How did the original cartoon manage to last as long as it did?
 

The original TMNT cartoon went on for 10 seasons and made 193 episodes.

That is basically unbelieveable for a cartoon produced in America without having any spinoffs and every season being part of the same show.

I know how popular TMNT was in the late 80's and early 90's, but to this day I still find it incredible that it really lasted an entire decade and made almost 200 eps.

What I find even more surprising is the new 2k3 show will have about 150+ eps by the time Season 7 ends, and if it goes on for a few more years it could reach the original shows episode count.

Are we Turtle fans lucky that both cartoons managed to go on for so long instead of being cancelled after like 50 or 60 eps?

Interesting thread
 

Interesting thread. But when you watch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...1987)_episodes, you see that most episodes are from the TMNT "peak years" 1989-1993 (You can count the Vacation in Europe episodes as both 1992 and 1993, since they aired in Europe already in late 1992 and the USA in 1993).

Yeah... the CBS eps and the Red Sky eps could kinda/sorta count as spin-offs since they both changed the format of the show slightly.

The CBS eps featured new music, the characters were drawn more defined (turtles were now darker green and Splinter was all dark brown), they had an hour with one ep being about the Shredder and another ep focusing on one turtle against some mad scientist or whatever, and Mikey started using the grappling hook. And of course all the newer characters like Mondo Gecko, Slash and etc were featured.

Red Sky changed the art style again and everything was darker, April got a new look and we have Carter, Lord Dregg and all that jazz (crap).

He-Man
 

Yes. The 2002 He-Man cartoon was cancelled already in January 2004 (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/He-Man_...2002_TV_series)). But I want to know when they decided that the 1996 season would end the 1987 TMNT cartoon. It at least hand a real ending.

Because it was GOOD!

Had they shown all 10 seasons where I lived at the times at hours where I had no conflicts, I would have been glued to the TV set watching them and jumping up and down.

Read here
 

Red here http://www.ninjaturtles.com/html/faq.htm on "Why did you cancel the original TMNT television series?". It looks CBS cancelled it because they didn't see it as enought education for the Saturday morning, why not move the series to another television channel. I can't understand why Saturday, a school-free day (at least here in Sweden, I suppose it's the same in the USA), needs so much education.

Popularity is one major contributor to why the OT lasted so long. However, I think that another major contributor is the amount of dedication that the fans have put forward over the years.

There is something kind of adictive about the 80's cartoon. I can't put my finger on it but there is something about it that makes you watch one episode after another, and then watch them again. :ohwell:

I'm pretty new to the 80's series so I wasn't part of the whole first wave of obsessive fans during the turtle craze, (I can thank my parents for that :roll:). SO I'm kind of watching them new now. ANd so far I'm really getting pulled into it and the characters. Even the bad guys are likable. :o

I think it may have a combination of good writing, animation, dialougue, even for a kids cartoon. There were personalities that were cliched, but so various, that everyone would connect with at least one, if not more personality types. Also, TMNT are not superheroes, but regular joes like us. But unlike Batman, who is also a regular joe, the TMNT are also humurous to a considerable degree which makes them very likable.

I think the same kind of formula, various cliched personalities, good writing, dialougue, combined with regular everyday joes planted in a humorous atmosphere could be the reason why the Simpsons have been on the air for so long as well.

I think you hit the nail on the head! :D I think that's exactly why i enjoy the OT. That and the fact that it's portrayal is so diffrent from the gritty comics it orginated from.

wait...you never watched the old ninja turtles till just recently? :o Man where you deprived!:(

Toys
 

Maybe also because the toys sell well?

It made so much money in it's prime that they could've funded it's production forever just on that.

The main thing that helped it was the fact that Batman TAS revolutionized cartoons in 92, we were getting season 7 in 93 regardless (to coincide with the 3rd movie), but Batman allowed the show to be more action oriented and just plain better overall in season 7 and onwards (better then seasons 4-6 at the very least).

Last episodes
 

I hate those stupid mutations in the last two seasons, and the red sky three seasons. Why always have a red sky?

The "Red Sky" seasons were something of a direct reaction to Batman: TAS, but I can't say they came as an improvement to Turtles.

In addition to everything mentioned, the toy line was also a huge part of the show's continued success.

