Bebop and Rocksteady are the two most recognisable Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles enemies, aside from Shredder and Krang. The dimwitted crew has battled the Ninja Turtles for more than three decades, first as toys, then in the 1987 animated series, then in comic books, and so on, generally failing.
Popular favorites that have been essential players in many of the most significant Turtle stories are the gun-toting warthog and rhinoceros. In the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, they at last make their big-screen debut.
Bebop and Rocksteady Origins
TMNT 1987
The second episode of the 1987 animated Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series is titled “Enter the Shredder.” It explores the starting points of each remarkable character’s change.
The Turtles are taking a snooze inside their house after the hardships of the previous day when April O’Neil pays them a visit. They search the city’s sewage system for the Technodrome when she asks them to help her discover it. This would have been directly underneath the Manhattan Security Services building, which is now gone. But when they get there, all they find is water and footprints. According to Michelangelo, the entire Technodrome is mobile. In another location, a furious Shredder is driving the Technodrome beneath New York City. He is upset that the Turtles defeated his “strong Foot Soldiers.”
He is called by Krang to the Technodrome’s depths. Shredder has failed to provide the evil extraterrestrial a synthetic body so that he may command his warriors, and Krang, a gelatinous substance that mimics a sentient brain, is also upset. As Hamato Yoshi and all of his Turtles walk the sewers, Shredder offers a feeble defense for their lack of safety.
Then, according to Krang, Oroku Saki’s use of the Mutagen to kill Hamato Yoshi actually empowered him because he acquired rat-like abilities. Saki picks up on this line of reasoning and believes that he can eliminate Yoshi and all of the Turtles by subjecting his own thugs, along with wild animals, to the Mutagen. The Turtles and April have since gone back to their Splinter home.
Splinter offers his help in locating the Technodrome since he thinks Oroku Saki, an old foe, is actually the mastermind behind these Robotic Ninjas. A warthog and a rhino are freed from the city zoo by two Roadkill Rodneys who have emerged from the sidewalk. Splinter and the Turtles discover the Technodrome’s tracks and treads while they are back underground. They are nearing success in their search.
Elsewhere, inside the Technodrome, Shredder persuades two street gang bangers, Rocksteady and Bebop, to participate in an experiment that would allow them to exact revenge on the Turtles and other gang members also volunteer. The Mutagen is used in this experiment, as well as captive rhinos and warthogs from the municipal zoo. Two robots were dispatched to steal the animals, dragging them toward Rocksteady and Bebop so that they could make contact with the both of them before the mutagen struck.
Though Rocksteady is skeptical, Shredder assures them that it will work. April’s boss at Channel 6 is dissatisfied with her progress on the robbery of high-tech scientific instruments and reallocates her to the robbery of the warthog and rhino from the municipal zoo. April runs into the Turtles costumed as “breakdancers” outside of the Channel Six office. She persuades them that perhaps the zoo robbery will bring them straight to the Technodrome.
Meanwhile, Splinter has discovered the Technodrome, only to then be captured by a member of the Roadkill Rodneys. All of The Turtles climb and fall down through a tunnel caused by the Roadkill Rodneys at the zoo, but leave April on the surface. They land at the Technodrome’s feet, where Leonardo discovers Splinter’s walking stick.
The Turtles approach the alien vessel, knowing there is a trap waiting for them. The Turtles are quickly trapped in a corridor with closing walls and are almost crushed until Donatello can rework a panel. They are then attacked by robots. They are finally nearly plowed over by a large, spiky rolling contraption. Finally, the Turtles discover Splinter tied and bound from the rafters in a vast chamber.
As Leonardo attempts to attack him, Shredder appears with his four Foot bots and invites them to become a part of his Foot Clan. He also implies that they owe it all to him because he transformed the Turtles with the Mutagen. When the Turtles refuse to cooperate, Shredder summons the mutant warthog Bebop and rhino Rocksteady to attack them, but they, together with the four Foot robots, are easily vanquished. Splinter is killed by Leonardo, and he along with the Turtles flee the Technodrome.
Meanwhile, April has dispatched the news wagon. Bebop and Rocksteady break through the streets, laser guns blazing, as Splinter and the Turtle return to the city surface. The Turtles beat them once more, this time by bringing them into the municipal zoo and capturing them in a prison. April arrives just in time to film Rocksteady and Bebop’s capture and gives Splinter and the Turtles a ride home.
