Have you ever taken a break from the TMNT?

[Jephael]

It's been said you can't have too much of a good thing, but sometimes it's nice to take a little breather every now and then. I just got done watching the entire original Ninja Turtles cartoon, as well as all four movies, so I'm a little burnt out on the green machine. At the moment I'm putting them on the backburner and getting reaquainted with some of my favorite DC heroes like Superman and the Teen Titans. Has anyone ever gone through this?

[CyberCubed]

Not really. I'm not constantly watching the cartoons or reading the comics every day, but that's not what I consider a break.

A break would be going cold turkey period and avoiding the franchise at all costs for 6 months to a year.

[Jephael]

A break would be going cold turkey period and avoiding the franchise at all costs for 6 months to a year.

That sounds a little extreme in my opinion, dude. My break from the TMNT started after my birthday last month, and soon as Nickelodeon starts airing new episodes next month I'll be ready to get back into it. I wouldn't go an entire year without the TMNT.

[ToTheNines]

I kinda lost interest when I was about 14 and just starting high school. I was ate up with baseball mostly. But the 2007 movie got me really excited about the property again and I started collecting the comics shortly after, so I've been in top gear ever since pretty much.

The only other lapse I can think of was May/June of last year. I had just started a new really busy job, while still working my old one part-time. I'd been hearing bad things about the Nick show and the bastards wouldn't release a freakin' trailer to the public. The IDW series was kind of letting me down (Leo Micro, and #10), and Platinum Dunes Alien Turtles was still scaring me. Plus people here were making it less fun to post, Mr.Turtle being a huge culprit lol.

But by late June I had gotten used to my job, and within two days we finally got our first Nick trailer (which was awesome) and IDW put out the Splinter Micro which made sense of a lot of things in the series and pretty much sold me on the new universe.

[Master Splinter]

My "break" from the francise was probably around the time I started Middle School until the 2007 movie. So roughly 13 years if my math is correct. I lost interest once the cartoon was over and moved onto other stuff like hip-hop, sports, and technology. I kinda knew about the 2k3 series but never got into it as I had other things going on in my life that at the time I felt were more important. After 2007 my interest had been renewed but I wasn't as active as I am today, I give credit to the 25th anniversary and having a good job for that...

-ms

[shreddinghead]

Sure, a break every now and then is just healthy i suppose.

[ZariusTwo]

I've rarely taken a break from franchises I'm addicted to. I tried a break from Power Rangers once and it only lasted a fortnight. The only time I ever take a vacation from Turtles is simply when there isnt a television show or movie, so the gap from 2009 to 2012 would probably count, but even then I was on here every day...

[zodiac brave]

the tmnt have always been a constant in my life. maybe not day-to-day, but it was definitely always there. i think in middle school, i got into power rangers and star wars, so maybe that was the longest time where it wasnt as important, but i still watched the movies often. in high school, i discovered the mirage comics. as i left high school, 80's nostalgia was just gearing up and a few years outta high school, the 2k3 series started. from then til around september or october of 2012, the franchise was always on my mind, if not immediately on the forefront of everything i was doing. i bought vol 4 comics, tshirts from hot topic, the occasional trinkets, things like that, and i was super hyped about the movie in 07. i actually found out about the viacom buyout by reading up on "what's up with the tmnt" one day. then the news about the nick show started surfacing and...yeah...in sep or oct, i started seriously jonesing for some fresh tmnt stuff and signed up here. id known about this place for years and would occasionally lurk, but now it hit me and i wanted to sign up and talk with other fans. the passion took me over now, lol!

i guess, the longest break i took was in middle school for something like 2 years, 15-17 years ago. 8)

[plastroncafe]

Yeah, of course.
My break was pretty much the years between 1996 and sometime in 2005. I had no interest in Next Mutation, and limited interest in the Image books at the time. Though, in my defense I was in college or had just graduated and was pretty strapped for cash at the time. Plus there was the whole no-time-for-pleasure-reading thing going on.

[Storm Eagle]

It's been said you can't have too much of a good thing, but sometimes it's nice to take a little breather every now and then. I just got done watching the entire original Ninja Turtles cartoon, as well as all four movies, so I'm a little burnt out on the green machine. At the moment I'm putting them on the back burner and getting reacquainted with some of my favorite DC heroes like Superman and the Teen Titans. Has anyone ever gone through this?

