How long was the in-universe span of the show?
 

In the 2k3 forum we're discussing how long the turtles were "active" here and I wanted to have the same discussion for the OT.

Basically how many years happened between the first episode and the last. Do we know how old the turtles are?, I'd like it if the ten seasons happened and the turtles could still be teenagers, I'm guessing that might not be much of a problem. I think the entire show could have happened over the span of 4/5 years? Thats plausible it could have happened even before.

The main problem is the shows "present time" in the first season would technically be 88 or 87 (the turtles are called 88 in Turtles Forever). The technology/fashion/etc all reek of the late 80s, however the last few seasons are clearly taking place in the mid 90s. I guess the show could start in the very early 90s since those early years was still transitioning from that stench of the 80s (:p) and that way the timeline could work better but i don't like messing with the fact that they technically started in 88.

I think it took place over 10 years. The Turtles might have been 25 years old in Season 10.

The last few seasons don't have to be in the mid 90's... they're fictional universe could have just had internet before ours did.

Internet
 

Internet was around in the 1980's-early 1990's, but not the Internet as we know it today. Internet statrted in the USA in 1969, it's just the modern Internet that came during the second half of the 1990's.

The season 5 episode "Once Upon a Time Machine" actually establishes the year as 1991 with two explicit references, one on Krang's computer as he explains time travel and the other when Leonardo says that it took them "45 Years" to learn their lesson. Since the turtles had an adventure in the year 2036, the 45 years reference puts the episode's date in 1991.

Also, in the Season 3 (I think episode) "Invasion of the Turtle Snatchers," April celebrates her 1-year anniversary working for Channel 6 News, suggesting that not much time had passed between the first 3 seasons.

But... it is a cartoon. So... who know how many days were in a year in the Fred Wolf universe anyway?:P

There's some snow episodes, but I'm pretty sure none of them actually take place in the winter. Thinking about it makes me mad all over again about them not making a Christmas episode...

I'm not exactly sure but I do have some clues to offer. Maybe they'll help:

In "It Came From Beneath The Sewers", one of the kids at the carnival who April tried to get the crystal from said "Three dollars won't buy you didley these days. We're children of the 80's".

In "Once Upon A Time Machine" and "Elementary My Dear Turtle", it is claimed that it is the year 1991. They both sorta took place in the same season. Even though the Europe episodes are from season 7, they actually took place when the Technodrome was on the volanic asteroid, which was seasons 4 and 5.

In "Get Shredder", when Shredder and Krang found out about the Hall of Science from 1964, Krang claims it was abandoned for almost 30 years, meaning this has to be 1993 or 1994.

In "Enter Krakus", Krakus claims he's from the year 2066, then Raphael says that's 70 years later. This must be the year 1996.

Season 10 happened 2 years later than season 8. In "A Turtle In Time", Landore and Merrick time traveled to Turtle Trek and brought the turtles of that time to the current episode. They claim Turtle Trek happened 2 years and 15 days ago.

Based on these facts, the show definitely took place in the 80's and 90's.

Even if they mention "children of the 80s" that doesn't mean its taking place in the 80s, a teenager in the early 90s would have been a kid in the 80s therefore that sentence still makes sense. So after reading some posts I guess it makes more sense to place the show in the early 90s. And I don't like the idea that the turtles are 25 at the end of the show, besides don't they make constant references that they are teenage mutant turtles?

Well when you get to stuff like that you can also say that a year isn't the same since its a fictional universe, a year is actually 600 days etc.

The thing that really blows my mind is that in "Donatello's Degree" there was a banner that read "Class of 1994" (or something like that), even though the episode was from the 1990 season! What were the background artists thinking?

