Here's the next in my series where I go over...
The 1987 Animated Series by Fred Wolf
(Status: Halfway through Season 3; Hope that's enough)
Time 4 Backstory!
The comics were becoming really popular when Eastman and Laird got a call from an agent wanting to market the characters as action figures. Having only one peice of merchandise before, a tabletop RPG game(Which I'm willing to bet one of you has and will brag about it), they decided to go for it. Playmates, the company that first produced the toys(and still makes them to this day) asked for a TV series to be made in order to have a kid-friendly image to go with the toys. Put together by Fred Wolf, the show premiered in 1987 as a 5 part miniseries. Later they made another season with new characters.
This series I find to be pretty nice. It had some nice designs, great voice acting, and pretty good humor. The first five episodes were really nice and actually had some decent writing. Still, I find this show to be a little overrated. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with it and don't have any nostalgia for it but it just didn't impress me the way I expected it to considering how much people talk about it. Now it's not bad but it just isn't how I prefer seeing the Ninja Turtles. The show has more of a sitcom-like mutant of the week style that while I don't mind, I don't really think is the best format for the TMNT.
The story has the the turtles being much more friendly and approachable than their comic book counterparts. This is also where they introduced the idea of the turtles wearing different colored headbands to make them easier to tell apart(though I beleive this was initially an idea from Playmates when the toyline was first pitched). Though the show kicks it up a notch by also having them wearing colored shoulder and knee bands and belt buckles with their initials on them. They also made a major change in the origin by having Spllinter be a mutated Hamato Yoshi(Splinter was originally a normal rat and the pet of Hamato Yoshi). This change never stuck and wasn't used again for a long while. April is now a news reporter who wears a yellow jumpsuit for some reason. Their main villian is the Shredder who is now more of a comedic villian. This show also introduces Krang, a character who's visually based on the Utroms but otherwise, entirely different. He serves as the center of all the sci-fi elements in the show. He and Shredder are working together to take over the world along with their mutant henchmen, Bebop and Rocksteady. The series takes on a whole Saturday Morning cartoon format with the turtles fighting some strange new thing(usually caused by Shredder and Krang) every episode. More and more original characters kept being introduced along the way (probably to expand the toyline). As of midway through Season 3, I have not seen Casey Jones and Leatherhead who along with the Rat King and Shredder, are the only villains to come from the comics. There was also a tie-in comic published by Archie that adapted the first few episodes but later took on a different direction. I have not started on these so I have no comment.
Overall, very flawed, but good for it's time.
The 1987 Animated Series by Fred Wolf
(Status: Halfway through Season 3; Hope that's enough)
Time 4 Backstory!
The comics were becoming really popular when Eastman and Laird got a call from an agent wanting to market the characters as action figures. Having only one peice of merchandise before, a tabletop RPG game(Which I'm willing to bet one of you has and will brag about it), they decided to go for it. Playmates, the company that first produced the toys(and still makes them to this day) asked for a TV series to be made in order to have a kid-friendly image to go with the toys. Put together by Fred Wolf, the show premiered in 1987 as a 5 part miniseries. Later they made another season with new characters.
This series I find to be pretty nice. It had some nice designs, great voice acting, and pretty good humor. The first five episodes were really nice and actually had some decent writing. Still, I find this show to be a little overrated. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with it and don't have any nostalgia for it but it just didn't impress me the way I expected it to considering how much people talk about it. Now it's not bad but it just isn't how I prefer seeing the Ninja Turtles. The show has more of a sitcom-like mutant of the week style that while I don't mind, I don't really think is the best format for the TMNT.
The story has the the turtles being much more friendly and approachable than their comic book counterparts. This is also where they introduced the idea of the turtles wearing different colored headbands to make them easier to tell apart(though I beleive this was initially an idea from Playmates when the toyline was first pitched). Though the show kicks it up a notch by also having them wearing colored shoulder and knee bands and belt buckles with their initials on them. They also made a major change in the origin by having Spllinter be a mutated Hamato Yoshi(Splinter was originally a normal rat and the pet of Hamato Yoshi). This change never stuck and wasn't used again for a long while. April is now a news reporter who wears a yellow jumpsuit for some reason. Their main villian is the Shredder who is now more of a comedic villian. This show also introduces Krang, a character who's visually based on the Utroms but otherwise, entirely different. He serves as the center of all the sci-fi elements in the show. He and Shredder are working together to take over the world along with their mutant henchmen, Bebop and Rocksteady. The series takes on a whole Saturday Morning cartoon format with the turtles fighting some strange new thing(usually caused by Shredder and Krang) every episode. More and more original characters kept being introduced along the way (probably to expand the toyline). As of midway through Season 3, I have not seen Casey Jones and Leatherhead who along with the Rat King and Shredder, are the only villains to come from the comics. There was also a tie-in comic published by Archie that adapted the first few episodes but later took on a different direction. I have not started on these so I have no comment.
Overall, very flawed, but good for it's time.