A solitary Roadkill Rodney digs up through the Earth, freeing Rocksteady and Bebop from their cage, and informing them that now the Shredder desires to talk to them. Rocksteady replies that they would prefer to stay in their prison than be hauled below the ground.
Bebop was initially an African-American human mobster who worked for Shredder and was associated with thugs including the likes of fellow mutant Rocksteady. After his legion of Foot Warriors were unable to stop the Turtles, and Krang recommended that the Shredder develop his own mutated soldiers to combat his foes with skills similar to the Turtles’. Shredder devised a new strategy and recruited two “participants” for his research. Rocksteady and Bebop both agreed to go through the process in exchange for superhuman abilities and the ability to inflict retaliation on the Turtles.
As a consequence, Bebop transformed into a warthog-man hybrid, complete with twin turtle plates on his shoulder to symbolize his new role as a Shredder enforcer. Bebop would now help Shredder carry out his ideas. Bebop possessed the incredible strength of his beast counterpart, with the downside of his looks. Despite the fact that the change made them bigger and tougher, the Shredder’s choice of research subjects was less than brilliant. Both Rocksteady and Bebop were tough but not intellectual.
For the most of the series, they were used for reasons; nonetheless, the Turtles believe them to be a threat, despite their idiocy in combat owing to their tremendous endurance and stamina, and as such, they frequently utilize their brains to deceive them rather than confronting them directly.
However, their efforts at the turtles appear to fail on a frequent basis owing to their inexperience and goofy demeanor, which results in them being beaten both verbally and physically by Krang and Shredder. Despite his alleged lack of intellect, Bebop is constantly hired by the Shredder and is allocated randomly to various assignments that nearly always fail badly. Nevertheless, in their last appearance in the very first season of “Red Sky,” Bebop and Rocksteady appeared to gain some intellect and spoke and joked about less.
Bebop and Rocksteady made their farewell appearance in the finale of season 8 Turtle Trek. Bebop followed his master as soon as Krang attempted to open a trans-dimensional vortex to Dimension X. He isn’t seen again later in the series, which might mean Krang and Shredder put him as well as Rocksteady to work doing mundane physical labor which even they couldn’t mess up. However, once the Turtles smash the engine of the Technodrome, the stronghold is dragged into a massive hole by a monster plant.
The fall breaks the Technodrome’s inter dimensional portal though it is proven to be operational in the series finale, stranding its residents in Dimension X. Bebop and Rocksteady either die or are abandoned by Shredder and Krang during some period after this, as they do not come back To earth with them during season 10. It’s also possible that, like in the books that inspired the TV program, he and Rocksteady uncover the Eden Worlds within Dimension X and spend their remaining years as beasts in its wilderness. Aside from that, when the Turtles arrive, Bebop’s human form may be seen in a streetscape with the rest of the gang members.
Rocksteady was initially a Caucasian and American male member of the Foot, a gang of outlaws. Rocksteady was a small and portly blond Caucasian guy who wore army khaki trousers that were eventually replaced with regular beige cargo pants, as well as army headgear on his skull in his transformed form. Because of Shredder’s experiments on him and Bebop, Rocksteady turned into a half-man, half-rhinoceros. As a result, Rocksteady possessed the incredible strength of his beast counterparts, with the drawback of his looks.
In the 2003 TMNT, neither character had an origin or a prominent segment.
TMNT 2012
Ivan Steranko served as a volunteer throughout the conflicts in Iraq, Yugoslavia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and then again in Iraq, as revealed in his biography in Wanted Rocksteady and Bebop, before becoming a part of the Foot Clan in 2013.
It is unclear how he came into touch with Oroku Saki as just a business partner. In Serpent Hunt, Steranko reveals that the Shredder and him had known each other for eleven years. Anton Zeck shot Ivan Steranko in the eye – ostensibly by accident – at some time during their friendship, resulting in Steranko’s iconic diamond eye. In the segment “Enemy of My Enemy,” initially Ivan Steranko appears to be acquainted with the Shredder, with an offhand remark that they’re “old buddies.”
