Were the Turtles still trained for 15 years in the original cartoon?
 

In the OT's origin story, we see the Turtles instantly mutate to their adult sizes because they were "becoming more human." However throughout the series the Turtles make mention that they are teenagers.

Were the Turtles still trained for 15 years before the events of the first episode, "Turtle Tracks?"

I always assumed the Turtles still lived underground with Splinter for 15 years even though they were never, "kids" in the show. It would also go with my assumption that Shredder and Hamato Yoshi were about 35 years old in that series...and the flashback to Japan took place when they were 20.

Not to overstate the obvious ...

But I've noticed quite a few rather glaring inconsistencies in the OT. Probably best not to think too hard about it, lest one's head explode.

However, having said that, the Turtles' behavior patterns/personalities have never really seemed all that "teenage" to me, anyways. Maybe they've just been lying about their ages, so that if/when they are arrested/charged criminally, they can't be tried as adults.

In "Polly wanna pizza" of Season 6, Raphael and Michaelangelo get into an argument.

Leonardo says, "Stop it, you're acting like a bunch of teenagers!"

Raphael replies sarcastically, "I dunno, could that be because we ARE teenagers?"


So there is indication they lived for 15 years.

Since Splinter always wanted to train people to prepare for the foot, I feel it's likely that the Turtles began training on the day they mutated into turtles.

In the first episode Raphael mentions that they spent half their lives living in a glass bowl, so that would mean they were 6 or 7 when they got mutated, which means they only spent 6 or 7 years training.

Well what does a teenager act like? Just asking. ;)

The only sane option when following the OT.

Like Mikey. :P

My thought had always been that the flashback to when they were mutated was simply exaggerated for timing purposes and that they were trained for years before the timing of the first episode.

I've always felt "X-men: Evolution" did a really good job in that regard, actually ... though I suspect I may be in the (slight) minority on that.

Sadly.

Yea same here, I always thought that to.

I always felt that they had been around for awhile, but nowhere near fifteen years.

Doesn't the Konami TMNT II videogame have the Turtles aged around 15 years old?

I had the notion that the Turtles, pre-mutation, were "ordinary turtles" (as stated in the fifth episode of the first season of the OT) as opposed to "baby turtles." That means they could be around fifteen without having been trained for fifteen years.

The other one is tuning it out.

That's our Andrew!
*cues wacky theme music*

Agreed, but it's still fun to discuss though. :D

They didn't seem like teenagers to you? Just out of curiousity, around what age group did them seem like to you?

I agree. I doubt that a turtle knows that it's been alive for about seven years, so Yoshi/Splinter probably told them that they seemed like they were about the size of turtles who were around seven years old.

I disagree. I took that flashback literally that they were pretty much instantly mutanted into full grown humanoids. If they were suggesting that the turtles took months (or even years) to fully grow, they easily could've said so. And given how frequently the show broke the forth wall, they could've easily said something about how they were cutting the flashback short in the interest of time.

Hard to say, exactly. They've just always felt more like "classic archetypes" (Leo the Square, Don the Nerd, Raph the Smartass, Mike the Stoner) than being/doing anything particularly "age-specific". Like, for example, the Ghostbusters weren't teenagers (obviously), but basically had a very similar dynamic (just replace "the Stoner" with "the Overeater").

On a semi-related note, what was up with Mondo Gecko's voice? It didn't fit him at all. I mean, he was supposed to be the same age as the Turtles, yet had the pipes of a middle-aged, four-pack-a-day smoker.

Are there not at least two episodes where one or more turtles is de-aged into a younger version of themselves, instantly, in both mind and body? And then is magically fixed with no ill effect later in said episodes? I guess that would emply they had to be young mutants of a small size before, unless whatever device made them young somehow came up with it's own idea of what a young mutant turtle would be like, I guess. Age is weird in the OT, just like everything else.

'BACK TO THE EGG" & "ADVENTURES IN TURTLE-SITTING", Leo being the only one to regress both times. However, these devices were obviously just growth-reversal, not time-reversal. They'd speak backwards if it was the latter.

I never really thought about that. The animated Ghostbusters and the Ninja Turtles in the original cartoon were kinda similar. Peter was like Raph. Egon was like Donny. Ray was like Leo. And I suppose Winston would be Mikey by default.

Really? Cause I was thinking Ray was Mike, and Winston would be Leo, actually. Wasn't Ray kinda goofy-acting? And Winston more of a "straight arrow" type? Maybe I'm remembering it wrong ... it's been a while since I've seen an episode.

P.S. Peter and Egon had two of the coolest cartoon voices ever, btw.

I actually think Egon was more of a combination of Leonardo and Donatello, lol.

You know assuming that is what happened, can you imagine how weird that would be? I mean, not to insult animals or anything, but to go from simple, ordinary little turtles crawling around a fish bowl, to suddenly being able to talk and reason (not to mention walk across a room in under a minute!). Talk about mind blowing!

And actually, something I always liked about the OT was how so much of their sense of morality actually came from their animal side, or at least their memories of it. They didn't appreciate being stuck in a bowl for years; they knew that was wrong and unfair. It's not that they realized it once they became human; it's just that they now had the ability to express their frustration.

The same with the frogs later on, their first reaction to Shredder is commenting that he seems like a good person. They don't care if he's intelligent or popular (the ways humans would), they just want to make sure he's friendly and won't hurt them, the kind of thing an animal would worry about.

Come to think of it, every time they show a mutation in the OT, they go from animal to English fluent and fully grown in like seconds. They immediately start wondering what they should call themselves, etc.

You're really gettin' into those cat pics aren't ya'?