TAKE ME TO THE PICTURES

EPISODE TYPE : Growth Ray (Potion) & King Kong Situation
(see Common Themes section for more on this category)

WHAT IS JOCKO?: An anthro, non furry,  brown furred lab monkey

HOW DID THEY BECOME MACRO?: Hit by the beams of a Molecular Intensifier

WHAT DO THEY BECOME AFTER THEY GROW?: (Jocko) Gorilla Version of Self
                                                                                       (Donatello) Larger Version of Self
IS GROWTH SHOWN?:  Yes                     

MACRO NAME:  (Jocko) King Klutz
                             (Donatello) SAME AS BEFORE

LOCATIONS:  New York City

MACRO SIZE (Approx or Average ):  Both 30 Feet

NATURE:  (Jocko) Chaotic Animal Behavior
                  (Donatello) Heroic Good

DESTRUCTION LEVEL DONE: Medium - Side of a building, news van,

SYNOPSIS OF EPISODE:  In the Turtles Lair, Donatello and his brothers along with their rat  ninja master, Splinter, are all gathered around a small device covered up with a blanket. They all laugh when they see this poorly built device laying under it. Donatello is less then amused and tells them that his idol "Willard W Willard" would understand it. But as per Splinter's request, he tells them about it anyway. It turns out its a Hot Dog Fixer upper and it has a robotic nose on it that will put all your toppings onto your hot dog. The machine doesn't work well at all sending hot dog toppings flying everywhere causing his brothers to laugh and Splinter helping to make him feel better. April interrupts this to a call on Donatello's Turtle Com informing him that Willard W. Willard is going to be at the International Science Fair that afternoon showing his new invention, a molecular intensifier. Donatello beams at the idea of meeting him as everyone else just laughs at the hot dog topping covered Donatello.

Back out in outer space where the Technodrome is stranded, a huge pile of space junk hits the side of  it causing both Shredder and Krang to fall down. They both vow to get back to Earth if it's the last thing they do. Back in New York, the turtles are walking in the sewers finding the right manhole cover to lead to the Convention Center.  When Don walks in, the whole room is cracking up at Willard who is on stage trying to get them to quiet down. One of the laughing doctors in the audience throws a tomato at Willard only for Donatello to use his shell to block it. Don leads Willard and his device off the stage as April goes to report the story. Shredder and Krang pick up April's broadcast, hearing all about the Professors' invention and even though the Professor hasn't gotten it to work properly, they are very interested in having such a device to use for their own evil purposes. Shredder heads to the portal to head back to Earth.

In Willard W. Willard's lab, April is telling him about how smart Donatello is and the Professor is convinced and allows him to help him out to fix the Molecular Intensifier. All the while Willard's pet monkey, Jocko is happy as he is trying to eat a banana not seeming to even notice what is going on. The professor tries to demonstrate it by putting a plant in front of the machine but the machine isn't working properly and starts to send growth beams all over the room. Everyone ducks down but a stray beam hits Jocko in the rear before the machine stops spinning around and just sends its beams to the ground under the floor. The professors seems more concerned about the machine then anything else as it seems the machine didn't work at all.

Donatello sulks back in the Turtle Lair sad that he was so wrong about the Professor as the Turtles try to cheer him up. Meanwhile the rays waves start to hit some roots under the city and  eventually causes them to grow through the streets sending vines over all the buildings. Bern Thomson, who runs the Channel 6 news that April works for, has his car caught up in some vines as he arrives at work, causing the car to rise up in the caught vines until he reaches his office window and jumps out of the door entering through the window. He quickly assigns April and Vernon to cover the story of the out of control vines . The vines burst into the Turtles Lair sending the chairs the turtles sit on into the air as they are caught under the vines. Donatello is happy again realizing that the machine does work.

Back in Willard's lab , Jocko sits in his cage as the Professor talks to him not able to understand how his device didn't work. As he's trying to figure out calculations Jocko starts to grow behind the Professor out growing the cage and then some. As the Professor figures out that Jocko should be about 30 feet tall, Jocko is indeed 30 feet tall and walks through the wall stomping out onto the streets. The Professor jumps up with joy knowing that he was right all along.

April is busy covering the story on the streets only for Jocko to show up at the same time. The Turtles suddenly show up too via the roots pushing their seats through the ground right in front of Jocko. When the Turtles realize that it's Jocko everything seems to make sense. They decide to try and stop him but don't have much luck. Rapheal just tickles the huge apes foot as they all flee as fast as they can. Shredder sees the huge Jocko and tells Krang that maybe being in outer space isn't such a bad thing. Krang doesn't want to hear of it and tells Shredder to get the device. Jocko meanwhile sees April on the otherside of the building and lifts up a huge root of flowers that grew with the roots. Shredder sneaks into the news van as April and Venon try and flee from Jocko who is chasing them.