During the Turtles’ struggle with the Shredder, Steranko is knocked to the ground by the device designed to subdue the Shredder. In “The Legend of the Kuro Kabuto.” Steranko is shown to gather ancient relics and is seen to possess Excalibur and also the legendary Spear of Destiny among his collection; he even has the capacity to discern the differences between a counterfeit and a true artifact. He was shown to have a fascinating history with skilled thief Anton Zeck, whom he was assisting with a loosely defined assignment that was apparently unintentional at the time, and who also shot out of the right eye of Steranko’s.
Steranko would go on to pay through the nose for the Mystic Dagger, according to Fong in “A Chinatown Ghost Story.” In “Serpent Hunt,” Zeck and Steranko have been trapped in Steranko’s refuge for months after the Kraang had taken over the city, with nothing to consume but cockroaches with ketchup. They create a plot to flee the city, but it fails when the Turtles release Karai; as a result of their actions, Zeck and Steranko are kidnapped and taken to Shredder. Steranko tries to convince the Shredder that Zeck would be more valuable as a regular human after he gets transformed into a grotesque warthog for attempting to steal the Kuro Kabuto.
In the segment “The Pig and The Rhino,” Zeck and Steranko are enraged by their fate as “freaks” and assault Shredder, who easily defeats the newly deformed duo. Saki instructs the two once more to find the mutant Karai and execute his directions or suffer the consequences. While exploring a rooftop, Steranko encourages Zeck to forgo their purpose and instead pursue a new goal: the eradication of the famous Ninja Turtles. During this time, the duo settles on the moniker “Rocksteady and Bebop” from a music truck, Steranko develops an instantaneous liking to “Rocksteady,” whilst Zeck can’t tolerate his new, idiotic nickname of “Bebop.” Despite failing their own objective, the two succeed in Shredder’s goal, where they kidnap Karai inside an alleyway.
Off-screen in “The Noxious Avenger,” Baxter Stockman tells Bebop and Rocksteady to go in search of Reagent-X, a chemical needed to make a Mind Control Serum. While they are searching for the ingredient and a mutagen bottle, the Turtles step in owing to the evident vehicle named after them nearby. At the end of the section, Roacksteady and Bebop flee. In “The Deadly Venom,” segment, Rocksteady appears sans Bebop at the opening of the episode, when he is charged with fighting the now mind controlled Karai, who easily defeats Steranko.
In “The Fourfold Trap,” segment Rocksteady is a part of a complex trap set up by Karai to catch the Turtles and April. It succeeds with April now imprisoned alongside Karai and the Turtles exposed to torture tailored to each of them. Rocksteady as well as the other hench-mutants try to ambush and beat Splinter before he gets to Karai’s operations center, but Splinter effortlessly overpowers and overcomes them before proceeding on his quest to save his boys and April. In the “Annihilation Earth! Part 2,” segment Rocksteady apprehends April and Splinter as they penetrate Shredder’s lair in order to strike a ceasefire with Saki versus the Triceratons and save the Earth from the Heart of Darkness.
When Tiger Claw arrives to report on the demolition of their weapons stockpile by the Turtles and Karai in “City at War,” Bebop and Rocksteady are seen protecting the doorway to Shredder’s new lair. In “Broken Foot,” Rocksteady accompanies Bebop and Tiger Claw in defending Auman Chemicals against an attack by Leo, Shinigami, Karai, and their Foot Ninja after hearing of the dismantling of their fraud and money laundering activities and the imprisonment of the Purple Dragons and Huns by the NYPD.
Bebop and Rocksteady are unhappy in “The Big Blowout” because Shredder and Krang treat them like servants. Shredder invites them to see the demise of the planet after finally appreciating their contributions. Because the two buddies do not want to ruin the planet, they battle against Krang and kill the rock minions. After they stop being henchmen, Bebop and Rocksteady transform into superheroes instead of criminals.
Bebop, along with Rocksteady, makes a brief cameo at the end of The Super Shredder. In Requiem, Bebop, Rocksteady, Fishface, and Rahzar assault the Ninja turtles in Coney Island in order to distract them from the Super Shredder. After the battle, he and Rocksteady mocked the turtles while they fled. Bebop battled the turtles in Owari as they arrived to defeat Super Shredder. The turtles were blasted and destroyed as they attempted to hack the traps he had set up. Bebop was present in End Times when Kavaxas revived Oroku Saki, and he, like the others, was terrified. When Kavaxas was liberated when Oroku Saki destroyed the Seal of the Ancients. Bebop and Rocksteady fled in fear.
