How were you introduced to tmnt?
 

Would be interesting to see how many fans here got to know the turtles. I'm guessing a good chunk are people who grew up with the FW cartoon.

Personally, I first knew the turtles from about the mid 2000s when i occassionally saw an episode of the 4kids cartoon come on here and there. I was entertained by the show when it came on, but never followed it seriously or really got to understand the setting.

My first offical-ish introduction to tmnt was in 2007 when me and my dad went to watch the CGI film in theatres. Like the 4kids cartoon, I was entertained and by this point, I understood the turtles' personalities, knew who splinter was and had a rough idea of their lifestyle (eating pizza, skateboarding in the sewers, having japanese martial arts skills). I even played the tmnt game on the DS and it kept me pretty occupied for a while until the tmnt phase lasted until it was overshadowed by other franchises like pokemon and call of duty.

However, it was mid 2013 when the nick cartoon was airing where I lived. By the looks of the CGI, i thought nick was adapting the 2007 tmnt movie into an animated series in a way like the penguins of madagascar and kung fu panda: legends of awesomeness. Going in, I was initially feeling a dose of nostalgia visiting the turtles again, not expecting too much but contrary to my expectations, the Nick cartoon completely blew me away and I was instantly hooked at how charming and fun it was. From there, I began to look at all the incarnations and became a huge turtles fan, with my top favourite version being a tie between the Fred Wolf and Nick cartoon.

It was about the year 1991 when the grandson of my neighbour (2 years older) played with Hero Turtles figures. Up to this point of time I was just playing with LEGO, if I remember correctly. But from then on, I was a passionate Turtles fan. My first figure was Basic Donatello, bought in a little toy and stationery shop in my hometown. My mother was with me, but without the enthusiasm for Turtles toys, what she had for LEGO in those days. I have quite sharp memories and see myself still standing there, looking up to the choice of figures and selecting Don, when the shop owner said to my skeptical-looking mother, to convince her a little: "That's one of the good guys." An imprinting experience.

I don't exactly remember when my first contact to the turtles occured.

As I watched the first movie around 1991 I already had a rough idea about the turtles. At that time I already thought of myself as a turtles-fan.

The first contact could have been these Eastman/Laird picture, that I received from an US-living relative of mine as a fold-up poster without any more information:

http://media.comicbook.com/uploads1/...z2l-104383.jpg

I loved that poster very much, but I really can't recall anymore what was earlier: that I got the poster, or that I saw the movie...

Some months later the first episodes of the Fred Wolf-cartoon started with one episode every Sunday morning, and the first issues of the Archie comics were released, and I could convince my parents to buy me the comics.

I got some action figures too: my first one was Casey Jones (my favourite character from the movie), and I got Storage Shell Raph, Splinter, Mondo Gecko and Srgt. Bananas and an Ooze Canon too.

After I went to the high school, I lost some interest on the turtles, but occasionally I watched the cartoon, if I caught it on a TV channel.

Later my mother spent a lot of my toys - including my TMNT figures - to the child of a poor family, and I think my comic collection had the same fate.

After a long time, I was surfing the Internet with a newly awaken interest on comics - thanks for a friend of mine, who showed me Watchmen - and I stumbled upon a page from the Mirage TMNT #1: Raphael on a rooftop.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ndcKruZg1a...ds+Raphael.jpg

I was immediately amazed and wanted to know more about the original turtles.

After some months of reading about the franchise at Wikipedia and Turtlepedia, I bought Vol.1 of the ultimate Edition. An at the moment I got my copy, and opened it, I became a reborn TMNT-fan. :tcool:

I was like 8 years old in 1989 when I was first exposed to the original cartoon. I didn't really care for. It wasn't until after I saw the first movie in 1990 that I fell in love with the franchise.

Like this:

http://www.dga.org/Craft/DGAQ/All-Ar...400&h=250&as=1

It was Jr High for me. A boyfriend of my sister's at the time left his copy of the OT in the basement. I don't remember what season the show was in at the time, maybe the 2nd? Kind of got hooked on that.

In an effort to learn all I could of the show I watched the credits and saw the reference to the comic...and that was pretty much it.

Oh, it was horrorshow, was it? :D

Nah I just felt like giving a wildly different answer than ever before as I've seen this very same thread like 20 times since I joined :tlol:

Back in 1997 or 1998, when I was 7-8 years old, the FW series reruns started to air on cable TV in my country. My older brother was a huge fan of the Turtles in 90-92, and by the time the reruns started to air, he was already 14-15 years old, but for some reason wanted to watch the show again. Nostalgia maybe, I dunno. I vaguely remember him excitedly mentioning while watching TV one day "oh look, the Turtles will be back on TV!". A few days later he'd tell me to turn into the channel where the FW series reruns were gonna air. Oddly enough, I didn't put up a fight considering I was watching Cartoon Network at the time.

Anyway, I watched the first 30-40 episodes or so of the FW series in 1997-1998. Watched from Turtle Tracks until Four Musketurtles, I think? I liked it for the most part, iirc. And found the Eye of Sarnoth mini-arc to be quite epic at the time, believe it or not.

