BRIEF STORYLINE: Alas, Krang has a brand new scheme going! This time capitalizing on the Easter feel-good spirit by getting Bebop and Rocksteady to dress as Easter bunnies. It’s to fool people that they mean no harm, but then blasting on the unsuspected with a Docilizer ray that turns them into rabbit-like, scaredy-cats. Krang sets this as a trial, and if this experiment succeeds, he will install its power into a microwave transmitting dish to envelop the whole city with fear. Krang first sends the two cretins to the Channel Six News Building and they plan to go on a Easter egg hunt.
When Bebop and Rocksteady arrive at the Channel Six News Building, they get ready to zap the gun of fear onto April and company. April contacts the turtles before she becomes helpless and frozen with terror of doing anything at all. The turtles discover they must search out for the Cyranium Crystal in another world where fairytales are real and the fairytale characters are living, breathing, talking beings, not imaginative beings. It’s called the Fairy Tale Dimension. Leonardo and Raphael arrive there, and make friends with Hokum Hare, who is the rabbit from the “Tortoise and the Hare” story and mistakes the turtles for his racing rivals. The turtles then have to face the famous Giant from “Jack and the Beanstalk” who guards the Cyranium Crystal. Can Leonardo, Raphael and Hokum recreate the age-old fairytale and snatch the Cyranium Crystal from the Giant and chop down the beanstalk? Can they join up with Donatello and Michaelangelo back in Earth, and stop Shredder and Krang using the Docilizer Ray on the entire world?
TMNT REVIEW HQ COMMENTS: A somewhat scrappy episode. Not the best of beginnings to a season. It’s almost half bad, half good. The episode spanks of goofiness, like the Fairytales coming to life, Bebop and Rocksteady dressed as bunnies and the turtles make friends with appropriately enough for Easter, a bunny or hare called Hokum Hare. Concerning April at Channel Six, she still has Vernon and Burne to bug her, but funnily enough, there is no Irma and there seems to be a stand-in for her. A woman wearing a red skirt and white blouse stands beside April with the turtles at the end, where Irma usually belongs. The episode does improve a little when Leonardo and Raphael are in the Fairytale dimension, and the ending fight split between the turtles, Hokum and Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady.
The best, and rather specific moments of the episodes vary in different scenes. The turtles first head-to-head with the Giant of “Jack and the Beanstalk” fame, as he tries to stomp at Leo and Raphael is one. Bebop and Rocksteady running off in their bunny costumes from the Channel Six building as Donatello tries to think of an anti dote to erase the rampant fear throughout the building caused by the Docilizer. Leo and Raphael’s first exchange of words with Hokum Hare, which is amusing. Shredder facing the terrified April, snatching the microphone to announce his devilish doings, being quite humorous about it, talking about microwaves, which will pass the fear onto humans, “won’t be used for cooking anymore!”. Also the funny idea of turning the “Jack and the Beanstalk” story into a recurring show every hour. Hokum Hare’s best moment is hopping up the microwave transmitting tower to save the day. One of the funniest moments is when Krang calls Shredder for a new invention with a remote control-like device, and Shredder says “a TV remote control? Someone has already come up with that Krang!”.
Some of the worst moments happen at Channel 6, where all the workers are so scared of everything. Just bad editing, that’s all, and sometimes the music doesn’t change well from one tune to the next. The turtles long tussle to get out of the Giant’s castle to retrieve the crystal can be sloppy most times. Vernon’s slapstick fall isn’t that funny and same too, to Bebop and Rocksteady’s easter bunny antics outside the Channel Six building. However, there’s slightly more good than bad in this episode.
"THE TURTLES AND THE HARE" GETS A: 3/5 RATING.
