What did you think of TMNT as a kid?
 

I'm sure every one here realizes that the OT was a a bit of a silly show, not a bad silly but a good silly, but when I was a kid I thought of the turtles as bonafide ass-kickers and I thought Shredder was a real threat (I remember having a few nightmares about him). I suppose the movie really rubbed off on me, any ways, what did you think of the turtles?

Goofy would be a better term than silly, because it never gets ridiculous.

And personally, I LOVED it. I even had the Del Monte yogurts represent each Turtle since they came in their colors- even if it was the Chipmunks (whom I liked a lot too) the ones who were in their boxes. I would draw pics of the Turtles in my school folders. Too bad they stopped showing it on CBS. We did not have Fox back then. So you bet I have not even seen Red Sky. But I want to.

I loved it.

But I think we all realized the silly humour and lack of action in some episodes, even as kids. I remember when I was like 8 or so and watching the show, that in some eps I was disappointed that there were no fight scenes.

Kids are a lot smarter than people give credit for, and I do remember how I viewed the episodes back then, especially when my memory is refreshed as I watch the DVDs.

I loved it too, but what I'm talking about is how when I was little I thought the turtles were tough-**** (I also realized that it was a funny show) but now I realize how the action isn't what it was through the eye's of my 4-year old self.

However much action and humor there was or that I used to think there was, the OT always was and stll is the perfect combination of both in my eyes. I mean in the OT, the turtles still move/perform like martial artists like in any universe.

As a kid I loved it. I was too young, really, to notice any differences in tone between the toon and the first movie. My kid brain smooshed them all together and loved it. I don't remember much about the toon to really pinpoint specific thoughts or feelings, though.

oh I took it so seriously when I was a kid. If the turtles got captured it was the end of my world, or at least for the 20 minutes it took to end the episode ...lol
I was the same way with the comics. My best friend and I would act episodes out and make them the way we wanted. Obsessed then and obsessed still

I got pretty much obsessed with it, and taped every episode and watched them every chance I got. I probably still know all the episode names by heart to this day. Now when I watch it, I've seen them so much that I don't care to watch them any more. But yeah, it was awesome back then..

I thought it was cheesey, but it was kind of meant to be. I didn't have to take it seriously in order to enjoy it! Although it deemphasized the family aspect, it did present one of my favorite portrayals of Raphael: heavier on the sarcasm and less "Captain Testosterone".

Oh, and Krang grossed me out. Bleach! A juicy, squishy, talking, pink brain. Shredder was a cutie though.

My little sister and I did that too!! We didn't have a lot of the TMNT toys so we used to use our Barbies and Kens to act out our stories :lol:

I remember thinking the show rocked & was sooo badass. I remember thinking the turtles were so skilled and could kick anybody's butt! I hated Krang cuz he was so yucky, especially in the 1st season. He was drawn all pulsating and nasty :o but even back in the day, I thought Shredder was so cute! And as many people can probably tell, I still do :D

Now when I watch the OT I still laugh at the humour and goofiness of some of the plots, but it just brings back all my childhood memories & I enjoy it on a whole new level :)

Yes it does, it gets ridculous all the time. They're four mutant turtles who happen to be ninjas and were tought by a giant rat. :lol:

As a kid I thought it was more serious. Maybe it's more because of the movies and the first five episodes.. but I remember the ninja turtles being more ass kickers than not. I mean, I still enjoy the episodes today, a lot actually.. but I just remember the turtles for more the way they were portraid in the first five episodes and the movies.

A young 4 year old mind doesn't always grasp the concept that the turtles ALWAYS escape trouble. They would always cut to commercial with a shot of certain doom for the boys and I would freak out for the entire break.
When the shot would fade back in, the turtles would simply step to the side and the danger would pass. 'Sweet relief'

I watched turtles quite religiously as a child and the last I saw of them was Red Sky. I think I noticed a slight change in animation but my memory is a bit fuzzy. Anyway, that is how I remembered the turtles, Red Sky. Then when the DVD volumes started coming out and I re-watched the episodes, I realized that the animation was quite kiddy and the storylines were a tad silly. Wow I miss being a child.

I thought they were the greatest things of all time. I religiously watched the cartoon and had epic battles with my figurines.

I never used weapons with them though and Raph was the only one alive at the end as he and Donnie were the only two original figurines I had. I used a Leo that was in a Trenchcoat and eventually the samurai Leo from the third movie I think later. I never got a good Mikey so I always just made some excuse as to why he wasn't in the fight.

