Outdated technology in the OT from today's perspective

[pannoni1]

As the years pass, more and more things from the OT pick up that "nostalgia" feeling. First it was the lingo, then it was the production style, now we're getting more in-depth with it as the OT really feels more and more like a period piece. There are many gadgets in the OT that really feel out of place with the present, that if they are included in future incarnations, they can be subject to jokes about coming from another era.

Here are just a few:

-The typewriters used by Irma/Burne in Channel 6 in the earlier seasons
-Dot-matrix printers
-Payphones (still a few here and there, but far less common today then they were even 5 years ago)
-Of course, CRT-monitor computers
-TVs with dials on them (no wonder saying the channel number is hardly present anymore in actual newscasts, back in the '80s/early '90s, it was much more common to say "Channel X News". There were still quite a few people without cable back then. Thus, local programming was more important with fewer channels to select from).

BTW, Turtlecom technology even looks a little basic compared to other smartphones; all it can do is transmit images; smartphones today would make Donnie jump for joy compared to the turtlecoms they used.

[Cryomancer]

The turtlecoms are pretty damn advanced for their time though. Cellphones were not that big of a deal yet, and especially not ones that would do video, and whatever other random feature the plot decided it needed. Not to mention that Donatello somehow knows how to work on cars from dimension X...the series had a really weird elastic grasp on technology.

And this is only slightly related here, but...I always liked that the technodrome had a giant portal / TV screen. But I bet it sucked having part of the image covered up by a control panel. I wonder how many times that thing got broken by rock soldiers driving tanks too close to the corner when using the portal?

[CyberCubed]

Oddly enough the OT had technology even more advanced than the modern era.

There were countless intelligent robots in the old series, even ones made by normal humans like the police officer robots, the robot meter maids, etc.

I think the funny thing is how advanced Donatello's computers were.

[ABrown]

And this is only slightly related here, but...I always liked that the technodrome had a giant portal / TV screen.

Ha, even the Technodrome is outdated. Today's Techonodrome would have their dimensional portal screen in HD. :D

[cryan]

No boubt that Nick will have to update the technology.I know they did this on the 2003 version.DVD and Blu ray have replaced VHS tapes.The internet is a facto of life now.The think the internet was used briefly in THe OT.

[CyberCubed]

No boubt that Nick will have to update the technology.I know they did this on the 2003 version.DVD and Blu ray have replaced VHS tapes.The internet is a facto of life now.The think the internet was used briefly in THe OT.

April uses the internet in Seasons 9 and 10. That was 1995/1996, when the internet was first being used by the public.

[Venom]

Oddly enough the OT had technology even more advanced than the modern era.

Laser blasters too! I always thought that was quaint, but I liked it. :)

[cryan]

Laser blasters too! I always thought that was quaint, but I liked it. :)

Hey it worked in GI joe.:D

[TMNT_2010]

Hey it worked in GI joe.:D

Wasn't it to please the censors? Something about not being bullets let them get away with using guns in the time slot it was running.

[ToTheNines]

Mike and Don play Pong in one episode, that's always funny.

[Jephael]

I know in a couple episodes Channel 6 offices had landline phones with cords attaching the reciever to the unit.

[sdp]

I would say that just recently have we gotten the turtlecom with video to video chat in smartphones like that. Sure they can do more than that but that feature is still fairly recent. As far as TV's with dials that was outdated even in the late 80s they were just there for artistic reasons not because it was cutting edge technology.

Outside of a few things the OT really isn't that outdated, I mean CRTs are still fairly common, heck they even use the internet in the OT. It's more stuff like videocassettes that really date cartoons/tv shows than say typewriters which may just be a personal choice as far as you know.

[Coola Yagami]

Yeah, the VHS tapes and the occassional episode that still had them use floppy disks on computers. I never heard of a device that is a 2-way image thing like the Turtlecom. I just know they made the TurtleCom like a high-tech walkie-talkie while the new toon made the Shell-Cell into a high-tech cellphone. I wonder if Nick will make them use Smart-Shells.

[ABrown]

I know in a couple episodes Channel 6 offices had landline phones with cords attaching the reciever to the unit.

Well it's not as though there's still businesses with those anymore. :-?

[pannoni1]

At the start of the episode "The Gyrbyx", Donatello and Michelangelo are playing Pong, which in 1989 was already thought of as "so '70s" compared to the present NES stuff.

[Powder]

At the start of the episode "The Gyrbyx", Donatello and Michelangelo are playing Pong, which in 1989 was already thought of as "so '70s" compared to the present NES stuff.

Well that's there to make a point, just like the stack of books being used as a TV leg. They use what they can find in or near the sewer.

