The Catwoman from Channel Six

The Catwoman from Channel Six is 17th episode in the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series, and the 12th episode of season 2. It is available on the DVD box set released on April 26, 2005.

Information
April is transformed into a mutant catwoman after her genes are spliced with a cat in a transporter.

Characters

 * Leonardo (Cam Clarke)
 * Donatello (Barry Gordon)
 * Raphael (Rob Paulsen)
 * Michelangelo (Townsend Coleman)
 * Splinter (Peter Renaday)
 * April O'Neil (Renae Jacobs)
 * Shredder (James Avery)
 * Krang (Pat Fraley)
 * Bebop (Barry Gordon)
 * Rocksteady (Cam Clarke)
 * Vernon Fenwick (Peter Renaday)
 * Irma Langinstein (Jennifer Darling)
 * Myron Bimbleton (Peter Renaday)
 * Angry Diner (Rob Paulsen)
 * Woo (Townsend Coleman)

Objects

 * Matter Transporter
 * Mind Control Collar
 * Turtlecoms

Locations

 * Turtles' Lair
 * April's apartment
 * Shredder's hideout
 * Woo's Oriental Palace
 * Junk Yard
 * Alleyway
 * City Zoo
 * City streets

Summary
The episode begins with the turtles watching a monster movie about a monster in Cleveland. Splinter says that the turtles watch too much TV.

Meanwhile The Shredder is experimenting with Krang's Matter Transporter in his secret hideout in an empty warehouse on the dock in New York City. With the Matter Transporter, he can teleport anyone or anything on the transporter's platform wherever in the world he wants in just a few seconds. The Shredder demonstrates it by sending Bebop and Rocksteady to a nearby landfill, where a machine grabs the two mutants and sends them down to the sewers. After recovering from their fall, Bebop and Rocksteady find the turtles' sewer lair by sheer dumb luck. The turtles fight Bebop and Rocksteady, but suddenly the Shredder, not knowing what is happening, "recalls" Bebop and Rocksteady back to his hideout. The turtles watch Bebop and Rocksteady vanish into thin air. The turtles call April O'Neil to come with a new TV, because Bebop and Rocksteady destroyed their old TV during the fight.

When April O'Neil arrives, she discovers that Bebop and Rocksteady lost some Chinese food they ate. She sees the text Woo's Oriental Palace on the food carton. The turtles wonder how Bebop and Rocksteady could find their sewer hideout, one of the biggest secrets in the whole New York City. They believe that the Shredder used some kind of machine to teleport them. April goes to Woo's Oriental Palace and asks if they had seen the two strange mutants. She gets the answer "yes," and that they came from a warehouse on the dock. April goes to the warehouse and discover the matter transporter. When April takes photos on the matter transporter, a stray cat arrives and leaps up on the control panel and accidentally presses a button. The cat then leaps on the matter transporter platform where April is standing and they both are hit by a bright light. When the light is gone, the cat runs away. A dazed April is left on the matter transporter feeling woozy and horrified at the fact her nails resemble claws.

Going back to her apartment, April notices she has been followed home by good sized group of cats. At the same time Irma arrives reminding April her building doesn't allow pets. Despite this, Irma decides to give the cat a saucer of milk. Sitting on the couch with the cats, April begins to mix her speech with meowing while talking to Irma. Upon Irma's departure, April joins the cat in drinking from the saucer of milk

Later in her office at the Channel 6 building, April's physical and mental condition has deteriorated further. In addition to claws, she has cat-like eyes and a slightly deformed face. Furthermore, she can't speak without punctuating her sentences with cat-like vocalizations. When Vernon tells her she's set to air in a few minuets, she throws a vase at him. Realizing something is very wrong with April, she demands April to tell her what's going on. After collapsing to her hands and knees, April attempts to explain to what happened to her. But, before she can give a clear and solid answer, April's transformation becomes complete. April then collapses to the floor, and her transformation becomes complete. April tells Irma she needs to go back to Shredder's hideout in order to reverse her transformation, but refuses to let April leave. April hisses at Irma and escapes out a window. While wondering what to do, Irma finds April's Turtle Com and calls the turtles for help. The turtles had been at Woo's Oriental Palace in search for April.

