The Big Zipp Attack is a season 4 episode of the 1987-1996 series.
Synopsis
The Turtles are suffering from boredom from a lack of novelty - Raphael complains about reruns, Michelangelo about a lack of new rental movies, and even Leonardo chafes at doing the same exercises all day. Donatello breaks them out of their rut with his new automatic pizza-dough maker, but being pelted with sticky balls of dough does not help their morale.
In Dimension X, Krang is lamenting that the Technodrome is unable to move, when he, Shredder, Rocksteady and Bebop all hear something clatter. Enormous metal pipes have been broken, and unfortunately they are made of rigidium, the rarest and hardest metal in the universe. He locate a large quantity on Earth, and prepares to send Shredder and his two mutants there.
At Channel 6, April is being sent to the Lofty Tower to cover its opening.
Just as Krang is about to open the portal, a meteorite lands on the asteroid, and turns out to be a large egg. It hatches into a small purple dinosaur-like creature, which Krang identifies as a Zipp. Krang is horrified and tries to flee, but the Zipp follows them and begins eating through the Technodrome's armor. Shredder manages to catch it, and Krang has the idea of sending it to Earth, as a distraction while Shredder gets the rigidium.
The Turtles find the Zipp in the sewers, and initially think it's cute. But when it starts eating metal objects around the lair, they attempt to stop it - and when it eats part of the copper pizza-dough-maker, it suddenly splits into two Zipps. By the time the Turtles catch up to the Zipps on the surface, the creatures have multiplied into the hundreds.
Shredder, Rocksteady and Bebop arrive in the middle of rush hour, and use the tanklike vehicle to crush their way through the cars. It so happens that the rigidium they need is at the top of Lofty Tower, which April is covering.
As the Zipps pour through the museum, Michelangelo sees one of them eat a mineral sample and vanish. It turns out to be none other than rigidum. He and Raphael also find that the Zipps are inclined to obey Michelangelo, due to him having rescued the first one from a barrel.
Donatello and Leonardo, meanwhile, find that two Zipps become one when they eat chocolate. They head to a chocolate factory and demand an enormous chocolate bar, which attracts hundreds of Zipps. But once all of them have reunited, the Turtles are left with a single Zipp the size of a building.
Irma alerts them to what Shredder's doing, and they decide to try to lure the giant Zipp to Lofty Tower. Shredder successfully severs the central spire of the building, which destabilizes the building and will lead to its collapse. Just then the giant Zipp appears, and Michelangelo gets it to prop up the wobbling building with two other skyscrapers. It eats the rigidium spite and instantly shrinks down to normal Zipp size, then chases Shredder's vehicle back through the portal.
As the Turtles are heading back to the lair, Leonardo discovers a Zipp hiding in his scabbard, much to the Turtles' horror.
Writer
Character voices
- Leonardo (Cam Clarke)
- Donatello (Barry Gordon)
- Michelangelo (Townsend Coleman)
- Raphael (Rob Paulsen)
- Splinter (Peter Renaday)
- April O'Neil (Renae Jacobs)
- Burne Thompson (Pat Fraley)
- Irma Langinstein (Jennifer Darling)
- Vernon Fenwick (Peter Renaday)
- Donald J. Lofty (Rob Paulsen)
- Shredder (James Avery)
- Krang (Pat Fraley)
- Bebop (Barry Gordon)
- Rocksteady (Cam Clarke)
- Zipps (Rob Paulsen)
- Ajax Candy Worker
Locations
- Turtles' Lair
- Channel 6
- Technodrome
- Dimension X asteroid
- Lofty Tower
- New York streets
- Museum of Natural History
- Ajax Candy Factory
Vehicles
- Rigidium Transport Vehicle
Home media releases
VHS
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Big Zipp Attack
DVD
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Season 4
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Complete Classic Series Collection
Notes
Errors
- Shredder's neck is colored the same as his cape for the entire episode!
- Krang's android body had finger nails just before Krang, Shredder and the mutants went of to investigate the Zipp's egg crash-landing on the asteroid.
- One of the Zipps double after it eats a steel door handle and a parking meter despite the fact the creatures only double when they eat copper.
- After the Zipp shrinks back to normal size it makes no effort to fly back onto the tower leaving Michelangelo to rescue him instead,
- The strapping on Donatello's bo-staff is missing when he and the other Turtles look up at the giant Zipp eating the main tower of the candy factory.
- As the Zipp eats part of Donatello's pizza machine, Donatello fully becomes Michelangelo.
- Throughout the episode, the Zipp is either a darker or lighter shade of purple.
- When the Zipp grows gigantic, it is indoors, but after the commercial, it's outdoors.
- When the turtles are cleaning up, Leonardo is on the floor with Michelangelo and Donatello, then he takes Raphael's place, cleaning a stop sign.
Trivia
- This episode written by David Wise mimics the plot from the The Transformers episode "Kremzeek!".
- Going by official episode numbers, Donald J. Lofty has previously appeared in "Slash: The Evil Turtle from Dimension X", but this episode is actually his first chronological encounter with the Turtles, as he will claim in both that episode and his other appearance (in "Rebel Without a Fin") to have had previous dealings with them.
- Raphael breaks the fourth wall by saying, 'This is gonna be one of those days'.
- Donatello's "Automatic Pizza Dough Maker" is probably based on the 1989 toy, the Pizza Thrower.
Gallery