Did you believe the ideas were original as a child?
 

If you watched the 1987-1996 series as a child, did you believe the ideas for the stories were original.

I thought so of most concept for many years, except recognizing a Ducktales episode where that girl, it seems her name is Webby Vanderquack, temporary became a giant, just like Irma in "Attack of the 50 Foot Irma". I also watched a Superfriends series, and thought Mxyzptlk reminded of Ogg.

I can't speak for this show in particular but it comes to cartoons in general, I can't remember. I guess that I must have encountered these sorts of cliché plots for the first time at some point, it's only logical that I would but I can't honestly remember any particular cartoon being my first.

All I can remember is that I noticed how cartoons often had similar plots when episodes tended to be self-contained.:ohwell:

Since it was one of the first shows I watched or paid attention too, sure. I never realized how nearly every plot of the original cartoon is based on old sci-fi movies, or old gangster movies, or old kung fu flicks in general.

It wasn't until I rediscovered the TMNT I learnt what the episodes were based on.

It's been so long, it's hard to say. I think I at least vaguely recognized that some themes were commonly done by cartoons, including TMNT. The giant, as you say, as well as the King Kong, Phantom of the Oprah, etc.

Even today's cartoons (not just TMNT, and maybe not so much Nick) do 'that episode' that had to happen eventually.

On my first viewings of many episodes, I didn't realize that many were not original but I knew there was eventually bound to be a shrinking episode, clip show, annoying alien episode like most shows at the show (with many new episodes using the same common ideas again>)

I kinda knew stuff like the shrinking ep, the giant ep, amnesia ep, mind switch etc were done in other cartoons.

Didn't really put much thought into it.

I guess it depends on how much other animated series you could watch as a child.

As a kid I didn't think too much about it. And when I was older and rewatched the show I was already aware of the ideas the episodes was based off.

I not even watched much other animated series before.

Didn't realise that either as a kid until I was much older.

Did you even manage to catch many other animated action-adventure series before?

Same for me. I never thought much about junk I watched as a kid. The only important thing I cared about was, "does it entertain me".

Also, most episode titles didn't make any sense for me until much later.

I remember as kid just accepting that there were some plots that almost every cartoon series used though I didn't know why (shrinking episodes, made younger episodes, someone made a giant episodes) but I do recall liking the different versions of them. When I got older, I could be more critical of certain elements but even now, they can entertain me. I can make fun of how it was overdone but I have to admit, I still enjoy them

Also, not all ideas came from animated series. Much of the science fiction stuff came from Startrek, something i didn't even know.

I learned pretty early that there's no such thing as an original idea, so no, not even close.

I thought they were all original ideas until some years ago when I watched AVGN's video looking at the show. I was surprised as to how many plots were similar or inspired by 50's sci-fi movies and horrors. David Wise comments on the show as well as other writers confirm this. To me that's genius because no one at that age would realise the plots weren't original yet there were so many of them introduced, to a new generation with an 80s/90s update you'd never notice. I've always said that in terms of sci-fi Mirage TMNT's sci-fi was cyberpunk while the FW series sci-fi was from the retro futuristic.

That's pretty much all I care about now, too.

I never even knew Baxter as a fly came from a sci-fi movie, which had a 1986 remake with the actor from Jurassic Park no less.

Yeah, getting down to it, this really hasn't changed much for me either.

Like I said before, I guess you have to encounter these ideas for the first time at some point and that may very well be cartoon parody. Even if the idea comes from a famous short story which spawned five movies and an opera (no, really).

I think my own first encounter with it was the Simpsons, though I probably knew about the movies. I definitely didn't know about The Shining before I saw the Simpsons parody though.

Yeah, as most of these movies came out in the 80's or earlier in the 50's, if you didn't have parents show you these movies you'd never know about them until later in life when you were adult. Nearly all these popular or cult films came out before most of us were born, or when we were just kids, so we wouldn't end up knowing about them for another 18-20 years after that until we became adults.

Besides extremely popular movie franchises like Terminator, Aliens, Planet of the Apes, etc....a lot of these other movies you don't really discover till later in life. I mean the original "Fly" came out in 1959, and then the remake in 1986. We're talking about movies made before most of us were even born.

1958
 

1958, actually

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051622/

They made three Fly movies of the original continuity so the writers had a lot to take from.

But aren't all ideas from the first (thinking both of "Catwoman from Channel 6" and "Enter the Fly")

You could say that. All three Fly movies contain very similar themes like the accident and then trying reverse what's happened. The third Fly movie has parallels to what Shredder was doing with mutagen in the pilot.

If the first film in the Fly series is about his transformation, what was the second about?

In the second movie his son gets transformed into a fly but the movie is mainly about reversing the process which ties into Baxter's search for a cure in the series. I also remember in the sequel it becomes a race against time as some crooks try to steal the unstable technology. The third movie is crazy but cool in it's own way. It's almost separate from the other two movies.

Bert
 

I have a Bert comic dated October 1994 named "Åkensteins monster". While not in the story of course, it begins with an image of Bert with fly-wings while writing his diary. By the time, I think I used to believe the fist image parodied fly-Baxter Stockman. Did you read it (the story is not in any of the books, just the comics)?

It's funny to think about. Probably today there are writers writing cartoons (or whatever) inspired by X episode of the Fred Wolf TMNT show, which was actually largely based on something else from the 50s, 60s. Then a generation later, people get inspired from that, and so on and so forth.

It's like a great big Human Centipede. What began as new, fresh ideas, eventually gets redigested so many times it's... anything but.

There's no such thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing

Lots of inside "adult" jokes in some OT episodes. Still the humor was funny enough for kids.. As an adult, you get to enjoy both!

Not to forget all Startrek references.

I think there's a theory about how in writing there's like five original ideas.

I was under the impression here the OT series wasn't meant for adults judging by some of the comments by users here. :ohwell:

Was J Gordon Hungerdunger from the ep Rhino-Man based on JR Ewing? I never thought that.

The "cute monster that causes havoc" cliche may have jumped out at me. I know Wise used that same storyline in Transformers. I can't really say that I ever gave much thought to whether or not something was original. It may have occurred to me if it was a parody of something that I had been previously exposed to. For example, the pizza monsters being basically a yellow xenomorph would never have crossed my mind because at that point I knew nothing about Alien.

I had no idea it was based on Alien at the time because I had never seen that film. The thing is it's the design that reminds us of Alien, take that out or swap it for another creature design and it could be any other creature.

That's actually a concept that's talked about in literature, how's there's no such thing as an original idea. I remember in high school my teacher talking about this actually. I honestly forget the proper term for it. Some people will go as far as to point out that a lot of religions tend to have same motifs and themes as well. I guess some things just get recycled over and over again.