Why did the Turtles never refer to each other as brothers?
 

In the old toon, that is.

hmmm.....several times it was mentioned.

One was during a conversation between Master Splinter and Donnie during Green with Jealously. He called them his brother turtles. I think that the turtles saw each other more as friends than brothers but I could be wrong though. I think that there is another time but this one sticks out in my mind.

True, but it seems like the show's writers actively avoided letting them call each other brothers, usually. And calling Splinter their father. I wonder what the motive would be?

Yeah, the old toon really never had the family vibe in it. Splinter was never viewed as a father figure, no one used nicknames for any of the Turtles, etc.

Splinter also calls them sons in Enter: The Shredder:
"Head upward my sons, try to find a way around all this."
but aside from that and the reference Sci mentioned, I've never heard them call each other brother or sons, but rather friends and students. heck Splinter refers to April as "my child" in Enter: The Fly (What is it with "Enter" titles....:P).

the new toons even threw "teenage brothers" into the theme song...whereas the old toon just had "turtle boys" and "fearsome fighting team." you get the point...they're not really bros in the old one. they were more like a team of teens that played and worked together under the guidance of splinter. i didn't see splinter too much as their father, more like a close mentor.

Thank you Jester....I forgot that reference until you mentioned it.

Right. Splinter did say "my sons," but I don't think the Turtles ever said anything about him being their father.

Exactly. Splinter made all the (2) references to family...3 if you again count the one directed at the unconcious April.

It was probably to avoid confusing the audience. Lets remember the reason they had letters on their belts was so they could be told apart. Despite having diffrent colors wrapped around their heads.

Yeah, and even then sometimes the animators couldn't tell them apart...:P

The ninja art of deception.

I cringe when Splinter would call them his friends.

Thanks goodness for the new show, movies, comics; they're a family and like Splinter said in the movie, they are a team.
At least Fast Forward kept the family feeling. OMG I said something positive about FF! *faints*

Hm, good point, Spawn Guy ... I just don't see how the kids would be confused by them being brothers! Oh well. It just seemed to be strange to me, that the show would really avoid that term when the early writers knew that the TMNT were brothers in other versions.

Well, I was confused when I first found out. And the old toon really did nothing that much along the lines of them being a family. It was more of a super hero show.

Heh, maybe I was confused too when I found out. I can't remember. :)

But ... eh ... it makes sense that they are. I mean they look like quadruplets.

well outside of humans and certain mammals...i've gotta admit i have trouble telling most other animals apart. sometimes between male and female.

Actually Splinter did call them "his sons" in quite a few eps, but it was almost all David Wise episodes.

It's interesting that the question is "why didn't they call each other brothers?" instead if "why weren't they brothers?"

I think that many people just assumed that four teenagers raised together would be brothers. I did. It's only in retrospect that it looks funny; I actually never realized that they weren't "a family," per se, until someone pointed it to me.

Well they're still, for all practical purposes, a family, per se or not. A family is about more than just blood relationships.

Which the writers didn't seem to bother to adress in the series. It would have helped. I can't make as much of a connection to the old toon as I can with the rest of the fandom because of that.

Well technically speaking Splinter isn't their REAL father now is he... the first clue would be that they are TURTLES, and he's a RAT. ;)

And who knows whether they're actually blood-related brothers or not, unless they've done some DNA-testing...

In Mirage issue one, Splinter trained his "students" to avenge his master Yoshi. Low and behold, at the end of the issue, Leo impales Saki and he falls dead. (Why can't anyone stay dead?). It seemed more about revenge than family. The turtles were basically trained by a sensei for one reason.

Also in "Turtle Tracks" Leo tells April they are searching for Saki to force him to make their "master" human once more. It seemed early on, that the OT was trying to emulate Mirage's first issue by portraying the turtles as students of ninjitsu rather than a family. They seem like good friends who train together.

NT:TNM was the farthest they have ever been from family, IMO. Leo even blatently tells Venus (in a weak attempt to get some tail) that they are not blood relatives. To my knowledge this is the only time in any incarnation that a turtle knows for sure whether or not they are all related. TNM may not even be considered part of the TMNT universe to some fans but I had a real problem with that little tidbit.

The first movie showed the 5 freaks as they should be, a family. When Splinter is abducted, they are completely torn apart. Raph freaks out and they crawl to April crying. Which I loved. :) I absolutely love how much they care about each other in the movies.

2k3 built upon the family angle which is a big reason why I adore 2k3. We get splinter calling them sons very often and there are even episodes showing the turtle toddlers acting towards their father the way people do.

