Teenage mutant hero turtles?
 

Yes, I know about the uk call them "hero turtles", but I always wondered, why?
So why did they call them hero turtles?
If you can't make any sense of what I'm saying, see for yourself
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9p...s#.URkf5Wt5mK0
It's hilarious how much trouble they went through to edit out Mikey's nunchaku and the word "ninja" it's funny.

The UK tryed to tone down the violence a little bit. Nunchucks were used in gangs, so they tried to tone it down. The video game "Shadow of the Ninja" became "Blue Shadow" (which also affected other places in the PAL Region).

Basically, for about 25 years Ninjas and anything to do with them were pretty much banned from British media - that included weapons like nunchaku and shuriken - no matter what, whether it was an "18" rated movie or cartoon like TMNT (although things like comics & video games were exempt). This was pretty much because the guy who was in charge of ratings board hated all that kind of stuff and would refuse a rating to anything Ninja-related (effectively banning it from legal distribution). Once he popped his clogs, the "ban" was lifted.

This resulted in the TMNT cartoon being absolutely butchered and rendered it virtually unwatchable.

Oh, I could just imagine the episode titles

"hero sword of nowhere"

The UK fanbase has my sympathy :P To think you still remained fans all through that BS is really cool. Respect! Glad those days are behind all of us.

I could never forget lines like "We were the TEENAGE MUTANT....TURTLES"

Can I get a clip of this?

It's just "Sword of Nowhere". I don't know "The Unknown Ninja".

Those were the only episode titles with "Ninja", see

http://www.thetechnodrome.com/eplist.shtml

Yeah, there's one in the first post.

I meant in the actual show. Not just the theme song.

I think that's over egging it a bit. The movie and the merchendise like the tie comic, novelisations, magazine etc were done with the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles name. When The Epic Begins was shown on Sky Movies it was also with the original name. (Using Nunchuks was still a no, no though)

It wasn't exactly uncommon to see the odd bit of generic turtle merchendise with the original name either.

I wouldn't say unwatchable. There's a few things here and there that stand out that even as a kid you know missed something usualy down to music skipping or as Zarius pointed out the clunky way people called them "Teenage Mutant...Turtles" but for the most part nothing major that you wouldn't know unless you watched the original episode.

Bizarrely Bravo during the 2000s when it was airing TMHT randomy showed an episode of one the Red Sky seasons with Ninja intact. It even keeps the "enter the action zone" intro.

I wish it didn't cause them to get rid of Mikey's nunchuckes from Seasons 5 and up.

Damn UK.

Now that I agree with.

Pretty sure that was CBS that made that call. I doubt they made any cosideration for UK or European audiences in that regard.

You really think only Mike's weapons would be targeted if it weren't for the UK?

Honestly I'm glad it was changed to hero. I dread to think how my life would of turned out if I had to see and hear such a violent word as ninja everyday.
On a separate note us people from the U.K are known for our sarcasm ;)

:lol: amen.

I hate how they did that cause of the UK. It's like, it's an American cartoon for US. If you can't take it, make your own UK action show and leave out show alone It would be like skipping out the shower scenes out of anime shows shown in Japan because American audiences can't take it.

It still irks me that Germany forced SoTO to a 12-an-up only rating upon its initial release, which cost up to half of its potential audience. But if the show was really called TMHT had I seen it for the first time, I would think that there was no Asian element. Also notice that a scene from the intro consists of the Technodrome in Season 2, as the show didn't begin in the UK for over a year after it first aired, which meant that the UK censors studied the original and simply edited it out. The original voice actors never recorded any alternate dialogue, so any replacement had to be dubbed in the UK if it wasn't edited out. But when you see the upcoming TV schedule and see that the Turtles are only on for 20 minutes, you know something's missing. At least you didn't have to sit through any commercials in the UK, and it did come on at a good timeslot in the late afternoon.

Didn't just affect the UK, Norway got most that Hero crap as well.