I also remember having a colorforms set where all I really remember is having fights between the turtles and a mouser.

I also remember one specific moment where I was coloring in a coloring book for the turtles and in my imagination they were frozen in place until I colored them in completely and I had to do it as quickly and precisely as possible or the city would be destroyed.

Man I was a weird kid.

Oh I loved it! I was too young to think it was ridiculous. I just loved the concept of the turtles themselves. All the other characters were secondary to me then.

I just thought that Raphael was awesome, like in one ep (is it Attack of 50 ft Irma?) the others are behind Shredder and Raph comes up a manhole in front of him and delivers some biting remark. Awesome!!

My sister and I had all the plushies, and they were as real as the Velvetine Rabbit. They used to sit at the kitchen table with us, and to this day, Mike's teeth are all faded and gross where my sister brushed them with a real toothbrush and toothpaste!! :lol: Leo had to have life-saving surgery when the fabric on his plastron came loose. By the end, Raphael had shrunk to a mere fragment of his former self because I loved him too much and cuddled him till he had no fluff left. Man, I wish I still had him. :cry:

Me and my friend used to stay up at night (it felt late but it was probably 10 :lol: ) and make up stories about the turtles. the only one I can remember was April married Krang and he was wheeled up the aisle on a trolly. That is so funny when you're 7 years old! :lol:

Those were the days.....

I would play with my brother's OT toys a lot. He even had the lair.

I have no space to display my NT toys.

April marrying Krang? Poor April! She can do MUCH better than that. In the NT episodes I have seen recently, April and Casey cannot keep their hands off each other! But OT April is just so SEXY! Not just her figure and clothes- it's the LIPS that make her so sexy.

I hate OT April now, I thought she actually helped the turtles when I was young.

Jenna, I am waaaay past 7 and find the idea of April marrying a trolly-riding Krang to be nothing short of hysterical :lol:

I'm picturing their cake topper: a small plastic bride standing next to a tiny, pink, scowling brain...in a tux. :D

Thanks, that totally made my day!

Better than Christmas!

Oh, man. I remember when I was little watching the OT.. I realized that lines were SUCH groaners. After such a line was delivered I would leave the room out of embarrassment, but then rush back in lest I miss anything. It was a love/hate thing. Though, mostly just love! My first week of grade 1, I remember drawing the turtles on an activity sheet when asked what our favourite TV show was!

Yeah, I thought they were the hottest things since sliced bread. As a kid, I was also blinded and thought it was the most kick-ass action show around. Even when the first movie came out I was thinking we'd be seeing live-action turtles doing all those sweet martial arts moves 'just like the cartoon'. It was heaven the day they announced new episodes, or when CBS started airing an hour of them cause it meant an hour of all-new episodes every single week. And like most kids that collected the toys at the time, it was extra sweet to see people like Leatherhead, Rat King, Casey Jones and the rest all make appearances on the show.


Of course... now I realize how goofy and silly the old show was and how there was hardly any action at all... like, throwing a pizza at shredder's face or kicking a roller skate so Bebop and Rocksteady can trip over it and whatnot. The movies were still cool, though still overly silly, and the NT rocks until they started that Fast Forward garbage.

It definantly gets rediculous, I'll just use the two episodes I most recently watched:

Beware the Lotus Blossum: The smelling device that runs on DNA.
Lotus found the Turtles lair and didn't reveal it to Krang.
Donatello somehow smuggles a bo-staff into Lotus's hideout.
Leonardo "sneaks around to the back" while he is in clear sight of Krang.
(Theres alot more, but i'd be getting nit-picky)

Blast From the Past: Splinter looses him memory from a "Ninja Potion" that knocks them out for 4 seconds.
Shredder's use of the word "Super Ninjas"
The ghost tells the turtles to save him the last slice of Pizza
(This one actually pisses me off a bit): The Cur-ly manuever *nyuk nyuk*

I know this is mostly humor and I accept that, but it is certainly rediculous.

Favourite
 

It was my favourite cartoon.

Was anyone else afraid of shredder?

No way. But I was afraid of Tempestra

I did the exact same thing! One time I ran out of tapes and was frantic, as a new episode had started. Ended up just grabbing an unmarked tape and recorded over my mom's favorite movie....ooops.

Well, I watched it religiously like any good turtle fanboy. I only had two tapes, so whenever the turtles weren't on tv, I'd watch those four episodes over and over again. I actually wore out one of the tapes, and the other one could go at any time. Of course, I watched a lot of tv back then, and ninja turtles was only the first among many shows that I would watch religiously, but it was the one that always stuck with me the most. I had more turtles toys than anything else too.

