BRIEF STORYLINE: Two very snooty art-collecting aliens land in the Italian city of Florence and begin robbing famous masterpieces, however the turtles and April are there to save the day. Since they were at the scene of the incident, the citizens blame them for the crimes, and furious mobs chase after them. They also struggle to get the better of the aliens.
When the turtles meet with the aliens again, the aliens are over-the-moon, when they find out their names are very similar to their favourite artists. They are so convinced it's really the world-famous artists and want them to go, and stay at their planet!
Oh shoot, the turtle have no intention of living with these over-friendly aliens on their planet. They couldn't face that. They get Splinter's help for this adventure. Can the green fighting machines lure the aliens to the Roman Coliseum? Where they would be so excited by the art and design of the structure that they will want to beam it up, causing their energy to get completely zapped? And what about those priceless painting masterpieces?
TMNT REVIEW HQ COMMENTS: Bad, bad and bad. By TMNT cartoon stadards, quite abysmal. The beginning is unspectacular with the turtles in Florence. Then we come to the arrival of the aliens known as the Lookrons(Loo-krons) from the planet of Lookra(or Lukra). They are unfit looking aliens, one is bright green, the female is bright yellow, and look quite goofy.
One of the better parts of the episode is the "Last Supper" painting suddenly disappearing. However, back to the bad. Unfunny humour is what we get when the Italian police go white with fear seeing these aliens, after trying to shoot their guns at them, to no effect. One exclaims "they must have bulletproof underwear!" One alien replies "what underwear?". One of the un-needed abysmal parts, is the bearded photographer running up to he turtles causing a chase sequence. Horribly edited.
What's more the aliens in their first confrontation with the turtles, beat them easily including Splinter! This scene does not show the turtles and Splinter in a good light, getting beaten by 2 unfamiliar and soon-to-be 1 episode villains, along to goofy, novelty background music, which is uncommon for this type of scene. Good action though when the turtles and Splinter are sliding down the roof of one of Florence's most important buildings.
There's some pretty dumb-downed dialogue when the turtles are reminding themselves, that they are named after the Renaissance artists. However after this, there's this hilarious comparison from Michaelangelo, hilarious for it's absurdness. Splinter tells him the paintings and statues of the Renaissance artists are important to the people of Florence, which Michaelangelo compares it to the beach being important to a Californian surfer dude. Classic.
The worst of the worst is the turtles getting trapped in the aliens laser ray and the final fight with the turtles using Gladiator weapons(a good idea though) at the Coliseum. The better parts near the end is the turtles putting stickers on the paintings and statues, claiming they are fake and not from Earth, and the manager of the museum startled to see a sticker on "The Last Supper" and believing the painter Raphael was an alien!
At the end, one thing that ties in well with this episode is the turtles wearing fancy Italian mafia-style coats. One strange thing to point out, is that Michaelangelo is back to using his Nunchukus, which he spins around, but claims he is still waiting for the aliens to give back his grappling hook. By 1993, the Nunchukus were well banned from the cartoon and a grappling hook was used instead. A bit confusing. However, as mentioned on TMNT Review HQ's Season 1993 page, this could've been made back in 1990 or 1991, or even 1989.
"ARTLESS" GETS A: 2/5 RATING.
