If Power Rangers never came to the U.S., would TMNT have lasted longer?

[CyberCubed]

We all know the real reason the TMNT cartoon lost its popularity was simply due to the huge explosion in Power Rangers popularity back in 1992. Power Rangers took (stole?) a chunk of the TMNT fanbase as well as younger kids who would have gotten into TMNT had Power Rangers not existed.

If Power Rangers never came to the U.S., would the original cartoon have lasted a bit longer? Remember TMNT was also competing against Batman: TAS, as well as the Spiderman and X-men cartoons at the time as well.

[Matches Malone]

Competing against Batman and Spider-man means that they were already losing steam, otherwise Batman and Spider-man would have been imitating TMNT's tone and style, not the other way around. Fads come and go. While Pokemon's longevity is astounding, there's no denying its peak popularity definitely ended at some point and simply continued to chug along. If Power Rangers hadn't come along or became popular, something else would have, because that's what businesses do: find new fads to make money off of.

[Garfield]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

We all know the real reason the TMNT cartoon lost its popularity was simply due to the huge explosion in Power Rangers popularity back in 1992. Power Rangers took (stole?) a chunk of the TMNT fanbase as well as younger kids who would have gotten into TMNT had Power Rangers not existed.

Don't say this like you know it to be true. Because its very arguable.

For one thing, Power Rangers came out late 1993.

Back in 1992 I remember the other children moving on from TMNT and getting into X-men. Now I wont say X-men "stole" from viewers from TMNT, as its so much more complex than that, and it down plays the reality of it.

But I will say...as a guy that still loves TMNT. In the late 80's early 90's, TMNT was a fad. And fads die off a little when the excitement is gone or when its no longer in vogue. People get burnt out from it or they hop off the bandwagon and move on.

I don't think Power Rangers had as much to do with the decrease of the popularity of Ninja Turtles as some people think it did.

[Nameless]

ummm no and yes.

I think the cartoon just ran it course and therefore power rangers had little effect on it. only way i can think that it might have affected the cartoon is that it took time slots on saturday to play it.

However if power rangers weren't here maybe Bandai would have created a better next mutation show and it wouldn't have been canceled after a single season. if the next mutation had fight sequences like they had in the crossover episode it would have been a lot better.

[CyberCubed]

The show still ran on much longer than anyone expected.

If the OT was going to end when the fad died, it would have ended with Season 5. Instead it goes on 5 more seasons after that.

[Jester]

Turtles was on the decline more because it tried to compete Batman:TAS's dark tone than because of Power Rangers.

[CyberCubed]

Originally Posted by Jester

Turtles was on the decline more because it tried to compete Batman:TAS's dark tone than because of Power Rangers.

But I imagine all those little kids who watched Power Rangers would have tuned into Turtles instead.

I always figured the "8 episode seasons" were because they didn't have the budget at the time to do a full season.

[The Sewer Lord]

Originally Posted by Jester

Turtles was on the decline more because it tried to compete Batman:TAS's dark tone than because of Power Rangers.

Other shows were also popular - Hulk: TAS, X-Men: TAS, Spider-man: TAS...
Back in those days, lot was going on in the Marvel comics. Still, people bought DC more with the Death of Superman, his return, Zero Hour, Emerald Twilight... Marvel wasn't much of a competion.
I figured that Marvel noticed this and proceed to hit the children with cartoons. This had a hand in the fall of TMNT.
So, I guess it's DC fault TMNT wasn't as popular in the '90s.

[ninjafowlkes8705]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

We all know the real reason the TMNT cartoon lost its popularity was simply due to the huge explosion in Power Rangers popularity back in 1992. Power Rangers took (stole?) a chunk of the TMNT fanbase as well as younger kids who would have gotten into TMNT had Power Rangers not existed.

If Power Rangers never came to the U.S., would the original cartoon have lasted a bit longer? Remember TMNT was also competing against Batman: TAS, as well as the Spiderman and X-men cartoons at the time as well.

Originally Posted by Garfield

Don't say this like you know it to be true. Because its very arguable.

For one thing, Power Rangers came out late 1993.

Back in 1992 I remember the other children moving on from TMNT and getting into X-men. Now I wont say X-men "stole" from viewers from TMNT, as its so much more complex than that, and it down plays the reality of it.

But I will say...as a guy that still loves TMNT. In the late 80's early 90's, TMNT was a fad. And fads die off a little when the excitement is gone or when its no longer in vogue. People get burnt out from it or they hop off the bandwagon and move on.

I don't think Power Rangers had as much to do with the decrease of the popularity of Ninja Turtles as some people think it did.

Originally Posted by nameless

ummm no and yes.

I think the cartoon just ran it course and therefore power rangers had little effect on it. only way i can think that it might have affected the cartoon is that it took time slots on saturday to play it.

However if power rangers weren't here maybe Bandai would have created a better next mutation show and it wouldn't have been canceled after a single season. if the next mutation had fight sequences like they had in the crossover episode it would have been a lot better.

Originally Posted by Matches Malone

Competing against Batman and Spider-man means that they were already losing steam, otherwise Batman and Spider-man would have been imitating TMNT's tone and style, not the other way around. Fads come and go. While Pokemon's longevity is astounding, there's no denying its peak popularity definitely ended at some point and simply continued to chug along. If Power Rangers hadn't come along or became popular, something else would have, because that's what businesses do: find new fads to make money off of.

power rangers came to foxkids 1993 the TMNT ERA STARTED TO FADE AWAY kids was getting into other fads like sports and saban made a live action martial arts television show for kids foxkids started become popular in 1993 bosted up the television ratings kids

[The Boston Ninja Turtle]

I can't speak for everyone, but i know for me Power Rangers never took me away from Turtles, that was around 3rd grade for me..i watched and loved both equally and a lot of my friends did to, when it came to playing with toys we usually crossed them over a lot.


but really i don't remember turtles even being in the limelight around the time PR came around...turtles 3 had just hit home movies and power rangers was airing before school..SPiderman and Xmen where my other go to shows

[Vi11AiN6]

I don't think that's the case usually around 8th to 10th season a show becomes tired, it happens. I think the show needed a reboot and for everyone to take a break from the TMNT for awhile.

