Thing About Rats Review

It is now time to review Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Episode 3 A Thing About Rats. In this episode, the Shredder meets Inventor Baxter Stockman, who builds thousands of his rat catching machines or masters, to destroy the Turtles, Master Splinter, and April O’Neil. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Episode 3 A Thing About Rats first aired on December 18th 1987.

Teenage Ninja Turtles Episode 3 A Thing About Rats

There are some rather dark implications about certain parts of this episode, but let’s discuss the newest character introduced, that being Baxter Stockman, a struggling inventor. Stockman throughout the various Ninja Turtles universe tends to be among the characters who tend to get the worst of a rather bad situation more times often than not. And in the original comic books as printed by Mirage Comics, he was black.

Given Stockman’s character in the early episodes before he became…his more well known incarnation shall we say, as a simpering man who was mostly sub servant(with one notable exception), to the Shredder. That would not fly if he was black man, so Stockman is white.

In this episode, the Shredder looks for new technology to destroy his enemies with, while Splinter sleeps off the results of the previous episode and the Turtles are on the hunt for the Technodrome. The Shredder stumbles upon Stockman, who has been rejected. Naturally, the man with the metal facemask and spikes cannot be anything but a warm and trusting soul, so Stockman agrees to build his mousers on a vast scale to Shredder.

Shredder jumps the gun(I wonder if that’s a recurring problem in other areas) and sends the mousers to the lair to destroy Master Splinter. Let’s talk about the mousers, because it is one of those things, where obviously if it was a regular sized rat, it could just hold said rodent in their mouth. However for Master Splinter, who is obviously a bit bigger than your average rat, the intended fate…well for lack of a better term, would most likely for him to be ripped into bloody chunks. At least that seems to be the most logical think. Thankfully the Turtles destroy the machines in no time and find out that Baxter Stockman is behind it, do to the happy little trademark symbol on one of the mouser’s feet.

So off to April’s apartment we go for some hijinx, as April manages to find an address for Baxter Stockman, so the Turtles go. Stockman has built a few thousand mousers by now and the Shredder, who may have the worst severance policy in history, sends the Foot Soldiers to kill Stockman. The Turtles save and threaten Stockman, with Raphael threatening to get, “sarcastic.”

I’d start talking and Stockman did but unfortunately, Shredder sicced a whole load of mousers on Splinter, as they attack Splinter and April. The Turtles save, but the mousers eat through the apartment, causing it collapsing, likely killing a lot of people in the process. Then they go to shut down the Shredder’s operation.
Now in this episode, Krang was nagging Shredder about wanting a body. Like a nagging wife, Krang just won’t let this go and like a tired husband, Shredder would rather watch the ball game and by ball game, I mean destroy the Turtles and Master Splinter. Krang is not too happy with Shredder putting off his duties, so he tries to screw with the Shredder’s enjoyment, by untying Michelangelo, who Shredder had captured.

Seriously, where in the hell are all the Shredder and Krang slash fan fiction? It’s one of the few pairings in that realm with some basis in reality. Granted, one of the parties being a disembodied alien brain might be a barrier, but logic has never stopped yaoi shippers before. Or any kind of shippers for that matter.

In our latest episode of, Shredder is a complete moron(and a lousy shooter as well), Mikey goads him into blowing on the master control controlling the mousers, allowing Donatello to reprogram them.

So the day is saved, Shredder is foiled, Krang still has no body, the Turtles, Splinter, and April are alive, Baxter Stockman is thrown in the nuthouse(only about the third worst thing that ever happened to him in this cartoon), and many people lost their lives when an apartment collapsed right on their heads. So it all worked out in the end. The mousers never would return either, although they would go onto because a nuisance much like the Roadkill Rodneys in the video games.

Regardless, this episode isn’t as good as the first two parts or the final part of the mini-series, but I found it enjoyable. 8/10 for this episode. You can watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Episode 3 A Thing About Rats on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Volume 1 DVD.