How do you feel about the Turtles learning about humans from watching TV?
 

In the first episode Raph tells April, "Relax we know all about humans." April responds, "How?" and Mike says, "We watch a lot of TV." followed by April's, "We're in serious trouble."

Therefore for 15 years in the OT, the Turtles learned about humans through watching their old 80's style antenna TV. They probably watched 80's sitcoms and dramas from around that time.

Well.. It all depends what channels they were watching, don't you think..

I'm more curious on how they got a working tv and electricity

Finding an old beat up 80's TV in the sewers or garbage isn't unreasonable. It was even missing one of its legs that they had to put 3 books under it to hold it up.

Donatello probably handled that.

I feel it makes perfect sense.

Nowadays they watch Jeremy Kyle.

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Uh hum, it is in fact Donatello who says "Relax, we know all about humans..."

I've heard stories about immigrants learning the native language by watching programs in that language, so I don't think it's that unusual.

I think you guys are missing the point. He's not asking if it's far-fetched. I think the idea here is that TV may not be a great means of learning about how 'real life' really is. So many things are exaggerated, censored, made up, etc, that it could lead the turtles to think we're a lot different than we are.

Anyway, I don't think it would've been too bad in their time compared to how things are now. Reality TV is hardly what it claims to be, things are far more sexualized/materialistic now, and most programs seem to have a very obvious agenda.

They knew April from watching the news, didn't they? It's been a while since I watched the first ep.

It may be an imperfect window but it does help them learn a LOT about the world outside of the sewers. Not sure how they will handle it in the new show but I imagine them down in the sewer with donnie having some kind of rigged internet connection while they all sit around and watch youtube

I'd rather them think people were like characters from 80's television than garbage like Jersey Shore.

I think it's just a gag. April's reaction basically cements Powder's theory that if they learned about humanity from the boob-tube, then they have a very jaundiced view of how we operate. All in all it was a throwaway line in a comedy series. :P

I find it quite a brave conquest for the Turtles to use the media to learn the ways of the world, as it really can persuade the humans that the Turtles are heroes. However, until the Turtles saved April since she was about to be kidnapped by thugs that happened to be in the sewers, the Turtles would feel that the best thing to do is to learn from the outsiders and only apply when it is necessary, and live with their underground trappings. They may have been too afraid to be kidnapped by normal humans without having any real purpose in their lives, even if someone like April would view them as cute, unusual animals. So watching TV helped the Turtles prepare for the overworld in case the sewers no longer became habitable or an enemy attack such as the Shredder forced them above ground.

Once April belived in the Turtles/Splinter's origins, it was the Turtles' first human friend, and with April's topside skills, allowed the Turtles to explore the overworld for the first time safely since with April on their side, could protect them from suspicious people such as the Gun-totting Granny.

Well according to some episodes the Turtles watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. There was an ep where Raph says, "Do we have to get Vanna to start showing us letters?" or something like that.

In the second movie Raphael wanted to watch Oprah. :D

Isn't this how real life children learn about things these days?

Hmm it wasn't 15 years in the Fred Wolf show. Their transformation to teens was instant.

Indeed. My mother learned Spanish by watching spanish TV, especialy kids shows like Sesame Street.

They called themselves teenagers though, it had to have been 15 years.

They may not have been kid forms but its not like episode 1 of the OT took place the day after they were mutated.

I think it's very realistic that they learned about humans from television since they weren't allowed to venture outside.

And I learned some French from watching the Canadian version of Sesame Street. I even was counting to twelve in French by the time I entered kindergarten.

It's not like they had a whole lot of other options for learning about the surface world before April came along. It was either TV or nothing.

Hey if it worked for the Junkion Transformers, then it could work for the turtles as well.

For the win!

In fact I'd say in the long run learing about humans from television worked out better for the Turtles than the Junkions. I mean the Turtles entire dialogue isn't comprised of jingles and catchphrases. Plus the Turtles clearly watched the news, because they knew who April was, and the news back then was a fairly accurate glimpse into human behavior

That is how Martian Manhunter of DC Comics learned about humanity and learned how to walk among us. This is predominantely shown in The New Frontier set in the late 50s'. He is shown changing form into Buggs Bunny,Groucho Marx, and others before he adapts his John Jones persona. It may be a narrow minded viewpoint but I have heard that it is a great way to learn a new language especially with captions avialable. It would seem if the turtles learn about topside from television that they would have seen a pizza commericial if not it being eating my a character in the last 16 years. It was a great clip in the new show,but its too far fetched of a reaction of not knowing what it is while it is not farfetched for it to be thier first taste.

