunge off the building's rooftop and onto a Pizza Stand, much to the Turtles' horror. Fortunately, the Mesmerizer is also destroyed by the fall.

With Shredder's latest plot stopped, The Turtles, April, and Irma celebrate by eating Pizza. However, April gets one last laugh when she notices Vernon acting like a monkey like he did under the Mesmerizer's control.

Characters

Leonardo (Cam Clarke)
Donatello (Barry Gordon)
Michelangelo (Townsend Coleman)
Raphael (Rob Paulsen)
Splinter (Peter Renaday)
April O'Neil (Renae Jacobs)
Burne Thompson (Pat Fraley)
Vernon Fenwick (Peter Renaday)
Irma Langinstein (Jennifer Darling)
Shredder (James Avery)
Krang (Pat Fraley)
Bebop/Mighty Bebop (Barry Gordon)
Rocksteady/ Super Rocksteady (Cam Clarke)
Channel 6 Anchorman (Peter Renaday)
Vinnie's Pizza Waitress (Jennifer Darling)

Locations

Vehicles

Gadgets

Mesmerizer
Schematics Disk
Super Mutant Remote Device

Home media releases

VHS

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Super Rocksteady and Mighty Bebop

DVD

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Volume 5
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Season 3
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Complete Classic Series Collection

Notes

Animation Errors

Once he installs the Mesmerizer on the tower, Shredder's skin turns a lighter shade of tan, and his vest turns a darker shade of grey for some reason.
When Krang wonders aloud if his Mesmerizer's been damaged, his brain-body expands and fills the robot body's cockpit, and he's drawn with less detail than usual in the shot.
Burne Thompson seems a lot shorter than usual in some shots. He's about the size of a midget when Shredder contacts Krang to complain.
Krang's eyes are white when he's responding to Shredder's complaint about the Mesmerizer. It's supposed to be lilac.
When Bebop and Rocksteady step out of the Tunneler once it crashes into a dumpster, they are drawn way too small. If you compared them to the size of the dumpster as is, they'd barely reach it in height.
The disk Rocksteady holds up once the Turtles capture them is a rectangle instead of a square.
There is one scene where Donatello analyses the disk and the animation turns rather cartoonish, even more so as usual. For example, in that scene, Donatello seems to be moving a lot more fluidly than usual, gains wider eyes, and is wearing a rather goofy grin on his face that you'd only see in a Disney cartoon. After that scene ends, the animation reverts to normal.
When Donatello says, "Here goes!" his bandanna is tied differently, making it look almost like rabbit ears.
When Burne falls off of the hanging light, his body gets bigger and bigger as he falls. He's absolutely humongous when he finally lands.
When Donatello used the remote control to take over the Super Mutants, his teeth were colored red.
Michelangelo's belt is colored the same as his plastron and the bottom of the plastron is colored green when Donatello analyses the Mesmerizer's schematics in the Turtlevan.
When Leonardo and Donatello are outside the Channel 6 building patrolling, Leonardo is seen with four fingers when he's holding his turtle com.
When Raphael pulls out his sais to trap Rocksteady and Bebop in the Channel Six doors, he pulls his sais from the back of his belt instead of the front.

Continuity Errors

There's a scene where the reprogrammed super clones are dancing, and Super Bebop grabs Shredder to dance. Later on, Shredder is seen turning around, the super clones enter the scene dancing, and the animation is re-used again.

Logic Errors

Why didn't Shredder and Krang wait for the weather to improve before sending anybody to install the Mesmerizer? Are mutants immune to getting hit by lightning, too?
You'd think by this time, after all of the shenanigans that Shredder had put New York city through, that anybody with half a brain would recognize him. You'd also think that Shredder, being the leader of a clan of ninjas, would be more discreet about his operations by now. But no, Shredder decides that instead of sneaking to the top of the building and installing the Mesmerizer in secret where it's very unlikely he'd be caught, he decides to crash through the lobby instead and take the elevator. What's worse is that it's crowded, and not one person reacts to the evil super-villain now sharing an enclosed space with them.
- Oh, and also noteworthy is the big bad guy also apologizing to everyone when he gets inside. Most likely done for comedic effect, but, all the same.....*FACEPALM*
Vernon kicks Shredder in the shins whilst the latter is wearing metal, spike-studded shin-guards...and somehow, Shredder still feels pain while Vernon avoids getting his foot impaled. Although, we do see Vernon, hoping around in pain shortly after kicking him...
If Krang despised Bebop and Rocksteady's moronic antics so much, why did he upload their brainwave patterns into those robots? Wouldn't it have been easier just to program those robots to act competent?
Why did the Mesmerizer cause the super clones to explode?
Right before Donatello ambushes Shredder, Shredder and the mutants are looking to the side at...something. What are they looking at?
When the hypnotized Shredder scales the tower with the Mesmerizer, he's climbing using only one hand, and neither of his legs. Is that even possible?

Trivia

More so than any other episode so far, this episode is rather blatant with the fourth wall-breaking. Shredder, Irma, Krang and the Turtles all face the camera when delivering dialogue at some point or the other in this episode, in some cases, asking questions that sound as if they're directed at the audience watching them.
For an episode named after them, Super Bebop and Mighty Rocksteady don't really do much of anything, do they?
Bebop is scared of lightning. As would anybody climbing a tall, metal structure in a thunderstorm, really.
According to his own dialogue, Rocksteady hasn't taken a bath in a month. As least we now know why Shredder wears a mask inside of the Technodrome, and Krang's probably thanking his lucky stars the animators never gave him a nose.
When Krang introduces the robotic versions of Bebop and Rocksteady, the German subtitles refer to Super Bebop as "Wonder-Bebop".
Shredder's movements after he becomes hypnotized suggest that he thinks he's a gorilla.