Usa
 

Could everybody in the USA who had television see the 1987 cartoon? (I don't know anything how television works in the USA). In Sweden it (and most US cartoons) was on television channels requiring cable television or satellite dish (I went to grandmother every Friday to watch TV before we got satellite dish in February 1992), since the Swedish state-operated mostly showed boring Swedish shows, much because it was Swedish (Personally I watch shows after what I like, not country of origin, but what I have heard Swedish television in the 1950's and 1960's had more US shows like "Flintstones" and some western show).

true dat(:lol:) i totally agree with you but i also think it was the characters. i mean, the turtles are all totally different, but they blend it with each other as one (as master splinter would say). theya re all different with different traits. for example, teen titans had 5 different characters with all different traits, but they always seem to get along with each other and push through it. now tmnt has 4 different characters with each different traits and they will fight sometimes and they will get through hard times, no matter their personal needs. so i also think it had to do with the chemistry of the turtles.

Toys and popularity?
 

Imagine the toys declined in sales, but the show was still popular to watch. Do you think it would have been taken off air?

I can understand not liking Red Sky, but no one can deny season 7's greatness.

I love season 7, possibly my favorite. It hit the right balance.

That said, I also like seasons 8-10, but for almost purely nostalgic reasons. They haven't held up very well, but I remember seeing them airing as a kid and thinking they were really dark.

Oh, definitely, the interactions with the characters are a huge reason. They were not goody goody buddies, but had a realistic dynamic family thing going on!

Simply put... the toys and the third Movie gave the show a longer push... and considering that the live action series premiered the season after the cartoon was canned speaks volumes about their popularity.
But let's not forget, the peak episodes where in the 50-60 something episode syndication seasons.... and CBS (which was before the FCC nonsense that killed kids programming I keep talking about) kept the series going at the same time TMNT was still being rerun on local syndication.

These days, TMNT would barely have that many episodes, as production seasons are only weekend related... 13 episodes per season. 4kids really spoiled us, though, giving us 26 episodes per season...

End?
 

Now it's only 13? Is it a sign that the series are going towards an end? I don't hope that..

Well, since no one makes cartoons for syndication anymore, we only have weekly shows. And 13 episodes for a season of weekly shows is NOT new, nor is it anything to worry about. It was what Kid's Wb used through its entire run... And it's the new (since the 90's anyway) standard.

4Kids spoiled us with 26 episodes per season,. and I think we're all forgetting that.

i heard somewhere that btts was supposed to get 26 episodes, but the idea comfirmations took so much time away from them and they could only make 13. correct me if im wrong.

13
 

But I would better like 13 well-written episodes than 26 where maybe just 4-5 of them are good.

How do the Turtles last this long?

Simple:
Because they are radically awesome.

:P

FCC nonsense
 

What's "FCC nonsense"? I don't know what FCC is.

One of those "Don't get me started"s... but to clear it up... The FCC put 2 rediculous rules in place since 1998 or so... Rule #1- limit the ammount of junk food advertising... which sounds like a good thing, right? Unfortunately, that's where a good percentage of the ad revenue goes... this made kid's programming unprofitable.

Rule #2- There has to be 3 1/2 hours a week of programming that's considered TV E?I (Educational/informational) which pretty much killed Saturday morning for various networks... while they tried to make original educational programming at first... about 2-3 years into it, someone said "Screw it" and just reran hand me down educational programming from other cable networks they owned.

Of course, these rules were "Blind the general public" add ons to a bill that let a few corporations own as many networks as possible. Which is why Rule #2 left us with the afforementioned "Screw this" result of hand me down cable reruns.

Usa
 

I live in Sweden, so I don't know how television works in the USA. That was because I asked. Thank's for the info.

What ever happened to all of that? My back story on how I got into the Turtles was because I remember coming home from school and turn on my local Fox channel and they would play 1 whole hour of the TMNT from 3:30 to 4:30. Now, when I'm home during the weekdays, and happen to click on the tv, all it is is news and talk shows. How is Murray and Ricki Lake more beneficial to kids than a cartoon they can sit down and enjoy while munching on an after school snack?

Ricky Lake got out of the business years ago... Maury is still stinking and rotting like a living corpse, showing minority stereotypes that are moral enough to keep a baby, but amazingly not moral enough not to sleep with anything that moves. But I digress.... reread my "Don't get me Started" post a few posts above, and you'll see.