IDW
Issue number 7 of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Villain Microseries talks about the backstories of these crazy villains in detail. The story opens with Bebop getting hit in the face. Rocksteady has been kneed in the stomach, and the both of them are writhing on the floor.
They were thrown out of just another group for being incompetent. Back in their filthy apartment, the two express their dissatisfaction with their lack of a gang, power, and food. Rocksteady is thinking out loud about ideas for getting quick money, but Bebop, enraged, smashes a hole in the wall and declares they cannot continue doing the same thing; they have to do things differently, become a new Rocksteady and Bebop.
Rocksteady and Bebop are at a bar, conversing with a man who was working for a man who worked for the infamous Foot Clan. He informs them how awesome it is to work for the Foot, and how they’ve been taking over the metropolis, and how the Shredder, the leader, is a formidable force with. He promises them he’ll take them along on another job he gets.
After some time as low-level Foot goons, the two of them are given the chance to better their position in the form of an invitation to try for a “special unit” led by Oroku Karai. Bebop and Rocksteady go through a rigorous training routine that lasts a long time. Their last test is actually an all out group combat in which the last two survivors gain the opportunity to become mutants. Bebop and Rocksteady choose which animals their DNA will be merged with. Karai informs them that the two are now prepared for a last test to determine how they function in an uncontrolled setting.
Karai and several Foot Ninja are accompanied by Bebop and Rocksteady to a conference with Xiang Fei Tong, who is the head of a group called the Ghost Boys, which is a Triad group based in Chinatown. Karai expressly informs the two men that their sole role is to be present and exhibit the Foot Clan’s might. Xiang is astonished by the Foot Clan’s capacity to create mutants at the meeting, because she had earlier only known of one, Alopex. Xiang and Karai leave their subordinates to talk business over tea.
Rocksteady and Bebop, were unable to remain silent for over a few moments, strike up a discussion with a few of the Ghost Boys. They remark on how great it is to be the strength in a gang as formidable as the Foot, as well as how terrified the Ghost Boys must be, having never seen a freak before. Karai had just persuaded Xiang to put aside her pride and surrender to the Foot Clan inside Xiang’s office.
They hear a disturbance outside and are surprised to discover all of the Ghost Boys on the floor, with Rocksteady and Bebop standing over them. Karai is enraged at the pair’s defiance. Xiang believes it was all a part of Karai’s plan and instructs a Ghost Boy to murder them. Rocksteady charges towards a Ghost Boy who is preparing to fire, smashing through a wall. Bebop and Rocksteady pursue Xiang, while Karai battles off troops of the Ghost Boys. They find another route through many more barriers and get the upper hand on Xiang.
Bebop and Rocksteady rest at a railroad yard. The two try to blame the entire affair on the Ghost Boys and are afraid of being tossed out of the Foot or worse. They decide to just return to Shredder and inform him that now the Ghost Boys provoked a brawl and Karai fled to accompany them, but suddenly a troop of Foot Ninja led by Karai appears and attacks them.
Karai informs them that all of them have disgraced the Foot Clan as well as disgraced her, and she is minimizing her losses. The Foot Ninjas launch an attack, first looking to have the dominant position due to sheer numbers. Eventually, Rocksteady and Bebop’s strength is too much for their opponents, and they kill them all. Bebop and Rocksteady begged Karai not to toss them out of the group, vowing to behave better in the future. Karai is taken aback by their determination to stay in the Clan despite an effort to eliminate them.
Karai pulls an ammunition clip from a rifle, tosses it inside Rocksteady’s mouth, and sets her blade against it, only one step away from executing him. She informs them that she has discovered that they lack finesse and are only capable of violence and devastation. She tells them they can remain, but their souls are owned by the Foot.
Bebop and Rocksteady are back at their old apartment, celebrating their first “win” as mutants and being permitted to stay in the Foot Clan. They’re drinking, singing, and reflecting on how far they have come. Bebop asks why they came back to their initial location with all of their negative memories. Bebop glances at the hole he made in the wall and decides to complete the job. The structure falls down, and the men laugh.
