THE FOOT CLAN:
-The Mook Gang of the TMNT series is nearly always the Foot. A band of ninja outlaws led by Oroku Saki- The Shredder- they are the first gang the Turtles fight, and his main minions in most of the movies and in the first three cartoon series. Naturally, their name is a parody of The Hand, who at the time of the TMNT’s creation, were omnipresent Mooks in the Daredevil series over at Marvel. As Daredevil was a huge inspiration to TMNT (one of the Turtles is a sai-wielding fighter wearing a red bandana, after all), this was only natural as part of the gag.

-The 1980s toon gets away with the violence against them because they’re robots, while the movies and second cartoon use humans, like the Mirage Comics did. However, the first Nick Toon goes back to robots. These ones are actually even WORSE than the easily-destroyed 1980s versions- even untrained fighters like April O’Neil & Casey Jones can easily destroy hordes of them at once, and I don’t think they’ve ever scored a hit against one of the four turtles.

-Most Foot agents are dressed in black- in the first movie, they’re generic ninjas. The 2003 series adds a bit more detail to them. The ’80s version has these hunched-over, lumpy, scrawny figures with elongated heads, making them really stand out.

FOOT SOLDIERS- 1987 Cartoon

-Among the more recognizable and iconic “Mooks” in 1980s cartoons were the numerous hordes of Foot Clan Soldiers used by Krang and Shredder as minions. See, since this was a KID SHOW, and obviously you couldn’t show Leonardo just hacking guys apart with his swords, the reasonable decision was made to have Shredder’s Ninja Army be entirely robotic. So now the Turtles could tear them apart with reckless abandon, and the kids & parents at home wouldn’t be mortified (this wasn’t the FIRST show to do this- both G.I. Joe‘s B.A.T.s and She-Ra‘s Horde Robots predate the Foot Robots). And for some reason, we basically never see the actual human members of the Foot Clan after the first episode’s Origin Story finishes. There’s some Great Master shown, his aides, plus a dojo full of students… and they pretty much all vanish without a trace, as Shredder is now the “Foot Leader” with tons of robots as minions instead of actual ninjas.

-The Foot initially appear as the Shredder’s key minions (shockingly, Leo cuts one up WITHOUT KNOWING IT’S A ROBOT at first), but soon two gang members are turned into Rocksteady & Bebop, and the Foot Soldiers become used less and less- usually as standard-issue backgrounders who never do anything. Like most good Mooks, they go down in a single hit, and are easily-bested by anyone with even rudimentary ability to defend themself. As pathetic mooks, they have worse accuracy than Imperial Stormtroopers, despite having advanced Laser Weapons. They are only seen with other weapons rarely- the video games make GREAT use of these guys as Final Fight-style losers, using multiple colors to showcase Foot Soldiers with different kinds of weapons (grenades, throwing stars, blades on chains, etc.).

STANDARD FOOT SOLDIER- Other Versions

-The human agents of the Foot, often seen in the 2003 series, are typically just like the movie’s versions- good enough, but will easily fall to elite martial artists.