Tokka is a mutant alligator snapping turtle from the second live action movie. He is partnered with Rahzar. Tokka was played by Kurt Bryant. They were both voice-acted by Frank Welker. The design of Tokka in the movie was inspired by the drawings of comic book artist and writer Stephen R. Bissette. Bissette's noted works include Aliens: Tribes, Tyrant, Taboo, and his award winning run in Saga of the Swamp Thing, among numerous articles and books on comics and horror films.
History[]
He, along with Rahzar was created by The Shredder due to the Foot Clan's failure to defeat the TMNT in the first movie. When The Shredder found out that the substance that mutated the Turtles had been created by T.G.R.I. (Techno Global Research Industries), he sent his Foot Ninja to steal the ooze and kidnap head T.G.R.I. scientist, professor Jordan Perry. Shredder instructs Perry to use the ooze to mutate an alligator snapping turtle and a gray wolf, kidnapped from the Bronx Zoo, thus creating Tokka and Rahzar. However, Jordan had secretly altered the mutagen and as a result, the two mutants had the intelligence of human infants. Oroku Saki ordered the monsters to face him in battle, to teach them who their master was, the infantile mutants misinterpreted the word "master", thinking it meant "mamma" and hugged him instead. Angered, Shredder ordered them to be destroyed, but Perry had sympathy for them and showed Saki their total obedience to him and that, as they were "playing" in the junkyard, lifting a large truck as if it were a toy, they had great strength. This prompted Shredder to keep them alive.
Despite their low intelligence and speed, the two mutants' incredible physical strength and durability made them more than a match for the Turtles. On their first encounter at Shredder and Tatsu's junkyard base, the Turtles were ill-prepared and barely managed to escape when trying to save their brother Raphael from capture and rescue Dr. Perry. During the escape they trapped Tokka in a manhole from the waist down. Michelangelo teased Tokka and tickled the bottom of the snapper's clawed feet.
Shredder unleashed Tokka and Rahzar on a neighborhood to do some damages. The next day as the police are investigating what attacked the neighborhood, April O'Neil was confronted by some Foot ninjas where Freddy has April deliver a message for the Turtles: If they didn't meet the Foot at a construction site near the docks, Shredder would set Tokka and Rahzar out again into Central Park. As many people would get hurt, The Turtles and Splinter agreed that there was no other choice but to face Shredder. But the professor had a plan. With the help of Donatello and Keno, Dr. Perry prepared an anti-mutagen to de-mutate Tokka and Rahzar, which had to be ingested.
During their second encounter at the construction site, amidst a distraction, Leonardo and Michelangelo trick Tokka and Rahzar into eating the antidote (they froze the concoction into ice cubes and then hid them in a box of donuts, which they then offered to the two mutants as the "ritual of the traditional pre-fight donut"). Rahzar and Tokka devoured some of the donuts with continued coaxing from the Turtles. Rahzar, regardless of his infant-like mentality, figured that something was wrong with the situation, and crushed one of the donuts in his claw, to discover the anti-mutagen cube. Enraged, Tokka and Rahzar smashed Michaelangelo through a wall and into the Dockshore Club interrupting a crowded dance concert by Vanilla Ice.
As the final showdown commenced at the club; Leo and Raph fended off Rahzar and Tokka's snapping attacks. Dr. Perry informed them that their repeated burping was slowing the anti-mutagen and that carbon dioxide was needed to speed up the de-mutation. The Turtles knocked their foes flat on their backs and shoved fire extinguishers into the creatures' mouths, which administered the needed carbon dioxide. Finally, the antidote took effect and the two mutants returned to their animal forms.
Behind the scenes[]
"Terrorpin the Terrible", the initial TMNT toy concept that would inspire the character of Tokka.
- Tokka was based on a rejected toy design by legendary horror and comics creator S.R.Bissette. The character concept was of a bipedal alligator snapping turtle called Terrorpin the Terrible[1]. His sidekick ( this would have been a companion toy ) was a smaller snapper with wad of messy blond hair in a tomato soup can named "Snappy Warhol". The little guy was created by Steve Bissette. Coincidentally around the same time in the early 1990s, Ryan Brown was also designing a snapping turtle character for the TMNT Toy line. Bissette's design was picked up and adapted to development for the villain of the film. At that point Brown was instrumental in making sure Bissette received printed credit on subsequent products featuring Tokka as inspiring the creature's inception. Most Tokka action figure card-backs received this printed credit.
Terrorpin[1] himself would not go away. In the second volume of the Mirage TMNT comic, he would be utilized and featured as a major menace deep underground in the NYC Sewers, where he was a monstrous antagonist to Leonardo. Over a decade later he would return in the second volume of Tales of the TMNT where it would be revealed that he was actually the companion of the fish-woman Rihana.
Trivia[]
- His name is interchangeably pronounced "Toe-kuh" and "Tock-kuh" in the movie.
Gallery[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Ryan Brown's' blog post. Retrieved on September 14, 2009.