Whats wrong with the turtles being silly?

[Jephael]

When it comes to the balance between serious and silly, I tend to prefer the grey area. I always felt David Wise was really good at accomplishing this in most of the episodes he wrote, especially the 1993-seaosn 7 episodes of the original cartoon, right before the change in tone to red-sky.

Everybody has their own beliefs in how these characters should or should not be interpreted, but in the long run it's all just make-believe anyway. I tend to be the "anything goes" type and am open to almost any new take on any character, though I will admit there are times where something seems off.

[Dejablue]

I think there should always be an element of silliness because they are teenagers. If they are all hard balls of "I'm Batman" then thats going to get boring. Some storylines will probably also be too raucous to take super seriously.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Dejablue

I think there should always be an element of silliness because they are teenagers. If they are all hard balls of "I'm Batman" then thats going to get boring.

In other words... tonally trapped due to Crisler's Law? Basically?

[Shark_Blade]

I mean even Batman have their silly era with Adam West.

[Leo656]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

In other words... tonally trapped due to Crisler's Law? Basically?

I'm starting to believe it.

I mean, this franchise attracts so many brick-stupid people to it... sh*t, maybe it IS just dumb bullsh*t and you and I are the assholes for ever thinking it could ever be otherwise.

Twenty million morons can't possibly be wrong. Right?

[Dejablue]

Did Kevin Laird actually write that definition.

I'll just say this. If anyone else wanted a dark and gritty adaption of...Darkwing Duck or some ****, because they believe it can be done, I bet most of you here would call them retarded.

[sdp]

Originally Posted by Dejablue

Did Kevin Laird actually write that definition.

I'll just say this. If anyone else wanted a dark and gritty adaption of...Darkwing Duck or some ****, because they believe it can be done, I bet most of you here would call them retarded.

I have a follower on twitter who constantly asks me what i think about a Bubsy the cat gritty reboot and how much he would like it.

[srmff]

Originally Posted by Dejablue

Did Kevin Laird actually write that definition

I'm pretty sure that it's just a username someone created as an amalgamation of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

[Dejablue]

Originally Posted by srmff

I'm pretty sure that it's just a username someone created as an amalgamation of Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

Oof. I didn't even notice that its literally the first and last name of two different people put together. I glazed over that super hard.

[Jephael]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

In other words... tonally trapped due to Crisler's Law? Basically?

Originally Posted by Leo656

I'm starting to believe it.

I mean, this franchise attracts so many brick-stupid people to it... sh*t, maybe it IS just dumb bullsh*t and you and I are the assholes for ever thinking it could ever be otherwise.

I can understand why you guys want to see the TMNT go back to their black and white comic book roots, and I do believe it is feasible if put in the hands of the right creative team! My only argument here though is there should be some wiggle room allowing certain characters from the Fred Wolf/Archie Adventure era to be included so long as they can be adapted personality-wise to fit the tone of such an iteration just as the likes of Leatherhead, Rat King and yes even our "beloved" Casey Jones had been adapted for the cartoon. That's always seemed to be the big issue for a lot of Mirage fans, not wanting to see the likes of Irma, Vernon, Bebop and Rocksteady in the source material. Then again, like I said in my previous post, I'm an "anything goes" type, which is probably why I enjoy the multiverse stuff so much. You can do whatever the hell you want with these characters, make up your own head-canon, have them meet up with characters from other properties and so on. In the end, it's meant to be entertaining.

[Leo656]

I'm hardly as "purist" as Andrew and some others are. I can appreciate Mirage but it's dry as rice cakes for me, most of the time. Although its best was definitely better than 99% of TMNT fiction that exists, but there was a lot of "Miss" to get to those "Hits". The Archie book was a nice "middle ground", for me.

Frankly, at this point I'd be more or less willing to settle for something that wasn't constant pizza jokes, "Cowabunga!", and non-stop repurposed FW characters. I'm not entirely against it but it's ridiculously overdone nowadays. Most "new" TMNT iterations are so slavish in their obsession with cramming FW stuff in there that they never really develop their own identity and it becomes a big game of "Spot The Reference". It's irritating.

The BayTurtles were a perfect example of everything wrong with "new" TMNT; slavishly cramming FW-isms in without any care for balance or context or what made them "work" the first time around. I mean the pre-release hype for the second movie was almost literally saying, "We put pizza, 'Cowabunga!', and Krang in it, so you assholes better show up and like it!" And in the end it was less of a "valentine" and more of a lazy parody. Just plain awful.