Michaelangelo sees a boat in the harbor full of bananas and they all head over to it getting Jocko's attention. Jocko sees the bananas and tosses the news van away as he goes for the food. April, Vernon and the Turtles all rush back to the Professor's lab as they hope he can come up with a way to reverse the growth effects of the ray. Shredder shows up before they can find out the answer to that and steals the ray as the turtles go after him. Jocko shows up at the same time easily taking care of the small turtles below him. Donatello holds the device they got back from Shredder saying that there is no one big enough to handle Jocko. The Professor decides to fix that and uses the device on Donatello making the turtle grow instantly to 30 feet tall.

Donatello, now at 30 feet tall finds Jocko and challenges him to a duel. The huge monkey sets April down on a flagpole from the side of a building as Donatello picks up a huge telephone pole to use for a weapon. Jocko tosses the poles at Don who deflects them with the telephone pole. Jocko charges at Don and lifts him up, tossing the turtle into a building behind him that crumbles to the ground. Don gets back up and goes for a last attack by leaping onto the apes back only for Jocko to toss Don again entrapping him in some vines as Jocko picks up April and stomps off victoriously.

Back in Willard's lab, Shredder has tied up the turtles and is getting ready to take the device back to the Technodrome. The turtles get free by wiggling about and toss Shredder into the teleporter without the device and quickly go to work on reversing the rays effects. Don is chasing Jocko up a tall building that they are climbing as Mike has the Molecular Intensifier on the Turtle Blimp as it's still being worked on by the Professor. When the ray is ready Mike fires it hitting Don causing him to shrink back to normal landing on the blimp. The machine starts to malfunction and Don gives it a chop and the rays hit Jocko shrinking him back to normal as well. 

They all return to the Turtle Lair where Donatello shows how he fixed the ray by demonstrating on the broken tv that had Aprils report on it before it fizzled out. He gives the tv a huge chop as the tv comes back on line and everyone laughs at Donatello's methods for repairing items.

REVIEW OF EPISODE: I always enjoyed this episode for some reason. I still do to this day. It isn't anything original as the King Kong spoof has been done many times before and after this. But I just think the take they had on it was a very amusing and enjoyable one. They took a nonsensical situation of Donatello idolizing some unheard of prior to this episode Professor and made a situation out of it.  TMNT has always been known for a quick build up at the beginning for what we can expect and again they do so here. And lets face it, a giant Donatello battling a giant Jocko has some priceless moments. Especially when Donatello looks to the camera after being tossed into a building that falls around him and comments to us about how they spent the whole budget they had on this one episode. Before he gets beat up more by Jocko.

For the fact alone that we get not one, but two cool giant monsters, I would have to say this episode ranks up highly as far as a good macro episode goes. But Jocko clearly steals the show in this one. A minor character that was just in the background the whole time, suddenly becomes a main focus after he accidentally gets enlarged and he seems to have fun in his size and new look on things.  April asks him if he's ashamed of himself and Jocko shakes his head, almost proud of the fact that he's not ashamed at all of causing trouble through the city.  A good personality in a fun situation really adds a lot to a story. This is something that a lot who try and copy a King Kong situation don't get. It's not about the gorilla being a giant and that he can scale buildings with some female captive. But it's about the now giant gorilla realizing the situation he is in and doesn't hide the fact that he's larger and that he will use it to his advantage if need be.  What could have been another ho-hum, been there done that, turned into a great episode in the series especially when we get Donatello thrusted into the situation after commenting that there is no one big enough to stop Jocko. Don too has an interesting personality as a giant as he is almost embarrassed about the whole situation but doesn't hold back on causing damage himself as he gets into the feel of it.

Full of many classic moments all throughout. The professor trying to figure out why his pet monkey isn't a giant only for Jocko to grow as the clueless professor is working on figures is a nice touch.  Donatello having trouble climbing the building due to not having bendable toes like Jocko does.  And so forth. If it wasn't the one liners we had it was just the overall humor of the situation that all the characters found themselves in suddenly and without warning.  The high pace of the episode never slowed down and each moment was just as well thought out as the next.

The few problems I really had with the episode was first of all Shredder and Krang's being in the episode. Both of them were squeezed into this episode, as if it was in the contracts of the voice actors to appear in every episode no matter what, so they had to figure some way to get them in.  I just didn't get it. Often I don't mind a good Shredder and Krang plan but this time it was forced and didn't flow at all with the rest of the story.  They want the growth ray, that's understandable, but Shredder came off more as a bad attempt at comic relief and put into situations that added nothing to a story that worked just fine without him. If you can't think of a viable reason to have a character in a cartoon, don't have him. Its not like there hasn't been other episodes without Shredder in it in the early years of the cartoon. The other real problem I had was the poor animation of Jocko and even Donatello. I don't know if it's because more then one artist was doing the artwork in this cartoon but Jocko must have been drawn 5 or 6 different ways when he was a giant. It was not a good way to go about  it, whatever the reason as every moment he would look totally different. One scene he had thin legs and a roundish body.  Another he had no hair on his face and just some small fur on his head. Another time he had a full beard looking like some beatnik. Then he was drawn as just a round form at other times. His scale was off at other moments and that too became comical at points. Finding all the different looks they had for Jocko became a distracting part of watching the episode. They also had a problem with Donatello as his shades of purple kept shifting from dark to light in almost every scene. He was drawn badly as a giant as well as they gave him a small head on a big body and sometimes gave him his bo and sometimes didn't. Seems like someone in the art department was asleep at the wheel when they drew this episode. The story worked fine besides Shredder being in it, but the art work needed some improvement at points.