Anyways, back to what I thought of it as a kid.... Actually, my favorite part of it was the original intro. I remember wishing that every episode had that same dark animation style to it, but I still loved the show anyway. Back then, I thought the action was top-notch. Now all I have to do is picture that one episode where Leo decides to go off on his own and I cringe -- in a sparring match with Don, he just smacks himself in the head with his sparring stick (I forget what they're called) and goes, "See? I'm a terrible leader," or something like that. At the time, I don't think I noticed too many of the cheesy lines and silly plot devices that they used, but now I think I understand why so many older people roll their eyes at me when I reveal that I'm still a huge turtles fan. Of course, now I'm mostly a fan of the turtles because of the comics. If all that existed were the OT episodes, I probably wouldn't be as big a fan anymore. My little brother has bought most of the OT dvds, and sometimes I get a little embarrassed if someone walks in on me while I'm watching them because they were so silly.

OMG, while we're on the topic of OT episodes.... The funniest episode ever is "Leatherhead Meets the Rat King." Toward the end of that episode, Rat King is throwing bombs or something, and the turtles have to run through his line of fire to do something or other. They go, "Okay, let's go," and the entire animation style speeds up at least 2x while they're running and then goes back to normal about 2 seconds later. I dunno why, but the way that scene was set up, my brother and I watched it at least 5 times and laughed hysterically. Then at the end of the episode when Vernon is zombified. They ask him how he is or something, and he just goes, "Uh... uh, uh..." :lol: Priceless!

Just this about the TMNT and me as a kid: whenever I saw their action figure from the cartoon series (the old series), I had to buy it.

For example, when I saw the Turtle Van from the series, I immediately bought it (well folks did seeing as I was a little kid :lol: )

What would you have done if you watched "The Shredder Strikes Back pt. 2" as a kid? They made it seem like our heroes were dead, no BS about it.

As a kid i found it exciting to watch the turtles, now i rewatch it because it's just such a good goofy comedy.
And i'm just waiting for wrong drawings and giant-sized plotholes to giggle at. :D

Heh, so was I, to a certain extent. Not that I had nightmares or such, but Tempestra was one of the creepier non-shredder villains. What also helped was the common theme running through those spotlight episodes where one Turtle stumbled onto some plot and the others didn't believe him, and were blocked from showing up till the last minute. Gave the episodes a bit more tension.

I loved the old series, and I honestly didn't realize how goofy it was during its heyday, because there wasn't much else to compare it to on TV. It's funny to look back now at everything that seemed so logical as a kid, and realize all the plot holes, contrivances, and cartoon logic being used. Part of it was the writers winking at an audience too young to understand, the other part was just the standard for cartoon writing wasn't so high back in the day. I'm glad we've moved up considerably since then.

Me and my brother used to go outside to the woods and make weapons form tree branches and pretend we were ninja turtles. He was Leonardo and I alternated with Michelangelo and Raphael.

The Turtles were my heros when I was a kid. No doubt about it. :D

I was inspired that he's one of the meanest badass villain ever when I was young. Whenever we played ninja turtles among my friends (lol) I remember I like being the Shredder, announcing that the swing area is my dimension x screen thing lmao.

I eventually win the tmnt 2 game after beating Shredder using Michealangelo and he wsa instantly my most fave turtle after that. Before this I used Leonardo a lot, thinking that swords should fight with swords, and it'll do more damage to him, silly me! :lol:

I was 6 when it was first on channel 13 in LA. I thought it looked stupid and I made my younger brother turn off the tv when it came on. At the babysitters house, I had no power over the remote and sat through the very first episode. To my shock, I enjoyed it and couldn't wait till tommorrow morning. At first Leo was my favorite cause he wore a blue mask, but now he's my favorite cause he is just an awesome character. Thus my addiction to anything ninja turtles began...:D

I loved it had the books, toys, masks everything and I bet most of you had abit of a crush on April. Who didn't eh? I also remember the other chracters aswell Wilma, Baxter Stopman etc. I remeber the Turtles had a Turtle Com. I really wanted one of them so I could talk to them.

I doubt you wanna know what I thought about it.

Who the hell is Wilma?

A Flintstone. ^_^

Oh, the one that had a gay old time?

No, that was the next-door-neighbor, silly. :P

lol isn't it Irma or something?