why do you think TMNT became a cult phenomenon?

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

As many of us are well aware, the TMNT started as a one issue parody of the most popular comic book series of the 1980s. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird never intended to make a regular comic book series, as it was something they did when they were bored.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d7/Tmnt1cover.jpg

When they showed off their comic, people looking at them were very interested, and the initial 3,000 copies were sold out out in a matter of one day. It then went on to become a cult phenomenon.

my question is, why did TMNT become so popular, as many parody comics were highly unsuccessful and only lasted a couple of issues and then faded into obscurity, never to be heard of again, yet TMNT always sold well and got good feedback. why is this, in your opinion.

[Candy Kappa]

TMNT was more then just a parody, it really isn't a parody at all. It mirrors the Daredevil origin almost to the letter, only following what happened with the canister.

The comic had a flavor of a=everything, with heavy inspiration from (good) Frank Miller comics and a crazy theme.

[CyberCubed]

Talking animals who use ninjitsu and are mutants.

Talking animals are popular in cartoons, mutants hooked the X-men crowd, and ninjas hooked virtually everyone who likes martial arts.

[Powder]

Cubed made this thread like a month ago.

[Vi11AiN6]

I agree it was more than a parody, you don't bust your a$$ and ca$h on a bored "parody"

I think the initial sketch might have been for fun, but Issue one was dark and gritty ala Frank Miller's influence. It caught on because of 3 things
1. Good Marketing
2. Playmates Toys
3. Fred Wolf/OT


Seriously if it wasnt for those 3 things I doubt Mirage would have only done one volume of TMNT and then it would have faded into 80's black and white obscurity like The Puma Blues or Eagle.

Think about it, how many of us TMNT fans heard of the Mirage comic first?
For me it was the Archie comic and the toys, then cartoon. I didn't even get into the Mirage comics until I was 13.

[Candy Kappa]

I think TMNT would have still lasted longer without the Fred Wolf cartoon, the Pen.n Paper Role-Playing game was very popular and only died out because the cartoon made it "un-cool" for the gamers. At least would have been a notch above Tank Girl.

Or, Peter and Kevin would have given up and sold it to Marvel

[InsaneZane]

I think TMNT would have still lasted longer without the Fred Wolf cartoon, the Pen.n Paper Role-Playing game was very popular and only died out because the cartoon made it "un-cool" for the gamers. At least would have been a notch above Tank Girl.

Or, Peter and Laird would have given up and sold it to Marvel

Uh,no. don think so. Nobody wouldve ever appreciated the TMNTs existance if i werent for the OT. it wouldve only been known to comic readers. There would be no movie or toys. Laird wouldve never sold it back then because of the popularity, It wouldnt be smart because of the money it was making, Marvel approached him at the wrong time, Nickelodeon approached him at the right time... the franchise had already been rebooted, there were 4 movies and countless toys. It was time to sell at this point. With Marvel, they wouldve lost money selling that soon, with Nick they made even more.

[Vi11AiN6]

Agreed with insane

[Candy Kappa]

Uh,no. don think so. Nobody wouldve ever appreciated the TMNTs existance if i werent for the OT. it wouldve only been known to comic readers. There would be no movie or toys. Laird wouldve never sold it back then because of the popularity, It wouldnt be smart because of the money it was making, Marvel approached him at the wrong time, Nickelodeon approached him at the right time...

If I remember correctly, they declined Marvel's offer due to the Jack Kirby affairs going on at the time. I think Marvel tried to buy the brand before the cartoon was made.

I'm sure some can correct me, or verify it by finding the info from Peter's blog, pretty sure he have a blog post about marvel giving a offer to the TMNT property.

[Prowler]

It was a fairly original concept at the time and martial arts and Japanese culture were beginning to get popular in the USA and the West as a whole. Not to mention anthropomorphic animals have always been some of the most iconic and popular cartoon characters in western animation(Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, etc.) so putting both together was bound to hit a gold mine.

And of course, can't ever underestimate the marketing. Your product quality does nto really matter if your marketing of it isn't poor. Whoever was in charge of the TMNT marketing was most definitely a genius.

[kelligrafie]

I can't vouch for the comics, I'm just taking this off what I get from the cartoons.

The themes of good vs evil, revenge (always a popular one - we like to see characters, even our favourites, suffer in varying degrees), struggles for acceptance, little bit of eye candy in April, family issues, betrayal, good dose of science fiction along the line and varying states of humour from dark to goofy. I suppose TMNT has every thing but tied up in a unusual green, half shelled package.

[Donatello19]

Kids like ninjas and action....kids like wise cracking anthropomorphic animals...put all those things together and you've got yourself TMNT in a nutshell.

[Leo656]

I honestly think that what sold people on it at a basic, fundamental level, is that it's a ridiculous concept DONE WELL. If it hadn't been done well, or had been played entirely as a joke right from the start, it would have been literally no different from "Pre-Teen Dirty Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos" or any of the countless rip-offs nobody remembers (that was a real one, though).

The fact the initial books and later the earliest episodes of the cartoon were done with a level of quality which was unusually high for the standards of the time is what got people hooked. Compare issue one of TMNT to any other indie comic on the market in 1982, for example. Or compare the first episode of the cartoon to, say, an episode of Super-Friends' final season just a year or so before (specifically the show was "Super Powers: Galactic Guardians" by that point) and compare how much better the TMNT show was done over the standards of the era.

The concept was great (if - let's be bluntly honest here - absurdly silly on it's face) and has proven to have staying power, but if the original books and cartoon were cheap, silly and sh*tty, nobody would have cared once the "TURTLES who are NINJAS! That's HILARIOUS!" phase wore off after about five minutes. The quality of the original material is what made it work way better than it had any right to.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

As many of us are well aware, the TMNT started as a one issue parody of the most popular comic book series of the 1980s. Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird never intended to make a regular comic book series, as it was something they did when they were bored.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d7/Tmnt1cover.jpg



The first issue's well-written, and could've worked well as an only-story if the franchise would fail already at the begninning.