Now, for some reason, I stopped watching the FW series one day, even though I suppose the reruns didn't stop until the last episode of the show. So between 1999 and 2002, I didn't watch any Turtles related stuff. Then, one random Spring day in 2003, when I was in 7th grade, I noticed that the FW series was on TV again. It was that episode about Splinter's kimono, I think. Something clicked in my mind and I decided to ask my mom to buy me a couple of VHS tapes os that I could record every FW series episode I'd watch, which my brother had done some years before with the early eps already. And that's how I got hooked into the Turtles. Back when I was 12 years old. Then one year later, the 2k3 series arrives here and I had something new to watch by the time I had finished the FW series. And this time it was better because I could actually find action figures. I got the Turtles and Shredder in Christmas 2003. It was pretty exciting. And I played with my Turtle action figures until I was like 16, and have no shame in admitting it so.

My first exposure was the 87 cartoon when it was on a UHF station.

I'm not really sure where I got my first introduction, considering that I was small in the death throws of Turtlemania, and Pokémania was taking its place. I know my grandmother had a VHS of the Next Mutation movie, and I might have tried watching it on a few occasions, only to get bored and leave. I only remember very small parts it.

My most distinct memory is catching the end of one of the movies at a DMV. I was pretty much given no choice but to watch Michelangelo pick up some random red eared slider that was mucking around in the grass.

I had seen it floating around, and it only really smacked back into reality by way of Doug Walker and Phelan Porteous. And I only finally decided to watch it after Phelous' top 40 dumbest moments. I just had to experience the madness for myself, and I haven't looked back.

That flying carousel, man...

Yeah, I assumed. I meant horrorshow in nadsat... ;)
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appen...kwork_Orange#H

My first introduction to tmnt was the 1987 cartoon in the early 90s when I was 3 or 4.

I donno, probably through the toys.

87 show and 3 movies.

1987 cartoon series. I remember renting the same few VHS tapes from our gas station on the way home. Probably watched the same 6-8 episodes over and over.

Got into the toys because how couldn't you? Those were the coolest freakin toys.

No idea, the OT came out when I was born so when I started to like them it was already a fad so likely from the tips or other tmnt merchandise I saw at stores. I'm pretty sure it wasnt from the OT or because a friend told me though.

I've seen so many people claim mirage is what got them into the titles on random websites that if it were true P&L would've been millionaires before they even thought of the cartoon :lol:

I watch the original toon when I was 3-4, got Raphael as my first toy, and the rest is history.

Raph was my first toy too, he was my favorite and probably still aesthetically since I always grab his figures first even if I kind of enjoy and relate to Donatello's personality more as an adult.

The first movie.

I wasn't too young when I got my first exposure, the 87' series had ended a little bit before I was born and I heard some stuff about it. I saw like 2 episodes of it back then but that was it for then. Then the 2003 series came around and I loved it, I started watching the old series and the old movies too and got hooked. When the 2012 turtles came around I started collecting the figures and now here I am :tsmile:

The original series, I was 8 when it started. Not really sure quite how soon I came across it though.

In 1988 (ten years old) I saw the original figures on the shelves of a local department store. I assumed they were all bad guys because they had no eyes and looked mean. Some time later, my cousin brought over a few of the figures and we played with them. He enlightened me to the existence of the cartoon show, so that Saturday I got up at 6am to watch an episode, Splinter No More. I started time recording them every week after that, since they were on so early.

when i was 4/5 my sister was into it so we had tmnt toys and vhs movies some time i watch the movies or the show it was cool i got into it more later when i seen the nicktoon ones i watched the 2003 one too

Mikey the soft head figure was my first TMNT Memory I believe. I picked him up from I think a Kmart in the early summer of 1988 though I may have already saw season 1 when it debuted but i'm not 100% sure. I know I had been watching the first season of the show in rerun/syndication form by that point.

I was perfectly aged for the OT and the toys... lost track of my toys and the toon during middle school/other comics and wasn't actually aware of the comics beyond the Archie ones but never picked them up... I used to think that New Comic Book Day was Friday and by then the LCS was always out of the adult one if they ever carried it... flashforward to my divorce in 2009 and I zombie walked around Jetpack Comics FCBD event and right by Laird and co with copies of issue 29 from v4 (could have been 30?) and the NECA four pack (which I also missed). A few months later, I saw TMNT #5 and decided to give it a try. Managed to track down at least a copy of every issue out there since then (minus a few pricey first prints and the error #3)...


It's been a fun ride.

Everyone at school knew the OT was coming - it premiered in prime time if memory serves, so it would have been hard to miss. There were only three commercial stations at the time.

I'm sure I've been through this a few times in previous threads, but what the heck. :tsmile:

The Fred Wolf show premiered two days after my 4th birthday, and I probably discovered TMNT that way a year or two later. I remember I had a VHS tape with random season one and two episodes recorded from YTV that I pretty much wore out as a kid. (Honestly, the intro sequence was probably my favourite part -- I remember I'd keep rewinding and playing that back on repeat.)