And let's not forget... there are 3 whole channels devoted to kids on cable... a shocking big 3, and no one wants to compete.

Though frankly, I think that telling unemployed, uneducated, wastes of space with no goals to get a quick fix title loan, and that the depression of having a nowhere life can be cured by popping pills is a lot more dangerous than having a Tiger tell kids to eat a breakfast cereal with sugar in it....

But that's just me.

It may be a minority sterotype but unfortunately it happen to be a true sterotype. At least where I live. Most of my black girlfriends have babies left and right about half the time more than my white girlfriends do. And unfortunately most of the have kids who are five and they still have no clue who their child father is. It's things like this that make me ashamed to be woman. :(

And people get PLEASURE from watching others do that? (though I must confess, they have negative white stereotypes just as often).

All I'm saying is children's programming has more regulations on it than mailing toxic waste, but when it comes to actual smut on television... smut for smut's sake to appeal to the lowest of the lowest of the lowest common denominator... these whiny, fussbudgety parental groups are all thumbs...

I liken it to wrapping a beach ball in bubble wrap and letting kids play in the old shed with nails sticking out of the walls, and spools of barbed wire all over the place.

But the three things to take out of this conversation are:

Junk food adverts, sadly, are the main source of kid's programming funding. The lack of them causes kid's programming to be unprofitable.

The only stations left on network TV handle kids' programming as a contractual obligation to keep their FCC license. And often times, why spend money when you can get old reruns from your other cable networks (CBS was the first to do this, BTW)? or if you're a local station, just throw together unwatchable 1990's nature shows and not even care if someone's watching it or not.

And there are cable stations, 5 or 6, that air kid's programming... why bother competing with a few networks when you can compete with the hundred's of general older public stations?

It was a lot more dangerous back when kids were getting enough physical activity to counter balance the cereal packed with sugar.

I like video games, but I think the kids these days might be getting too much. It's kind of funny to think that back in the day comics were considered the things that were rotting kid's brains...and now that would be preferable to them playing video games all day and reading nothing at all.

In my day...we got a good balance of all of these things: junk cereal, comic reading, video game playing, and reading books without pictures and going outside to play. Maybe improvements to video games are slowly causing the downfall of our society, as back in the 8 bit and 16 bit days it wasn't as huge a distraction from getting some fresh air. Sure sometimes we watched more TV than we should have, but I don't think it was as bad as it is now. This has gone off topic, but to sum things up...things were better when I was a kid!:x:)

Fresh air nothing. it's a total distraction from cartoons, and the animation industry is suffering outside of "Pixar does it, so we'll do it to" CGI movies. If 4Kids didn't have a strong backing of TMNT, no way would it have even gone to season 3 today. Not to mention most of these kids have their own computers... and spend all day on Facebook making fun of overweight people and people with mental disabilities (I had the misfortune to see my sister walking through the Bumper Sticker option... and we were marking half of everything as offensive... especially the mentally challenged jokes).

Mommy and Daddy want to please them. And unfortunately that leads to them asking for more and more expensive things. And Mommy and Daddy refuse to say no, and have a lot of disposable income to let that happen.

Why couldn't I get parents like that?

lets see on topic...how did the 80's toon stay for as long as it did...

maybe Fred Wolf has connections with the mob. :P

Always something
 

There is always something the adult world blame youth culture for evil and rotting kid's brains. Let's go back in time and find out:

1800's-early 1900's, 1910's
Dancing. Not when the rich were out dancing in the ballrooms, but when the farmer people on the countryside were out dancing in the folkparks. Fanatical pentecostals said the Devil was behind.

1920's, 1930's, 1940's
Jazz, Pulp magazines

1950's, 1960's and 1970's
Comic books, pop and rock music (maybe also communism and the late 1960's/early 1970's anti-Vietnam-war movement should be counted here)

1980's-1990's
Hard rock and heavy metal, He-Man, Power Rangers, TMNT, Video

2000's
Video games

There are probably a lot more examples. They who blame it are many people, like politicians, policemen, doctors and religious priests. But they seldom see the real problems in the world (like wars, weapons, poverty, alcohol, drugs and the real violence).

lets not forget drugs and porn.