[Goon]

The comics no doubt would still be around.. I guess as long as Eastman and Laird hung on.. I mean all you have to do is look at Stan Sakai and what he has done with Usagi to see that.. But I do think the cartoon made it a cult phenomenon. Without that I would have never discovered them and I think that goes for most Turtles fans today.

[marcelangelo]

I think people often underplay kevins and peters motivations for making this first comic...they had designed these characters, named them in fun according to everything their designs offered which was what resembled the current (and to them interesting) trends in comics.
only then they thought they wanted to tell the story of how these characters came to be what they are..
this is the way things happened as I have always understood from reading and leaning into these moments over the years..
what is the thing people often missunderstand in my oppinion is:they had a LOVE for comic books.and they wanted to make THEIR own and put it out there.now, that they didnt expect it to sell at all does NOT negate their desire to make more of those....

lastly, to give my 2 cents here, I think everything people have put their heart into has a fair chance to make it in the world.what was in favour for them was that their creation was so AWESOME!;)to many people..

[LivingMutagen]

Kids like ninjas and action....kids like wise cracking anthropomorphic animals...put all those things together and you've got yourself TMNT in a half-shell.

Fixed.

Anyway, basically because ninjas are awesome and anthropomorphic animal were popular. There.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Why are people laughing so much over martial arts-practicing turtles? Sure, TMNT isn't the most serious fictional story ever, but there are housands of stories out there with animals talking, walking on two legs and doing anything that in reality only humans do, from fables of the Middle Ages to modern comic books.

[Candy Kappa]

Why are people laughing so much over martial arts-practicing turtles? Sure, TMNT isn't the most serious fictional story ever, but there are housands of stories out there with animals talking, walking on two legs and doing anything that in reality only humans do, from fables of the Middle Ages to modern comic books.

Because turtles allegedly are slow moving and of course with their spine and ribcage being a part of the shell they aren't very agile.

Although, turtles are very fast animals when they first want to. Especially red Eared Sliders (learned from personal experience)

But for some turtles and tortoise are interchangeable

[gobo]

why do you think TMNT became a cult phenomenon?
Musta had something ro do with the sacrificial lambs. :tshifty:

[miru]

Probably the quality of it all.

[pingclang]

I think the success of the comics came from the fact that it was so different from anything out there, and people really liked what the first issue did. From there we've got a group of characters who could be fighting a clan of ninja or dukeing it out in an alien battle arena or storming some keep in a fantasy setting all within the first 10 issues. Then transfer it to the cartoon realm and kid it down some and you can literally do anything with the characters. All my talking aside, versatility. You can do anything with them and it works.

[FlogginMcMurryZombiePizza]

People have been asking that forever.
Why are they still around?
What makes them so popular almost 30 years later?
There is a reason why this is still going and other shows, like Street Sharks or Wild West Cowboys of Moo Mesa are dead and (mostly) forgotten.

I dont think anyone really knows.
Ya, it stands on it's own as far as being unique. But is that really it?
I think it taps into something in all of us. That's why we grew up on it, that's why we fondly remember it and that's why we continue to talk about it and care about it. We're still blowing hard earned money just to get the toys we are too old to be playing with!

I love it for many reasons and I can list most of them if wanted.
I can tell you why it's important to me when I was a kid and how important it is with new views as an adult.

I dont think there will be a time in our lives where the Turtles will no longer be around. The Nick show will make sure of that. I could see it lasting longer than 4Kids and maybe pushing the mark the original series reached. And after that? I think there will continue to be new movies and new cartoons.

You can do anything with them and it works.

For better or for worse, yes.
They have tried it many ways already haha

[pingclang]

I just hope that if the new series does go on as long as the OT, that the writers will continue to put out good material and not reach a point where they just get tired of it and slack like so many other long-lived shows.

And I may have spoken a bit too strongly, they have tried a lot and not all of it was gold. Next Mutation...ouch.

[FlogginMcMurryZombiePizza]

Coming Out Of Their Shells? lol

I think, in general, the Turtles are being handled better than ever. The comics are solid, and I was very surprised by the Nick cartoon.
I never really saw the 2003 show and I never liked the art style for it but what I get from being on this site is that it's kinda the redheaded stepchild of the Turtle animated shows.

The original lasted forever because it had high ratings but none of the episodes really connected unless it was a story split into parts. There would be a general timeline of events, like if a character is introduced in a previous episodes so now the Turtles know who that is in a reoccurring role but otherwise they are standalone.
This is what the Nick show is doing differently. On the whole they seem to be standalone (I have only seen the first DVD) but there is a quality over the episodes. They seem to flow better and they seem to all lead to something bigger. The challenge is to continue telling engaging stories. I would hope the writers would know better than to continue the show if they have no ideas how to continue on, But I have trust that the show is in good hands thus far.

[pingclang]

You're definitely right. I think that right now is one of the best times ever to be a Turtles fan. Great comics, a great new series and a movie that we're all curious about. Nick is really blowng it out of the water and I agree, it's gonna be around a while, for sure.

[Zulithe]

There are many good reasons, but one that should not be overlooked is the huge obsession with ninjas that started taking place in the west in the late 70s/early 80s. Kickstarted by Bruce Lee and similar stars in the early part of the 70s, and who's death probably gave even more exposure and interest to the phenomenon. There were a number of high profile ninja/martial arts films at that time (karate kid in 1984 and many many others) just as the first TMNT issues were being created and published.

It was truly a product of its time and probably enjoyed enhanced success as a result.