Meanwhile, April returns to the warehouse to reverse the process, but the Shredder cages her and puts a Mind Control Collar on April's neck to ensure that April will help him to destroy Splinter. Her mutation has weakened her willpower to resist the collar's control. Now a loyal slave of Shredder, April goes to the zoo and sets a tiger free to go with her. The two felines then begin their search for Splinter. Shredder is able to control April's thoughts using a remote control. Using his transmitter, Shredder boasts to Krang concerning the "delicious irony" that Splinter will be hunted down and killed by a former ally.

The Turtles and Irma learn where the warehouse is thanks to April's photographs. In the sewers, Splinter is meditating to overcome his fear of cats. Even small cats scare him, and the arrival of the escaped tiger is his worst nightmare come to life. Combined with the shock of seeing April as a beastly predator, Splinter cowers in terror. While the turtles and Irma search in vain for April, Splinter uses his Turtle Com to call the turtles and tell them that he is in danger. Irma hears the name Splinter and believe he is cute.

When April and the tiger reach the turtles' lair in the sewers, they attack Splinter. Splinter almost succeeds in reasoning with April to regain self-control, but ultimately to no avail. It does, however, buy him enough time for the Turtles to arrive. Before April kills Splinter, Leonardo uses his katana swords to cut the Mind Control Collar from April's neck. Michelangelo uses a mechanical toy rat to catch the tiger in a cage in the turtles' sewer lair.

In the warehouse, the Shredder discovers that the Mind Control Collar is destroyed. Suddenly, a rat (which Bebop had earlier used to mock the mutated April) bites Bebop and then leaps up on the Matter Transporter. Rocksteady tries to hit the rat with his baseball bat, but instead he hits the matter transporter, which starts to overload. Shredder, Bebop, and Rocksteady have to run out just before the matter transporter explodes and destroys the warehouse. The Shredder vows revenge against the Turtles.

Because the effects of Matter Transporter were only temporary, April soon becomes human again. Irma then arrives in the sewers. She wants to find Splinter. When she discovers that he is a rat, she screams. Everyone else has a good laugh.

Quotes
Splinter: I warn you...too much television warps the mind, and promotes violence.


 * - Splinter, on the evils of television. By the way, don't miss our show!

Customer: (approaches Turtles in trenchcoats) Who are you supposed to be? Humphrey Bogus?!

Leonardo: You hit the nail right on the head, sweetheart.

Michelangelo: Yeah, now listen here, you mugs. I'm givin' the orders around here, see?

(Turtles stare)

Michelangelo: All right, so I don't do Bogart.

Customer: ENOUGH stalling! You turkeys are about to get plucked!


 * - The Turtles encounter a disgruntled customer. Like April before him, he doesn't care for cheesy Humphrey Bogart impressions.

Michelangelo: Man, there's nothing like a furious, fun-filled, food flinging fight! (turns to camera) Try sayin' that three times fast.


 * - Michelangelo, alliteration and you!

Irma: My best friend has turned into a cat! ....I don't know whether to call 911 or the animal shelter!


 * - Irma. Somehow, you get the feeling that she's used to this.

Animation Errors

 * When Bebop and Rocksteady are flushed down the sewer pipes the close up shot of Rocksteady shows him with brown taping around his dagger handle.
 * When Rocksteady uses his dagger in the fight against the Turtles, his dagger sheath is missing from his back.
 * When Bebop and Rocksteady find the Turtles watching TV, Bebop is carrying a wooden dagger which changes into a baseball bat during the fight.
 * Bebop's mohawk turns brown in some shots.
 * Raphael is seen with Michelangelo 's colours in the shot after Bebop disarms him.
 * Right before Leonardo calls April for help, Michelangelo's mouth moves for no reason.
 * When Leonardo introduces himself to Irma, he is seen with Raphael's colours.
 * The molecular transporter in April's photos is radically different to how it appeared when she was in it.
 * After the Turtles find the stray cat with April's genes, Michelangelo's image is shown speaking but Raphael's voice is heard complaining when Donatello says that he is April's favourite.
 * April's tail disappears between shots.
 * When Leonardo runs to knock off April's thought control, he is seen with Michelangelo's colours.
 * After Leonardo runs up and chops off April's thought control cat-collar, in the next shot it is instead Donatello there holding Leo's sword. The shot after, he is once again holding his bo staff.
 * When Leonardo is talking to Irma on the Turtle Communicator, part of his wrist is missing.