I don't know. It's a tricky balancing act. I don't hate FW (although I certainly emphasize with those who do), but I definitely resent its stranglehold on the franchise. I mean it's what drew my attention to the brand, but at the same time I already felt like I was outgrowing it by the time I was 10. I think that a big reason why I appreciated 4Kids so much was that it took the general "blueprints" of Mirage's stories, retained the general sense of "fun" that a kids' cartoon has to have, BUT at the same time pretty much tried to give a hearty "F*ck You" to the FW show as often as possible, and be an entirely different kind of show. It was almost like they were trying super-hard to prove that TMNT could work even without all that pizza and "Cowabunga!" nonsense (although they did relent on the "Cowabunga" pretty early on, to my eternal annoyance, but they tried to avoid it for much of the first Season, at least). *I* thought it succeeded really well at that, but since it's NOT a giant FW homage, Nick has swept it under the rug to be forgotten since FW homages are all they wanna do. God forbid anyone actually watches the 4Kids show in 2021 and discovers that there's a different way to make TMNT "good" without leaning on stuff from FW; it would ruin Nick's whole business plan. Can't have THAT.

It's like, Superman and Batman had to "evolve" from the original tone in which their earliest stories were presented, because writers gradually came to realize that the BEST possible stories one could ever possibly tell with those characters weren't going to ever be told unless they committed to aiming at an audience older than 10. Like they were making money with "goofy" stuff but you can only do that for so long, and it's not very satisfying for either the reader or the creator after a while. It becomes a creative dead-end. So, at one point writers started asking logical questions, like "How would someone like Superman mentally handle being the last of his kind? Like obviously he likes being Superman, but he's also an endangered species and his entire bloodline is dead... wouldn't that mess with him, sometimes?" Or "Wouldn't people naturally be kind of... I don't know... suspicious and terrified if some guy just sort of fell out of the sky and could punch out mountains? Why would they ALL just trust him to be a Good Guy just because he says so? Shouldn't he have to earn it?" Or like with Batman, for the first 40 years or so it's like "Holy sh*t, for a guy who watched his parents get blown away in front of him when he was 10, he sure is a jolly, well-adjusted guy... maybe he shouldn't be? Like maybe if that actually happened to a kid he'd honestly be a giant ball of neurotic insecurities, and maybe that makes him a more relatable character?" And when you started addressing those Very Obvious Elephants in the room, instead of getting hung up on how "silly" a premise like an alien strongman or guy dressed like a bat appear to be on a superficial level, lo and behold, not only do the stories get better, but you can tell MORE of them, because you're not creatively handcuffed anymore.

For me - and I suspect a lot of other people - the most intriguing thing about TMNT isn't that it's "goofy", it's that the basic premise of a family of "outcasts" who can never fit into society but nonetheless lean on the side of Goodness and trying to preserve if not necessarily become a part of that society is intriguing. On one hand they're just trying to survive, but on the other they do welcome and even invite elements of humankind into their world and in some ways try to become more "accepted" even though they logically know that can't happen. There are a lot of themes a writer can explore with the characters, from "What is 'Family'?" to "What exactly does it mean to be 'Human'?", to whether "Vengeance" is ever righteous or only creates and perpetuates an ongoing cycle of violence.

These are good themes that deserve to be explored. And they shouldn't be dismissed out of hand because "C'mon, guys. It's just talking animals." The Archie Sonic book was an inconsistent mess, but some of its better stories did a lot of good with those elements. If anything, the fact that the protagonists are not human gives more gravitas to the exploration of those themes. Like, you can do it with Superman, but he can still "pass" for normal. He still has a "normal" life, he can "fit in" in ways the Turtles never could and never will. That means you can explore those types of themes in very unique ways, potentially.

And when people are willing to settle JUST for the goofy pizza jokes and "Cowabunga!" stuff, and furthermore, chide and scold anyone for wishing the writers of TMNT would aim higher, I can't help but feel like they're actively holding things back from being as good as they COULD be.

I understand the natural inclination to want to have humor in TMNT, considering how "silly and dumb" the entire premise is on its face. However. To me, the "funny stuff" is absolutely the LEAST interesting thing about the entire premise. For one thing, the jokes are one-note and by now they've been done to death. But beyond that, is that really the BEST we can do with these characters?

