HERO Turtles

[Prowler]

As we all know by now, the TMNT got renamed Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles in the UK back in the 1980s for... whatever reasons. And Mike would get his nunchucks censored in the series.

Sadly, UK's censorship affected several other parts of the Old Continent as well. Here in Portugal, half the episodes were Hero Turtles and the other half were Ninja Turtles. The first 3 seasons are all Hero Turtles as is the copy of the NES TMNT I own. But then season 4 begins and suddenly I see the Ninja Turtles intro for the first time... but throughout seasons 4 and 5 there's an occasional Hero Turtles episode thrown in the mix as well.

Since Portugal did not dub the FW series, I'm gonna guess our TV stations imported the earlier seasons from the UK because it would be cheaper maybe? I dunno. But here in Portugal, the turtles have always been known as the Ninja Turtles or "As Tartarugas Ninja". Which made me wonder why they didn't call them Ninjas in the first 3 seasons of the show and why Mikey was never seen using his weapon. I first watched Turtle Tracks uncensored on youtube back in 2007 or so.

Many years ago I checked intros in other languages for the FW series and seems like France, Spain and Italy also called them the Ninja Turtles like we did in Portugal. But I have no idea if they aired Hero Turtles episodes like we did here. Meanwhile, Germany seemed to use the UK intro and even called them Hero Turtles in German. Over a decade ago I saw a Bulgarian intro for the FW series and I definitely heard the word Ninja in it. No idea about the rest of Europe.

Seriously, UK, why did you have to mess with the Turtles like that?! WHY?!

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Seriously, UK, why did you have to mess with the Turtles like that?!

Anti-Japanese sentiment among older people, who would remember Japan and the UK being World War II enemies. Government politicans were scared that people would pick up traditional Japanese weapons, and harm each other. As if traditional and modern Western weapons weren't harmful...

[neatoman]

"Ninja" essentially means "assassin", "spy" and/or "mercenary", not exactly the sort of concepts most parents would like their children to admire. A "hero" means... Well... "Hero", an extraordinary person who helps others and is generally considered a good person.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

Anti-Japanese sentiment among older people, who would remember Japan and the UK being World War II enemies. Government politicans were scared that people would pick up traditional Japanese weapons, and harm each other. As if traditional and modern Western weapons weren't harmful...

I don't buy this theory. If that was the case, USA would have a bigger reason not to call them Ninjas, yet it did.

Originally Posted by neatoman

"Ninja" essentially means "assassin", "spy" and/or "mercenary", not exactly the sort of concepts most parents would like their children to admire. A "hero" means... Well... "Hero", an extraordinary person who helps others and is generally considered a good person.

Well, no one seemed to have a problem with that in the Romance language speaking countries of Europe where they have always been called Ninja Turtles in the local language.

And why censor nunchuks of all weapons? That is so bizarre. You'd think Leonardo's katanas would be more problematic considering gangs and thugs carry around knives.

[DevilSpooky]

What i've heard was that the reason for it was some uk bigshot that had a vendetta against anything japanese, and outright wanted to ban anything related to them, not sure how legit it is though.

About the nunchuks, it was because a kid could actually go out and buy them easily, unlike say, a sai or a katana and they just didn't want for little kids to bring them to scholl and kill eachother pretending to be turtles.

[Andrew NDB]

https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/ban...ninja-turtles/

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/ban...ninja-turtles/

That article explains it.

I see, Belgium and Norway got screwed too. Not surprised about Austria since they watch the cartoons dubbed in Standard German from Germany instead of dubbed in Austrian German.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Norway

Introduced in December 1987, TV 3 Denmark, TV 3 Norway and TV 3 Sweden aired from London at the time. This meant that they had to follow British law.

[Galactus]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/ban...ninja-turtles/

That article sums it up except for one minor point: Most people knew it was supposed to be 'Ninja Turtles'. The movies and stuff associated stuff was all released with the original title and you could find the odd bit of merchandise that had the original logo. At my school kids called them ninja and hero turtles interchangeably and even the Spitting Image parody was called the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turds'. It wasn't some obscure thing that people only found out years later.

[NeonTurtledude]

I tried googling the spitting image parody and they look like California rasins in that