Does the Fred Wolf show get unfairly blamed?
 

I should say this first, I never watched the 80s show, it was before my time so I cant agree or disagree with anyone on how good or bad it is. But I have noticed a lot of resentment towards it.

People dislike the impact its had and think it has too much hold over the franchise today. And to me thats not really something for it to be held responsible for. Thats the fault of the people that the franchise is currently in the hands of.

What does everyone else think?

The blame is not at all unfair.

It both created the franchise's lasting staying power and perpetual public perception, while at the same time forever hobbling it by handcuffing it to the cowabunga-calling pizza-munching groovy goofy cartoon concepts.

if they kept it like season 1 and season 2 it would have been fine.


if it wasnt for the success of the 80s toon there would have been no 90 movie though so you kind of needed it.

but the lack of weapon usage and just throwing people around in every episode was poor.

What I mean say is, the Fred Wolf isnt making people follow its example. The people that are working on the franchise now can always decide to not go in that direction and do something different

No, I think the criticism is fair. Season one was great even though it had its own problems. The cartoon got dumbed down in the later seasons, especially in the mid seasons like four and five when it became a parody of itself. Also, I didn't like that the violence was toned down due to censorship.

The show isn't as good as I remembered it. There are annoying catchphrases and too many pizza jokes. It was good for its time, as I didn't know about the comics and there was no other tmnt cartoon to compare it to back then, but parts of the show haven't aged well. I prefer the 2003 cartoon, as it had better characterisation and story arcs and was based on the original Mirage Comics.

I still like the OT, though, as it contains my favourite version of characters such as Rat King, Learherhead, Raphael and Shredder. The banter between Shredder and Krang was entertaining to watch and the pop culture references were good. There were some good story arcs as well in seasons like eight and ten.

Fans of the Mirage comic get annoyed that what the general public know the Turtles for is the Fred Wolf cartoon, not the original comics which were much more complex and gritty in writing. There's a tendency by some people to label the FW show inferior although I would argue against that being the case. The FW show was a lot more clever than people feel it is and it's obviously had more of an impact in that whenever people remember the Turtles they remember the 80s cartoon iteration. This is what makes fans of the later animated shows even more annoyed.

To be honest, When the 80s cartoon came out, and then discovering it was based on the mirage comics, I tried to get into the Mirage comics, but I wasn't feeling them, The original comics were too dark and weren't like the show, then I found the archie series comics, which were more to my liking, it took the 80s cartoon and went on a different direction.

The Fred Wolf will always hold a special place in my heart, any incarnation of TMNT borrows some elements from it, be in the Nick TV series, IDW comics, or new movie.

It is a bit annoying that a cartoon that ended twenty years ago still overshadows the more interesting and/or more recent material, especially when said cartoon is in terrible quality. The absurd lack of similarity to the comic it's based on is just icing on the cake.

Like people have said numerous times before, the show is pretty old, so people should just let it go already or at least watch some episodes without the nostalgia goggles on. Doesn't help the fact that it's pretty different from the source material and a fairly dumbed down and kiddified version of it, which makes your average joe view the franchise as something for pathetic manchildren while liking Batman or Spider-Man is "cool".

It was a "necessary evil", it made the franchise big in the 90's. Without the FW show we'd probably just have the Mirage comics series, the Pen & paper tabletop game and a movie.

iirc the movie was already in production before the show got overly popular, as the FW elements that are in the movie was added later to the script.

It is what it is and did it's own important job of taking the Turtles mainstream, even if it wasn't via the most favorable route to some. But so many older fans would never even have discovered or gotten into TMNT if it were not for that show. I was too young for the comics, seeing as I had only just turned five when the first was published, but the cartoon targeted to my age group, well that did the job. But it comes full circle, I'd later know about everything else. And a lot that came after does kind of owe it to that first series for making the TMNT popular enough in the first place for people to be interested in continuing to sell them to the public in other ways.

The hold the original has over it... well, you've got an adult generation now who's behind some (a lot) who's main experience with TMNT was through that show. AND when it comes to random merchandise, particularly clothing, there is also the "vintage" factor that most other stuff isn't old enough to tap into yet. It would be nice if Mirage could get in on that more too though. But... marketing. The average, casual nostalgic of course is less aware of it, if at all.

It does not get unfairly blamed.
It does not get unfairly lauded, either.

The original Mirage book started as a joke.
The original Cartoon started as a toy commercial.
Thems just the brass tacks of the matter.

I would say the blame is a little much.... Without the cartoon we may not even have a franchise to bicker about... We're just waiting for someone to give a grittier movie franchise and it isn't happening anytime soon. Batman was Adam West for a generation and you can see where that is now. Michael Bay was the wrong guy for the job for those who favor the mirage story. The cartoon put the franchise on the map.

This thread should be locked. The IDW comic is heavily based on the original cartoon and people love it, so it goes to show you in the hands of good writers and OT elements are done well.

Say what you want about the 87 show but without it the comic series likely would have died out by the late 80's early 90's and the creators would have moved on to other things. The best case scenario is that the OG Comics would have survived as a Cult series and maybe picked up by DC or Marvel at some point in the early to mid 90's.