This makes the seemingly non-sensical joke in the second Prof. Sofo ep make a bit more sense. Why did Mikey say he must have missed that episode? Because it still wasn't 2004 yet. :P
Four-year college, of course... :P

They jst forgot how smart Donny was!, was able skip a few years...:P

I think that a generic timeline in the series is present that you can pick up on this through little hints and throw away comments made by the characters. In the first season when Tragg used a weather altering device to make it snow causeing April comment on how it could snow in the middle of june, so the turtles met April and the Shredder somtime in June. Fast foward to season three the episode Michelangelo's birthday. On the calender on the wall at the start of the episode it shows a summery looking picture with a specific day circled. Now we can all suspend belief that the boys actually somehow have seprete birthdays, but it is clearly summer time in Michelangelo's birthday we just don't know if it's july or August. Which would mean between the events of season one and season three only a month or two has past.

Also in season three April celebrates her first year anniversary at channel six. I don't think this means the turtles have known her for an entire year since the start of the series, but it could mean that when she met them turtles she had been at channel six for almost an entire year. Maybe her aniversary was in september or october. If we fast foward to season four to the episode the tortoise and the hare where they meet Hokum hare it is Easter which makes it April. Which makes the time line in season four just shy of a year from season one. Which is alot of stuff to have happened in just one year but, hey I guess it could happen. But if you think about it that one hectic year the turtles went through. Kind of makes you wonder how they aren't nervous wrecks by that easter episode.

If everything between season one and four is encompassed in one year than I guess it's not unreasonalable to say that entire series happened in the span of two years or so.

Is there anything that indicates a passage of time or time line between that That I may have missed? Or anything after?

Nice job Sage! It's totally reasonable to think that they could have a super-busy year like that, I could imagine the OT Turtles going on an adventure several times a week easily lol.

In every other post-S3 syndicated ep and Euro-cruise ep, they said it was '91.

thats our time line I'm talking about the passage of time in the OT universe.

Yeah, but if you find any other evidence of which year it was in a particular episode, that helps determine how much time has passed too.

Oh yeah, and I remember Raph stating that it's "the middle of July" in Take Me To Your Leader.

And Super Irma from season 6 takes place on Halloween.

I do notice how at least in the first eps, their adventures took place within an actual week... maybe Monday through Friday as aired? I mean each episode seemed to end at night and the next one would start off with the next morning with references to the day/episode before.

Given the nature of Shredder and Krang's plots and whatnot, I wouldn't be surprised if they fought the turtles 3 or even 4 times a week. I don't even remember any episode taking place over a day (within the episode).

Leonardo vs. Tempestra comes to mind. I think that one actually took place over a couple of days. There were a handful that went from day to night.

Whacky and wild as the OT universe is, I'm sure some "daytime" episodes could take place on the same day as certain "nighttime" episodes.

Not possible! Wake up and smell the sewage. When it goes from day to night, a century has obviously passed. :roll: Any two-day-old can tell you that.

I'm not normally a fan of Christmas episodes, especially on series that are more serious since it seems out of place not to mention its weird seeing a Christmas episode if its June when you're watching it. But for a show like TMNT it would have worked fine, it is kinda sad we didn't get one. At least we got We Wish You A Turtle Christmas, hey I just watched it for the first time this past holidays and I found it charming. Haters gonna hate.

nice observations ToTheNines! Now I'm gonna have to figure out where exactly timeline wise these took place. Did Take Me to Your Leader come before or after Michelangelo's Birthday?

Also was it ever revealed in dialogue when exactly Raphael, April, and Irma's birthdays are? I think Mike and Raph are the only ones that get birthday episodes.

Correctamundo! http://www.thesmilies.com/smilies/ca...chelangelo.gif

Elementary, My Dear Turtle
 

Even "Elementary, My Dear Turtle" telsl they travelled backwards in time from 1990 to 1890.

'91
 

Get your facts straight.

I wish you hadn't brought attention to the fact there wasn't an OT Christmas show. I never thought about it before. Now the fact that there wasn't was brought to my attention I'm really sad there wasn't one. I love Christmas episodes!

