** The Spindly Return of SPYDER BYTEZ; well kinda **

–>> ‘The Daily Show’s Lewis Black guest starred in Saturday’s third episode of  Nick’s new TMNT Toon :  “Turtle Temper“.

Black played the portly & cantankerous Vic just can’t get a  buyer for his exclusive cell phone camera coverage of the Teens fighting Kraang Droids. But the Kraang have more than enough hankering to provide Vic with a healthy dose of Mutagen ooze; by way of Raphal and his “Frog” brothers. Next thing ya know, Vic’s a real spider,Man !! Can’t wait for a Kraang alien  to put the video of that incident up on YouTube.

Spyder Bytez harkens back to just a matter of years ago actually to the tail end and Pre- TURTLES FOREVER final season of the TMNT 2003 era; “BACK TO THE SEWER”.

Cyber Shredder was on the loose, Splinter was missing in the cyber-verse  ( if you recall  ),  mad digital-mutants, Baxter’s goopy dinosaurians, and good ol’ fashioned demons were all the rage for the Teen’s blow-out season  !!

In TMNT:BTTS episode 147 – “The Engagement Ring”..::

“Casey and Raphael head to Chinatown to find an engagement ring for April. They are given a ring that turns April into a monster. After successfully turning April back to normal, the man gives her the real engagement ring and she and Casey are engaged.”

The terrifyingly possessed April ( serious.. she was creepy n’ freeky in this ep ) summons some twisted creatures from the evil ‘RING OF YIN’ to go after & Raph and Casey with her mistakenly new found powers.

The creatures the Ring had manifested were two massive flying ‘Spider’ -like demons called the SPYDER BYTEZ, apparently post production. Tho’ they are never mentioned by name in the episode.

Hence the origin’ ( at least of the name ) of the Turtle’s bouncy arachno-enemy & Mutant Menace in the new show !!

Tho’ i guess calling Black’s character a “Return” – technically is only kinda,sorta, not-really, partly true sorta.,kinda. Uh – –

Also on a nerdy note: the flying Spiders in the BTTS ep were two demonic manifestations or so from an evil ring unlike Vic’s toxic mutant transformation.

 

April also managed to call upon a giant Mole Mutant thing initially dubbed by one of the coolest bad-guy names i’ve ever heard :Metalliclaw. His name was changed to the less than catchy and i suppose the less COPYRIGHT – infringing name ; Metal Klawz.

Yeh i guess you wouldn’t want to get a certain iconic Metal Band’s lawyers thrashing all over you.  But hey the guy is cool & he really digs, and really digs the sewers, and really digs the  Ring of Yin and ringin’ Raph’s neck !!

** View LARGE On Black **

Toy versions of the Ring’s creatures were supposed to be offered as part of the somewhat season accurate TMNT SUB SEWER figure line in 2008.

Unfortunately .. and i mean VERY unfortunately, only the Turtles in their Monster-Catching guises were released from this line. By the time SUB-SEWER hit stores, The Turtles toys as a whole were already struggling to make sales quotas. This line itself, even the Turtles were a little tricky to get hold of as older “TMNT” branded merch was still hanging on pegs in many stores. Stores were also dropping the toy line so it really was a tricky time to get Turtle figures in brick n’ mortar retailers.

I recall only getting like one or two Sub-Sewer Turtles early on.Way late in the game, like as of LATE 2009 & early 2010 did i get the rest of the Teens.

SUB-SEWER Leo was offered extremely late in the 2009 TMNT 24th anniversary year as part of the TOYS R’ Us  exclusive ‘SLUDGE RUNNERS’ vehicle combo-pack. The other Turtles were supposed to come out in deluxe combo-packs too – but only Leo was released.

But alas the Spider Bytez & Metalliclaw toys were dropped from the SUB-SEWER wave altogether , apparently victim to the sagging sales of the “TMNT” toy line in that 2008 – Early 2010 time-frame. Bad decision if you ask me.

And unless you are some weirdo who hates really  – REALLY COOL looking toys, you can’t tell me that’s kind of not a tragedy taking a look at that freekin’ cool prototype of Klawz !! !!

So we never got the Spyder & we never got the Naked Mole and that kinda BYTEZ !!

Yeh yeh.. ya see what Tokka did there !!

~ t