So Yeah no 87 Toon/Toyline no Mega Franchise.

If memory serves Eastman and Laird pitched to the big two, and turned down.
Mirage helped to usher in the age of the Indy Comic, which I think would have happened regardless of whether or not the FW toon came to be. I think the TMNT would have had the same impact it did on comics, just not the global phenomenon that it became because of the toon.

Weren't sales of the Mirage comic already declining after the first 11 issues? I'm not sure if Mirage TMNT would have made it past Return to New York. That might have functioned as the finale for the whole series.

Yep, I would never have found out about tmnt or have an interest in watching the later shows if it wasn't for the 1987 cartoon. I was 3 or 4 when I first started watching the cartoon in the early 90s, so it was good for its time back then, as I was part of the target demographic. The OT was a good introduction for kids to tmnt similar to the way James Bond Jr was to James Bond.

I thought Marvel wanted to buy the Turtles, but E&L turned them down by being Kirby fanboys and artistic integrity or something. With Marvel not having a creator-owned rules, they would have lost the entire property of sold to Marvel.

That is entirely possible.
Memory, it seems....did not serve.

These "what-ifs" are fascinating. Curious if you know of any statements or interviews from larger independent comic publishers (e.g. Image) that attribute any inspiration to Mirage?

It seems to me that more impact on comics simply came from those half dozen creators at Marvel who finally said "screw this" and left to form creator-owned companies?

Not off the top of my head, but a quick google gives me this:

A History of Indy Comic Books - Steven Phillip Jones

Very cool... thanks!

Wow... check out this excerpt!

Independent comics scored a stunning success in 1984 with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (#1, April), a black-and-white magazine-sized comic book published as a joke by amateur cartoonists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. TMNT became, in Wright’s words, “a megamerchandising bonanza” that was soon spun off into a long-running animated TV series, three live-action films, over two million toys and action figures, and a plethora of ancillary licensed products.[54] The Turtles’ success, meanwhile, ignited a black-and-white Indy comic book boom, and, over the next two years, hundreds of new small independent publishers flooded the market with black-and-white comic books, inflating the number of titles published each month from two hundred to eight hundred.[55] Many of these comics starred some variation of the Turtles or featured a super-team like the X-Men, and, for several months, speculators snapped up every title they could afford to buy. One TMNT copycat, Boris the Bear, proved popular enough to help launch Dark Horse Comics, founded in 1986 by Portland, Oregon comic shop owner Mike Richardson. A year later Dark Horse scored a critical success with Concrete (#1, March) by former Marvel creator Paul Chadwick, then hit it big commercially in 1988 with Aliens (#1 July). This original comic book sequel to the films Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986) cemented a symbiotic relationship between Dark Horse and the films’ studio, 20th Century Fox, that has since spawned hundreds of licensed comic books and a couple of popular films, including The Mask (1994) and Time Cop (1994).

Dark Horse came out of a TMNT spoof!

The only thing FW cartoon should be blamed for is taking TMNT mainstream and making it an international phenomenon.

Like it or love it we have many of what you guys do like because of the FW cartoon. Hell we probably wouldn't even have this forum without it. ;)

And once again I feel the need to remind you, just because it lifted ideas from the cartoon doesn't mean it's anything like the cartoon, not when they have been altered to such an extreme extent. Of course IDW took things from the Fred Wolf cartoon but they treated them like blank slates, gutted the old characterisation from the cartoon to make these characters and concepts appeal to a more mature audience.

Cartoon Krang was an incompetent weakling with an annoying voice, IDW Krang is a psychopath who wears the skin of his enemies.
Cartoon Bebop and Rocksteady behaved like children, IDW Bebop and Rocksteady are destructive monsters who makes light of extreme violence.
Cartoon Slash was a moron obsessed with palm trees, IDW Slash has extreme mood swings.
Cartoon Mutagen Man was worried he wouldn't be able to deliver a letter, IDW Mutagen Manis suicidal.

And it's probably worth mentioning that characters that did appear in the show but have been given plenty of appearences outside of it (such as Shredder) don't seem to borrow much from their Fred Wolf counterparts. I could go on but I think you get the point

I love the show but it f**ked up any chance of the public seeing the TMNT as anything more than goofy kids fodder. I mean, versions since have had their dark & serious moments, but are still handicapped by having to cater to casuals who won't accept anything that doesn't invoke nostalgic reminders of a thing they haven't given a damn about in 17 years.

You're calling Pat Farley's voice annoying? Wow, this is the first time I've ever heard anyone, in my 15 years of being part of the online TMNT fandom, say they found Krang's voice annoying. Pat Farley is almost considered the best and most iconic Krang voice we ever had.

As for IDW Krang, he's basically just Ch'rell from the 2k3 series.

Well this is all common sense. Of course the characters will be reimagined. Look at the way the Nick cartoon versions have changed too, Rocksteady is Russian and Bebop twirls around like Michael Jackson. That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the original incarnations, its that we get new takes to fit their universe.