I do remember that the first comic I ever bought was Archie's TMNT Adventures #13. This bad boy here:

http://s16.postimg.org/tt00j0wr9/tmnta13.jpg

And that really kicked things off. I started collecting the Archie comics pretty seriously, and I found the characters, the stories, and the world overall a lot more interesting than the cartoon. It also opened me up to become a life-long comics fan.

Of course, there were also the toys and the Nintendo games. Those were a big part of it. And the movies were a big one too. The original 1990 movie kind of shocked me in comparison to the Fred Wolf cartoon, but in a good way.

During my back-issue searches for more Archie comics, I came across some Mirage books as well. In particular I remember seeing this cover:

http://www.miragelicensing.com/comic...48/48cover.jpg

I knew that TMNT began as a comic, but I don't think I realized there was a different comic than the Archie series. And the difference was inescapable. I didn't get that issue right away, and I kind of dropped off TMNT a bit after the fad wore off and other stuff took its place in the '90s Kid Public Consciousness (y'know, Power Rangers). But I learned a bit more about where the TMNT came from originally over the years, and wound up getting the colourized trade paperbacks from First Publishing on eBay in either grade 9 or 10. And that's the point I never looked back.

I collected as many Mirage comics as I could after that, and it quickly became my favourite version of all. And then the 2003 series launched years later, which stuck close to the original stories (or as close as a totally kid-friendly version could), which I really appreciated. Not a bad little era for my particular tastes, really.

One day my childhood friends were play-acting it the schoolyard. I caught the next Fred Wolf episode that aired and enjoyed it enough to stick with it and join in the fun. But i would say it was the first live action movie and the Archie comics that made me a life-long fan.

I was 7 or 8 and the Fred Wolf cartoon started being shown on BBC's Going Live. That's how I got into Turtles.

Either the OT or a toy, but I'm 99% sure it was the show in the late 80s.

It was the 80s toon, I think I started watching it when it was on BBC 1/BBC 2 around 89/90 but I can't remember when BBC first aired TMNT

I do remember watching it on the DJ Cat Show on Sky 1 when my parents got Sky in 1992.

Seeing a comic cover in a small indy comic shop called Forever People in late 80's. Was looking for imported US prints of Transformers at the time. I wished I'd have picked it up and looked through it.

A couple of years passed, I was now in year 8 of Secondary school and I saw an advert during the Childrens BBC slot for a new cartoon called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. I thought I'd give it a whirl. First episode I managed to catch was the Killer Pizzas. The earlier Eye of Sarnath material I caught up with on the BBC's Saturday Going Live show.

Anything beyond Season 3 I could not watch as those episodes aired on Sky TV and my dad would not back down saying No to it. Aside from occasionally catching the show at a friends house I managed to have Planet of the Turtloids recorded for me and bought the Sewer Heroes VHS tapes.

Aside from not being able to get enough of the toon, I subscribed to the Fleetway comic (Archie TMNT reprints and additional material) and that was a real highlight every fortnight. It was through the comics I first caught Ken Mitchroney's work and drew inspiration. I didn't know about this version of the comic until I found a ripped up copy on the way to school. Between the torn pages was a reprint of the Stump Wrestling story featuring Jim Lawson's artwork. I picked up and had a look and was worth having "Scab!" yelled at me from across the street for. I took a lot of heat at school for liking TMNT.

The Toys. That was a different story. The summer I think of that year (1990) I found a few of the toys on shelf in a Tescos and didn't buy anything believing they would be there when I came back from saving up some pocket money. These looked amazing and I had to have them!!!

They were not there when I returned! In fact, the toys were hard to get and scarce leading up til Christmas. My mum would get up at 6am with me and we'd queue up outside Toys R Us almost every weekend for a two rationed per customer arrangement when the doors would open and staff were standing behind the open cases. Felt like Jingle All The Way. Eventually Christmas came and I eventually had a completed set of the boys in green.

SNES Turtles in Time. It was really fun. I think the family got up to "Skull and Crossbones."

I watched reruns of the 2003 cartoon back on cartoon network's old Miguzi block

I was nine years old when BBC1 started running Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. I was a little late to the party (well, not that late - BBC skipped season 1 and went straight to season 2) and my first episode was "Curse of the Evil Eye". Loved it. By good fortune, the TMHT Adventures comic had just been released, and picked it up with issue #1. Loved those old comics.

This was all in January 1990.

Caught the OT miniseries on Saturdays when I was little, ran across the Archie comic and first NES game not long after. Got the Leonardo figure from KB toys not long after, and I've been hooked ever since.

I think it was 1990.

I was introduced to the ninja turtles through the toyline by Playmates. My dad was a toy collector so we always went to the stores in hunt of the new figures. Good times. ☺ Although I had a variety of toys as a kid...the Turtles were my favorites.

In either late 88, or early 89, I saw the cartoon, on TV, & then later on, bought Bebop. I was 10 at the time.