Were you confused by HERO Turtles as a child?

[sdp]

I'm guessing the UK version used the American dub, did they replace every time they said "ninja" to "heroes"?

[MC]

Originally Posted by sdp

I'm guessing the UK version used the American dub, did they replace every time they said "ninja" to "heroes"?

No, they just chopped the word out altogether. If a turtle said they were "practicising ninja skills" it just became "practicising skills". Sometimes this sounded okay, sometimes it was really clunky and obvious!

[mikey0]

Originally Posted by MC

It quite possibly did, I was very young at the time so I don't remember the exact date it started. It could have been 88, 89 or 90.

It was 1990.

Source: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...049-story.html

[CyberCubed]

Honestly 90% of the time I forget American cartoons even air in other countries.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Honestly 90% of the time I forget American cartoons even air in other countries.

You can basically assume any American show or movie airs outside the US. This is because:

1. There's a lot of it, like an absurd amount.
2. It's easy to translate.
3. Most of it is very expensive and needs to reach as big of an audience as possible to make a profit.
4. When it's cheaply made it's probably cheap to license.

If you ever find yourself watching a Swedish TV network, you'll find that most of the programming is usually subtitled and imported from the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand (I assume the English language makes it easy to find cheap translators). Most of the native stuff is basically celebrity reality shows, if it's ever scripted it's done with minimal special effects. The most ambitious Swedish show in recent memory is Caliphate, which I know is distributed outside Sweden, so you can watch that if you want an idea what the exception is like. If you ever see a cartoon that is a Swedish production, it's most likely a German or French co-production to help with the costs.

[Wesley]

Originally Posted by MC

I'm not sure, though I know in Ireland in 2000, they were still broadcasting "Hero Turtles". What's interesting here though is that some of these episodes (Season 6 and 7 for sure anyway) were originally broadcast on RTE as Ninja Turtles. The "Ninja" censorship thing was a decision made by British censors, not Irish, so when we got to a point where Irish TV was broadcasting the episodes before British TV, they didn't bother with the censorship, and only showed the edited versions in re-runs after they'd been edited for the UK market.

That is interesting. I was too young to remember this. Thanks.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by neatoman

If you ever see a cartoon that is a Swedish production, it's most likely a German or French co-production to help with the costs.

Same goes with a lot of the scripted Swedish live-action series. I think I've often seen opening and ending credits like: co-production of SVT, NRK and ZDF.

[PizzaPower1985]

I didnt find out that TMNT was TMHT in Britain (and other parts of Europe) until IDW rekindled my love for the franchise around 2012.



But weird... they're not ninjas anyway... in any meaningful sense of the word except for Mirage.

[sdp]

It's more that animation is really expensive so not many countries have an animation industry, US and Japan are the only ones. France used to be a powerhouse but not as much anymore. Much easier to dub animation from other countries, A country I lived in used to import animation from pretty much anywhere, it was mostly from the US but we got tons of anime from japan and shows from Europe as well. Unfortunately when anime became big in Japan US companies started acquiring worldwide distribution rights of anime and that's when the rest of the world started getting the sh-tty american localized versions dubbed instead.

Everyone in the world gets the edited american Pokemon dub for example but back in the day each country would do their own localization. The US robbed many animes from having proper adaptations in other countries. Digimon for example is uncensored in most of the world since it didn't have worldwide distribution but Card Captors Sakura everyone got the edited form. Thankfully stuff like DBZ, Sailor Moon and other classic anime pre-1999 didn't have this problem.

[CyberCubed]

I always found it odd that out of all the countries in the world, the U.S. and Japan create like 90% of all animated cartoons. Like each country should have its own set of shows like Japan does, but instead...everything is just from either the U.S. or Japan.

So we really only have "American cartoons" and "anime" and there's nothing inbetween those two.

[PizzaPower1985]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I always found it odd that out of all the countries in the world, the U.S. and Japan create like 90% of all animated cartoons. Like each country should have its own set of shows like Japan does, but instead...everything is just from either the U.S. or Japan.

So we really only have "American cartoons" and "anime" and there's nothing inbetween those two.

IT IS A SHAME because Europe has some unique and very talented artists. Imagine what could be done with Moebius' artwork (for example) in animation.

Herge, creator of TinTin, drew very cartoony characters... but his backgrounds and artistic concepts were deliciously detailed. JUST IMAGINE. Europe could be the king of cartoons! But... it would be expensive, so...

[sdp]

Europe has had plenty of amazing animation but they've been lazy about it, I'd recommend Wakfu for some modern european animation but there's tons out there, other countries don't invest as much but I'm sure there are examples that we don't know because of ignorance more than anything else. Tin-Tin, il etait un fois, les contes de la rue broca, the last Garfield cartoon was French as are many cg shows now including that butterfly superhero girl, etc. Many cartoons Americans grew up with are actually Canadian, Beast Wars, Reboot, even many collaborations in Netflix. I'm not an expert, I think Pap would know better about this.

Mexico, seems to be growing their animation industry they made that awesome Villanous animated showbefore that El Chavo cartoon which lasted for 7 seasons, had a spin-off and is getting a reboot.

[PizzaPower1985]

Originally Posted by sdp

Europe has had plenty of amazing animation but they've been lazy about it, I'd recommend Wakfu for some modern european animation but there's tons out there, other countries don't invest as much but I'm sure there are examples that we don't know because of ignorance more than anything else. Tin-Tin, il etait un fois, les contes de la rue broca, the last Garfield cartoon was French as are many cg shows now including that butterfly superhero girl, etc. Many cartoons Americans grew up with are actually Canadian, Beast Wars, Reboot, even many collaborations in Netflix. I'm not an expert, I think Pap would know better about this.

Mexico, seems to be growing their animation industry they made that awesome Villanous animated showbefore that El Chavo cartoon which lasted for 7 seasons, had a spin-off and is getting a reboot.

you are right about Canadian productions... Nelvana International comes to mind with their Tintin show in the 90s... France had several companies... Ellipse Animation, being famous.

Britain was known for their puppet animation productions like Thunderbirds (among other Gerry Anderson productions). But, I've studied animation and cartoons for 2 decades and there just dont seem to be as many notable examples as a lot of what America and Japan produced), though, since I'm not European, I wont claim to be an expert on the Euro fare.

[Hamato Yoshi]

Funny how Spain didnt have an issue with "ninja"

[leotardo]

From what i can rember it was actually talked about in the media so i knew why they changed it. But i hated it for me it would be like calling spiderman, daddy long legs man, it is just wrong.

[Coola Yagami]

I'm watching the Mexican dub of Batman vs TMNT and they're still calling Shredder 'El Destructor' after all these years.