Continuity Errors

 * Bebop and Rocksteady toss their Chinese food boxes away at the entrance to the Turtles' lair, but when April finds one, it's sitting on top of some wrecked furniture.
 * April couldn't have possibly taken that photo of the cat on the molecular transporter. Aside from the fact that it looks different (see the animation error above), she was zapped with the beam in the few moments the cat actually was on it. She also stopped taking photos when she first saw the cat.
 * As April reaches for the doorknob to enter her apartment, her claws are gone. Although, she could have just clipped before she got to her apartment, only to have them grow back later on. In fact, her nails are shorter when she grabs the knob than even before she got mutated, as she had rather long and pointy nails at the start of the episode when answering the Turtle Communicator.

Logic Errors

 * Shredder uses the matter transporter to send Bebop and Rocksteady to a garbage dump (even announcing that before he does so,) but, when they arrive, they both come to the conclusion that it's an.....upscale cuisine restaurant, which apparently flushes its customers down the sewer to remind them to wash before they eat? Although this IS Bebop and Rocksteady.


 * If Shredder wanted to know the location of the Turtles' lair, why didn't he simply retrieve the co-ordinates from when Bebop and Rocksteady were accidentally brought back? Unless the machine did not record coordinates.


 * We can clearly see the dilapidated condition of Woo's Oriental Palace from the outside, but it takes April to go inside to determine that it's a total dive. What's worse is that the inside of the restaurant is actually pretty presentable, which makes April's statement rather bizarre.


 * So....why did Bebop have that mouse in his jacket? Did he read this episode's script in advance?

Cultural References

 * Leonardo imitates Humphrey Bogart in the restaurant. Michelangelo follows this up with an Al Capone impression.

Trivia

 * The table holding up the Turtles' television set is missing a leg, and is supported by a few hardcover books to keep balance. Not that this matters for long, anyway, as Bebop totally wrecks the TV barely 3 minutes into the episode.
 * Donatello and Raphael have eaten at Woo's Oriental Palace before, at least enough to know that it's bad news, including the food.
 * Woo's Oriental Palace is chock full of Asian stereotypes, from customers wearing gis and being sumo wrestlers, to Woo's act of going "Hee-YAH!" when chopping some cabbage and judo flipping a disgruntled customer.
 * This episode suggests that after the events of "A Thing About Rats", April has been staying with Irma in her apartment. This could be implied because Irma has a key to the apartment and is waiting there when the turtles enter through the window.
 * This is Irma's first interaction with the Turtles. She apparently took this a whole lot better than April did. Unfortunately, the same can't be said about her reaction to Splinter.
 * This is also the first time Irma's 'hopeless romantic' theme plays. It starts when a heartstruck Irma walks into the Turtles' lair, looking for Splinter. She shows more revulsion towards him than the Turtles though, as she comments later in Enty the Fly that she wished someone would send her flowers, even if they were green.
 * When Michelangelo kicks Rocksteady into the wall horn first it plays the same piece of footage from when Donatello did the same thing earlier but mirror-flipped.
 * As a mutant, April's claws are sharp enough to rip a metal lock from solid concrete. Yikes.
 * Understandably, Splinter has a fear of cats. Apparently his "worst nightmare" is a tiger invading the sewer lair.
 * Playmates Toys created an April O'Neil action figure based off this episode, as part of their Mutatin' TMNT series. Mutatin' April (1993) was a part of the second wave of this series, along with Mutatin' variants of Shredder, Rahzar, Tokka, and Foot Soldier. The April figure could change from human to humanoid feline and came with accessories including clamp-on claws, mutatin' video bag, retromutagen ooze canister, and a mega mutation chart which illustrated April's transformation.
 * Sadly, the toy itself looks nothing like how April's mutant form is presented here, hewing more closely to a leopard than an alleycat.
 * This is the first of three occasions that April is temporarily turned into a mutant, the second being a fish woman in "Rebel Without a Fin" and as a giant wasp in "Revenge of the Fly".
 * When Irma meets the Turtles in the subway station, Don grabs her by the mouth when she is being too loud and about to blow their cover. This conflicts with his normal passive behaviour.