The pros out weigh the cons in this episode by far. The situation and story carry things enough that the other aspects don't matter in the overall scheme of things. There were a few things that seemed unexplained or rushed. Like for one thing the Molecular intensifier was two different machines. One being a portable and one being a huge device in his lab. Both working just the same as the other  and being used the same without explanation. Also they never explain what happened to all the vines that were grown as the machine fizzled out after they shrunk Jocko but they never took care of all the vines.  Seems like they really needed more then the 23 minutes or so we had for the episode to put in as much as they wanted and that's understandable as that happens often in cartoons where a lot has to be cut due to time constraints.  Jocko makes for a fun giant and good monster. He has fun taking care of the Turtles easily and plays the role of a King Kong wanna be just as well. And in this episode you get the bonus of a giant Donatello which I'm sure there will be many fans of as he too made for a good giant playing the good guy role and still unable to stop Jocko even as a giant. This is probably one of the only times where the Turtles truly were outmatched, even when one of them became the same size he was still overmatched. If they didn't shrink him down this may have never solved itself. I couldn't help but to grin when towards the end Don is warning Mike to be careful when using the Molecular Intensifier as they don't want to make Jocko bigger. I don't know.. could have made for an interesting alternate ending if that did happen....

Definitely check this one out . It has a lot of everything and is exactly what you would expect from this cartoon. Just remember its your typical early 90's fare with things that don't always make sense, lack of animation quality and more humor then seriousness like you would get from the more recent TMNT series, but it's fun and that's what this should all be about I say.

MEMORABLE QUOTES AND MOMENTS IN EPISODE: 

(April is busy reporting on the story of overgrown vines as a shadow covers her)
April: "Umm.. do you mind sir? Please move! We are trying to do a telecast!"
(Jocko at 30 feet tall roars loudly as he stands there looking down at her)
April: "Uh.. forget I said anything..."
(The Turtles suddenly show up via roots that pushed their seats through the roadway from underground)
Michaelangelo: "Whoa! Tubuloso mode of transportation!"
April: "Hi fellahs. Umm, don't look now but..."
(April points behind them causing all the turtles to turn around and see Jocko behind them)
Leonardo: "Tell me it's a trick done with mirrors!"
Donatello: "I'm afraid not. That's Jocko, the Professor's pet monkey."
Rapheal: "I sure hope he's house trained..."

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(The giant sized Jocko leans his face into the side of the building that he smashed his way out of earlier)
Professor Willard: "You naughty boy! Where were ya?!"
Donatello: "You aren't planning on spanking him are you!?"

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(April walks up to the giant Jocko giving him a peace of her mind.)
April: " Aren't you ashamed of yourself going around scaring people like that!?"
(Jocko just shakes his head no as he grunts and just grabs April stomping off with her in his hand)

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FINAL NOTES:

Errors--

      Factual -- If Donatello grew in size proportionately after being hit by the growth rays, the same should have happened to Jocko. But Jocko actually becomes a Gorilla instead of a large monkey as he grew,  gaining the build and look of a a giant ape over what he was before he grew which was supposedly a monkey even though we never see any tail on him prior.

      Continuity -- At first the rays had a delayed reaction, causing the vines and Jocko to grow much later after they were actually hit. When the machine is used on Donatello he grows instantly after being hit by the beams.

      Continuity -- After Donatello grows in size, his bo is seen on his back in all the moments prior to his confrontation to Jocko. Making us believe that his bo grew in size with him. But when he goes to start his battle with Jocko he no longer has his bo and has to pick up a telephone pole to take the place of his missing bo.

      Animation -- When Jocko picks up Michaelangelo off of his leg to spin him, he has him in his hand but also has him on his leg as he was drawn  being in two places in the same frame.

       Animation -- Jocko was drawn differently at various times in the episode. Sometimes he had no hair on his face, sometimes no hair on his head, sometimes he had a beard and other times was drawn out of proportion totally.

+ :Giant Jocko and Giant Donatello both make for great giants who give us classic moments and situations. Jocko's personality and attitude as a giant are classic. Full of humor and the typical TMNT situations that would expect from the series.

- Poor animation at points, especially with the way Jocko is drawn. Sometimes he looks like a Hippie and other times he looks like a Frankenstein reject. Shredder's use in this episode was unnecessary and gave nothing at all to the story.  Lots of loose ends left unexplained at the climax of the episode.

PICTURES OF JOCKO & DONATELLO

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

         

    

AVI: 

4 minutes 11 seconds
Jocko, a professors pet monkey, gets super sized and starts to rampage through the city. He gets the hots for April along the way. And its up to Donatello, who is also super sized by the professor to put a stop to it. Needless to say, most of the city gets trashed in the process.