Turtles Forever

Produced to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, 4Kids Entertainment's feature length reality bender Turtles Forever unites a variety of disparate character incarnations, chiefly 1987's toyline supplement pizza chompers, and 4Kids' own iris free snarlers. These two Turtle groups collide when a madcap dimension hop goes awry, forcing the groups to puzzle through a caper together. There's comedy identity clash as each team struggles to understand the other.

The 80s Turtles derive from a universe that plays by explicitly juvenile rules. Universe pals enjoy regularly scheduled rescues from rampaging mutant food, and impossible techno-solutions can be whipped up on the fly. In contrast, the 2000s model exist in a state heavily indebted to Batman: The Animated Series, and sundry dubbed Japanese serials. Their universe has ongoing plot threads, and kid safe shake-ups. Turtles Forever toys with a rolling sense of agitated desperation as the 'serious' Turtles strain to make sense of their merchandised counterparts, and the power their universe bleed technology allows a competent, contemporary adversary. Even their location as the gruffer alternative is challenged when the two groups wind up in their monochrome inception universe. Immediately categorised as trespassers, the animation Turtles are swiftly battered by motion drafts of the original Eastman and Laird sociopath troupe.