Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Rewatch: Half-Time Report

It's been 9 years since I my initial complete viewing of the original 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series, so I figured it was time to make another go of it. 100 episodes in, let's check in how things are going, shall we?

• There is not a bad episode in the first 3 seasons. Sure, there are a couple in season 3 that aren't so awesome as the others, but until I hit the European Vacation side-season, I didn't find myself not enjoying any of the episodes.
• But boy, that European Vacation side-season is pretty terrible. The whole things feels much cheaper and less polished. Raphael and Shredder having the replacement voices throughout (except for a couple of episodes for Shredder) doesn't help either. Also, and I'm guessing this is due to the Euro production involved, but people got way more into April. Shredder often talked to her about being beautiful and everyone wanted to kidnap her.
• Even more nonsense approach to the Euro episodes, is that Shredder and Krang knew the turtles were in Europe and decided this will be the one time they will explore the area. The turtles live in New York - if Krang knew about some special metal that could only be found in Italy, why didn't he go check that out in like episode 20? They can teleport to anywhere in the world, but the turtles can't.
• I think it was episode 74 when The Shredder said something like "I'm sick of the turtles foiling my plans!". Poor dude - we're not even halfway through them foiling your plans!
• David Wise was a great writer, but it is kinda funny how many similar stories he wrote for other cartoons.
• Shredder's Mom might well be one of the funniest episodes I never saw as a child. 
• I totally didn't notice when I was young, and I don't think I was paying too much attention last time I went through the series, but bah gawd Rob Paulsen, Cam Clarke and James Avery did a lot of voices. Peter Renaday as the various mob bosses always cracks me up.
• Irma is awesome. I think she used to annoy me, but now she is absolutely one of my favourite characters.
• Naming Zach "the fifth turtle" is incredibly ludicrous; he helped them ONE TIME and they give him such an honour, but then we only see him like twice afterwards - clearly he is not an important part of their lives or success. April, however, is always there and often helps the turtles in various ways. She's awesome and is the real fifth turtle.
• Elvis makes many appearances and in many forms.

I just read a quote from the voice of April O'Neil where she compared the main voice cast to the Marx Brothers and it all makes sense. I love the humour in this show and I love old vaudevillian humour. The bad puns, the play on words, and breaking the 4th wall. It's all hilarious to me.

Anyways, I think that is enough for now. Let's see how the next 93 episodes go!