I watched the first 4 episodes and then the last 4, it was such a different show! Darker, the whole Carter/ Turtles Hulk mutation thing was just strange and it needed to end.

[joefsas]

Even as a kid i thought Power Rangers sucked big time!. I think i just prefered cartoons, Bucky O'hare, Captain planet, Bike mice from mars etc

[Candy Kappa]

Technically Power Rangers came to the US in the 70's with the English dubbed Super Sentai show.

But for the topic, MMPR wasn't alone on declining TMNT, here in Norway I think Biker Mice from Mars took a lot of TMNT's steam when they aired as well as Spider-Man, Batman and Action Man (Toys-wise)

[alliance]

when youre on the air for that damn long its only a matter of time before people get interested in other things for whatever reason.. the 90's also had great cartoons and other tv options that were awesome..

[MrPliggins]

In my area it was earlier than that, around 1990, when the Disney Afternoon came around and pushed TMNT from 4pm after school to 8am while I was at school. That's when I discovered the magic of "time-taping". Although I must admit, I did enjoy some of those Disney shows.

[ZariusTwo]

Sonic Satam probably would have survived if PR hadnt come over...

Also, we probably wouldnt have gotten Lord Dregg, since he was largely meant to be TMNT's answer to PR's Lord Zedd.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Jester

Turtles was on the decline more because it tried to compete Batman:TAS's dark tone than because of Power Rangers.

FOX Kids Saturday Morning lineup > CBS ActionZone Saturday Morning lineup
(for a 10ish-year-old such as myself, anyway)

[Xav]

Ninja Turtles ended because CBS was required by law to air more educational programing, so TMNT would have ended regardless if Power Rangers came along or not.

[oldmanwinters]

Originally Posted by Xav

Ninja Turtles ended because CBS was required by law to air more educational programing, so TMNT would have ended regardless if Power Rangers came along or not.

Man, you'd think that Turtle Tips would have been enough to appease those darn national broadcasting standards!

[Refractive Reflections]

This is a small technicality but Wikipedia says PR (Power Rangers) premiered in August 1993. But anyways...

As some have said earlier, even if Power Rangers wasn't imported to the U.S. the other darker cartoons like X-men, and Batman: The Animated Series would have still attracted the youth's attention.

When TMNT began in the late 80s, most cartoons were comedy-focused and TMNT was seen as something a little edgier from most other slapstick, silly cartoons at that time. Even then the soccer mom's considered the violence in the OT too much and is one reason why Michelangelo's nunchucks were removed (besides also European censorship), since kids were making their own and hurting themselves.

As time progressed into the early 90s, it seems as if more violent, darker toned cartoons were more accepted. This is a time also when video games were becoming progressively more violent (i.e. Mortal Kombat in 1990), and even the pop music scene was becoming darker/drearier with grunge and gangsta rap as it pulled away from the brightly colored sounds of 80s synthpop. In my eyes, it just seemed like the 90s was a cultural shift into more extreme angst and violence, and the cool/trendy cartoons of that time seemed to reflect that (within the confines of children's censorship) since the teenage/adult demographic was leaning toward it to. This shift is so dramatic, shows like Batman:TAS and X-Men, probably wouldn't have even been considered as kids' shows in the early 80s because of their darker storytelling.

...So anyways back to TMNT, . I mean the OT tried with the Red Sky seasons, and it was good itself, but it just didn't quite hit the mark since it borrow more elements from those newer shows rather than having its own unique spin on things on adapting with the times. In addition, it just seemed like the addition of Dregg (an imitation of sorts of PR's Zedd) seemed to indicate the OT was running on fumes.

Plus you also have to consider how bad the TMNT merchandising was (i.e. remember those horrible farming, party characters, and career versions of the TMNT action figures?) and the poor reception to TMNT III the film; which only hurt the franchise's "coolness" factor by making anything ninja a parody.

Originally Posted by Xav

Ninja Turtles ended because CBS was required by law to air more educational programing, so TMNT would have ended regardless if Power Rangers came along or not.

That is true, but I'm sure if the ratings were substantially high CBS would have done something since FOX and ABC still had "non-educational" cartoons. But yeah, CBS seems to have had a clean slate of removing nearly all of their cartoons because of it and having the CBS Saturday Morning news (that's because news "satisfies" the educational requirements of Saturday morning, pfft, whatever... as if kids are gonna watch that. ).




So to conclude all that I'm trying to say, you can't really say one factor (Power Rangers) is responsible, there were many: 1) Darker themed cartoons (X-men, Batman:TAS), 2) Changing teenager/adult 90s cultural attitudes which thus influenced cartoons in a downstream effect (since kids want to emulate the "cool" adults and teens), 3) the TMNT franchise being a parody of itself with horrible merchandising and the bad TMNT 3 film, 4) the Children's Television Act mandating educational programming with stricter enforcement in 1996, and 5) Red Sky plots (especially by season 9) that borrowed too many elements from other trendier cartoons.

Sadly I felt, the OT never had a proper ending. I heard rumors though that there were plot ideas for an 11th season to make it a series finale season (any of you know about that?), but of course that was extinguished with the strict enforcement of Children's Television Act and low ratings. Or that there was a planned OT finale animated movie for 1997, but that was scrapped. (Anybody know of that either? )