Were you confused by HERO Turtles as a child?

[MC]

Many of us in the UK, Ireland and Germany grew up with the original cartoon edited to Hero Turtles in the 80s and 90s. We know now thanks to the Internet why we got the censored version, but back then there was no way to know.

I'm curious, was there anything about the "Hero" edit that seemed a bit... Off? Did you know back then you were getting an edited version?

Back then you couldn't just look this stuff up online like you can now, but there was something about it that seemed strange.

The movie was still released here as Ninja Turtles, and I always thought it was really odd that the cartoon and movie had different names. I also noticed the clunky way the characters would refer to "Teenage Mutant Turtles" (cutting out the word Ninja), that seemed so unnatural, and the odd clips of "The Incredible Shrinking Turtles" spliced into the intro (which I now know was to cover Mike's nunchucks). I also noticed that Michelangelo didn't have his nunchucks in a lot of the merch, but oddly enough I never noticed that his weapon had been replaced with a grappling hook as a kid.

Even more confusing was when Irish television showed a couple of unedited seasons, and we got the proper (second) intro. Didn't understand why the cartoon changed its name!

So just curious, anyone who lived through this era also, did anything ever stick out as odd to you?

[Jester]

I was probably more confused by this art:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/54/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_%281989_video_game%29 .jpg/220px-Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_%281989_video_game%29 .jpg
than Hero Turtles.

But to be fair i only first encountered Hero Turtles when I was a high schooler.

[Shark_Blade]

Censorship is a disease, truly.

Scared of “ninja” but came up with a lame ass name like “hero”...

[ZariusTwo]

I actually kind of liked when they cut out the 'ninja' in the edits of the episodes, shortening it to just 'teenage mutant turtles'

[Sumac]

Yeah, I was confused why some stuff had "ninja" and other had "hero".
But for me "canonical" word was "ninja", since majority of the stuff I had had this word (toys, games, most of the comic books).

I think I had only two comic books and a sticker album, which had "hero turtles" on it. Sticker album also had weird poster with all turtles, where each turtles used their signature weapon, but Mike had an empty wooden box, LOL. Though, it was obvious by his pose that he was supposed to have nunchakus' in his hand.

[Andrew NDB]

I think that most TMNT stuff that spun out of the Mirage stuff deserves to have the "Hero" in the title in lieu of "ninja." Because all of those seem uncomfortable with the Turtles actually being ninja at all and just wanted to position them as basically jokey crimefighters.

[Galactus]

I don't know how but I always knew about the name switch and the reasons behind it. I think I may have caught a news report which was talking the 'moral outrage' from parents about the supposed violence of the cartoon and it mentioning that it already had to change the name in the UK as 'ninja' sounded too violent.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

I was never confused. Thanks to some Swedish video game magazines, I was always aware of what was going on.

[mikey0]

Didn’t Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles come out in late 1990 after Turtlemania erupted earlier that year? How is that 80s and 90s, OP?

To answer your question, it made perfect sense at the time. During the Turtlemania of 1990, children were practicing Ninjutsu on each other and that resulted in some children going to the Hospital. So, by dropping scenes with nunchucks and the ‘ninja’ from TMNT, that made things safe for children in the UK. TMHT is a product of its time. It could only come out in the year of the Turtles craze.

[ABrown]

I never even heard of "hero" turtles at least until I was a teenager in the 90's. But it was more likely that I first heard it some time when I was in my early 20's in the 2000's.

[sdp]

I was probably more confused by this art:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/54/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_%281989_video_game%29 .jpg/220px-Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_%281989_video_game%29 .jpg



As a kid I assumed because it was night that the shadows made all the bandannas red, I also thought that light on the back was the technodrome's eye.

[CyberCubed]

No because I live in the U.S. and don't care what foreign countries did with the franchise. In this hispanic countries they're known as "tortugas" as well. Imagine saying "tortuga." :lol:

Non-english words are so funny.

[neatoman]

No because I live in the U.S. and don't care what foreign countries did with the franchise. In this hispanic countries they're known as "tortugas" as well. Imagine saying "tortuga." :lol:

Non-english words are so funny.

I fail to see why an Anglophone would think "Tortuga" is funny, as it clearly cognates with Turtle. If the English word cognated with the Swedish one, "Sköldpadda", it would be "Shield Toad".

[frank_one]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Shield Toads!

[Wesley]

Not really. Never paid much attention tbh. In Ireland, episodes were cut a bit midway through at the point where there would be a commercial break, but I think that was because there were no ad breaks during shows on Irish tv children’s strand The Den.

[The Turtle Terminator]

Just out of interest, when the episodes were repeated on RTE (circa 2006/07/08ish I think), were they under the Hero Turtles banner or the Ninja Turtles banner?

[srmff]

Just out of interest, when the episodes were repeated on RTE (circa 2006/07/08ish I think), were they under the Hero Turtles banner or the Ninja Turtles banner?