Why do you think Rocksteady/Bebop keep coming back in the first place? They've returned in every new series (IDW, Nick, and now the movie), and are still the most popular mutant henchmen in the franchise. And its because of their original incarnations that they keep returning. Sure there was Archie Bebop/Rocksteady too, but they were too short-lived in that series to be as memorable as the Fred Wolf versions.

I'm really surprised to say I agree with Cubed on this one.

Krang's voice was/is super annoying.
That was kind of the point, but the fact remains.

When I think of annoying, I think bad. I never thought that about the voice.

My 2 cents? Ch'rell is just a serious take on Krang and is what Krang SHOULD be.

It's kinda genius how 4Kids blended Krang and Shredder into one character, from a certain POV. Of course, from another POV, it's absolutely infuriating. :tlol:

Krang being "fun" or comedic is a huge aspect of his character. Take that away and he becomes way too much like Ch'rell.

Nah, not really. Only because the Fred Wolf cartoon didn't portray any characters seriously.

Krang is an intergalactic interdimensional psychopathic conquering tyrant. What part of that has to be "fun" or "comedic?"

Does the original cartoon deserve to get ridiculed for the ridiculousness that took place in action cartoons back in the 80's? ABSOLUTELY. A big part of being a fan of franchises from the 80's is making fun of the ridiculous things that took place during them.

Now does it deserve to get blamed for anything, no. Without it, there might not ever have been the original live movies, the 4Kids series, and now the current Nickelodeon show/movies.

Actually IDW did portray Krang like this in his micro when he was younger. He was a selfish, spoiled prince. Its only after he had to survive on that planet alone that he became serious and psychotic.

Not really, he was a spoiled and probably adolescent brat before he went to Morbus but in no way comedic or funny. At least not in the way FW Krang used to be.
And FW Krang was only goofy when he was teamed up with Shredder because of their married couple dynamic.

He never said he was funny.

While the 1987 animated series could be seen as something which while making TMNT the huge phenomenon and a pop culture mainstay it had the drawback of making sure the brand could never be seen anything but a complete ridiculousness for kids.

I don't think the blame can be laid at the door of the show. The real blame is that everyone has let it.

TMNT isn't the only the comic book property that has had light hearted ultra goofy televised shows to advertise toys and yet no one holds that against the Justice League because of Super Friends. Batman himself is in many ways is comparable to TMNT in that it became well known due to a highly popular camp television show yet that doesn't hold back different takes.

Granted TMNT has some handicaps in this regard. The big one being that they are anthropomorphic animal characters which many people find hard to take as seriously. Beyond that the fact that Mirage was an indie publisher and still fairly 'new' still there's little reason why people in general are so dismissive of the comics or indeed any version other the Fred Wolf show as an irrelevance.

What's really weird is in doesn't seem as well remembered. Ask most people what Raphael's personality is and you'd get far more people saying that he's a loner or a hot head as opposed to the sarcastic one which he was in the show. Likewise Fred Wolf didn't like the idea of the turtles and Splinter being a family and while Wise and other writers sometimes try to portray them as such the idea of the turtles being brothers and Splinter their father is a theme that's really stuck. Heck even things like their nicknames of Leo, Don, Raph and Mike were never used in the show.

Eastman and Laird pitched the Fugitoid to different comic publishers but no dice perhaps due to that they were always going to self publish TMNT.

They did get an offer from Marvel to publish TMNT comics later on when the show became a hit. Presumably a comic based on the cartoon and a collection of the Mirage works similar to what they did with Elfquest. Peter and Kevin didn't really feel okay with working with Marvel due to their treatment of Kirby but did attend a meeting with them and Marvel said they wanted most of the profits from merchandising - needless to say they didn't take it.

What I find baffling is people acting like Mirage or 2k3 influence hasn't also affected every series. The Bay movies may be going full OT nostalgia mode, but not the others:

- The 2k3 series influence is seen in all modern versions of Karai. The 2k3 series made Karai into Shredder's adoptive daughter. The Nick cartoon does the same thing, make Karai into Shredder's adoptive daughter. The IDW comic makes Karai his Great Great grandaughter.

- Bishop has appeared in both the Nick cartoon and IDW comic

- Hun made his way into Mirage, a breakthrough since Mirage virtually never uses cartoon created characters, as well as IDW. There is a Nick Hun too but he doesn't resemble him.

- Fugitoid and the Triceratons, as well as the Utroms, have all appeared in Nick and IDW. Fugitoid/Utroms were never in the original cartoon.

- Renet has appeared in both Nick and IDW.

- Shredder having history to ancient Japan, the 2k3 series had him born in ancient Japan, is the same thing IDW did with their Shredder...only adding Hamato Yoshi into it as well.

- Shredder clones appeared in the Nick cartoon of all things


There is a lot of Mirage and 2k3 series influence in modern TMNT as well

I'm honestly not sure Bebop and Rocksteady are liked for the way they were written in the cartoon, it seems more likely that it simply has to do with their prominence in the cartoon and the nostalgia of the cartoon.