Should the "Summer Shorts" really be considered related to this series?
 

Wikipedia lists the shorts "Don vs. Raph", "Turtles Take Time (and Space)", "Pizza Friday", "Teenage Mecha Ninja Turtles", "'Boulangerie'", "We Strike Hard and Fade Away into the Night" and the various "TMNT Team Up!" shorts on the episode list of this show.


But the thing is that most of these seem to have little in common with the show, or each other for that matter. Most have widely different character designs, voice casts and characterisations. And the Team Up shorts are clearly more inspired by the Fred Wolf show, so even bother claiming they have anything to do with the Nick Show?

Since its Wikipedia, its probably just the edits of a very enthusiastic fan with strong headcanons.

I do think that a good case can be made for Turtles travel Time, and the Mecha short for being in the 2012 universe though.

These shorts were more like a bit of fun featuring other takes on the Turtle Characters. Most of these were just bits of fluff to show how the Turtles would be in different forms of animation. But partially these shorts were more along the lines of experimental pieces to see what sort of storylines would garner interest in the possibility of having a series using that format.

It's kinda like back in the day when Cartoon Network showed "World Premiere Toons" which were experimental cartoons used at a testing ground to get interest from people watching the network. From there we got cartoon series such as the Power Puff Girls, Code Name: Kids Next Door, Billy and Mandy, Johnny Bravo, and a few others.

The Turtles in time thing was based off a mirage comic where the turtles are given a time cube that sends them to various points in time. The animation style was interesting and it would be fun to see an incarnation following those versions of the Turtles. One interesting point in that episode is the Turtles don't seem like they are 15 and older, they sound and act like they are 13 at best. So that could be a new spin on the show of having the Turtles be pre-teens or at least very early teens if you want to keep the teenage moniker.

The mecha turtles is kinda like a batman beyond sort of storyline where the Turtles are elderly and are rasing students of their own to carry on their legacy. Or at least that is the case with Mikey.

We know the Turtles would eventually outgrow their lair and go their separate ways. This is somewhat an underlying current in season five with the Turtles complaining that they are bored and Leo deploringly stating that the city doesn't need them anymore. Bear in mind the Turtles are also around 18-19 years old at the end of that incarnation. So you couldn't push the Teenage title for much longer. Also, the Turtles are around 21 years old when the Mutagen bomb goes off during "Mutant Apocalypse". Heck even in the current IDW series the Turtles have pretty much gone their separate ways for the time being.

So while a good portion of the mecha turtles story would focus on Mikey's students and how he began training them. The story would gradually focus Mikey's memories of when he and his brothers did separate.

Idelistcly all four turtles are training students of their own and they keep in touch now and again. And occasionally the other turtles and their students could be drawn into the story based on a situation.

But of course, the Turtles' story is often bittersweet so it will take a slightly darker more realistic approach. So say the Mutagen Bomb goes off, there aren't any deaths but a good chunk of the city if not the world has been mutated.

The Turtle's who are in their twenties when all this occurs, April, and Casey help deal with the fallout. One of the things Donnie does in this time is he creates the four mechs that are used by Mikey's in this series. Unfortunately, he isn't able to actually put them to use.

During their final mission, there is a serious situation and Mikey is separated from his brothers and he doesn't see them again for many years. He might find remains of them such as their eye masks, the broken remains of their weapons, at least something he could connect to them. He searches for them, no no avail and is forced to conclude they are gone. He is able to get through life because Casey and April are there for him. Mikey is also the sort who would continue living for his brother's sake and also because he is the only one to carry on their family. Eventually, April and Casey will also have to leave him because after all, the mecha turtles is set in the year 2090 and the current year is 2020. So say the Turtles are 25 when they are separated and tack on 70 years following that would mean the Michelangelo we see in the Mecha Turtles short would be 95 years old.


Somewhere in these 70 years. Maybe a year or so after April and Casey have passed on, Mikey comes across Frida, Jackson, Basque, and Kusama. He likely chooses them because the way they interact reminds him of his brothers and himself when they were younger, and much like the Turtles they don't fit in anywhere except with one another. Maybe Frida is the granddaughter of April and Casey, so she was already familiar with Michelangelo or at the very least grew up hearing stories of the Turtles and their adventures. It's through her that the other teens meet and encounter Michelangelo. Another plausibility is there is a threat in the city and the four of them are orphaned or at the very least have losses because of this underlying threat. Kinda like how Jackson is shown with a prosthetic leg.

Eventually, somewhere down the line, Mikey discovers his brothers are alive or at least some of them are.

One has been training alone for years and returns to the city because he hears stories of there being for mechanized turtle warriors.

Another maybe is no longer alive or if he is still alive he is a physical condition where she can no longer able to fight. Fortunately, he has a student who he had been training and that student comes as a representative of that turtle's legacy. We can even go as far as to say that student sees this Turtle as a parental figure. The student doesn't interact with the Mecha Turtle's often, not in a lone wolf "I'm better then you, so you'll just get in my way" attitude. It's more he wants to see what they would do first before he swoops in to assist.

There is also a plausibility that this Turtle is still alive, but he has given up on his legacy as a ninja because the memories of it bring nothing but pain. The only reason he is drawn to New York is because of rumors about the Mecha turtles, and maybe partially to convince himself that giving up Ninjitsu was the right choice.

A bit of both is yes he has a student who he has been training, he's still alive but he has an injury or he's in a condition that leaves him bitter and cranky about joining the fight again.

The final one is assumed dead and later it's revealed the main villain is their missing brother.

We're still missing at the very least 4 summer shorts, when are we going to get them?

I think the shorts are just that shorts. Not really related to any particular series. Unless they bunch them together because of when they were done, also I think some of the cast returned for some parts. Atleast I think Greg Cipes was Mikey in the Turtles take Time one.

Yes, Greg was Mikey there. They also brought in Townsend Coleman to voice 1987 Mikey at the end of that short.

Greg Cipes was also brought in elderly Michelangelo in the Teenage Mecha Turtles Short.

The Pizza short had Sam Riegel the voice of 2003 Donatello voicing Raph.

You can see both these and Rise of the TMNT as related, as they're Nickelodeon productions, all three of them. But none of them take place in the same continuty.