I always imagined that a lot of time passed between seasons or even episodes. Once they defeat Shredder and Krang, it takes a long time for them to come back. Although between 3 and 4 not as much time passed as you'd think considering the damage to the Technodrome but Bebop and Rocksteady were able to come back during the Plan 6 episode which starts with the turtles assessing the crater left by the Technodrome.

It's all based on assumptions, I guess.

No, it doesn't. It begins with The Turtles, April and Irma (the last of whom wasn't even in Blowout at all) standing over a crater next to Channel 6. The Technodrome was launched through the portal to Dimension X over by Mt. Rushmore.

Um... It's was most definitely in the city.

He-Man
 

The old He-Man cartoon had one.

That and I always assumed it was just one of the many plot holes that otherwise didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. The hole in the ground wasn't even that large.

Either way, my point was that they weren't in Dimension X on the asteroid for very long before they were able to start finding ways to visit Earth.

Oh yeah. I just checked. It was headed towards the World Trade Building. In Plan Six, the Turtles are standing around a crater to the side of Channel Six. I guess if there's something that shows Channel Six is near the Twin Towers, that fits. But, what still doesn't fit is that the Technodrome crashed upside-down into Cybertron Jr at the end of Blow Out, and appears upright on the tropical island asteroid in Plan Six. So, I'm still convinced that there were eps to explain away these continuity errors that apparently never got made for some reason.

Actually, April had a birthday in "Shreeka's Revenge".

I'm sure Shredder/Krang's schemes didn't happen daily. Hell maybe their plans to take over the Earth only happened once every two weeks. :p

While allowing for the fact that the Turtles perpetually stay teenagers, as well as the fact comics and cartoons enjoy a very loose flow of time and events, I more or less always assumed about 5 or 6 years may have passed between the beginning and end of the series, leaning towards at least 4, maybe 5, and not more than 6.

Some stories took only a day or two but several episodes take longer. If you keep a loose continuity, there are several eps which could have taken place on subsequent days, others where it makes more sense for time to have passed in between eps. The Turtles seem a bit older than 13 at the start, but who knows? I'd say 14 going on 15 is more accurate, no older if 4 or 5 years passed between the first and last episodes, as I think the Turtles would be about 18 or 19 at most by the end. They didn't drop the "Teenage" part from the title, so my theory is they were still teenagers. In one episode, April gives us reason to believe she either is 28 or soon will be. Not much time could have passed since then, because April in Season 10 does not look at all like a woman pushing 40, even if the animators were very generous. I would say she couldn't be older than 32 by the end, at the oldest.

So again, it's all conjecture and no solid facts, but I think there is evidence that if any time passed at all, it was no more than 4-5 years. If I had to narrow it down, I'd say 4 to keep it simple. Most of what happened could have happened between 1988 and 1992. That's how I looked at it then and now, anyway.

Season 1
 

Season 1 seems to take place during one week (Monday-Friday) with each day as a an episode.

Considering the in-universe span of the Simpsons seems to have Springfield get sucked into a de-ages each summer causing everyone to move back a year in development, despite the technology of the world improving. That said, in the final season, Leonardo could have been 20 while the others 19 making the majority still teenage turtles, while they all start out at 15. I'd say the in-universe span of the show was about 5 years. The first year happened perhaps all within the first three seasons, since the arcade game shows April as being 27, and she is only 28 by then. The series began in the middle of June as indicated by April in the episode "Hot Rodding Teenagers", and in the episode where the energy drains the sun in Season 3, it is the middle of July, and considering that is only about 30 episodes into the series, the first 30 episodes could have very well taken place over the course of a daily adventure in 1989 as opposed to 1987, since it is clearly the mid-90s when the series ends with April's computer having Internet. The computer that April used in the episode "A Thing About Rats" was quite sophisticated at the time, and 80's lingo was still cool in 1989 as long as it wasn't "gag me with a spoon". April could have been a reporter for Channel 6 for around 11 months in the first episode. Season 3 could have ended sometime around late August of 1989 since the leaves are still green in the "Big" trilogy, and it was approximately the actual Earth time when the episodes were being produced. With 65 episodes to that point and a new adventure seemingly daily, it can work out, given that the transition from Season 1 to 2 was rapid with Krang quickly using the portal to send Shredder back to Earth, and using the transport modules to head to earth on the first Season 3 episode seemed like a pretty quick idea that Krang thought out as the Technodrome was sinking (probably only to the upper mantle rather than the Earth's core near the base of an ancient volcano somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains, since magma forms down at that level). Plus, there are no mentions that it is 1987 or 1988 (though a kid says "kids of the '80s in the episode "It Came From Beneath The Sewers", so it can be 1989 at the latest, and still apply. So in a nutshell the first three seasons basically last just a summer!