They were under the Hero Turtles banner when repeated in the 2000s. I can remember this because they were airing at the same time as the 2003 series. I knew which series was being shown because of this. It was quite useful that way.

[Wesley]

They were under the Hero Turtles banner when repeated in the 2000s. I can remember this because they were airing at the same time as the 2003 series. I knew which series was being shown because of this. It was quite useful that way.

You’re partly right. In 2007/08, episodes were aired in their unedited US form, but they were under the Hero Turtles banner most of the time in that decade.

[Galactus]

I was probably more confused by this art:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/5/54/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_%281989_video_game%29 .jpg/220px-Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_%281989_video_game%29 .jpg
than Hero Turtles.

Spare a though for the UK were the NES originally had done pretty poorly and the thing which saved it was bundling it with the TMHT game at the height of turtlemania. I actually don't think the game is that bad but imagine that being your first Nintendo game.

https://assets.catawiki.nl/assets/2018/4/5/c/c/a/cca223e8-2bfc-46c3-ab70-b3988eb42cde.jpg

If you were confused by red bandannas on the cover spare more of thought for people who were part of the UK equivalent of Club Nintendo who got a magazine with guides to then current NES games and they used the full Michael Dooney cover. Seeing multiple 'Krangs' in Terminator bodies was confusing as hell to me. Especially as they weren't even in the game.

[MC]

I actually kind of liked when they cut out the 'ninja' in the edits of the episodes, shortening it to just 'teenage mutant turtles'

My interpretation of this, was that in-universe, the Turtles weren't always thought to be heroes. There were frequent media smear campaigns against them, people would often run away screaming, and even Burne Thompson wasn't convinced they were good guys. So it stood to reason that they wouldn't be called heroes within the show.

I think that most TMNT stuff that spun out of the Mirage stuff deserves to have the "Hero" in the title in lieu of "ninja." Because all of those seem uncomfortable with the Turtles actually being ninja at all and just wanted to position them as basically jokey crimefighters.

This was exactly how I perceived the difference between Ninja Turtles the movie, and Hero Turtles the cartoon. The cartoon Turtles were more traditional kind of superheroes, but did very little ninja fighting - they'd be more likely to defeat an enemy by throwing a pizza or pulling a rug. I figured they named the movie Ninja Turtles to emphasise the ninja fighting, and downplay the "superhero" kind of stuff

Just out of interest, when the episodes were repeated on RTE (circa 2006/07/08ish I think), were they under the Hero Turtles banner or the Ninja Turtles banner?

I'm not sure, though I know in Ireland in 2000, they were still broadcasting "Hero Turtles". What's interesting here though is that some of these episodes (Season 6 and 7 for sure anyway) were originally broadcast on RTE as Ninja Turtles. The "Ninja" censorship thing was a decision made by British censors, not Irish, so when we got to a point where Irish TV was broadcasting the episodes before British TV, they didn't bother with the censorship, and only showed the edited versions in re-runs after they'd been edited for the UK market.

Didn’t Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles come out in late 1990 after Turtlemania erupted earlier that year? How is that 80s and 90s, OP?
.

It quite possibly did, I was very young at the time so I don't remember the exact date it started. It could have been 88, 89 or 90.

[sdp]

I'm guessing the UK version used the American dub, did they replace every time they said "ninja" to "heroes"?

[MC]

I'm guessing the UK version used the American dub, did they replace every time they said "ninja" to "heroes"?

No, they just chopped the word out altogether. If a turtle said they were "practicising ninja skills" it just became "practicising skills". Sometimes this sounded okay, sometimes it was really clunky and obvious!

[mikey0]

It quite possibly did, I was very young at the time so I don't remember the exact date it started. It could have been 88, 89 or 90.

It was 1990.

Source: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1990-10-21-9003290049-story.html

[CyberCubed]

Honestly 90% of the time I forget American cartoons even air in other countries.

[neatoman]

Honestly 90% of the time I forget American cartoons even air in other countries.

You can basically assume any American show or movie airs outside the US. This is because:

There's a lot of it, like an absurd amount.
It's easy to translate.
Most of it is very expensive and needs to reach as big of an audience as possible to make a profit.
When it's cheaply made it's probably cheap to license.

If you ever find yourself watching a Swedish TV network, you'll find that most of the programming is usually subtitled and imported from the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand (I assume the English language makes it easy to find cheap translators). Most of the native stuff is basically celebrity reality shows, if it's ever scripted it's done with minimal special effects. The most ambitious Swedish show in recent memory is Caliphate, which I know is distributed outside Sweden, so you can watch that if you want an idea what the exception is like. If you ever see a cartoon that is a Swedish production, it's most likely a German or French co-production to help with the costs.

[Wesley]

I'm not sure, though I know in Ireland in 2000, they were still broadcasting "Hero Turtles". What's interesting here though is that some of these episodes (Season 6 and 7 for sure anyway) were originally broadcast on RTE as Ninja Turtles. The "Ninja" censorship thing was a decision made by British censors, not Irish, so when we got to a point where Irish TV was broadcasting the episodes before British TV, they didn't bother with the censorship, and only showed the edited versions in re-runs after they'd been edited for the UK market.