[Fugitoid Jones]

To echo Cryomancer's statement, you've got to hand it to the writers of the OT, they made the Turtlecoms the size of today's cell phones with video to video capability, during a time when cell phones were the size of a VCR.

I don't think the Turtles will frequently be making video rental runs anymore. They would probably get NetFlicks now.

[CyberCubed]

I don't know if this counts but you do see the Twin Towers in the background of several episodes. Not counting when it was used for the main plot of one epiosde either.

[pannoni1]

I guess April was about 10 years behind the times in terms of upgrading her phone in her apartment: In the episode "Four Turtles and a Baby", April's green landline phone has a rotary dial; in the next episode, "Turtlemaniac", April's phone has a touchtone dial, but still isn't cordless.

[ssjup81]

I guess April was about 10 years behind the times in terms of upgrading her phone in her apartment: In the episode "Four Turtles and a Baby", April's green landline phone has a rotary dial; in the next episode, "Turtlemaniac", April's phone has a touchtone dial, but still isn't cordless.My family had a rotary phone in the 90s. The others were touch dial. We also didn't have a cordless phone until the later part of the 90s. If it ain't broke, why fix it, ya know? Now when the phones died, they were replaced.

[sdp]

I don't know if this counts but you do see the Twin Towers in the background of several episodes. Not counting when it was used for the main plot of one epiosde either.

Probably a touchy subject especially this time of the year and this year in particular but if a turtles show had been on the air I wonder if 9/11 had been acknowledged. I'm guessing it wouldn't have and maybe I'm a terrible person but I think it would have been interesting to see. Heck the 2003 turtles obviously lived through it since it only happened 2 years earlier as did the rest of the characters so I wonder what they're thoughts were and whatnot or maybe we should assume 9/11 never happened there and there were never twin towers in the 2k3 universe.

[pannoni1]

After seeing this video, I think Donatello's automatic pizza making machine from "The Old Switcheroo" looks so boring, given that it lacks a TV with online surfing. It's funny how sometimes fiction becomes reality.

Y_CIJWA0W2U

[Type 97 Chi-ha]

Not quite on topic, but remember in the 1990's they were talking so much about virtual reality and it was present in some of the Dregg episodes? How much do we hear about it nowadays? :tlol:

[Redeemer]

Oddly enough the OT had technology even more advanced than the modern era.

There were countless intelligent robots in the old series, even ones made by normal humans like the police officer robots, the robot meter maids, etc.

I think the funny thing is how advanced Donatello's computers were.

This is true. lol they have a lot of out dated technology, but had a lot of advance technology compared to today's standards

[Stingray69]

Look at the computer monitor graphics and how dated they look.

As for 3d any one remember the old virtual boy?

[gobo]

No one uses those anymore.

[oldmanwinters]

Believe it or not, wristwatches may be an appropriate inclusion on this list. Most people who still use them do so merely for style rather than practicality. Phones and other electronic pocket devices pretty much make the wristwatch obsolete in modern times.

So I wonder if April would still be rockin' that ol' white timeteller these days.

Ha, even the Technodrome is outdated. Today's Techonodrome would have their dimensional portal screen in HD. :D

I was thinking the same thing!

I know in a couple episodes Channel 6 offices had landline phones with cords attaching the reciever to the unit.

In my experience, many offices still use landline phones. It may be their last bastion, however.

[Avatar Yuffie]

I love how the Turtlecom works back then.

And yeah, video rentals are dead. Also casette players. VHS Tapes.

[sdp]

watching the OT the show is filled with outdated technology by late 80s/early 90s standard, I think they were also going with "the turtles can't get all the latest stuff" I mean they did live in the sewer. unlike the 2k3 turtles which lived better than any human in the sewers.

[Mr._Mutant_Man]

Believe it or not, wristwatches may be an appropriate inclusion on this list. Most people who still use them do so merely for style rather than practicality. Phones and other electronic pocket devices pretty much make the wristwatch obsolete in modern times.

Not necessarily. There are a lot of times where checking your watch would be more socially acceptable than looking at your phone. Plus it's a little faster to just look over at your watch really quickly than dig in your pocket for a phone.

Then again most people's phones don't seem to leave their hands these days. :roll:

[Jester]

watching the OT the show is filled with outdated technology by late 80s/early 90s standard, I think they were also going with "the turtles can't get all the latest stuff" I mean they did live in the sewer. unlike the 2k3 turtles which lived better than any human in the sewers.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y132/Jesterangelo/RatKing.jpg

[CyberCubed]

I love how there were robot meter maids, tons of intelligent AI and supercomputers...all more advanced than what we have now.

