Those small unexplained changes in the cartoon.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

I'm talking about the 87 Season compared to the next ones. Krang seems more detailed in appearance in the first season, even Shredder looks more detailed. The turtle's faces looked a little different too. Rocksteady sounds at his least friendliness in the first one, then he becomes more less serious.

And why does Vernon sound more macho in the first season? It seemed like they were still experimenting with voices after they had already finished some episodes. Burne looks older in the first season than in the 89 Season. And of course some episodes had a different voice for shredder, Raphael, Donatello. Yeah, probably because the usual voice actors were too busy.

But why did the standard of animation and detail drop after the first season?

[ZariusTwo]

The first season is praised by many as being more true to the comics in terms of violence and tone than most of the original series ever was, it had to be toned down due to that, for the most part, it worked, because the series was still able to have dark episodes with the comedy aspect maintained

[Kazari]

I talked to Barry Gordon about that...he did say that they had another guy do his voice for him for a few of the showings because he was unable to get to the recordings.

I wonder why Vernon was like really dark tan but later on he was really pale looking.

[KROW]

.I wonder why Vernon was like really dark tan but later on he was really pale looking.
Not enough sun in New York. :P

I'd like to know what happened to that big-nosed, gray rock soldier. There was only one of him, if memory serves me correctly. The rest of the army looked like Tragg. What's up with that?

[PizzaPower]

Well maybe they got lasey and did not feel like puting in the detail. I don't really care. I still love the turtles,and I am just glad we had them and that we still have them.

[KROW]

Well maybe they got lasey and did not feel like puting in the detail.
That's a possibility. Shortcuts are usually taken in animations. Four (or three :P) fingers instead of five, frequent use of the same color for various objects, etc. It could have all been about production costs or wanting to rush that new episode out as quickly as possible.

[PizzaPower]

yea that is true. I think they rushed a bunch of the eps because there was tons of mistakes.

[Kazari]

Yeah I liked that big grey rock soldier too! He was cool! I know you have to fight in the old NES game.

[Anarky]

I heard somewhere that they did the four-finger-thing in the very beginning because they didn't want their cartoon characters to be able to show the middle finger.

But don't nail me on this one...

[CyberCubed]

The show was toned down until Season 7 arrived, in that season they finally brought the action back to the show and had better plots. Of course Seasons 8-10 improved on this even more, but there was a huge gap from Season 1 to the excellent Season 7.

[ZariusTwo]

The show was toned down until Season 7 arrived, in that season they finally brought the action back to the show and had better plots. Of course Seasons 8-10 improved on this even more, but there was a huge gap from Season 1 to the excellent Season 7.

Actually, I'd say the gap began after Season Three, that and Season Two were also pretty consistent as far as plots went

[Demented Utrom]

I know who you mean his name was Lt. Granitor.The one with the long nose

[PiffDaddy]

How about some of the mistakes in the first season?

Many times Don would be shown speaking when clearly it was Raph's voice actor. Happens quite a few times, but I guess the mistakes just add to the turtles mystery.

[Lisardo]

Dangit, my last post got lost due to farkin' IE crashing, ahhhh! I WAS saying that Leo's/Rocksteady's voices were mare mature sounding, something us Leo fans drool over. April's voice was higher, as was Don's. Vernon's was more snobby-sounding. Also April looked alittle different. Her hair look somewhat different those side burn things, well the hair that falls down by her ears. Her eyes looked different. Plus on her collar and cuffs there was a dark yellow color.

Also I notice some of the inconsistancies in the original series. In the 6th ep, "Return of the Shredder" April acted all surprized when Burne was against the TMNT. The guy didn't like them in the first 5 eps, why should he like them any better now? Plus April was acting like they had known the TMNT for a long time or something when they hadn't. In later seasons I noticed way more inconsistances. Certain characters don't remember other characters, also certain characters don't always remember certain events that took place. Weird.

[MrPliggins]

I think the "toned down" show resulted because of how popular the show got with kids. When it first came out, they were trying to figure out what their audience was going to be. They were on Saturday mornings at 6:30 (in cleveland at least) for the first two seasons.
It was toned down a little bit when it went syndicated in season 3 (1989) and especially in 1990 when it moved to saturday mornings on CBS from 10-11.
It also may have to do with the sheer numbers of episodes being produced. Season 1 only had five episodes, so they could spend lots of time on those 5 (although there were mistakes...)

[BaldMonk]

Well, in most cases, when the animation matches the quality of the opening sequence (the TMNT pilot episodes) It's because they've usually hired a Japanese studio to do it. Look at the first 4 episodes of TMNT... after that they start to lose quality... before that, then art and animation was on par with the opening sequence... which is phenominal... .even the little details like the window glare on the Turtle Van etc... (I'm at an animation school, so we're being taught to notice all this stuff)

It usually mentions the animators in the credits And will sometimes say "Opening sequence by 'insert japanese studio here'. There are plenty of examples. For instance, the Captain Planet opening, it's amazing, Real Ghosbusters, C.O.P.S, Thundercats... if you watch all these shows, the openings are far better quality, and art style than the actual shows. I mean compare the Transformers Movie to the series... the movie was done by Toei animation, and the quality blows the American animated series to high heaven.

[CylonsKlingonsDaleksOhMy]

One completely strange change was the appearance of mob villain "Don Turtelli" from being fat in the episode " Maltese Hamster" to a thin younger looking guy with black hair and mustache in "Case of the Hot Kimono". Now that's a mistake that should never have happenend.

[MrPliggins]

Yeah that was a really bad mistake.. and I think the "fat" version actually appeared in "Burne's Blues", where he tickles them with feathers. This scene always puzzled me because of the fact he looked totally different than any other Don Turtelli episode.