The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise has featured some pretty interesting antagonists over the years. In today’s video, we will examine one such exceptional villain who is Shredder’s child, which means that Shredder created this antagonist himself. With the construction of this nemesis for them, Shredder finally somewhat succeeds in his long-standing goal of outclassing the Ninja Turtles in his feud.
This enemy goes by the name Chrome Dome, and he is very strong. Even his enormous stature is pretty frightening. He has battled the ninja turtles numerous times and obeys every order Shredder gives him.
Additionally, the Chrome Dome features a number of in-built weaponry that are lethal for his adversaries. Without further ado, let us watch the video and learn everything there is to know about Chrome Dome, from the motivation for Shredder’s creation to his bloody encounters with the turtles.
Chrome Dome Origins
An American comic book artist named Michael Dooney invented the Chrome Dome character. Chrome Dome first appears in the fifth season’s episode 21 of the 1987 television series The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which debuted on August 31, 1991. Peter Renaday, who regularly provides the voice of Master Splinter and has provided the voices for almost 40 other characters in this series, provides his voice. David Wise is the author of the episode, which is titled “Planet of the Turtleoids, Part 1.”
The four turtle brothers set out for a late-night snack at the start of the tale. They come into Tattoo, a mutant, and fight him to stop him from wrecking a pet store. This mutant quickly electrocutes himself and transforms back into a hamster, which is his usual shape. Following this occurrence, Donatello surmises that perhaps Shredder and Kraang are tampering with the mutagen and causing issues once more, so they decide to look into it.
Now, back at Shredder’s hideout, we see that they are actually trying to create more and more mutants so that they can launch an attack at the local museum in order to steal a giant ruby. Shredder wants to use that ruby so that he can refocus Kraang’s new heat ray and free the Technodrome. Soon, Kraang, Shredder, and his minions decide to go to the city’s wild animal park in order to capture predatory animals, mutate them, and turn them into their slaves.
Soon after, Rocksteady and Bebop capture a gorilla and a lion for Kraang’s plan. Kraang then places them under the mutagen dispenser and heads out with Shredder to get some weapons. In the meantime, Rocksteady and Bebop end up freeing some of the bulls at the zoo because they want to play. Soon, a humanoid turtle known as Kerma, who fashions a trench coat and fedora, introduces himself to the chained Gorilla and Lion.
Kerma assumes they are two typical earthlings and tries to talk to them. But when they do not respond, he thinks that it is because they are chained to the wall. So, Kerma frees them, and they immediately try to attack him. After Kerma goes away, a bull and a mole end up hitting the mutagen dispenser, and with a flow of green liquid, the two animals get mutated into humanoid forms.
The bull names himself Groundchuck and the mole calls himself Dirtbag. Shredder then orders them to go to the Museum of Excessive Opulence and steal the ruby, but the two new mutants decide to attack Shredder instead. Soon after, Groundchuck and Dirtbag encounter the turtles on the street and engage in a fight. Just then, Kerma, the humanoid turtle, appears and, in another attempt to talk to earthlings, ends up capturing the four turtles, Groundchuck and Dirtbag, using a blue laser gun.
He carries all six of them to his space ship, which looks a lot like the Chrysler Building, and they exit Earth’s orbit. Now, back on Earth, when Rocksteady and Bebop look for Groundchuck and Dirtbag, they cross paths with April O’Neil and kidnap her. She tries to contact the turtles using her turtle communicator, but the minions take it away from her.
After arriving at Shredder’s hide out, they use April’s turtle com to try and provoke the turtles, but the brothers do not respond. So, it means that they are not there, else they would definitely have come to save April. This leads Shredder to believe that perhaps Groundchuck and Dirtbag ended the turtles for good. Meanwhile, in space, the turtles explain to Kerma that he has not captured typical earth people, because they are all mutants with genetic aberrations.
They soon arrive at the planet of Shell Ri La, which is the home planet of Kerma and other Turtleoids. Kerma tells them that the Turtleoids are currently facing a problem and the turtles decide to help them. Now, back at Kraang’s lair, when they fail to get hold of the ruby, Shedder comes up with the best plan of his life. He decides to build a giant robot that can lead all of his robotic ninja foot soldiers and serve as Shredder’s ultimate weapon.