But most people said Ninja then Hero thanks to the Live Action movie still had Ninja in its title, unsure bout the video games, I can't remember that. But the toys, Archie comics and Fred Wolf series had Hero in it.

but Norway is also the same country where the Christian People Party tried to ban American Superhero comics because Superman did not teach good Christian Family values, no joke.

The first TMNT movie had a age 15 rating

TV3 had a studio in the UK. They boradcasted the show to Denmark, Norway and Sweden. This made the turtles famous as the "Hero Turtles". But there were always videotapes in Denmark, Norway and Sweden using the original titles.

But are there any family values in Superman?

Not really, but still, trying to ban Superhero comics are pretty whacked. But not too surprising with which politician that wanted it.

You really mea they tried to use a law in the parliament of Norway against it, saying something like?
"US superhero comics are banned in Norway. Everyone who's caught by the Norwegian police selling them shall be sentenced to prison."

basically, yes. There was a serious attempt in the mid 80's to ban American Superhero comics in Norway.

Why not? It's not just TV stations in the UK that had a problem with Mikey using his chuks. Otherwise the UK and other EU countries would have kept editing out him using his chuks as it had been doing.

So blades and sai's were OK? Mike's chucks were targeted because of the UK banning them. Since Fred Wolf probably didn't want to bother producing two versions of the show they just got rid of them altogether.

I don't get what you're trying to say? It's ridiculous that anyone would deem swords and daggers as well okay but nunchuks offensive but people do both sides of the pond.

Fred Wolf didn't produce two versions of the show. Whoever edits the show in the UK would do that simply by cutting small pieces were Mike used his chuks or most times the word "ninja" is spoken. Even if they were both allowed in the UK they'd have to do some editing here and there to accomadate the different times UK TV places ad breaks.

Nunchaku is easier to make then swords and Sai.

It was amazing when I finally got my hands on the first season of the original Series on Region 1 dvd and there was parts I had never seen before due to the stupid censorship we had here in the UK.

Still got my old TMHT videos and now they are a cool part of my collection

If I remember correctly, they edited the theme song too. That annoyed me to no end (along with the edited logo. "Hero"? PAH!)

As messed up as the TMHT theme is, the title sequence they came up with isnt actually all that bad, I loved the shot of the four of them running towards the lake at the end with the dissolve fade logo for one thing. More effective than the U.S one. Plus the UK intro even incorporated Krang into the sequence where as he's left out in the U.S intro.

When I watched it as a kid I didn't notice and now I just don't care. Censorship is a messed up thing.
And Mr Cubed, I'd rather be living in the UK with 'TMHT' than have to put up with some of the stuff that goes on over in the U.S on a regular basis.
:)

Was the light bulb scene in "New York's Shiniest" also edited out.

I remember when the movie came out I was confused about whether it was 'The Hero Turtles' or 'The Ninja Turtles'. The thing about is if you watch the Hero intro Michelangelo's nunchucks are supposed to be edited out via using footage from Season 2 but still appear in some shots quite clearly. They didn't even totally remove them so what's the point, either edit them out or leave them in. By the way when Turtles first started in the UK on BBC I was slightly confused when they started with the second season and not the first. It's only a couple years later Sky One showed Season 1 although still as a Hero Turtles edit. But it was better than nothing.

here in Brazil, we're so hardcore we never even bothered to call them "Teenage" and "Mutant" we just call them "NINJA"
And all the kids would make their own nunchakus back in the day, oh..the good ol' times...

if you think about it, Don's bo should have been censored too, it was damn easy to get the stick out of mom's broom and break things all around, oh yeah!

How come foreigners tv stations had so much power to make FW change mike´s weapons?

It is not necessarily that they had power, more that FW wanted to make it available to as many viewers as possible with as little alteration as possible.

Ok, thank you. So the tv stations wrote a note or something to FW asking them to make some changes, right? From which episode did FW make the changes? Cheers.

What did they replace mikes nunchaku with?

A grappling hook.