[Konchadunga]

Probably a touchy subject especially this time of the year and this year in particular but if a turtles show had been on the air I wonder if 9/11 had been acknowledged. I'm guessing it wouldn't have and maybe I'm a terrible person but I think it would have been interesting to see. Heck the 2003 turtles obviously lived through it since it only happened 2 years earlier as did the rest of the characters so I wonder what they're thoughts were and whatnot or maybe we should assume 9/11 never happened there and there were never twin towers in the 2k3 universe.

If I remember correctly, there was going to be an episode of the 2003 show called "Tower of Terror." Though it didn't really have anything to do with the World Trade Center, someone must have figured that language would bother people, and changed it, although to what, I'm not quite sure. The interesting thing is Disney had no problem calling a ride that years later.

As to the OT looking comically-outdated in some areas and very advanced in others, that's probably because technological progress is not a specific set of developments, but a random set, motivated by events. For example, had the Cold War gone on instead of giving way to an era of international trade, it's possible that space technology would keep being developed while communications technology lagged. Also, though they were big and well-armed, the REX robots still ran some of their functions on tapes.

[Kendamu]

I do remember at one point Don was threatening some handheld AI (super advanced technology) with overloading it with 50 megabytes of data. Nowadays 50 megabytes is almost nothing.

[Falconhood]

I'm always aware of this in many shows. I remember when they were talking about the Transformers movie, and WHAT in the HECK will Soundwave be??? There are not Tape Players these days, so what would his buddies be if not tapes?
And Star Trek...how we wished we could have a PDA(often on DS9), and now everyone has them.
Some of the plots that rely on the old devices, like a pay phone, would have to be completely changed if the script was reused.
Superman is just going to have to find a new place to change.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

If I remember correctly, there was going to be an episode of the 2003 show called "Tower of Terror." Though it didn't really have anything to do with the World Trade Center, someone must have figured that language would bother people, and changed it, although to what, I'm not quite sure. The interesting thing is Disney had no problem calling a ride that years later.

As to the OT looking comically-outdated in some areas and very advanced in others, that's probably because technological progress is not a specific set of developments, but a random set, motivated by events. For example, had the Cold War gone on instead of giving way to an era of international trade, it's possible that space technology would keep being developed while communications technology lagged. Also, though they were big and well-armed, the REX robots still ran some of their functions on tapes.

Agree. Man would have been to Mars, Titan and whatever now if governments laid down more money on spaceflight. Yes, some people say it's expensive, but at least better than war.

[Konchadunga]

I'm always aware of this in many shows. I Superman is just going to have to find a new place to change.

Actually; the payphone bit is so dated that it was already spoofed in the old Christopher Reeves movies, though not in the same way it would be now. Instead, he just tries to change in a payphone but finds it's a newer model that isn't an enclosed box, so he can't.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

We had rotary dial at home until 1993 or something. It wasn't until circa 1990 that the telephone keypad had almost phased out the rotary dial, except some homes.

[gobo]

I donated my personality alterator to Toys For Tots years ago.
Agree. Man would have been to Mars, Titan and whatever now if governments laid down more money on spaceflight. Yes, some people say it's expensive, but at least better than war.
Amen, reverend. :)

[Type 97 Chi-ha]

Agree. Man would have been to Mars, Titan and whatever now if governments laid down more money on spaceflight. Yes, some people say it's expensive, but at least better than war.

But it wasn't spaceflight that defeated Naziism and Communism. It was war-which, as the old saying goes, is an extension of diplomacy. Of course, the reason the US sent men to the Moon in the first place was to show that we could. (Another old saying is "put a claim on the Moon, and try to conquer that!")

[Konchadunga]

What? Okay; I'll give you Nazism, but war didn't defeat Communism any way you skew it. All of the wars to stop the spread of Communism were only a partial success at best and a massive failure at worst. Of course, a much larger war with the Soviet Union or China might have "defeated" Communism, but the ramifications of one may well have been a world even more depressing than one ruled by Communism. That isn't to say there weren't preparations to fight such a war; hence my claim that it drove space technology, but ultimate what defeated Communism was the prosperity of Western societies. No actual war involved.

[Type 97 Chi-ha]

What? Okay; I'll give you Nazism, but war didn't defeat Communism any way you skew it. All of the wars to stop the spread of Communism were only a partial success at best and a massive failure at worst. Of course, a much larger war with the Soviet Union or China might have "defeated" Communism, but the ramifications of one may well have been a world even more depressing than one ruled by Communism. That isn't to say there weren't preparations to fight such a war; hence my claim that it drove space technology, but ultimate what defeated Communism was the prosperity of Western societies. No actual war involved.

There may have been little shooting between the superpowers, but the Cold War was won with definitive efforts, including military spending, on the part of the West. In any case, my original point was that the US putting men on the Moon was definitely a matter of showing up the Russians, who had previously been the first to send a man into space.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

There may have been little shooting between the superpowers, but the Cold War was won with definitive efforts, including military spending, on the part of the West. In any case, my original point was that the US putting men on the Moon was definitely a matter of showing up the Russians, who had previously been the first to send a man into space.