I really, truly don't think so. I kind of feel like the best potential TMNT stories haven't even been told yet, and they're just kind of floating in the ether, waiting for someone to bring them to life; except they can't, because Someone is telling the writer(s) that "It's just for kids, man" and also "Needs more pizza jokes."

And that's where my resentment towards the "silly" side of TMNT comes from. At best, it's a Creative Crutch. At worst, it's Creative Handcuffs.

[Jephael]

You've definitely touched on a lot of good points, and while I whole-heartily agree that the "pizza-dude" stuff does get tiresome after a while, the whole "existential crisis" stuff can get old too. I like seeing these characters enjoy their lives when they can, not moping around with the weight of the world on their shoulders. I feel the comics do a way better job balancing this, not just because of the writing, but because the medium itself has more freedom to go where it wants. Both animation and live action take a lot of time and resources, and then you have to take into account the availability of onscreen and/or voice over talent, and how attached people become to certain actors portrayals of these characters. With the comics it's more left to the readers' imaginations.

[Leo656]

Having them be happy-go-lucky even sometimes seems disingenuous when objectively everything about their lives is horrible.

I mean, let's run down the list... have to hide out in a filthy sewer, have to steal/salvage almost everything they have, can't be around regular people without having to worry about being locked up/murdered/dissected/etc., constantly being swept up in violent situations (only some of which are within their control to ignore or avoid), nobody can truly relate to or understand them, they'll never have a "peaceful, normal" life, they'll never spawn any progeny, and they'll most likely die alone, at least some of them coming to a violent end.

Like, for real, what's funny? What exactly do they have to be happy-go-lucky about? Their lives suck. In "real life" they'd have PTSD out the ass at the bare minimum, and they'd be angry, hyper-violent and resentful towards everyone who isn't them at worst.

I GET that most people don't want to dwell on that stuff, but here's the thing: If we play the "These Characters Are Real and The Situations Are Really Happening" Game - which is how I prefer to approach ALL fiction - then the truth is their lives would be overwhelmingly miserable with only faint glimmers of joy or relief. And again, it feels disingenuous to outright ignore or turn away from that because then it's no longer organic storytelling, it's not treating the characters or scenarios as if they're "real" and it becomes pure fantasy. And personally if a story has NO basis in Reality then I have very little time for it. At the very least the characters should behave appropriately to the settings and scenarios they find themselves in, or else it becomes a farce.

I'm not saying it HAS to dwell constantly on the Negative, but if it's being "honest" in its storytelling then it should come up more often than not.

"I prefer that it be upbeat Happy Fun Time" is an end-user problem. In no way, shape or form would those characters in that environment be as jovial and carefree as they're often presented. I get that "It's all fake" and so there needs to be some more lighthearted elements so as not to alienate the reader/viewer, but at the same time it shouldn't feel false. Which it often does.

I can't see them genuinely having much room to "enjoy life" when 99% of their time would be spent merely "surviving" it. Again, I get why things are often balanced a certain way so as not to put off a certain type of audience, but at the same time, it feels very "fake" when it goes too far that way.

[GoldMutant]

Leo's recent post pretty much mirrors my exact thoughts on not just TMNT, but a franchise needing its balance.

Personally, I don't think there's an issue with silly, or light-hearted. Campiness can be dated (ex: 60s Batman), but so can edginess (insert your own reference here). It's basically how you think on any type of series growing up. It all boils down to the execution.

Having said that, I feel there should be some fun silliness in TMNT. Not zaniness per say, but something that gets you coming back. At the same time, embrace what made you, well, you. It's why I feel the 1990s movie, barring Mirage, is the best TMNT interpretation.

Yes, it has some goofball charm, but it also feels like a transition. When you look past the effects and everything, it still told a really good story. It got kids hooked with the action and comedy. At the same time, teenagers and adults with a serious overtone and character growth. Fusing the better elements of both Fred Wolf and the Mirage Comics made it a classic, and still holds up.

Ultimately, something can be serious or goofy. It just needs to have a team that understands both.

[Coola Yagami]

On the other hand, I just feel it's about time they give grim and gritty a try. We've had the 2012 show show and Rise back to back. Time to try serious now, which I know they won't due to it belonging to Nick.