Um, I've never felt that I needed to take a break from shows. I don't take voluntary breaks from shows. I just watch shows until I lose interest, and it's a bit rare when that happens. I just fell off at some point when TMNT started showing on CBS. I thought I was done with Ninja Turtles, and I never even bothered with The Next Mutation. I got back into TMNT full swing though, when the 2003 series started.

[Guitar_Raph]

Took a 7 year break from Comin Out of Their Shells to Next Mutation.
5 years for the 2003 series.
3 years for the Nick series.

[Vivi]

Yes. Confession time: the worse things are going, the more I'm here. Well, usually.

[Jester]

Between like the 6th-8th grade I was out of TMNT. To be fair, I thought the Fred Wolf series died before then, and I only came back with the Next Mutation figures and VHS of East Meets West.

[Lulu]

Yes, in the late 90s I became "too cool" for Ninja Turtles and stopped watching the show and collecting the toys. Thankfully, I just put everything in storage so I still have all my stuff! Never again!!! :tgrin:

[BubblyShell22]

After Next Mutation came out, I gave up on TMNT and didn't get back into it until the 2003 show came out. Then I became a fan again, got introduced to this board and fan fiction, and came back.

[Mzx10484]

I was out for some years, puberty, other interests ... but I came back, one day I joined Ebay, when it was already a big name. Discovering the huge variety of things from the past, I found some Turtle figures ... and was entering again !

[TMNachoT]

Yes, I have. It was like between the last seasons of the old toon and some time after the next mutation. Funny thing, I sold all mi g.i.joes and motu figures but not the turtles.

Thanks to the official site by dan berger, I met the Mirage Comics, I started collecting the comics and years later the 2K3 came out, I started collecting the old and 2k3 figures, sounsdtracks, movies...

[Icebot]

I took a break starting in the summer of 1993, I was tired of watching the same episodes. I got more into baseball and football at the time. Then in the spring of 1994, I found out the show was on USA Cartoon Express and I started watching it again and remembered how awesome the show was.

Unfortunately for me, because of this, I rarely got a chance to watch season 7 of the old toon back in the day. I used to dream of seeing season 7 episodes after the red sky ones came on. After this, I never gave up watching ninja turtles again.

[cammy85]

Yes, when the CBS affiliate changed and I didn't see the first two red sky seasons. Also, I wasn't around for lot of the 2003 series but I'm making up for it now. :)

[Avatar Yuffie]

Took a very long break between the late 90's to 2007.

[shreddinghead]

When i come to think about, i was wondering a lot about how it would be watching turtles again during junior high, unaware of the 2k3 series, but i never thought it would be the same watching it again. Eventually picking up on the 2k3 on cartoon network i started watching both of those two series avidly.

[Vegeta]

My break probably lasted from 1993 to 2011. I saw the 07 film between those years but that certainly didn't help me get back into the franchise. I still have much to catch up on. I'm glad Idw pulled me back in though. I still can't eat up the 2k3 Series but loving the comics.

[hadoolket]

took a break? well, i watched the old 80s cartoon series up to 91ish, watched the 3 live movies, then uh...the next thing i watched (all of) was that cg tmnt movie (i was in iraq though when i think it came out, so it was a bootleg), uh...oh yeah, i watched turtles forever when it premiered back in 2009. i watched one episode of this new turtles cartoon

all the gaps inbetween are essentially where i, as it can be put, took a break

[Luzmagica]

How much it is a common "break"??? :lol::lol: Im not sure about that! :tgrin:

I think ....I probably have a break when I was at university...in my college days, and then another break in my first years of working....too much busy....

....anyway all my fan had been there in a way or another since I can remember...! :tgrin::tgrin::tgrin::tgrin:

[pannoni1]

Nickelodeon is giving us a break from the Nick series, and summer is another time when you can focus on other things. That said, I've taken short breaks (a couple days at most) over the past year and a half, and mostly due to burn out, as it can be refreshing to look at other things after awhile. But over time, my soul will always come back to the Turtles.

But in terms of my "big break", from 1994-2010, it was a chance to get acquainted with teenage/young adult life and trying more mature experiences such as fine arts, literature, museums, sciences, and pro sports. Returning to TMNT after all these years felt like a journey to Neptune completed since so much stuff happened all those years. But I would occasionally play a vintage game or watch an old VHS tape once in a blue moon over that stretch.

[miru]

Break from Red Sky to 2K3

Break from Fast forward to now.

