BRIEF STORYLINE: It's a piping hot summer, and the turtles take it easy with a pizza at the restaurant Plink's, the home of world famous chef, Wolfgang Plink. A gang of 3 punks charge into the restaurant, and are here for all the money/jewellery. They are no match for the turtles, however.
At Channel Six News, April and her colleagues Vernon and Irma, and boss Burne Thompson reviewing April's latest report. Burne is angry by the fact, that there was no footage of the turtles. April explains she made a promise not to involve them, but Burne is having none of it. He chastises the way things work today, and he says back in his day as a young reporter, you had to be ruthless to get the latest news. Vernon makes a brave remark to Burne that, if he wasn't so overweight he would searching the streets high and low for the turtles. Burne is surprisingly inspired by this statement, and proceeds to go out and search with Vernon while, April is ordered to report on the mysterious malfuctions of air conditioners around the city.
April finds out that the Channel Six News building and the Plink's were using the same air conditioning repair company, called S+K. She meets up with the turtles at Plink's, and arrange to search for the S+K van, which has been giving service to the whole local area.
During this, Burne Thompson and Vernon skim over a bad area of the city, looking for possible witnesses of seeing the turtles, but they end up getting kidnapped for their questions, by members of a spy ring, who think they are up to no good. In another part of town, April discovers the S+K Air Conditioning Repair Company truck. The turtles are contacted and they advise her to stay there and wait. However, she becomes too nosey, and is shocked to see Bebop is one of the repair men.
Shredder and Krang are up to no good again. Shredder is stealing the freon chemical from air conditioning units, but that was a mistake, as Krang says freon is useless as it is too unstable. The gas Shredder needs is NutriFreeze, which is more powerful than freon. April unwittingly unscrews a valve on a freon gas tank and the gas leaks out dangerously.
However, the leaking gas causes a trail for the Turtle van to follow where the S+K van is going. Meanwhile, Burne and Vernon walk into an abandoned warehouse and are being interrogated by the spy. It 's a very strange yet harmless way of interrogating them, by tickling their feet with feathers. The spy lets them go as they know absolutely nothing. Suddenly, a car smashes through the warehouse door, and the group of spies flee.
Don Turtelli comes out the car, who is a mob boss and he is convinced that Vernon and Burne are looking for him, not the turtles. Then he also interrogates them with a feather! Burne tries to be honest and that their search has nothing to do with Don Turtelli.
The turtles are at the NutriFreeze plant attacking Shredder, Bebop and Rocksteady, however, NutriFreeze gas is blasted in their faces, and this imprisons the turtles in ice and unable to move.
Vernon and Burne are eventually released by Don Turtelli's men on the street, and instantly see the NutriFreeze warehouse and spot the turtles encased in ice. Now's their chance! However, they're abducted by Elvis-lookalike aliens in a spaceship, and the feather strikes again!
Are the frozen turtles appearing in an ill-fated adventure and the Technodrome will rise again? Is this the last we will see of Burne and Vernon?
TMNT REVIEW HQ COMMENTS: A respectfully decent episode. It start off well with the turtles finishing off the pizza restaurant crooks easily, before their funny first impressions of the trenchcoat and hat donned clothes, comparing them to characters out of the movie "Casablanca", and calling them lizards, to the turtles disgust!
Burne's bumbling venture outside to scoop out news stories with Vernon is mildly entertaining. The scene where they meet a spy, is funny when Burne is trying to figure out the spy's password to get more info off him. Burne confidently interprets the password as "the turtles are green". This starts off a string of situation where they are interrogated by feather-tickling their feet, and they howl with laughter into submission.
Now, the DonTurtelli who appears in this episode does not look like the same guy who appears in a futher 2 episodes later on in the 89 season. He's fatter for start.
The first major action scene is OK, involving the turtles and Bebop and Rocksteady, after the surprise spotting of the 2 cretins from April at the NutriFreeze warehouse. It's a little over-long. This leads to a suspense predicament for the turtles as Shredder freezes all four turtles solid. The music heightens the drama as usual.
More humour turns up. Shredder tells April that she has "atrocious dialogue for such a pretty face!", reminding you that this is only a cartoon. We find out also that Burne was "blubbering like a baby" to get out of the scary situation of being interrogated by gangster DonTurtelli.
The final action scene is not a sparkling great fight, as there is no hand combat to the villains, but involves rescuing April from the Transport Module, about to collide with another one.
Burne and Vernon comes across even stranger things when they meet aliens that look like singer Elvis Presley. The music changes accordingly to a light Rock 'n Roll tune. The ending is funny, as Burne has lost his sense, appearing in a rare televised news report, and blurting out about the aliens, and a memorable finishing quote from Raphael, "who says there's nothing funny on TV!". It's a shame they didn't really have any other episodes that centered on Burne, there's more funny material potential from this self-satisfied, unwitting, oaf of a character.
"BURNE'S BLUES" GETS A: 3/5 RATING.
