What if the turtles were cockroaches?
 

Let's say in an alternate universe, the kid and his bowl of pet turtles didn't show up that day and we had cockroaches crawling in the mutagen instead. I have a feeling Splinter would had trained them reguardless of their species lol. I can totally see Shredder and Krang making bug puns.

And the award for "Most Pointless Thread" goes to TurtleFan2012

^ can second place be any of cybercubeds threads?

There ARE other creatures down in sewers like spiders, rats, roaches. Just imagine if 4 roaches crawled in that mutagen.

edit - I guess people are not familiar with "what-if" scenarios. You guys must not heard of such things :teek:

What if they were the Racist Alien Big-Boobied Explosions?

Imagine all the shippers hooking up mutant cockroaches. Oh yeah.

Lol really?!:lol:

Give me turtles any day over cockroaches. Yeah I can just imagine the bug puns "You're beginning to bug me".

They would probably look like Chong or Scumbug.

Splinter would probably kill them with fire.

Oh I know I would. I hate those things. DX

Don't see why people are so rude and calling this a pointless topic. The question here is would this series have been as big and popular as it is today had they used other animals besides the Turtles?

I prefer Immature Radioactive Samurai Slugs!

(clap hands) :)

Thank you! I hate when you ask a question and people get on your case about it. It's like they never heard of "what-if" topics before.

I would've gone with something a little more interesting than cockroaches, like what if they were some kind of farm animal like cows or pigs?

This. Why not ask:
"Would the Ninja Turtles have been successful if they were something other than Turtles?"

Cockroaches, no the show would probably not be as popular because they are disgusting.

Pretty much any animal that can be deemed cute could be substituted and an argument could be made they could carry a franchise like this one.

Four ninja rats would actually be a cute show and kind of remind me of the Redwall series.

But no cockroaches or spiders would probably turn a lot of people off.

That's kind of another reason I made such a stink about this thread. The question has been asked before. I can't remember when, but I do know it was most likely asked on this very same forum.

There was a forum I used to use called TheClubbingForum it was God awful for people b*tching and getting on your case. Funny thing was I met a couple of people from the forum in real life and they were completely different, they were friendly and didn't get on my case once. It was a forum full of keyboard warriors.

Does this answer your question?

I find this really hard to believe.:lol:

Splinter would have eaten them. A cockroach makes a tasty meal for a rat. And nobody wants cockroaches for sons.

It would probably just have been that one one-shot comic

Then they would suck. Everyone hates roaches aside from a few bug and roach enthusiasts. Turtles, Rats, Sharks and Dinosaurs work because they have a fairly large following on their own. Making them mutant/anthropomorphic just makes it more awesome.
The Immature Radioactive Samurai slugs are fine as a parody, but they would never work.
Teenage mutant ninja Roaches sound gross. And for some reason the phrase "Splicer kit" keeps coming to mind

I could see this being the next film version of Animal Farm.

I don't know where you just sent me :rolling:

Shredder and Krang are hearing your dimwit idea and may use it to their advantage to get rid of those Turtles!

We had enough TMNT spinoffs anyway, and this would have been no different than another Samurai Pizza Cats, Biker Mice, or Street Sharks, but all of them would eat up the Teenage Mutant Ninja Cockroaches as prey!

Wait, there's already Oggy and the Cockroaches, and get this, it has been uncancelled...TWICE.

true, but how could you call them 'TMNT rip-offs' if we're talking about a what-if situation when the ninja roaches being the original. In that particular case, the question is if the show would have been big enough to have 'Ninja Roach' rip-offs like Biker Mice and Street Sharks.

good one man.

Other animals could work of course, though going with the original origin at least, it'd have to be something that could be a pet, and could fit through that sewer grate...so that pretty much narrows it down to turtles, fish, or...gerbils or something. Or maybe baby gators. A team of Leatherheads...I'd watch/read it.

Anything else would require altering that original origin slightly, to them getting into the sewers another way that wasn't through the grate when the bowl broke, and that would then leave it to 'pet' type animals. Only if you go away from that could you make it go to even more out there animals.

Honestly though? I'm glad it was turtles. There's just something absurd about it being turtles - an animal that's traditionally seen as being incredibly slow - being shown as ninjas - who are fast - that just works for some reason.