Who actually owns the 80s show?
 

I've recently gotten back into the franchise, and while I'm sure it's explained elsewhere, the ownership regarding the 1987 series just boggles me.
When Viacom bought the franchise, that did not include the show. However, based on merchandise and social media posts I've seen, Nickelodeon can utilize the 80s likenesses of the turtles, as well as other separately owned TMNT adaptations like the NLC/GH trilogy. They were even able to get back the original VOs for the 2012 series (having Rob Paulsen voice one turtle from each team helped, I guess).
On the other hand, on more recent DVDs of the '87 series, Lionsgate does credit Viacom in the legal info. I am aware they inherited the distribution rights to the cartoon through an acquisition, but who actually owns the series?
Thanks for your help in advance.

Fred Wolf Films owns the actual episodes, and it is still an active studio:
http://www.fredwolffilms.com/

I think Lionsgate currently holds the "home video" rights. Since Nick/Viacom owns the actual franchise, I expect there is still some obligation to Lionsgate to credit or acknowledge them.

Nothing prevents Nick/Viacom from using the likeness or characters from the old show (Mirage Studio artists did they all the time and were often commissioned to do Fred Wolf style artwork), but they are fairly careful to avoid using any actual excerpts from the episodes.

Are they? That website only lists stuff that is at least 20 years old or more. It also had a gallery for Fred Wolf's oil paintings.

http://fredwolfartgallery.com/pages/bio.html

Thanks. Interestingly, this promo that Nickelodeon released celebrating 25 years of animation appears to use a snippet resembling an 80s episode, at around the 0:18 mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LF8_DgFq-iA

Does Fred Wolf make any modern cartoons? I haven't heard about any cartoon made by them from like 2000 onward over these last 18 years.

It's a good question how "active" Fred Wolf Films is, but I think the "Turtle Power Documentary" crew did visit with Mr. Wolf in his California office, so maybe he still does something?

What? Do they really? They still exist?

Yup, and they're planning on re-releasing the DVDs AGAIN: http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Tee...llection/24058

Woah, yeah, that really surprised me! Looked like a clip from something out of the pre-CBS syndicated run. Might have been a little legal slip up too.

I can't help but think Viacom approached Fred Wolf Films for a series buyout deal but the studio is holding out for an obscene buyout offer or at least the expiration of their current Lionsgate contract.

Uh yeah, looking at the Fred Wolf website right now, calling them "active" is a bit of a stretch. From the looks of it, they haven't produced a movie in 33 years, a TV show in 21 years and a web cartoon (seriously?) in 18 years (seriously, how was web based animation profitable in 2000? It was pretty much just Newgrounds back then). Taking even a cursory glance at this sad excuse for a website, I'm convinced Fred Wolf the company just exists as a shell for Fred Wolf the person, to make license money off old shows and movies. And practically all of them are obscure.

It's hard to imagine how this pathetic joke of a company once produced ten seasons of a cashcow.

What else did they do besides Turtles?

Well you could just check the links in this thread yourself. However, I doubt you'll recognise any of it, at least nothing you'll care about. And take some of these credits with a pinch of salt, they seem to be credited Fred Wolf the person rather than his company.

Out of what I could find that seems relatively noteworthy:

• A Zorro show
• James Bond Jr.
• The California Raisins
• Duck Tales (Just seems to credit the person, not the company, as a supervisor)
• Alvin and the Chipmunks (but only slightly less than half of season 6, I have no idea how that works)
• The New Adventures of Speed Racer

I find that last one amusing. The anime from the 60's is known for ignoring the manga it's based on, which is funny because this show seems to take an even bigger dump on it.

80's cartoons in general were a weird breed. Hanna-Barbera made all those classic shows and Superfriends at the time, and there weren't that many competing studios at the time.

Cartoons didn't really take off till the 90's, except back then they also made countless cartoons based on movies or shows that only ran 26-65 episodes. Then the anime craze happened in the late 90's and early 2000's so less new stuff was produced, but then that died down and here we are in the modern era of Nick and Disney shows.

Still, I don't remember thinking there was anything wrong with things like He-man and Thundercats... or one or 2 others I watched. Not seen them in years though

Well, I watched a few episodes of He-Man fairly recently. It's crap.

The characters barely move a muscle, it's usually just the lips or neck. And when they are required to do anything else, it's almost always recycled. It baffling to watch the cheapness. Oh, and David Wise was on it, so you know they prioritised quantity over quality when it came to the writing.

*shakes a cane* aaand that's the way we liked it!

80's cartoons are very dated, especially in animation. The original TMNT cartoon managed to have a late 80's and early 90's feels to it so it doesn't feel as dated as some of those other 80's cartoons. Look at Superfriends, characters weren't even allowed to fight and nobody had any distinct personality. Both Superman and Batman had the same personality, you couldn't tell the difference.

Well I may see them differently watching them now but I remember liking them as a child, obviously the animation would look dated compared to now, but I hadn't experienced the 2000's back then :)
I revisited Inspector Gadget when the new show came out as I was showing it to my children, I don't think that looked terrible.

I'm with the other guys here, I don't think the studio has made anything recently. I hope I'm wrong of course.

I wish they would just put us out of our misery and release the show on blu-ray with new extras.

That 'pathetic joke of a company' lasted as long due to the quality of it's products, something you fail to see. I wish I could be like you, ignorance being bliss ;)

What the hell is wrong with the 90s Speed Racer man?! I know it ain't Pokemon or whatever crap you kids watch today but...I mean WTF?!