French
 

I watched the 1998 FIFA World Cup, which was played in France. Since then, I know what 32 countries are named in French.

Or youporn.

I've always liked the TV explanation. It helps to explain a lot, like why the Turtles have different accents (emulating their favorite on-screen characters?), why they're big on pop culture jokes and references, and perhaps even why they're as good-natured and friendly as they are despite having spent fifteen years in a dank sewer raised as ninjas. There's just as many good educational, family-oriented shows as there are the opposite kind.

I also like that TV better establishes the TMNT's relationship with April. They knew who she was before they physically met her, thus giving them more reason to trust her.

Hold on. When was it ever suggested in the OT that they recognized her from the news? They obsessively caught all her newscasts after meeting her, but AFAIK they only recognized her from the news in the live-action movies.

They called her by her name right after they saved her. How else would they know who she is?

Good point! I never caught that.

I remember an old television-related comic strip which showed two teenage boys walking together, and one says to the other, "Everything I know about sex is from watching 'Benny Hill'."

I try to keep in mind that TV was a lot more wholesome back in the early 1980s, the era in which the classic toon Ninja Turtles grew up. For all we know Leonardo might've been a fan of Growing Pains and Donatello could've liked Family Ties. I can see Raphael enjoying Three's Company, and it goes without saying Michaelangelo had to be a fan of Bugs Bunny as a kid!

Three's Company wasn't exactly what I'd call a wholesome show...it was pretty raunchy, actually, which is one of the reasons I loved it, of course.

I have Raph pegged as more of daytime talk viewer.

Early 1980's
 

Early 1980's? TMNT didn't become a cartoon until 1987. That's late in the decade.

Yea but the way I see it the Turtles did spend a few years living in the sewers before the events of the series premiere. I figure they were atleast 7 or 8 when they got mutated (even though in the origin's flashback they looked like full grown teens), so I'd put the date of their mutation somewhere around the year 1982.

Flashback
 

It's just a flashback, intented to show the mutagen's effect. They could have been even younger, like 1, 2 or 3 years old. Remember Archie showing them even younger than 7-8 in later flashback stories.

Their transformation to teenagers was instant though. That's the way it was in "Turtle Tracks". Their childhood was pre-mutation. I could be wrong but I don't think even "Back To The Egg" or "Adventures in Turtle Sitting" contradicted that.

I don't buy it that the Turtles instantly went from regular turtles --> teenagers in the OT. I know that's what it looks like in the cartoon during Splinter's explanation to April, but it just doesn't make sense that he would have had adequate time to train them as ninjas if that were the case.

After Splinter's story, Raphael says, "we've spent half our lives crawling around on the bottom of a glass bowl and we 'aint goin' back." That leads me to believe they were mutated around age 7 or so.

They weren't really adequate ninjas. =p

I think you're attaching a notion of logic to a cartoon which isn't very logical. I don't think it was ever stated in any episode how long it took them to learn ninjitsu. It could have any legnth of time from a few months to a year or two.

I can buy that maybe what we saw in the "Turtle Tracks" may be some visualisation of what happened, certainly the visual of them in the crawling in the mutagen was later retconned in "Michaelangelo Meets Mondo Gecko" were the mutagen is green and they are in some random sewer tunnel (instead of the lair) with a lizard and the villain of that episode whos name escapes me. I suppose that episode is the closest we'll get to a hinting the turtles had childhoods since we saw Mondo as a kid. Pretty much every other time we saw mutagen it instantly transformed animals it touched into fully grown mutants. Look at Slash who was supposed to be a baby turtle and became an adult who could walk talk and fight instantly.

In the end I think like most cartoons it's continuity was made up as it went along. I think as far as most of the writers were concerned their change was instant. It's not like the Fred Wolf show is alone in that, the current IDW also makes the turtles instantly transform into teenagers. A change I don't particularly care for conidering that's supposed to be somewhat serious.