I do have to admit, the 80's cartoon always did make the sewer lair look like this cool place to live. Even though they occasionally joke with 'can't smell all that good, these are the sewers ya know' or 'you smell like you've been in a sewer, April' they never delve on it too much and their lair looks like the cleanest sewer ever. I mean you couple that with the Rat King's hideout and whatever else and it almost feels like the sewers are this vast underground city for homeless ala Demolition Man.

But yeah considering the Mirage turtles spent the first part of their childhood training to murder someone, how cheerful can they be other than Mikey saying the occasional joke.

Honestly, when you think about it, Mikey might be the funny one cause out of the four, he's the one with the greatest desire to go out and party in the human world and knows he can't, so all the jokes and clowning is a coping mechanism. Stuff like messing with Raph and whatever are his way of making the best of a terrible situation.

IDK, the 2012 show was full of some pretty dark stuff, but maybe if they made a show similar to that but toning down Mikey and no other 'they're funny cause they're stupid' characters like Casey could work. Sure, make pizza their favorite food, but don't make it their obsession and hey the 2K3 show had the balls to actually show them eating other foods, so do that. Also tone down the catchphrases and whatnot. And rely more on Mirage-isms than FW-isms.

I mean when you think about it, thanks to both the 2K3 show and the 2012 show, characters like Savanti, Renet, Nobody, Karai and such are no longer forgotten obscure characters. If a new show goes with a more Mirage route, there will still be characters left for new fans to recognize.

[Leo656]

I find that a lot of what people prefer/expect from TMNT comes down to simple projection. In some cases, "I see Funny Talking Animals, therefore that's what I want/expect", etc.

And I get that. But then there's things like Martin Wagner's "Hepcats" which purposely goes out of its way to subvert expectations and tell a "real" story that just so happens to center around anthro talking animals, while also dealing with very true-life and incredibly dark/violent themes.

The trappings shouldn't dictate the content, basically. But very often a person is going to see only what they want to see. If a person looks at TMNT and sees very little difference between those characters and the Looney Tunes or Disney characters, "Because Talking Animals", then of course anything outside of that vein is going to seem silly and pointless to Them. But again, that's both Projection and an End-User Problem.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I find that a lot of what people prefer/expect from TMNT comes down to simple projection. In some cases, "I see Funny Talking Animals, therefore that's what I want/expect", etc.

And I get that. But then there's things like Martin Wagner's "Hepcats" which purposely goes out of its way to subvert expectations and tell a "real" story that just so happens to center around anthro talking animals, while also dealing with very true-life and incredibly dark/violent themes.

The trappings shouldn't dictate the content, basically. But very often a person is going to see only what they want to see. If a person looks at TMNT and sees very little difference between those characters and the Looney Tunes or Disney characters, "Because Talking Animals", then of course anything outside of that vein is going to seem silly and pointless to Them. But again, that's both Projection and an End-User Problem.

True but the main difference is the Turtles live in 'the real world' among humans. If they lived in a world full of 'cartoon animals', I'd kinda get it, but the series needs to have some level of seriousness.

[ssjup81]

Originally Posted by Dejablue

I think there should always be an element of silliness because they are teenagers. If they are all hard balls of "I'm Batman" then thats going to get boring. Some storylines will probably also be too raucous to take super seriously.

I feel the same way honestly. It also depends on the origin they're going for too. If it's the "Splinter raising and training the Turtles to assassinate Oroku Saki to avenge his master", then no, it would make sense for them to be serious all the time because Splinter himself would've been serious all the time. I could picture it being day in and day out, training and all that. Now, them interacting with the human characters and getting out of their bubbles (the sewers) and discovering new things and them slowly getting involved in some silly antics, that's fine.

Now, if it's the situation where Splinter just raises the turtles and trains them just to pass on his skills and knowledge, while also wanting to live some semblance of a life as not only a sensei/student relationship but a parent/child relationship as well with no vengeance being the cause of the training, I could see them acting silly sometimes based on them acting like teens. I mean, it's normal to partake in fun activities, like playing games for instance.

All of this aside, though, there should be a balance. I like the Mirage comics, but the seriousness does get a bit tiresome. The OT series was fun to watch as a kid and fun to reminisce over if revisiting some eps, but it was a bit too silly at times (but, I did enjoy when the characters themselves noted the absurdity of some of their situations, breaking the fourth wall). I know some will disagree, but I liked the 2012 series because the characters were serious when need be, but they also came across as teens to me. Leonardo was serious, but was also their world's equivalent of a Trekkie with insecurity issues. Donnie had his insecurity issues too and was serious, but you also saw he enjoyed playing too. Raph felt misunderstood, but enjoyed reading comics. The only one that was the issue was Mikey. First season he was unbearable in most cases, but they toned him down and seems it all depended on the plot of the episode which direction it would go.

