Season 5 has Planet of the Turtleoids and I consider that one a classic.

Red sky era fan here. Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of us.

This show really caught me as a kid from the first episode I watched at 6am one Saturday morning in 1988. I became determined to get every episode on tape, and became frustrated when certain episodes would air all the time, while others would seem to NEVER air. When USA Network started airing them, they edited each episode. More frustration. Today, for 50 or 60 bucks you can just buy the entire series, uncut. Times sure have changed, haha.

I don't have much desire these days to watch the series. I gave my tapes away long ago, and I don't own the DVD collection of the series. Times really have changed. But I do still appreciate the series and hey, I'm still a tmnt fan, so that's what counts.

I'm not a big fan nowadays, but I still like seasons 8 and 10. Don't care much for 9, but it has a few good episodes such as Split-Second. Loved the seasons as a teenager, though, as I thought the show was growing up with me back then with its darker and edgier tone. I actually preferred red sky over the earlier goofier eps at that time, but nowadays, I like both evenly.

Agreed. There are a lot of great eps scattered throughout the series. Season 4 had some good ones as well such as "Shredder's Mom."

Agreed. They're some of the episodes I remembered most as a kid, as I always thought it was exciting to see the Technodrome moving even if it was only for a short time.

They usually saved the Technodrome moving episodes for either the finale's or the very beginning of a season, so they did feel like big events given they only happened once a season usually.

yep, as sad as it was, these where considered big show moments for me. and as such i usually rooted for the villains to win ;o).

Leo as the leader, Raph as the "jerk", Mike as the playful one, and Don as the tech-wiz were still established in the Mirage issues that Wise had to work with. It's one thing to want his credit as the main writer for a particularly popular version of TMNT, but to try to usurp the actual TMNT creators, or take credit for TMNT as a whole is quite another.

I don't believe that at all. Again, FW TMNT only exists in the first place because the Mirage comic was a surprise hit and that got Playmates and MWS attention. If the Mirage comic was a flop they wouldn't have made a cartoon out of it. (Not saying the cartoon didn't amplify that success to an insane degree, just saying the comic was successful to begin with)

If I'm not mistaken though, what made the original Mirage fans abandon the book was the "guest era". Some good stories came from that era (Soul's Winter rules), but so did just as many bad ones and it all went on for way too long. I realize Eastman and Laird were too busy on the licensing end to write and draw issues, but there was probably a better way to handle that (like letting Lawson/Berger/Murphy/etc. handle the main comic and saving the guest stories for a separate anthology book or something).

Back on topic: Whatever you think of the show itself, FW TMNT did have some sweet background music.

The iconic locations all having different background music contributes to the great dynamic.

I've had this same argument with him in the past, it gets you no where. The from 1984 to mid-87, the turtles had plenty of characterizing moments in Mirage between the main series, the micros and all the shorts/backups. But I guess in cferreira's demented little peanut brain, David Wise began scripting the pilot season in early 85 :ohwell:

Agreed. Look at stuff like Usagi Yojimbo, Savage Dragon, Cerebus, Bone, etc. They all had very long comic runs, with little to no success in the world of film/animation, and no affiliation with the big two.

Didn't Stan Sakai say no to other versions of Usagi Yojimbo?

He said no to a Space Usagi cartoon, appearently he didn't get along with Playmates and the project fell through. The pilot was made though.

And the Pen & Paper Tabletop game TMNT & Other Strangeness from Palladium is a testament to that, and is the first adaptation (afaik) of TMNT predating the FW show.

This cartoon had one of the best soundtracks in any show, up there with Gargoyles and the DCAU.

It was also exciting to see the Turtles enter the Technodrome, as it was usually the highlight of that episode (Muckman Messes Up, Super Irma, etc).

I liked the Turtle-centric eps as well (Take Me to your Leader, Raphael Meets his Match, Michaelango's Birthday, etc), as they gave each turtle more focus.

I liked Big Louie, Mona Lisa and Shreeka, even though the latter two only appeared in one ep each. Big Louie was my favourite of all the gangsters the Turtles faced, as he sounded more menacing than the others. Mona Lisa was a strong and likable female character. Shreeka had an interesting backstory.

I also liked that the Rat King was somewhat morally ambigious in this cartoon, as it made him a more interesting character than his other incarnations. Liked the dynamic he had with Leatherhead as well.

I know that Cam Clarke really wanted to play Michelangelo and while everyone was recording he was kind of bothered that he wasn't getting to be funny while voicing Leonardo. At first, the producers couldn't decide who should play Leonardo or Michelangelo. Townsend Coleman said that he got the luck of the draw when they wanted him to read Michelangelo first. The plan was to have him and Cam switch, but that didn't happen. They really did make the right call because when I've Townsend try to say Leonardo's lines like in the Season 5 DVD extra, he doesn't sound like a youthful leader. Cam made Leonardo really sound like a teenage leader.

This kind of reminds me of when Frank Welker and Casey Kasem auditioned for Scooby-Doo. Welker wanted to play Shaggy because he sounded a lot like him and was always being cast as straight-guy. Kasem actually wanted to try for Fred, but they thought he was better suited for Shaggy. That was obviously a good call there too.

Thats a really interesting story, I knew Cam Clarke and Townsend Coleman originally had auditoned for each others turtles but never knew thats how it all played.

Anyways, I am really, really excited for the Second FW/Nick crossover coming out on DVD tomorrow. Just the thought of listening to the 80s turtles original voices all come back 30 years after they started just blows me away.

What a beautiful send off the series for its 30th anniversary :)

Sorry if this is somewhere else. Does anyone know how many of these episodes made it to VHS tape?

Can't speak for all the international releases (which entailed many Season 2 episodes never put on VHS in America), but the old NinjaTurtles.com website had a pretty comprehensive list of USA tapes:
https://web.archive.org/web/20090225...urtles.com:80/

A lot of their covers appear here:

http://www.thetechnodrome.com/images/vhs/

Ah yes, the days of paying $25 for 2 episodes on VHS tape. Thank god my parents bought me those tapes when I was a kid.

VHS tapes were the biggest rip-offs in history especially for TV series. 70% of the show never got a release and all the eps were also out of order.

Very few TV series had all episodes released to videotape (maybe except some miniseries with just one or two short seasons). DVD changed that.