Nickelodeon TMNT Turtle Pattern

[Donatello19]

Has anyone else noticed the pattern that nick is doing with the 4 turtles? it goes like this: Leo, Don, Raph, and Mike. It has been used in the.....

Theme Song: (Leonardo's the leader in blue, does anything it takes to get his ninjas through...Donatello is a fellow has a way with machines...Raphael's got the most attitude on the team...Michelangelo! he's one of a kind, and you'll know just where to find him when it's party time)

Meet The Turtles Videos: First came Leo, Then Don, Then Raph, And Then Mikey.

Tales from the turtle lair digital comics: an issue focusing on Leo was first, than the next one focused on Donnie, and the next ones will most likely focus on raph and then mikey.

Morning With Promotions: Morning with Leo Came first, then it was Donnie, and next will most likely be raph and then mikey.


I just realized how they were doing this pattern, and i thought it was interesting. So what do you guys think about this?

[Raph's Girl]

Well of course they're doing it in that pattern. That's the way it's always been done.

[hitmonkey]

Seems fitting, considering that's the order in which they were introduced in the '87 theme song. I've been assuming it's intentional.

[n-zero]

Splinter taught them to be ninja teens (..age Mutant Ninja Turtles- He's a radical rat!))
Leonardo leads
Donatello does machines (That's a fact, Jack!)
Raphael is cool, but rude (Give me a break!)
Michelangelo is a party dude! (Par-taaaaay!!)



of course, they broke that pattern in 2K3 ...

Leonardo's always in control
and the wise guy is Michelangelo
Donatello, he's the brains of the bunch
count on Raphael to through the first punch!

Fast Forward and Back to the Sewers went back to the original order, but without the descriptions... just listing off names.

[Lampy]

i've always thought that this order described their ages... that is if donatello is older than raphael. but i've always that was the case of this usual order. we all know that leo is oldest and mike is the youngest. so when i heard that in the original song... i thought don was older than raph.

[Icegaze]

we all know that leo is oldest and mike is the youngest.

Only in behaviour, not in actual age. It has been said countless times that the 4 brother are all age-mates.

[Lampy]

Only in behaviour, not in actual age. It has been said countless times that the 4 brother are all age-mates.

cosidering they're turtles... i guess that makes sense.

[Loudo]

i've always thought that this order described their ages... that is if donatello is older than raphael.
In the first issue of Tales from the Turtle Lair, Splinter says that Raphael is his second son and Donatello his third son.
So in Nickelodeon universe, they do seem to have an official age order: Leo, Raph, Don and Mikey.

I can't think of any other universe where their age order is explicitly stated. I've always considered that an obsession of the fandom.

[Lampy]

i remember reading somewhere that they aren't even real brothers... meaning they weren't even from the same batch of eggs. so i assumed that leo hatched first and mikey last. i don't know... i know this is the wrong thread for this but can someone clarify this?

[marcelangelo]

i never noticed the pattern before...interesting...
talking about the age question, I can only contribute that in the teenage mutant hero turtes comics back in the day they had this description page on the back of the front cover and it stated their specific birthdays or ages...even their sizes...now I know many of you guys have talked about this issue of their individual size as if it was a fact..that always surprised me, because if it wasn't for these comics I would have never guessed that the turtles were smaller than most human beings...I know in the first movie we see a little bit of that but back then?to me the turtles could have been human sized, too and I wouldn t have seen the difference...
maybe Ill find them and post what their bios said...

[BubblyShell22]

I think Laird stated somewhere that the order of age is: Leo, Don, Raph, Mike. I often like to think that Raph is second oldest though with the way he clashes with Leo sometimes.

[Candy Kappa]

i remember reading somewhere that they aren't even real brothers... meaning they weren't even from the same batch of eggs. so i assumed that leo hatched first and mikey last. i don't know... i know this is the wrong thread for this but can someone clarify this?

The bios on the playmates toys state the turtles come from different pet stores and in Next Mutation Leonardo tells Venus they aren't biological brothers

[Lampy]

The bios on the playmates toys state the turtles come from different pet stores and in Next Mutation Leonardo tells Venus they aren't biological brothers

yea but i don't really consider biographies from a third party like playmates to be that reliable... especially when they can't even get the colors to characters right (Shredder). but i do recall the NM Leo stating that... which was a shocker to me as a kid. but i also read somewhere that they weren't biological brothers aside from NM, which made me further believe that they weren't. not to mention... nick's turtles and the 2k7 movie turtles don't even have the same eye colors... which further leads me to believe the fact that they aren't age mates

[Zany Orange Dude]

Yes, I took notice in the pattern as well.

[pannoni1]

Wikipedia uses the LMDR pattern when ordering the Turtles, so that order seems to be used when talking about the franchise in general since that was the order first used in Mirage, and is the Lairdian pattern.

The LDRM pattern that Nick used obviously came from the 1987 theme, and this has carried over. The original Playmates also used the LDRM pattern when numbering its catalog, since they produced the pilot of that series. IMO, LDRM is the Eastmancratic pattern. However, Playmates switched its numbering system from lowest to highest for the Nick figures to LDMR, which I can't think of being used elsewhere.

IDW also repeated the "comic pattern" in terms of Micro-issues from Mirage Vol. 1: Raphael, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo.

[TurtleMaster4]

why change something so great?