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Dumbo was a member of the Punk Gang in the 1987 TV series. He remained unnamed in all of his appearances, and also never spoke.

History[]

Dumbo first appeared in "Turtle Tracks" and was one of the first characters to appear on screen. Together with Bebop, Rocksteady, Grunt, Scrag and Dopey, Dumbo was seen wandering the streets of Manhattan and used his mallet to attack and strip a Red sports car for parts until only the frame remained.

Silencing April[]

A short time later, the group of six gang members appeared again, this time they had been sent to silence April O'Neil as her news investigation was targeting the Foot Clan's activities in the city. Intercepting April, Vernon and their Channel 6 camera team as during their stakeout of Acme Research, the gang approached the group which caused April's three colleagues to flee leaving her alone with the thugs. Dumbo held his chain menacingly and watched on as Rocksteady confronted her about the news reports. April feigned agreeing to cease the investigation before fleeing when it became clear that the gang was intending to kill her.

The gang pursued April as she fled into the sewers, catching up with her after she ran headfirst into a wall. Rocksteady was about to execute her when the gang were surprised and attacked by the shadowy forms of the Turtles. Dumbo attempted to attack Michelangelo but was knocked over by Scrag who fell backwards after his handgun was hit by a nunchaku. Off-screen, his body would end up on the pile of unconscious punks.

Some time later Dumbo and the punks awoke and made their way back to the Technodrome, where Dumbo joined Rocksteady, Bebop and Grunt in reporting their defeat to the Shredder. Dumbo was not present the following day when Shredder approached four of the gang members inside the Technodrome to obtain volunteers for the initial mutation experiments.

Mutation[]

Dumbo, along with the Grunt, Scrag and Dopey later reappeared in "Hot Rodding Teenagers from Dimension X" when Shredder activates a view screen in the Technodrome to update Krang on the status of the punks. All four members were relaxing in a similar hangout room they had been in earlier, however the group were no longer human and had each taken on mutated animal characteristics. Dumbo was now covered in shaggy brown fur, he had the distinctive drooping eye-mask markings of a sloth and his hands and fingers had been mutated into the three long pointed toes of a three-toed sloth.

During this scene, Shredder stated that he was still refining my mutations on the punks and that he had hoped to make the four into infinitely superior mutant henchmen than the previously mutated Bebop and Rocksteady. This ongoing refinement of the punk's mutations is likely the reason the punks retained more of their human characteristics and some only appeared partially mutated and had not grown physically larger and animalistic as happened with Shredder's previous attempts.

Imprisonment[]

Dumbo appeared one final time in the episode "Shredder and Splintered" once again alongside Scrag, Grunt and Dopey. However this time the four mutants were locked behind bars in a prison cell, located in the Main Control room of the Technodrome near the Trans-Dimensional Portal. It is not known why Shredder had the mutants imprisoned, however Scrag had appeared hostile earlier when Shredder had been used him as a test subject for the Retro Mutagen Ray Generator. Dopey and the other three mutants were trapped inside the Technodrome when it was sucked into Dimension X.

Later appearances[]

Dumbo appeared in the flashback sequences in the Season 3 Episode "Blast from the Past".

Dumbo alongside Dopey was omitted from several comic and junior adaptations of Season 1, as he was not present in the coloring books or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comics, but did appear in the Mutant Turtles and Rizzoli adaptations.

Trivia[]

  • His name "Dumbo", comes from an official storyboard of "Turtle Tracks". His name was discovered[1] in 2020 from an official storyboard of "Turtle Tracks", until that point he was often referred to as "Short Fat Punk" or "Bald Punk" by the community.
  • Similar to Bebop and Rocksteady, who are both named after musical styles, Dumbo and Dopey share a naming scheme, with both punks having names of characters from early animated Disney films.
  • There is some evidence that Dopey and Dumbo may have had their names switched, or that they were mislabeled on the storyboard. Dumbo's shared several physical similarities with Disney's character Dopey - particularly in the storyboard art, and Dopey's mutation into an elephant with a small trunk linked him the juvenile elephant character Dumbo. It is also possible that these were placeholder production nicknames for the characters not intended for release.
  • Dumbo was the only original gang member who's human form did not have a cameo appearance in Turtles Forever.
  • In 2023, NECA released an action figure of Dumbo under the name "Short Gangster," possibly to avoid trademark contention.

See also[]

References[]

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