Air Turtle

**"Air Turtle"** is the eighth episode of the second season (Episode 5A) of *Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*, and the fifty-fourth episode of the series overall. It first aired on April 24th, 2020.

## Characters

* April O'Neil (Kat Graham)
* Arch of Aquinnah (Eric Bauza)
* The Daves
	+ Daves Player #1 (Jack Rossi)

* Donatello (Josh Brener)
* Leonardo (Ben Schwartz)
* Michelangelo (Brandon Mychal Smith)
* Raphael (Omar Benson Miller)
* Tim Dunkman (Allen Maldonado)
* Baron Draxum (Roger Craig Smith)
* Dave (Jack Rossi)
* The Knights

## Plot

The Turtles are playing basketball at a basketball court. After winning a match against Raph and Mikey, Leo begins doing the victory dance much to Mikey's chagrin. The three brothers left as Leo continues his victory dance. Only to be stopped by the basketball who was thrown into the net. Leo turns to see Tim Dunkman who was clapping behind him. When asked why he's here, Tim states he needs someone for the New York Daves. Leo thought he was going to play with the Daves. But Tim wants Leo to be a mascot which he happily accepts.

At the basketball stadium, Leo is wearing a Daves mascot costume and begins performing and cheering for the New York Daves. However, the players are terrible and they have lost the games. Leo apologizes to Tim but Tim states that he needs to do something about this. Leo takes out a rock which supposedly gives him good luck. He advice Tim to change his luck mojo no matter what it takes. This gives Tim an idea as to how they can win the game. In the locker room, Tim is having a conversation with the Daves players. He decides that they should use the arch that he had recently purchased in order to change their luck around.

April, Mikey, Raph and Donnie are sitting in the stands while Leo is preparing to do his dance for the Daves. The announcer starts to call out the teams. First was the the Knights who appear on one side. When the Daves arrived, the players walk under the arch. Causing them to become weak. However, when the game starts, the Daves players began to act weird and they were scoring points left and right as Leo cheers for the team.

 Raph asked Leo if something weird is going on with the Daves. Leo assured him that the arch is working well. Donnie senses that the arch is mystic and because of this, all of the Daves turned into muscular Yokai. Leo realized his mistake and told Tim that this was too much. The man said that they;re winning before the slider backed away. Donnie managed to call Draxum so he could talk to Leo. Once on the screen, he shouted at Leo of what he had done. Leo doesn’t understand any of it. Draxum explained that the arch that turned the Daves into monsters is called the Arch of Aquinonn and the only way to reverse it is to defeat the demons in battle.

Finally, Leo gets it and tells his brothers and April that he has been a bad brother and a horrible player. After reconciling, they took charge as the Knight players.

The team started to play the game as they managed to dunk the Dave’s side to win. Tim seemed to have enough and walked through the arch, turning him into a monstrous one eyed beast. The others knew that they can’t beat the monster and Leo knew that Donnie had to be the one to win the game. As the game begins again, the group starts to distract the Daves and Leo manages to win the game by using a slam dunk, breaking the effect of the Daves and turning them back into humans.

Raph asked Leo how he knows Donnie is gonna miss, and Leo said that he’s the team player doesn’t mean Donnie is good at basketball, ending the episode.

## Trivia

* The episode title is a nod to Disney's *Air Bud* film franchise.
* The premise of this episode is also a reference to the movie *Space Jam*.
* The scene where Leo (in a Dave mascot costume) is dancing in a disco-like background is a homage of the 1987 series' opening sequence.
* It was revealed in April 2020 by *Rise of the TMNT* executive producer Andy Suriano in a Tweet the Daves player #3 is designed after *Rise of the TMNT* production coordinator Melvin Young Jr.

## Videos

"Air Turtle" 🏀 Animatic - Rise of the TMNT 🐢