I very much enjoyed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. It was fun, funny, full of energy and life, and was just plain cool all around. So I’m very much excited for the announced sequel, as well as the announced two-season cartoon on Nickelodeon! It’s going to be called Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and will serve as a bridge between the two movies.

Based on how Mutant Mayhem ended, I’m pretty much assuming that the new cartoon series will feature the Turtles in high school. That’s a great premise, and one I don’t think we’ve seen before. All the young voice actors from Mutant Mayhem are returning for the Turtles, and it should be a blast to see them as real teenagers in a real high school, just like they wanted! Should be a fun watch. And what would be even more fun? Filling the high school with other teenage mutants from the wider world of the Turtles!

So join me after the jump as I rattle off some of my favorite old school TMNT mutants who deserve a chance to step up and being recognized in cartoon form, at long last!

6. Ace Duck

A nerdy duck character who is super into airplanes? That sounds like a legit character to me! The idea is mutants who would fit into a high school setting. Age is weird in Mutant Mayhem. Splinter specifically says he mutated into an adult because he was an older rat, while turtles were infants. But Superfly’s mutants were all embryos in Baxter Stockman’s lab…right? Didn’t we see them in test tubes? So why aren’t they 15? Whatever the case, Ace Duck would make a great teenage mutant with a major interest in flying and airplanes.

5. Pizza Face

Is Pizza Face a mutant? Or is he just some weird human dude? Regardless, he’s the perfect choice for a high school-based villain because he can be the head chef in the cafeteria! Hello! It’s so obvious! He’s some evil school official who attacks the Turtles where it hurts the most: pizza! Perhaps he specializes in the most crappy, cardboard-esque school lunch pizza ever conceived, and he delights in ruining student lunch. So the Turtles have to…stop him, or something. Typical school mischief! And the classic toy design is perfect for such a character.

4. Halfcourt

Halfcourt is the basketball-playing giraffe who, obviously, would be on the school basketball team. This one is a no-brainer! If you’re talking high school, you need the jocks and the cliques and Halfcourt is a fiend on the basketball court. Maybe he could prompt some discussion on mutants playing sports? Or maybe he’d just be some jerk jock who picks on the nerdier turtles. Either way, Halfcourt deserves to finally be adapted into something.

3. Sheena Murphy

I haven’t gotten around to reading my collection of IDW Ninja Turtles comics, yet, but I know that they have introduced a ton of new mutants and interesting characters. And the new cartoon should plunder those depths for new characters…like Sheena Murphy, the pig rock star! She’s a cool looking new character who has become a friend of the Turtles. She’s the girlfriend of Jennika, the new fifth Turtle in the IDW comics, so that part would be lost. But Sheena would still make for a great, normal, high school mutant who perhaps comes alive while in her band.

And speaking of female fifth Turtles…

2. Venus De Milo

I am a Venus De Milo apologist, but only really in the way that I think she should be redeemed. I watched The Next Mutation back in the day, because I was a child who was more than happy to have a live action Ninja Turtles show. I was too young to understand why I should dislike the show, and I definitely didn’t hate Venus De Milo. But the fact is, she’s in the universe now. She exists. And why pretend she doesn’t exist when she opens up the possibility of using her well? She doesn’t need to maintain her mystical origins. And she doesn’t need to be a sister to the Turtles. She can just be a girl turtle with her own thing going on.

1. Screwloose

I brought him up in my review of the movie from a couple months ago, but I want to see Screwloose in this universe, darnit! We’ve got Wingnut, but no Screwloose? Blasphemy! A mosquito mutant would be a pretty neat idea. Everybody hates mosquitos! How does he get by? Does he get shoved into a lot of lockers? And does his old pal Wingnut show up to help out, giving the show a Wingnut cameo? I’m pretty sure those Mayhem Mutants are gonna appear in some capacity. With two seasons worth of episodes to fill, surely one episode can be dedicated to reuniting this classic TMNT team!

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