Season 4's "universe" probably began in the spring or summer of 1990, given that it took awhile for Shredder and Krang do get the Technodrome fixed in Dimension X, plus there were no winter episodes in Season 4. Shredder didn't appear in every episode, and obviously at the Season 4/5 cusp with the Hokum hare episode we are at Easter of 1991. The Season 4 adventures might have happened only once a week since the Technodrome didn't seem as effective that Season and the villains probably wanted to be more patient in hopes of coming up with a better idea. Season 5 is similar to 4 in that the 20 episodes might have been weekly covering the spring and summer of 1991 following the Hokum Hare arc. At this point, the in-universe span is just 2 years. I'd say Seasons 6 and 7 took place over a year given the similar Technodrome location, and weekly covering late spring to early fall with about 30 episodes total, with some of the non-Shredder episodes occurring in the middle of a week. Since the show was starting to get a little behind the times in Season 7 compared to shows like X-Men and B:TAS, it could have been reasonable to have just been late summer/early fall 1992 at the end of Season 7.

Red Sky had short seasons, but April mentioned "Internet" in Season 10, and I'd place the final Season sometime during 1994 since Season 8 April still had hair that seemed behind the times, making that season taking place in 1993. Shredder and Krang likely become more desparate than ever, so despite taking a long time to come up with a plan, the wise move to wait and destroy Channel 6 successfully was Shredder's finest accomplishment in the series. '80s lingo was pretty much dead by 1993 even, so the vibe works out fine with the "90s style". Season 9 was probably also 1994 like Season 10, since April changed her hair towards the mid-decade "bowl cut" style and the Turtles had to travel back in time presumably at least a year to get the old turtles back in that three-parter. But it seems like the gap between Seasons 9 and 10 was short since Dregg likely came up with a quick plan to change his Dragon from Hi-Tech to Mung. The Internet was also just starting to take off around then (even Townsend Coleman himself was using the Internet on a BBS board in 1993 on an interview).

In summary, this brings out the in-universe duration of the entire series to approximately five years between mid-June 1989 to sometime in the spring of 1994, since we can still have three of the Turtles 19 (almost 20) if they were 15-year olds (except for Leonardo) at the start. It also condenses the rapid storyline/action of the first three seasons, followed by the more laid-back action of the middle seasons, followed by the final uptick in action during Red Sky.

Simpsons
 

I'm happy TMNT didn't air as long as Simpsons, it would cause the same problem (unless they age).

Eh, it's a cartoon, wouldn't have ruined anything for me. I admit it is very fun to over-analyze parts of it like we're doing here from time to time, but I've never cared too much about how time passes in comics and cartoons. Main reason being that once you start worrying about stuff like how much time has passed, the only possible outcome is a retcon/restart, which are pretty much never necessary and do more harm than good.

I love to nitpick and argue over stuff like this, but just for fun. The fact that Bart Simpson is still is 4th Grade after 20 years and several of Batman's Robins are fully grown while he stays constantly 30 has never bothered me at all. :)

Elementary, My Dear Turtle
 

In Elementary, My Dear Turtle, they say "same 1991"? Mistake. They at least say 1890.