By the way you forgot to mention Budgie The Little Helicopter which was a minor hit at the time. :P

I hope the writers like JMS and animators at Filmmation don't visit these sites to read comments like that. I mean I know you have an opinion but you seem to love systematically going through all 80s cartoons to say how terrible they are. And this is coming from a user who thinks the IDW comics are the epitome of great with their reincarnated TMNT.

And guess what? To some, they're great animation... :)

80s cartoons have dated as much as any other era. Today's cartoons will look ugly as hell in a couple of generations time and then we'll get 15 year olds saying how 'pathetic' the animation in stuff like Adventure Time and My Little Pony Friendship is Magic were while neatoman furiously defends them. :lol:

To avoid any confusion, by "active," I only meant it hadn't been sold to another corporation or officially out of business, ala Filmation, DiC, or Sunbow.

Would Dan Berger have the answer if I were to ask him? It seems to be convoluted.

I don't know about neatoman, but I will furiously defend Mlp FiM to my dying breath :lol:

Anyways, regarding the thread topic, I agree its confusing. As far as I know, Lionsgate owns the right to the series itself but Nickelodeon can use the characters, VAs, recreate the music as long as they don't use anything from the series itself, hence the cameos/crossovers in their show.

Thank you! But are the clips of the theme song used in the crossovers new or recycled, because Nickelodeon can be stingy regarding licensed music.

Why does the Fred Wolf site have "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" listed as two different show?

There are no clips of the theme song used in the crossovers. There are some retraced clips from the original theme song's animation done in Flash but nothing literally copied and pasted from it. The 80s soundtrack from the Nick crossover, despite sounding identical in parts, is also a recreation.

I was referring to audio clips. I didn't know they were recreations. They sounded spot-on.

Does Kevin Eastman still do the YouTube Q&A thing? He probably knows if someone asks him.

Edit - his last one was a year ago. Just checked.

The thing about He-Man is that it doesn't just look dated today, it looks primitive even for it's time. I'm not gonna sit here and say the early days of outsourced animation looked good, it was horribly rushed just to satisfy the damands of toy companies, but at least it was a bit of an improvement from before. He-Man on the other hand looks like such a step backwards, if I didn't know any better I'd say it was made in the late 60's.

You sure you were meant to respond to my post? I didn't talk about He-Man at all.

Regardless, I personally love the He-Man cartoon. Sure, the animation reminds me of something from the 60s like Flintstones but I still find it to be charming and enjoyable.

He-Man in comparison to MLP. I meant that MLP looks more of it's time than He-Man, so it's easier to defend the quality of it's animation.

Probably because it first aired in syndication, then during mid-season 4 CBS took over. But its still the same series.

That's... Odd. What's the point? To showcase a new deal at the time? Some contractual obligation?

With neatoman I always feel ignorance must be bliss. :D

Lionsgate only have distribution rights for home video formats, that is all.

Are you trying to say the cheap computer Flash animation of MLP is better for today's audience than the handcrafted if limited animation of He-Man that was similar at times to Hanna Barbera's stuff? I mean you can't compare man.

Outsourced? What are talking about?! I'm pretty certain all Filmation cartoons were done on site, that was what they prided themselves on after all. You sound like you have no idea who Filmation are or their history? If that's the case I would hold off criticisms you cannot back up like with Fred Wolf Films. ;)

I can answer this: The first credit belongs to MWS from Seasons 1-4 (the syndicated episodes). Originally the studio was just called MW but later became MWS. When CBS picked up the show with the second half of Season 4 Wolf Jimmy Murakami and Charles Swenson had less involvement with the production of the show or abandoned it so Wolf renamed the company Fred Wolf Films. That explains the second credit from Season 4-10.

This should help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Wolf_Films

I wouldn't go that far...

I wish they would re-release the 80s show on Blu-Ray with all the episodes on 1-2 discs. I would definetly love to keep it for the novelty value even though everything is online these days.

To be fair, I've seen most casuals/reviewers praise Mlp's animation as colourful/bright etc. But in the end, its just down to personal preference. I still prefer Hand Drawn to Flash these days for the most part.

It could also be a simple error on the website to list tmnt twice but who knows, your explanation makes the most sense assuming it was deliberate.

With neatoman? Yep I would! :D

So would I but I doubt very much they'd want to fit every episode over 2 discs. That's impossible really. You're looking more at 10 to 15 discs taking into account extras as well. Maybe more.

I still have nightmares of when that Spanish animated Top Cat movie came out (shudders).

Just checked again:

""Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" - 1988/89
65 half-hour episodes: For distribution by Group W"

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" - 1990/96
72 half-hour episodes: Produced for CBS' Saturday morning line-up"

Yep, 100% sure it was deliberate.

Here's another example of the official TMNT channel using screencaps directly lifted from the Fred Wolf series:
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg_lb8IgGLx/?taken-by=tmnt

More often than not, when it's a clip or gift, they stick to 4Kids-era animation.

On a similar note, I was in FYE today, and they had large figurines of the Turtles as they appear in the 90s movies. Only Nickelodeon and Viacom were credited on the boxes.

Not sure on that?

He-man? She-Ra? MY little Pony? Jem? Bravestarr? Thundarr? Galaxy Rangers? Jace and the Road Warriors? Inspector Gadget? And even the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles all got there start in the 1980's. Than we had the cartoon movies like Fire and Ice and Heavy Metal.

Exactly! 80s cartoons were huge. Why do you think Saturday morning cartoons became an event?

I was searching around VUDU today and it seems the Fred Wolf series is no longer listed on the site. I'm curious what that might mean for the rumored re-release of the series on dvd this year.

Is the DVD release still a rumour? I thought it was confirmed?

VUDU probably are re-negotiating the rights as they've run out.