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

Honestly, when you think about it, Mikey might be the funny one cause out of the four, he's the one with the greatest desire to go out and party in the human world and knows he can't, so all the jokes and clowning is a coping mechanism. Stuff like messing with Raph and whatever are his way of making the best of a terrible situation.

This has always been my take on Mikey. He always came across as the one who longed to hang on the surface and just do ordinary things. He was the Ariel of the four. lol It makes sense that he would try to make light of their situation sometimes as a coping mechanism.

IDK, the 2012 show was full of some pretty dark stuff, but maybe if they made a show similar to that but toning down Mikey and no other 'they're funny cause they're stupid' characters like Casey could work. Sure, make pizza their favorite food, but don't make it their obsession and hey the 2K3 show had the balls to actually show them eating other foods, so do that. Also tone down the catchphrases and whatnot. And rely more on Mirage-isms than FW-isms.

They did eat stuff other than pizza in the 2012 show. I know I recall a time where they were eating cup ramen. Seems the one obsessed with the pizza thing was Mikey.

[LeotheLateBloomer]

Originally Posted by Leo656

I find that a lot of what people prefer/expect from TMNT comes down to simple projection. In some cases, "I see Funny Talking Animals, therefore that's what I want/expect", etc.

And I get that. But then there's things like Martin Wagner's "Hepcats" which purposely goes out of its way to subvert expectations and tell a "real" story that just so happens to center around anthro talking animals, while also dealing with very true-life and incredibly dark/violent themes.

The trappings shouldn't dictate the content, basically. But very often a person is going to see only what they want to see. If a person looks at TMNT and sees very little difference between those characters and the Looney Tunes or Disney characters, "Because Talking Animals", then of course anything outside of that vein is going to seem silly and pointless to Them. But again, that's both Projection and an End-User Problem.

I feel ya, man!

I can't help but feel that some fans are still tied to their nostalgia with this brand (FW, Archie, the 90s films). I enjoy them all to an extent but I would love for them to move past the pizza-eating, Cowabunga days because it's honestly not cool anymore. They're afraid of moving on. I'm not against humor in some versions but why can't we get a version or two without it for once. It's like "I don't want my TMNT to be dark and gritty even if they were like that in the original comics" and I say "if you don't want a darker version then don't give it your time of day." Let others who do want it enjoy it.

There's loads of iterations of comic book protagonists that have different tones to them. Why is it considered sacrilege when a version does something fans don't expect? They're too used to chasing after versions with lunch pails and party plates to see their childhood grow up with them.

I'm tired of this whole "they're teenagers" excuse. Wake up! A.) They're turtles which age differently than humans even if they are humanoid. B.) They were raised differently than teenaged humans. It's no different than how Damien Wayne was raised by the League of Assassins. He acts nothing like a kid his age.

"Well Rise tried to be different!" There's a way to be different without going too far to change for the sake of changing. It didn't help that it had an even wackier tone than stuff we've seen before. "Seriousness and darkness gets tiresome" tell that to DC with Batman but no dice because they remember that the character's tone was always like that. Wackiness gets tiresome too.

On one hand I can see why some want balance but not every version of a comic book series needs that same old tone. It just feels like the 'safe/comfort zone' to prevent anything potentially major from happening. These are comic book franchises people, let them go all out and stop being so restricted. One version can have a balanced tone, one can have an all out grim tone, etc. Let them be what they want!

[IndigoErth]

Too much silliness in cartoons seems so fake and forced nowadays which doesn't help matters. The wacky exaggerate stuff just doesn't work for everything. No more than the Power Rangers method/style worked for Next Mutation, nor most things that tried to copy TMNT back in the day.

Mostly.... I just want the script/concept to treat the Turtles like people, and keep any humorous moments natural, occurring more like they would in real life. 2003 hit that spot pretty well imo; serious most of the time, but here and there they still have moments of being normal siblings.


The "talking animals" mentality is just asking to remain stuck with BS though and never taken seriously enough. They might have started out as normal animals, but they involuntarily became people, on the same intellectual level as humans and deserve to be taken just as seriously as human characters.