This may be more pihlosphic politics, but the progress of individualism in the 1970's and 80's won the Cold War, which was based on collectivism and nationalism even if it was Western World countries.

*By the 1970's, the econmic Post War boom came to an end in 1973-1974, and the USA and the UK ended up in economic crises. Some steps to shrink (not abolish) the wellfare states (built up on some collective bases) were made there in the 1970's and 80's. California voted for the reduced taxes in 1978 I think.
*By the late 1980's, the USA and the UK had increased its military budgets, with no chance for the USSR to hang on. The 1970's economic recession had turned the USSR more and more into a poorhouse.
*By 1989-1991 the Cold War ended in three stages (Berlin Wall fall in November 1989, German re-unification in October 1990 and finally USSR split up in December 1991)
*When the Cold War was over, out came a super-individual global free trade world. The we"/"us" national thinking had been replaced by "me". You were no longer afraid of the USSR police or nuclear disaster, but for bad successes in relations (personal, not international relations), being fat, less successful i business or whatever.
*The end of the Cold War gave young people of the 1990's opportunities who had never been seen before. Abolished border control gave new opportunities for working, travelling and studying abroad. Still by early 1989, the ordinary people of almost half of the world had been cut off (those living inside Eastern Socialist states). Even school became more individualized, in the past it was more the institution that educated the future children of the wellfare state, now it's more what you use to get a successful education and turn your dreams into reality.
*As the individual 1990's progressed, it was more important than ever before to create products for "me" (mobile telephone, MP 3 players, Internet and whatever), as opposed to earlier "us" (the state needing spacecraft, military equipment, research).

In today's individualized world, it's hard to uphold the old values of the welfare state, just as it in the golden years of welfare was tought to uphold family values of pre-welfare days, even if family values has progressed after the end of the cold War.

This also affects TMNT:
*1987 cartoon = The Earth ("we"/"us") is threatened by "them" and the TMNT, co-operating as a team, must work together to defeat Shredder, Krang, Bebop, and Rocksteady, who have kidnapped April and Irma. While still a family, they work together as a team much more.
*2003 cartoon = Individualized and the TMNT care much more for themselves (conflicts within family), even the 2007 movie starts having them split up.

[Type 97 Chi-ha]

On top of that, several things happened in the 1980's:

The Soviet Union made a disastrous invasion of Afghanistan, which proved to the world it wasn't as strong as it used to be. It didn't even invade Poland during the Solidarity uprising.

The price of oil (a major income source for Russia) fell drastically mid-decade. Rumor has it that President Reagan prompted Saudi Arabia to overproduce.

The West abandoned its old policy of detente and accomodation with the USSR. It proved not to work.

[Falconhood]

Actually; the payphone bit is so dated that it was already spoofed in the old Christopher Reeves movies, though not in the same way it would be now. Instead, he just tries to change in a payphone but finds it's a newer model that isn't an enclosed box, so he can't.
absolutely. I think i had a mad magazine back in the 1990s where Superman had to change in a modern phonebooth(stall, like a urinal stall)

[Type 97 Chi-ha]

absolutely. I think i had a mad magazine back in the 1990s where Superman had to change in a modern phonebooth(stall, like a urinal stall)

I remember seeing a MAD magazine from decades before where Dennis the Menace opens the door of a public phone booth, and inside is a half-dressed Superman. The caption is "No, I'm not finished changing! And will you stop opening that door!" :tlol:

[gobo]

They quit making those in the 20th century.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

They quit making those in the 20th century.

It was built in Dimension X. We talk of Earth technology.

[pannoni1]

The Personal Energy Projector from "Planet of the Turtles" was given a PO Box snail mail address for ordering when shown on the Technodrome's portal screen. It's been many years now since we've last seen a snail mail offer on an infomercial, as it's all call or click nowadays. Also, the keyboard sound first heard by Howie in "Name That Toon" is that of a Yamaha DX7 electric piano, very common in pop music in the '80s/early '90s.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

You don't think Earth technology in the 2003 show is superior to real life 2003 technology.

[gobo]

We have better AI these days. Oh, wait...

[Falconhood]

I remember seeing a MAD magazine from decades before where Dennis the Menace opens the door of a public phone booth, and inside is a half-dressed Superman. The caption is "No, I'm not finished changing! And will you stop opening that door!" :tlol:
Well, at least now he finally started getting the dressing RIGHT. for 70 years Superman kept putting on his pants and THEN his underwear.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

pop music in the '80s/early '90s.

And the drums in such songs usually sounds so heavy, even when it's not hard rock and heavy metal. :)