Shredder uses pure adamantium steel in building this robot, and he constructs the main control panel at the back. But when he is about to finish the construction, he runs out of adamantium. So, he has no other option but to use original steel in order to seal off the main control panel. This results in the robot having a single weak spot. Kraang suggests that since no one would know about the weak spot, the robot would remain undefeated. But their captive, April, overhears this discussion.
Shredder then activates his ultimate warrior and gives this new giant robot the name Chrome Dome. He is super intelligent in taking commands and is utterly invincible in structure. The moment Chrome Dome comes to life, his intruder alert function automatically turns on, through which he senses that April has freed herself. He then fires steel arrows at her through his hand and captures her again.
The episode comes to an end as the turtles discover that in Shell Ri La, the problem that the Turtleoids are facing is a large two-headed dragon. Back on Earth, Chrome Dome listens to every order that Shredder gives him and commands the foot soldiers.
In the next episode, Shredder uses the powers of Chrome Dome and the foot soldiers to build a new and smaller version of the Technodrome that is called Technodrome Mark two.
Eventually, Chrome Dome also faces the four turtles when they return from the planet of Shell Ri La after defeating the two headed dragon known as Herman the Horrible. Chrome Dome calls the turtles wretched reptiles and engages in a fierce battle with them. He has several in-built weapons along with a laser plasma gun that he uses to fight them. He manages to fight all the turtles at the same time, but April tells them about his weak spot, and Donatello punctures it, after which the Chrome Dome fuses and breaks.
In the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles tv series, Chrome Dome does not make an appearance. His character then appears as a main villain in the 2012 tv series. He is seen for the first time in the sixth episode of the second season, which aired on November 23rd, 2013. In this series, his character is voiced by the famous actor Nolan North, who also voices the Kraang. The episode is titled “Target: April O’Neil” and is written by Nicole Dubuc.
The story begins at the Shredder’s lair, where he is talking to Karai through a projection screen. He is highly disappointed that she disobeyed his orders and asks her not to have any more dealings with the Kraang until he returns from Japan. Immediately after speaking to the Shredder, Karai goes to a Kraang hideout to check up on the work she ordered them to do.
Apparently, she is making the Kraang hivemind build some kind of a super powerful robot. But there are still 9 hours left until it can fully function. So, she orders them to speed up the process since she wants to test the abilities of this robot on a target, which she chooses to be April O’Neil. Now, we soon find out that April has had a falling out with the turtles because she holds them responsible for turning her father into a homicidal mutant bat and wants nothing to do with them.
Back in the sewers, at the Turtles’ lair, Donatello finds out that the Kraang communication orb in his lab has been making a noise for quite some time now. So, all the turtles head out in the Shellraiser to find the location of this new advanced heavy weaponry that the Kraang are building. Now, April goes to the hockey rink to hang out with Casey Jones. Just then, two Foot Bot soldiers arrive and attack her.
Initially, April fights the two of them alone and realizes that they have become a lot stronger than before. Casey then joins the fight with his hockey stick and tries to lend April a helping hand. However, just when they defeat the foot bots, four others arrive. April asks Casey to run away but he refuses. So, in order to save him, April distracts the foot bots by running outside. On the other hand, the turtles have located the Kraang’s hideout and are ready to attack them.
After defeating the Kraang droids outside, they go inside the facility and discover the secret weapon of the Kraang, which is a huge ninja robot that looks a little too deadly. Soon after, Donatello receives a call from April asking him for help since the foot bots are still attacking her. So, he ditches the other three turtles and goes after April. As soon as Donatello leaves, the intruder alert system goes off, and now the turtles have to fight their enemy.
Meanwhile, April is just about to be defeated by the foot bots when Donatello arrives and saves her. But this is not a victory as Karai soon shows herself and attacks them with her spear. She orders the foot bots to attack Donnie as she goes after April. Now, Leo, Raph, and Mikey manage to finish off the Kraang soldiers, but to their surprise, the giant robot suddenly wakes up after he gets fully charged.
This robot is none other than Chrome Dome, and this name was given to him by Mikey. The Chrome Dome immediately starts attacking the turtles with his laser eyes. So, without sparing a single moment, the turtles also jump at him together, but Chrome Dome beats the hell out of all of them within seconds. He then flies off after locating his target, that is, April O’Neil. Now, as Donnie fights Karai, he soon gains the upper hand as he points his sword at Karai’s face, but just then Chrome Dome arrives. Karai refers to him as her new toy and orders him to eliminate April.
