Lord Dregg’s journey into insanity - TMNT 1987

He started as a simple alien conqueror, but failure after failure, drove him into a downward spiral of madness. This is the story of 1987’s version of Lord Dregg.
WRITTEN AND EDITED BY
Javier S. Montano
NARRATED BY
Spencer Mayo
Fiverr: www.fiverr.com/spencermayovo
Lord Dregg’s journey into insanity - TMNT 1987
00:00 Creation
00:55 Dregg fools humanity
05:21 Dregg exposed and change of allies
08:16 Return of Shredder and Krang
10:04 The end of Dregg
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[@darknessnight1115]

You have to give Dregg credit. The Turtles had basically retired after Turtle Trek so his timing was perfect. He threw them off and made them re-evaluate how to fight a long-term enemy. He went nuts and underestimated Shredder. I personally wanted more time where we saw Shredder and Dregg on Earth.

[@Darksnovia]

Truly an underrated character and one of my personal favorites he was a breath of fresh air for a series that let's be honest here was getting stale by season 7.

[@blinkenschnaag777]

I remember getting bored by the time they've reached somewhere on season 6. I ignored the TMNT cartoons and continued liking the original comic books.

[@cammy85]

Yup, the HAVOC experiment from Season 8 paid off in a way even if that did annoy the kids and teens wanting to see how Shredder and Krang's story concluded.. Season 9 Dregg wasn't as cool as Season 10 Dregg who wasn't hiding behind the façade of a "good guy". Not that Season 9 was all bad. While not necessary to this video, it gave us Jet McCabe voiced by Robbie Rist (movie Michelangelo) and Chronos; a Ridder-Clock King hybrid who also knew everything about the Turtles.

[@lifeisberserk9566]

True season 9 was really good

[@jarlwhiterun7478]

Nice run-on sentence.

[@hdofu]

The problem was that the show waited to reboot and instead tried to adapt at this point. The Red Sky Series could have been something had it not tried to be a continuation of the series that had a main villian prone to temper tantrums while his significant other brain made fun of him and gave him ultimatum of either "Conquer Earth already or help me Conquer Dimension X"

[@srstriker6420]

I wish that Dregg was in the IDW comics since I think he would make a fine addition to the Armageddon game along with Maligna since only Maligna appeared and I wonder why the Rat king didn’t recruit her, because I don’t know does the IDW Rat king has the power to resurrect people like he could have recruited Agent Bishop, Darius Dunn (which would be ironic since all 3 of them have the same voice actor in the 2003 series) and Tempestra to his cause. Also you did know that Tony Jay also voiced Alex Winter aka Megavolt?

[@TheTurtleNexus]

Yep, he voiced many villains.

[@srstriker6420]

@@TheTurtleNexus of course he does mainly Judge Claude Frollo

[@johnnygyro2295]

​@@srstriker6420 He also voiced Magneto in X-Men: Legends.

[@ATP25052]

Since they mentioned that from Mutant Mayhem they would make spin-off movies focused on villains, I hope that Dregg, along with others like the Rat King, Sabanti Romero, etc... give them their moment to shine, that they don't always focus on Shredder , Krang, and Stockman.

[@TheTurtleNexus]

I am under the impression that all the spin-offs will be about mutant villains. But who knows?

[@timdakis2107]

I hope NECA will make an original Lord Dregg figure.

[@LordProteus]

Maybe not a replacement for Shredder, but I do think he should consistently return as a major Foe for the Turtles. Basically their archetypical Alien Warlord adversary.

[@miragenights801]

Agree completely, he's good for an endgame type villain that comes in to raise the stakes toward the end.

[@jeremiahnapier2516]

They already have this type of villain - Krang. That's why the audience didn't like this arc - when you take a well-known character like Krang and replace him with another villain in the same character category, without any origin, clear motives, just with more merciless attitude and good publicity - that's lame. Triceratons is another thing. They would have fitted more for the dark tone of red sky. They were a whole race of alien invaders (that's different), got some pre-history from the comics (so the audience would have known them) and really dangerous in just one episode. The only thing that saves Dregg is his voice actor Tony Jay. If it wasn't for his charming and thrilling lines delivery, Dregg would have been a flop.

[@KasumiKenshirou]

It was kind of funny how Scientologist Jeffrey Scott (although he didn't create the character) was put in charge of a season where the Turtles were facing an alien overlord similar to Lord Xenu. I remember watching these episodes and getting sick of Lord Dregg. Dregg was apparently created so the Turtles wouldn't keep facing off against Shredder and Krang, but now they were just fighting a lamer villain every episode, so it didn't fix the problem at all.

[@jamesmoss3424]

Lord Dregg is one alien bug that you don't want to mess with.

[@elcalvomisterioso7600]

The new Dregg yes, the old one no, the original Dregg from 1987 has nothing to do with the current Dregg, the original Dregg was an alien conqueror of worlds, both series are not linked

[@ChristianFrates1997]

Tony Jay was amazing!

[@adamgoncalves1591]

God rest his soul, he was a living legend.

[@Zulu-Lemon]

The last 2 seasons was some of the best seasons they had.

[@shumworld]

I wished The Insect Queen Maligna from the TMNT Archie Comics took the role of Lord Dregg in the cartoon.

[@cammy85]

That's a great idea!! Krang could have set that up offscreen because with the Technodrome destroyed, it's not like they were going anywhere.

