Bernie was a physicist trying to prove his theory that our dreams take place in a dimension of their own, but the Obturaculum Somniorum, a defective portal projector, short circuited. He hasn't slept for 40 years protecting it so the Dream Beavers wouldn't attack our world.
Bernie is the new owner of a small grocery store in North Hampton, he named it Bernie's Generals. He didn't expect to sell anything to anyone, as he moved to North Hampton so no one would get hurt by the Beavers. During their visit, April O'Neil and Casey Jones encounter a scary but friendly store owner named Bernie. The shopping trip takes a weird turn when Casey notices a book with a Latin title and is warned away from it by Bernie. He seems the prying type too, asking if they are buying food for five or six people and if any of them have been feeling real tired as of late. Needless to say, they get the heck out of dodge.
When he goes back to the store to find info on how to stop the Dream Beavers, Casey gets his own surprise when Bernie comes after him with a chainsaw ranting about how the book is all that stands between our world and total destruction. He asks if the Dream Beavers sent him, which is convenient, since the Dream Beavers have simultaneously gathered all four brothers in one dream.
Bernie runs out of fuel for his chainsaw, giving Casey the upper hand in their battle. Though he isn’t asked to tell it, Bernie has a whopper of a story: he used to be a physicist with a theory that our dreams take place in a dimension of their own. While testing it out, he discovered four beings of pure evil called the Dream Beavers that can feed off of the life force of people’s dreams. To keep them trapped in the dream dimension, he’s stayed awake with the book (its name means “dream plug”) so the Dream Beavers would stay on the other side. Bernie moved to the middle of nowhere to avoid endangering others, but as Casey points out, it wasn’t far enough.
Casey brings Bernie back to the farmhouse, where a desperate April has resorted to slapping the Turtles since nothing else is working. She’s really panicked, so despite Bernie’s protests, Casey smashes the dream plug. The Dream Beavers rejoice in the fact that they’re free to enter the real world and the Turtles immediately wake up. It looks like trouble, but when the smoke clears, the Dream Beavers realize that in our world, they’re only tiny plush animals. They leave before getting their butts kicked, and Bernie (distraught that he’s stayed awake for decades for no good reason) immediately falls asleep.
Casey and Donnie drag Bernie out of the farmhouse and back to his house.
Trivia
- Bernie is voiced by Bill Moseley whose first big role was in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 as "Chop Top" Sawyer. As an additional point of reference, his chainsaw has "The saw is family" written on it which is a recurring phrase from the series.
- Bernie claims that he has stayed awake for 40 years straight without sleep, a feat that is impossible for any regular human being to achieve. It is possible that the use of the Obturaculum Somniorum in his original experiment could have augmented his faculties and allowed him to do so.