[zkarlette]

I think I took a "break" a while after the movies and came back when the 4 kids series started. Then took another break officially cold turkey on 09 and that lasted a good couple of years I just had a lot of real life stuff going at that moment. But at the same time taking that break made me realize how much I appreciate the franchise, and the friends I had made here, I'm glad to be back now that there is a lot of TMNT to go around.

[snake]

That sounds a little extreme in my opinion, dude. My break from the TMNT started after my birthday last month, and soon as Nickelodeon starts airing new episodes next month I'll be ready to get back into it. I wouldn't go an entire year without the TMNT.

A year without tmnt, now that would be horrible and I would know because I did go for that long without turtles..*shivers* ( 2011- the new show came on) but now I'm back in full turtles fan mode!

[gobo]

Depends what you call 'taking a break'. My interest in the franchise has never gone away, even though my interest in other franchises got higher priority at times.

[chrisdude]

Duepends what you call 'taking a break'. My interest in the franchise has never gone away, even though my interest in other franchises got higher priority at times.Same here. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Pokemon. I still watched the TMNT movies, but I didn't really get excited about turtles again until TMNT 2007.

[Bill]

Unfortunately, yes. I´ve started collecting in 1990 and take a break from 2001 till 2007 (some family issues). In 2007 When, a store from New Jersey called Spasticoverplastic was closing, I bought a bunch of moc figures for 9.99 each and a moc Shogun Shoate for 50 dollars. And since then I´ve never stop collecting again and I never will.

[Refractive Reflections]

As the amount of new OT episodes were becoming less and less from around season 6 (1992), I was becoming disinterested not because of the TMNT themselves but I thought back then that the franchise was getting "lazy" (rather than it declining) because it seemed like there were more repeats than actual new episodes as the years went by. The only new episodes were during September-November and the rest of the year (December-August) would be ALL repeats and therefore give time for me to pursue other interests.

I did watch some to most of the new episodes as the series progressed but it was nevertheless disappointing as there were less and less. By the time the Red Sky Episodes arrived and especially after season 8 with Shredder and Krang gone, I just flipped on the show and just watched the beginning, turn to something else, and then the ending just to see how the series would end. (I didn't like the tone of the Red Sky much and the show now seemed somewhat desperate.)

For me, if there were new shows/games/movies I would gravitate toward it, but as the early 90s were transitioning to the the mid 90s nothing seemed "new" anymore. It was the same formulaic "beat-'em up" video games, the same repeated episodes, the same ridiculous action figures (party and sports themes), and a depreciating trend of movies, and it was becoming monotonous.

By the time the series ended, I was already in my last years of middle school and the academic load was increasing as I would go into high school. I still liked TMNT but it was always in the backburner because of schoolwork, helping around the house with family, keeping in touch with friends, and assuming more and more adult responsibilities. Plus there was that lull in TMNT during the late 90s and early 2000s, and there was nothing "new" at all. I casually noticed 2K3 but didn't keep up because of college demands and I never was much of a comic/book reader since I constantly had to read numerous textbooks for a class/course.

...Only recently have I had substantially more time now and its awkward to have more free time and not always having to fix/maintain/attend to something around the house, and I'm kind of rediscovering my interests (including TMNT). :P :) So I never really felt "oversaturated" by it (but it has come close recently) as actually being bored with the monotony of repeated TMNT stuff and being too busy/consumed with things in life to really go back to it. So I guess my busyness keeps my TMNT fandom in check. As long as there's something new (including good fanworks) it sparks my interest back up!

[shuriken]

UMMMM... nope. even during the times of the Next Mutation and before the Tales relaunch i was in it. I started drawing my own tmnt comics before the 2k3 show aired. I meant they were terrible but my interest never waned. And with the eve of the interwebs I got more TMNT than I ever possibly imagined discovering the comics, which lead to an even more unhealthy affinity to the dirty mutant bastards.

[Weirdo-Warrior]

Yes, I took a very long break. TMNT was the very last cartoon series I followed and of which I bought toys, more or less until 1994. By then I was 15 and lost interest in toys and cartoons, prefering to concentrate on music and other things. It was the 2k3 series (and a BIG dose of nostalgia) to resurrect my interest in the brand and, a bit later, in my whole childhood's world.

[Turtle-X]

i watched through the Red Sky episodes. most of my friends had quit watching long ago but i kept watching. i didn't watch much of Next Mutation and it wasn't till the 03 series began that my interest was renewed.