Interesting Facts
The Turtles are nicknamed after some of history’s greatest famous painters and sculptors, but they’re not the only animals with art-related names. Given their past as two gang bangers, it’s undoubtedly unexpected that Rocksteady and Bebop would get their names from reggae or jazz, but that’s precisely what the two characters did. Bebop, the towering African-American guy who will evolve into a warthog, is named after a kind of jazz music. Rocksteady, the small, stocky Caucasian guy who transforms into a rhino, takes his title from rocksteady, a style of Jamaican music considered a forerunner to reggae.
The initial TMNT comics did not have Bebop or Rocksteady. Instead, they were invented and developed by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creator Peter Laird when negotiating a toy line agreement with Playmates, who wanted additional toys to be released. They didn’t have much personality or history at the time. The majority of their background and origins, particularly their names and personalities, were revealed after they were introduced in the 1987 animated series.
After producer Fred Wolf instructed him to include more mutants, writer David Wise rounded out the characters. Anyone who has read the classic comics would recognize that they were typically dark and grim. Most of the time, Rocksteady and Bebop are everything but dark and grim, being too stupid and foolish to achieve anything. This is something that irritates Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles creator Peter Laird. In interviews, he has stated that if he were still in charge of the franchise, he would not have so many ridiculous, idiotic figures like Rocksteady and Bebop, and that things would be lot more serious.
Bebop and Rocksteady are exceedingly, terribly stupid, according to a running humor in the numerous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles publications, programs, and games. How stupid exactly? In a segment of the classic animated series, the pair were accidently trapped in Krang’s “brain extraction machine.” The program would finally determine that there was “no data to extract,” implying that the two were devoid of knowledge.
Rocksteady and Bebop would also have a fascinating connection to another freak in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle world, the turtle Slash. Slash was introduced in the original anime series as Bebop’s pet turtle, who would be altered by Rocksteady to perform a job assigned by Shredder.
After escaping the pair and also the Technodrome, the turtle Slash would be a part of a plot to make the turtles appear bad by framing them for causing damage to a municipal monument. Slash has a natural hatred towards turtles and is typically described as being psychologically deranged, as well as being immensely strong and capable of handling all four Turtles in one go.
He would frequently appear as an opponent of the Turtles in the show, but would subsequently become a comrade of the gang in various comic and animated iterations.
Rocksteady and Bebop have been inept for decades. From their origins as ordinary, human street criminals to their present mutated forms, the two have consistently failed to complete the objectives assigned to them by Shredder and Krang, particularly when it came to murdering the Turtles or preventing their good actions. Success would arrive in the new IDW Turtle comics where Rocksteady and Bebop seemed to do something they’d never accomplished before: kill a Turtle.
Given their notoriety, it’s hardly surprising that Bebop and Rocksteady were initially planned to appear in the 1991 film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze. Regrettably, Turtles creators Kevin Eastman as well as Peter Laird would be opposed to the inclusion, most likely because they dislike the characters. With the concerns, the film was forced to create new opponents in order for the Turtles to battle.
As a result, the film introduces Tokka, a mutant alligator turtle, and also Rahzar, a mutant gray wolf. Despite the film’s and characters’ mixed critical reaction, Rahzar and Tokka would go on to appear in following comics and cartoon series, but never in the lead roles as Bebop and Rocksteady would command.
Bebop and Rocksteady were also set to appear in the 2014 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film. As two of the most popular villains, especially among die-hard fans, it seems to be the reason that the film’s makers would want to incorporate them in some way. It came out that they’d have to wait once again.
Given the amount of effort that would go into developing a picture with five CGI lead characters, the producers felt that adding two additional CGI characters in Rocksteady and Bebop would be too much work on top of what was already being done. Given how much the series’ fans like the characters, it’s only natural that selecting Rocksteady and Bebop took some time.
Rocksteady was played by Stephen “Sheamus” Farrelly, well known for his professional wrestling career, while Bebop was played by Gary Anthony Williams, best known for his humorous appearances on The Boondocks and also Malcolm in the Middle. The two would establish remarkable synergy in their roles, providing for entertaining on-screen interaction and prompting producer Brad Fuller to equate them to Laurel and Hardy.
Abbot and Castello, Batman and Robin, Charlie Kelly with Frank Reynolds – all these famous pairs pale in comparison to the original terrible twosome, Bebop and Rocksteady, the unkept, underling underdogs. Bebop and Rocksteady have been a part of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles world since 1987, whether you remember them as Shredder’s psychotic mutant manimal minions or the best reason for watching Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows that’s not Megan Fox or Stephen Amell.