Donnie immediately lunges at Chrome Dome, but he shoves him aside with just one hand and grabs April. The Chrome Dome then has a system override function that tells him not to destroy April O’Neil but to capture her instead for the Kraang. He is about to fly away with April when Karai jumps at one of his legs and stops him. His system then detects Karai as a threat, and he attacks her.
Soon after, Leo, Mikey, and Raph arrive in the Shellraiser and hit Chrome Dome with their truck, which sends him flying against a wall. Mikey then starts firing maintenance hole covers from the truck at Chrome Dome. But the giant ninja robot manages to slash all the maintenance hole covers with his laser eyes. He then destroys the Shellraiser and goes after Karai and her foot bots. As he is fighting them, the turtles notice a panel cover on his back that seems to be damaged with faulty wiring.
They take their chance and consider it to be the robot’s weak spot. Leo, Mikey, and Raph then engage in a battle with Chrome Dome in order to keep him distracted as Donnie sneaks up from behind and jumps on Chrome Dome’s back. Donnie manages to cut off the wires in the panel, after which Chrome Dome goes ballistic and starts spinning at full speed. He throws all the ninja turtles aside one by one and stops functioning the way he was programmed to.
Mikey then takes Chrome Dome’s own laser plasma sword, stabs the robot in the middle of his chest with it, and destroys Chrome Dome for good. Karai then realizes that she is clearly outnumbered by the turtles and chooses to retreat. The episode comes to an end as April joins the turtles and Master Splinter at their lair and becomes a part of the team once again.
This is the last time that we get to witness Chrome Dome in action, as he does not make an appearance in the IDW comic pages.
Marvelous Trivia
Now, in the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series, the character of Chrome Dome is referred to as Dark Ninja Robot in the end credits segment. This is quite surprising since the turtles call him Chrome Dome, which is also the name that Shredder gave him in the 1987 tv series version.
Well, Chrome Dome is also known as Dark Ninja Robot because his outfit looks a lot like that of Chris Bradford, a ninja Dogpound who works for the Shredder and is his top henchman. The red and black outfit that Chrome Dome wears looks exactly similar to the Dark Ninja uniform that Chris Bradford wore. However, the only difference in the outfit is Chrome Dome’s mechanical upper arm.
Another interesting fact about Chrome Dome is that, much later, in the sixteenth episode of the fourth season of the series, which is titled Broken Foot, we see new and upgraded versions of the foot bots. These remodeled versions are known as Elite Footbots, and they have been designed to look exactly like Chrome Dome with the same outfit and mechanical arms. But there is one thing that distinguishes them from Chrome Dome, and that is the metal kasa, which they fashion on their somewhat different heads.
Where Else Has He Featured?
The character of Chrome Dome has appeared in several video games in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise. He first appears in the 1987 video game, which is the Super NES version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tournament Fighters. In this game, he is an android who is created by Shredder and is significantly altered from his version in the tv series. Sean Gurnsey voices him.
In this video game, Chrome Dome is considerably shorter and leaner and resembles Shredder a lot. Chrome Dome’s unique powers also include the ability to hit his enemies from afar telescopically, as well as the power to blow himself up and then reconstruct his form. His color combination is also pretty different from the tv series. As for weapons, Chrome Dome has Thunder Gauntlets, which enable him to execute his Electric Pile Driver attacks, and the Chrome Spark, which is an electric shock sent across the floor.
Next, he appears as an enemy in the 2012 video game, which is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Legends. Along with his usual red outfit, in this game, the players are also given different colored outfit options for his character. He carries a laser plasma sword. In the 2017 arcade brawler that was developed by Raw Thrills, Chrome Dome appears as one of the bosses and is voiced by Nolan North.
He also appears as a playable character in the 2020 mobile game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Madness, which was developed by Synapse Games and published by Kongregate. And finally, he makes an appearance as a boss in a side scrolling brawler called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge, which was released in June 2022 for Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows PCs, and PlayStation 4 by DotEmu and Tribute Games.
The character of Chrome Dome is a programmed villain whose functioning seems to have been executed very perfectly in both his television versions. In fact, in every encounter with the ninja turtles, Chrome Dome is able to handle them when they attack together and manages to show them some dirt by giving them a hard time in the battles. His commands are pretty solid, and he has the potential to become a more significant threat to the ninja turtles. It certainly would have been a lot more fun to watch him go up against the turtles on more occasions.
Well, guys, that is all for today; we hope you enjoyed watching this video as much as we enjoyed making it for you. Have a fantastic day ahead!