| Tokka and Rahzar | |
|---|---|
Tokka (upper-left), Rahzar (upper-right). |
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| Publication information | |
| First appearance | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze |
| Created by | Kevin Eastman Peter Laird Stephen R. Bissette |
| In-story information | |
| Team affiliations | Foot Clan |
| Abilities | Tokka Enhanced strength Razor sharp claws, teeth and spines on shell Rahzar Enhanced strength Razor sharp claws and teeth |
Tokka and Rahzar are two fictional mutant villains in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles universe. They first appeared in the 1991 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. Rahzar was played by Mark Ginther and Tokka was played by Kurt Bryant. They were both voice-acted by Frank Welker.
The design of Tokka in the movie was inspired by the drawings of comic book artist and writer Stephen R. Bissette. Bissette's noted works include Aliens: Tribes, Tyrant, Taboo, and his award winning run in Saga of the Swamp Thing, among numerous articles and books on comics and horror films.
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When The Shredder found out that the substance that mutated the Turtles had been created by TGRI (Techno-Global Research Industries), he sent his Foot Soldiers to steal the ooze and kidnap head TGRI scientist, Professor Jordan Perry. Shredder instructs Perry to use the ooze to mutate an Alligator Snapping Turtle and a Gray Wolf, kidnapped from the Bronx Zoo, thus creating Tokka and Rahzar. However, Jordan had secretly altered the mutagen, and as a result, the two mutants had the intelligence of human infants. Saki ordered the monsters to face him in battle, to teach them who their master was, the infantile mutants misinterpreted the word "master", thinking it meant "mamma" and hugged him instead. Angered, Shredder ordered them to be destroyed, but Perry had sympathy for them and showed Saki their total obedience to him and that, as they were "playing" in the junkyard, lifting a large truck as if it were a toy, they had great strength. This prompted Shredder to keep them alive.
Despite their low intelligence, the two mutants' incredible physical strength made them more than a match for the Turtles. On their first encounter at Shredder and Tatsu's junkyard base, the Turtles were ill-prepared and barely managed to escape when trying to save their brother Raphael from capture and rescue Dr. Perry. During the escape they trapped Tokka in a manhole from the waist down. Michaelangelo teased Tokka and tickled the bottom of the snapper's clawed feet. April O'Neil was confronted by the Foot with a message for the Turtles: If they didn't meet the Foot at a construction site near the docks, Shredder would set Tokka and Rahzar out again into Central Park. As many people would get hurt, The Turtles and Splinter agreed that there was no other choice but to face Shredder. But the professor had a plan; with the help of Donatello and Keno, Dr. Perry prepared an anti-mutagen to de-mutate Tokka and Rahzar, which had to be ingested.
During their second encounter at the construction site, amidst a distraction, Leonardo and Michaelangelo trick Tokka and Rahzar into eating the antidote (they froze the concoction into ice cubes and then hid them in a box of donuts, which they then offered to the two mutants as the "ritual of the traditional pre-fight donut"). Rahzar and Tokka devoured some of the donuts with continued coaxing from the Turtles. Surprisingly, Rahzar, regardless of his infant-like mentality, figured that something was wrong with the situation, and crushed one of the donuts in his claw, to discover the anti-mutagen cube. Enraged, Tokka and Rahzar smashed Michaelangelo through a wall and into the Dockshore Club interrupting a crowded dance concert by Vanilla Ice.
As the final showdown commenced at the club; Leo and Raph were fending off Rahzar and Tokka's snapping attacks. Dr. Perry informed them that their repeated burping was slowing the anti-mutagen and that carbon dioxide was needed to speed up the demutation. The Turtles knocked their foes off their feet and flat on their backs with a couple of barrels they found somewhere in the concert, and then the turtles shoved fire extinguishers into the creatures' mouths, which administered the needed carbon dioxide to reverse the mutation. Finally, the antidote took effect and the two mutants returned to their normal animal forms. What happened to them after this is unknown.
Tokka and Rahzar only appeared once in the seventh season of the 1987 cartoon series. In 1993, they were featured in the season 7 episode "Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter". They were out-of-control mutants created when the Shredder exposed zoo animals to mutagen years earlier (whether this refers to when he created Bebop and Rocksteady or Groundchuck and Dirtbag, is not made clear).
Not long after their first battle with the Turtles at the Crystal Palace Mall, they were captured by Dirk Savage. The animated versions were more intelligent and more eloquent, particularly Rahzar. Rahzar states to Tokka, "...You are my only friend."
Tokka has a very uncontrolled appetite which leads him into Dirk Savage's trap which consists of a buffet. The Snapper gets captured by the Mutant Hunter after he devours the smorgasbord. Even though Rahzar made a big deal of his friend being captured, and he was shown attacking Dirk later on, it was never shown if he ever got reunited with Tokka, even after the bad guys were defeated.
Their look in the cartoon was very much like that of their action figures, made two years prior to their toon appearance.
In this episode, their names were spelled Toka and Razar.
Toka was voiced by Rob Paulsen, while Razar was voiced by Townsend Coleman.
During the course of Turtles Forever, Ch'rell, the Utrom Shredder, uses mutagen obtained from the universe of the 1987 animated series to mutate his human troops, with two of these mutated soldiers taking on forms identical to Tokka and Rahzar. However, they are later dispatched by the 2003 incarnations of Donatello and Raphael with the aid of the 1987 Party Wagon.[1]
Although the old TMNT videogames are based on the 1987 cartoon version of the franchise, and the first game listed here came out in 1991, two years before Tokka and Rahzar appeared on that show, the two mutants are nonetheless part of three of the games.
They are in both versions of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time. In the original arcade version, they are the bosses of the pirate ship level, while in the Super NES version, they have been moved to the new Technodrome level.
They are paired together as a double-boss. They can team up in their attacks in the SNES version; one of their moves involves Tokka withdrawing into his shell and Rahzar hopping on top and riding around the screen chaotically like a skateboard. Their low intelligence from the movie is also included in the game: they will often accidentally hit each other instead of the player, and will take damage for it. In the Super Nintendo Version, Tokka is also able to use an ice breath attack, while Rahzar uses a fire breath attack. Just like in the movie, when the player defeats them in the game, they de-mutate to normal animals. It is possible to attack Rahzar after he has de-mutated. He makes a 'Yelp' sound. Also, in the game, their names have the spelling of the movie, not the later spelling of the TV show. The Super NES version borrows a quote from the movie which Tokka and Rahzar said, right before the fight: "Master say have fun." "FUN!" In the movie, they say this when they're tearing up a backstreet to lure the Turtles into a confrontation.
They also made an appearance in the NES game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project. Here you must fight them as separate bosses. Rahzar appears in the Technodrome level immediately before Shredder, and uses an ice breath attack. Tokka appears as the boss of the rooftop level and carries a shield for blocking jump kicks. Plus, there was an electric billboard in the background and Tokka would be able to uppercut you into it, making you take double damage. Also, in this game Rahzar's name is spelled Rahzer.
They also return in the modern remake TMNT Turtles in Time Re-Shelled for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. They again are featured as a double-boss in the pirate ship level.
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