[@hdofu]

The problem was more then Lord Dregg... it was the tone shift from extremely light hearted to serious as fuck over the course of a season break... this hasn't just been done in kids shows, I remember as a fan of She Spies the shift from Season 1 to Season 2...one of the few times in my life I'm gonna praise Teen Titans Go for getting something right, but in the episode where they tried to impress the young justice cast by acting "extreme" they captured everything wrong with that treatment.

[@mestar9365]

87 lord dregg is one of my favourite villains Can you talk about Mr. Knull, please?

[@TheTurtleNexus]

I pretty much covered all of Null's appearances in the Archie videos (you can check the TMNT Adventures playlist). I will probably do a dedicated one when more about Madame Null is revealed.

[@gerardorodriguez7500]

Tony Jay is a legend

[@Hack_Man_VII]

Having rewatched the entire series multiple times sinse the DVDs were released, I have mixed feelings on Dregg. I liked Dregg's initial plans in season 9, but his design makes it hard to suspend my disbelief. The character looks like a cross between Count Dracula and Darth Vader, with Glowing red eyes and wrist mounted blasters. Nobody would trust this guy! At least not without being suspicious of him. His plans in season 10 made more sense because his true nature had already been revealed. There was no point in keeping up the false image of Dregg being a benevolent person, and he could just get to the point.

[@cammy85]

Bingo!! It wasn't so much the design. Just that the public being turned against the Turtles two season in a row sucked. And there had been a large gap between Season 8 and 9, so surely the public had come back around by then?

[@Hack_Man_VII]

@@cammy85 yeah, I wish. I guess hindsight really is 20/20.

[@Pretender-Jarod]

I wonder how much of Lord Dregg's appearance and behavior was based off of the then recent appearance (in 1991) of Grand Admiral Thrawn in the pre-Disney era Star Wars Expanded Universe. When I would first read Grand Admiral Thrawn stories, I imagined him speaking in a Lord Dregg-sounding voice. They even have similiar backstories & appearance in the franchises they are apart of. Both come from foreign / out-of-the-way areas of their galaxies / universes. Both have electric-blue colored skin (exoskeleton for Dregg?) Both have fierce, intense, glowing red eyes. Both make appearances after the main threats (Shredder / Krang in TMNT, Darth Vader / Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars) have been defeated. A bit off topic, I'm not entirely happy with the way Disney has handled Thrawn so far. Gone are the glowing, fierce-aspect of the red eyes. Thrawn's voice is a bit too soft and smooth. The old Thrawn was a calculating, dangerous, intelligent, commanding & paradoxically hidden-from-view tactician. The new one, a bit more of a neutered and subservient of the Star Wars Empire. Something that the old Thrawn would NEVER allow. If only we had the calm, graceful, poetic Thrawn combined with the steely appearance and a tad bit of the dark and gravely Lord Dregg voice thrown into the mix, we would finally have the Thrawn author Timothy Zahn envisioned all those years ago once again. But Disney, wouldn't allow that....would they? (I whole-heartedly give my stamp-of-approval of Lord Dregg as the closest animated or live-action of what could /should have been...)

[@Hack_Man_VII]

@@Pretender-Jarod I fully admit I hadn't read the Thrawn trilogy at the time. I know of those books, but I'm still waiting to save up the cash to drop on older printings of them. I don't trust rereleased from Disney. That being said, Dave Faloni has made it pretty clear this is HIS version of the character, and sadly not the version FANS wanted. The man doesn't even care about his own continuity of his other stuff. The guys at Midnight's Edge in the Morning have likened him to a child who recognizes things like Lightsabers and such, but doesn't have the maturity to write a proper story outside of cartoon plots.

[@patrickmcgavin2245]

Lord dregg first appeared in the first season of the second series. The original cartoon ran for 7 seasons. The second TMNT series ran for three seasons. Which lions gate put on DVD as seasons 8-10. The theme song always mentioned and showed shredder. But shredder never appeared in one episode. If ppl want to talk about relying on shredder too much. the second series is definitely guilty of that. Just without actually showing shredder. They simply pulled a bait and switch.

[@kunlesanders]

Lord Dregg only had 2 counterparts in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series. 1987 series (classic Season 9-10), and 2012 series. That's all.

[@Allbr3x]

Good grief, the TMNT went utterly weird at the end

[@mikedski9698]

Lord Dregg: I Am Dregg, Supreme Warlord Of The 7 Galaxies!

[@srstriker6420]

9:13 isn’t that way creepy than Leatherkrang and 10:03 so what happened to Shredder and Krang did they die?

[@TheTurtleNexus]

They were sent somewhere else in space and were never heard of again.

[@srstriker6420]

@@TheTurtleNexus is that right

[@cammy85]

@@srstriker6420 Yup!! We never did learn if Shredder and Krang were even together when Dregg had them brought them back to Earth. Mung never even mentioned Bebop and Rocksteady. One handheld game suggested they linked up with Bersersko who had taken over and repaired the Technodrome after everyone was sent to Dimension X.

[@kelleestrong1099]

I remember trying to watch this version and was completely turned off. Too much competition From Batman, X-men, etc for Turtles to get intergalactical

[@s.nifrum4580]

I’d like to see lord dregg work together with Maligna It just feels really obvious Can’t quite figure out how to justify the bat soldiers though. Those guys were just random

[@TheTurtleNexus]

There is a reference to Maligna in the 2012 show (I think it was the name of Dregg's ship at some point). Bats were popular in animation at the time. Because of Batman.

[@Flintofmother]

I always found Lord Dregg desig to be incredibly boring.