[That Matt Guy]

As someone who had been into Turtles since basically the beginning of the 1987 series, my interest in the them had pretty much died out around 1992, and I was completely out of TMNT by the time the third movie came out so I never saw it until I was an adult. As I got older, TMNT seemed stale to me, and the new shows that were coming out at the time like X-Men and Batman The Animated Series seemed to be on a totally different level than anything the Turtles were doing. Growing up basically caused me to abandon TMNT you could say. I didn't become interested in it again until around 2002, when my nostalgia for the cartoon and movies started.

[sdp]

Yes, I take breaks all the time, I get burnt out and take a break and come back when my love returns, I do this for pretty much all franchises I like, it keeps things even more interesting when you come back. This is also the reason I've never been able to keep up with monthly comics because after a while I just take a break, it's easier for me to go through finished stories than slowly wait for one, same with tv shows, with a few exceptions. It's one of the reasons I never finished 2k3 until it was all over and while I'm watching the Nick show right now I don't know if I'll be able to stick with it the 4+ years it is airing, i may take a break and finish it later when it's done.

Oh and I took a long break during my later childhood/teenage years from the turtles, it wasn't until my later teens that my love for them was rekindled.

[METALHEAD]

lets see, after ninja turtles 3 i wasnt into turtles. next mutation was the last series i watched, but soon wore off.

didnt pay much attention to the 2003 series, though i did watch, like many because it wasnt like the 80s i thought it was horrible, soon changed when i learn they were based on the comic, so i gave it a chance. but i got out of it. ---it wasnt until 2004 that i bought the toys, really started watching the show.

fast forward came, i watched, wasn't as good. but i didnt trash it. then back to the sewers, again, i watched it. bought the dvds, both 2003 series & 80s, the last i watched was the 2007 movie & turtles forever.

after that i took a long break from tmnt.

till now.

[Zulithe]

I was a kid in the late 80s and throughout the 90s, and was the perfect age to experience the first wave of turtlemania from 1987 - 1994 or so. My life was immersed in the franchise very heavily. Watching the show and movies, reading the comics, playing with the figures, and drawing a LOT. All of my friends were the same and we had a blast.

Turtlefatigue was slowly setting in around 1992 but I stuck with it for a bit. By 94 or 95 I'd mostly moved on to other things. Mainly Marvel, DC & Image comics (Image was really big at this point), video games and learning the ins and outs of middle school. When new mutation appeared, i scoffed and ignored it. When the 2k3 series later appeared, I knew about it but wasn't feeling it then either, though I did watch a few episodes just to check it out. It felt more mature and action-y, which I liked, but it just wasn't working for me.

2007 movie - I actually did get excited about it. I watched the trailers many times; they looked fantastic. But then I saw the film and the story didn't seem to be jelling. The interpersonal stuff with the turtles was fine, I think it was mostly the villains I had a problem with. And look, I know they wanted to have a fresh approach by aging the turtles up, but if they wanted to respark the franchise I think that was the wrong choice to make. Thankfully Viacom took over not long after...

When I heard Viacom/Nick bought TMNT, and then later saw a very crappy, pixelated tv-recording of the "mutation in progress" video... it instantly got me excited and I followed progress pretty much daily from there. Glad to see the turtles back in their full form!

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Yes, unvoluntary. By 1994–1995, the popularity declined, no more Archie comics, and cartoon on less stations. The interest was lower. I got always just nostalgic with TMNT instead, and watched some old VHS tapes sometimes when I was ill having nothing to do (usualyl 1987 TMNT). But I saved the tapes, toys and comics, because the memories were so fun.

One day in late November or early December 2003, I searched on TMNT on the Internet, just for fun. 1980's nostalgia had just begun to kick in (in the 1990's, we usually had 1970's nostalgia, even if I don't see the TMNT hype as purely 1980's). I thought I knew everything, how it started as the Archie Comics or something, and then became a cartoon in 1987. Of course, it was created manly to be children-family friendly...

I entered the Ninja Turtles website, saw it was a new cartoon, and the background (Mirage). Discovering what TMNT really was from the beginning. 2004 was a revival year. Discovering Jephael's fansite, reading fan fiction, wanting more. Bought some TMNT DVD. Watched the 2003 show in late 2004-early 2005 I think.

Joining this website in January 2006, reading here almost every day (even when not posting).

[Archon_Turtle]

I'm sort of on a break right now. I'm finishing my Bachelors right now, and between that and work, I just can't really be all that involved in the community. I miss you guys though :-)