That is interesting. I was too young to remember this. Thanks.

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

If you ever see a cartoon that is a Swedish production, it's most likely a German or French co-production to help with the costs.

Same goes with a lot of the scripted Swedish live-action series. I think I've often seen opening and ending credits like: co-production of SVT, NRK and ZDF.

[PizzaPower1985]

I didnt find out that TMNT was TMHT in Britain (and other parts of Europe) until IDW rekindled my love for the franchise around 2012.



But weird... they're not ninjas anyway... in any meaningful sense of the word except for Mirage.

[sdp]

It's more that animation is really expensive so not many countries have an animation industry, US and Japan are the only ones. France used to be a powerhouse but not as much anymore. Much easier to dub animation from other countries, A country I lived in used to import animation from pretty much anywhere, it was mostly from the US but we got tons of anime from japan and shows from Europe as well. Unfortunately when anime became big in Japan US companies started acquiring worldwide distribution rights of anime and that's when the rest of the world started getting the sh-tty american localized versions dubbed instead.

Everyone in the world gets the edited american Pokemon dub for example but back in the day each country would do their own localization. The US robbed many animes from having proper adaptations in other countries. Digimon for example is uncensored in most of the world since it didn't have worldwide distribution but Card Captors Sakura everyone got the edited form. Thankfully stuff like DBZ, Sailor Moon and other classic anime pre-1999 didn't have this problem.

[CyberCubed]

I always found it odd that out of all the countries in the world, the U.S. and Japan create like 90% of all animated cartoons. Like each country should have its own set of shows like Japan does, but instead...everything is just from either the U.S. or Japan.

So we really only have "American cartoons" and "anime" and there's nothing inbetween those two.

[PizzaPower1985]

I always found it odd that out of all the countries in the world, the U.S. and Japan create like 90% of all animated cartoons. Like each country should have its own set of shows like Japan does, but instead...everything is just from either the U.S. or Japan.

So we really only have "American cartoons" and "anime" and there's nothing inbetween those two.

IT IS A SHAME because Europe has some unique and very talented artists. Imagine what could be done with Moebius' artwork (for example) in animation.

Herge, creator of TinTin, drew very cartoony characters... but his backgrounds and artistic concepts were deliciously detailed. JUST IMAGINE. Europe could be the king of cartoons! But... it would be expensive, so...

[sdp]

Europe has had plenty of amazing animation but they've been lazy about it, I'd recommend Wakfu for some modern european animation (https://miscrave.com/articles/wakfu/) but there's tons out there, other countries don't invest as much but I'm sure there are examples that we don't know because of ignorance more than anything else. Tin-Tin, il etait un fois, les contes de la rue broca, the last Garfield cartoon was French as are many cg shows now including that butterfly superhero girl, etc. Many cartoons Americans grew up with are actually Canadian, Beast Wars, Reboot, even many collaborations in Netflix. I'm not an expert, I think Pap would know better about this.

Mexico, seems to be growing their animation industry they made that awesome Villanous animated show (https://miscrave.com/articles/villainous/)before that El Chavo cartoon which lasted for 7 seasons, had a spin-off and is getting a reboot.

[PizzaPower1985]

Europe has had plenty of amazing animation but they've been lazy about it, I'd recommend Wakfu for some modern european animation (https://miscrave.com/articles/wakfu/) but there's tons out there, other countries don't invest as much but I'm sure there are examples that we don't know because of ignorance more than anything else. Tin-Tin, il etait un fois, les contes de la rue broca, the last Garfield cartoon was French as are many cg shows now including that butterfly superhero girl, etc. Many cartoons Americans grew up with are actually Canadian, Beast Wars, Reboot, even many collaborations in Netflix. I'm not an expert, I think Pap would know better about this.

Mexico, seems to be growing their animation industry they made that awesome Villanous animated show (https://miscrave.com/articles/villainous/)before that El Chavo cartoon which lasted for 7 seasons, had a spin-off and is getting a reboot.

you are right about Canadian productions... Nelvana International comes to mind with their Tintin show in the 90s... France had several companies... Ellipse Animation, being famous.

Britain was known for their puppet animation productions like Thunderbirds (among other Gerry Anderson productions). But, I've studied animation and cartoons for 2 decades and there just dont seem to be as many notable examples as a lot of what America and Japan produced), though, since I'm not European, I wont claim to be an expert on the Euro fare.

[Hamato Yoshi]

Funny how Spain didnt have an issue with "ninja"

[leotardo]

From what i can rember it was actually talked about in the media so i knew why they changed it. But i hated it for me it would be like calling spiderman, daddy long legs man, it is just wrong.

[Coola Yagami]

I'm watching the Mexican dub of Batman vs TMNT and they're still calling Shredder 'El Destructor' after all these years.