Probably to most obvious use of the family tone is the new movie TMNT. Wow, by the end I got the point that they were, in fact, a family. I'm sure we all have noticed how TMNT played the family angle. It worked as far as I'm concerned.

yeah, when raph said "yes, father" that pretty much did it for me...not that i questioned they were a family. 2k3 really drilled that into my skull already.

It could be argued that the TMNT aren't really brothers in the live-action universe. In Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, which is a continuation of the films (at least, it was intended to be by Eastman) in the second episode Leonardo explains to Venus that none of the Turtles are related by blood, that they're just "pet shop turtles" bred on "turtle farms."

And since NT:TNM is a continuation of the first three films, and the new TMNT movie is a continuation of the films also...

Technically yes but I choose to just pretend TNM never happened. :lol: (Am I alone in this?)

I prefer them all being a family related by blood. But if they absolutely have to be of different parents, I like how the new TMNT movie showed them as a family, even "if" they are not blood turtles.

Yeah Drew, but why make the drastic change from family to "Pet shop Turtles, born and bred on a Turtle Farm" to family again. I agree that there are aspects that make TNM a continuation of the "Original Trilogy" much like there are only some aspects that make TMNT a sequel. The TMNT will always be a family to me, despite the OT I wanna say I always thought of them as one, and only now looking back do I see that there were no OT references to "Sons" or "Brothers" save a few exceptions (Like Lil' Leo and Mikey calling Raph and Donnie their "Big Brothers" in Back to the Egg.) and never used the nicknames...like I just did....:P

i was pondering about the chances of a boy walkin into a turtle shop to find four turtles that all came from the same mom. irregardless of their blood, though...they are bros by heart, which is more than i can say for most blood brothers by birth.

The new movie seems to have retconned NT:TNM away anyway (or did it? Venus may have just gone her seperate way between TNM and the new movie), so needn't worry.

The "We're not brothers" conversation was nonsensical, anyway. How could the Turtles know this for certain? They were 4 baby red earred sliders in a bowl, all the same age... it's not only possible they all came from the same batch of eggs and mother but likely.

I'm not saying I agree with the NT:TNM stance on things, but the brotherhood aspect of the new movie could just mean figuratively, or adoptively. Whether by blood or not, they are brothers in every way that matters.

Hell, they call Splinter "Father" in the new movie. Is he really their father?

I can agree with that, I don't think I ever assumed the TMNT were "blood" brothers, but rather a family by choice and adoption.

Family by choice, probably the best kind of family.

Family does not mean blood.
Family does not mean blood.

Anyway, you know the reason NT:TNM even bothered saying that -- to create some kind of weird sexual tension with Venus and the other Turtles without incest overtones.

As I've mentioned repeatedly elsewhere, I don't remember much of the original toon despite watching it when I was wee. As far as I can remember, though, I've always known they were brothers (I think of them as truly related, but understand other views). Apparently even the briefest, rarest mentions of family in the old toon were enough for me to grasp that they were related.

I wanna blame the 1st movie for my assumption of "family" in the OT. The movie had great familial stuff...probably my favorite line, aside from Splinter's speech to Raphael ("You are unique among your brothers for you choose to face this enemy alone, but as you face it do not for get them and do not forget me. I am here my son.") , is when Splinter confronts Danny about being a member of the Foot and feeling that Charles didn't love him and he says, "All fathers care for their sons." Though I watched the TV show a lot as a kid, the movie had to have cemented the idea of the Turtles as a family, adoptive or otherwise.

I think in NT:TNM, Donatello actually did a DNA test to establish that they could mate with Venus :roll:

But anyway, for some reason I'd like to hope that they never tried to figure out if they were blood related in the canon versions of TMNT. It doesn't matter if they are blood related, and I hope they realise that.

Neutrino, you are not alone in pretending that NT:TNM never happened. I pretend it too. And I think Peter Laird does. ;)

If what you say is true, about NM Donnie's DNA test, then I would go from a harsh dislike of NT:TNM to a deep seated hatred.

Are you serious? I only missed a couple episodes of NT:TNM during its run, but I don't remember hearing/seeing that. If that's true, that's wayyy over the top. Literally, it would be like the producers going, "Hey, kids, look... we're thinking about hooking Venus up with one of the Turtles... it's NOT going to be incest, OK? We promise! We swear! See? A freakin' DNA test, OK!"

Most assuredly. In fact, Venus and NT:TNM at large are almost certainly the most likely reasons for the dissolution of Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird (NT:TNM being, largely, Eastman's baby, and Laird being very publically against Venus and subtly against NT:TNM).

Well, hahaha, I mean Don did the DNA test before, for his own purposes. And then Leonardo inferred from the fact that none of the boys were related that he wasn't related to Venus either. And he told her that. Kind of subtly. ;)