Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87 (Post 1799217)

Is there any clear answer as to why for 22 years TMNT(1987) has not aired in the United States? Its always been mind boggling to me.

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan (Post 1799219)

Season 10 aired between September and November 1996. By that point the franchise was dead since around 1992–1993 (in the USA).

Also, I guess it would take time to air reruns of all 193 episodes so it's better releasing them to DVD.

Originally Posted by neatoman (Post 1799220)

Allegedly, Fred Wolf has an absurdly high demand for airing the show. I remember something about Nickelodeon wanting to air it but backed out when they saw what it would cost.

Originally Posted by neatoman (Post 1799220)

Allegedly, Fred Wolf has an absurdly high demand for airing the show. I remember something about Nickelodeon wanting to air it but backed out when they saw what it would cost.

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87 (Post 1799223)

I always thought CBS owned syndication rights? So Fred Wolf does? He has not had a hit before it or after it and his studio is pretty much dead. So this is the reason we have never seen it air again after September 1996? Sure, Turtlemainia was over,but why hold out for a price that does not work?

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87 (Post 1799221)

I remained a huge fan,able to have other interest alongside it( MLB,MMPR, Baseball),but I would have thought during the 2003 show or 2012 show interest in airing it would have happened.

Remember we only got two episodes per official VHS release. DVDs were still a couple of years from wide distribution, let alone season sets.

Originally Posted by The Deadman (Post 1799232)

It was already in syndication when it first aired.

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan (Post 1799234)

Couldn't the VHS tapes have more episodes? I used to hometape and recall tapes running up to two or three hours.

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan (Post 1799234)

Couldn't the VHS tapes have more episodes? I used to hometape and recall tapes running up to two or three hours.

Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87 (Post 1799249)

I am referring to storebought and sold with TMNT episodes on them.

Originally Posted by pferreira (Post 1799381)

The only answer I can give to this is that by the mid-90s TMNT wasn't a big thing any more and with bigger then current properties being shown the networks guesses those shows would bring in more ratings. Having said that it did take a long while for the US to get Season 2 of TMNT after Season 1 on DVD.

Originally Posted by pferreira (Post 1799381)

The only answer I can give to this is that by the mid-90s TMNT wasn't a big thing any more and with bigger then current properties being shown the networks guesses those shows would bring in more ratings. Having said that it did take a long while for the US to get Season 2 of TMNT after Season 1 on DVD.

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan (Post 1799383)

Season 2 was released to DVD in April 2005, one year after Season 1

http://mutantooze.org/ninjaturtles/h...ssictoons.html

Originally Posted by cammy85 (Post 1799387)

The reason for the long delay was because they released Season 1 to test the waters. That's also why they included four episodes from Season 10 as "never before seen episodes". They could see the demand was high so again they tested the waters with Season 2. That's also why they were so silly with their Season 3 releases as well. Finally, they switched suppliers and the rest is history.

Originally Posted by cammy85 (Post 1799387)

The reason for the long delay was because they released Season 1 to test the waters. That's also why they included four episodes from Season 10 as "never before seen episodes". They could see the demand was high so again they tested the waters with Season 2. That's also why they were so silly with their Season 3 releases as well. Finally, they switched suppliers and the rest is history.

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan (Post 1799393)

With no Youtube, it must have been awsome just to get your hands on the Season 1 DVD back in April 2004.

Originally Posted by pferreira (Post 1799420)

I remember there being quite a gap between one of the seasons. Maybe it was between Season 2 and 3 then?

Well it wasn't until 2009 I believe we got the first two seasons in the UK.

Originally Posted by Leo656 (Post 1799251)

It actually was syndicated at a few brief points both during and after its run.

In my area, the weekday afternoon show was mostly on Fox Channel 5, but usually another channel like channel 11 would show older re-runs an hour later in the day. Eventually that stopped.

Also, USA Cartoon Express added the show to its lineup between 1994 and some time in late 1996 or early 1997. They even included poorly-drawn versions of them during the "Cartoon Express" intro that showcased all the shows and characters like Real Ghostbusters, G.I. Joe, etc., but as I recall they didn't air it as often as those shows. I can't remember 100% but I think they replaced it with Sonic SatAM, or at the very least, stopped airing it around the same time they started airing Sonic. Shortly after they abandoned the "Cartoon Express" concept completely and dropped most of the shows altogether.

I'm not aware of TMNT being syndicated anywhere else after that, but those are the two instances I'm aware of in which they were. It's very possible it was a regional thing and they may not have aired in syndication elsewhere. Hope that helps.


That's generally if you switched the Record setting to "SLP" or something, in which case you could hold up to 6 hours sometimes, but the more stuff you put on the tape, the sh*ttier the picture quality. Different tapes each had their own limit for what would fit on them.

If you look at the commercially-available TMNT VHS tapes, there's very little tape on the spool to begin with, which means that they purposely chose a cassette that would only hold a short amount of footage but would play back at the highest possible picture and sound quality.

By contrast, I used to own at least one commercially-bought tape of 6-hours worth of classic cartoons from the 40s and whatnot, and it looked and felt like a bootleg despite being store-bought. So the reason the TMNT tapes that were sold did not fit more than one or two episodes was primarily a quality control factor.

Originally Posted by pferreira (Post 1799420)

I remember there being quite a gap between one of the seasons. Maybe it was between Season 2 and 3 then?

Well it wasn't until 2009 I believe we got the first two seasons in the UK.

Originally Posted by cammy85 (Post 1799428)

Seasons 8 and 9 for sure. And it did take awhile for Season 10 as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...s#DVD_releases

There we go!!

Originally Posted by Leo656 (Post 1799444)

Multiply that times 5 and add Saturday morning, and we're talkin' serious "TurtleMania". But it also probably contributed to some folks like me getting a little burned out at one point.

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan (Post 1799448)

I bought some Fred Wolf DVD's in Sweden in September 2004. The same episodes as the VHS releases, but three episodes on each disc instead of two on each videotape as during the VHS era.

Originally Posted by pferreira (Post 1799511)

Thanks for that clarification.

You're lucky. In the UK if you were able to get Sky you could sometimes get an episode of TMNT in the morning and one after school.

The UK by the way still hasn't had a full release of the show. :-?

Originally Posted by CyberCubed (Post 1799666)

I know for a fact that once Next Mutation came out, the original cartoon was gone from all airwaves. At least where I live. I always remembered wanting to watch some reruns of the original cartoon but once Next Mutation hit in 1997 it was nowhere to be found.

And remember back then there was no real internet and no way to rewatch old eps unless you taped them on VHS or got those few official VHS releases. Man hard to believe how hard it was to rewatch shows before the days of DVDs and online steaming. How did we manage as kids/teens?

Originally Posted by CyberCubed (Post 1799666)

Man hard to believe how hard it was to rewatch shows before the days of DVDs and online steaming.

Originally Posted by cammy85 (Post 1799784)

Ninja Turtles Network was a huge help at the time especially for seeing episodes I hadn't seen in syndication in years like The Maltese Hamster or The Big Break-in. Reruns were eventually scrapped long before The Next Mutation once Goof Troop came on. It wasn't until Teletoon Retro that we ever say the earlier episodes of TMNT again.

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan (Post 1799572)

Here is what was released to home video (VHS and DVD) in Sweden

All of Season 1

All Season 2 episodes except the Eye of Sarnath tetralogy

Seven episodes from Season 3

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan (Post 1799672)

The Youtube was the major breakthrough for "everything is just one search away"

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan (Post 1799797)

What was the Ninja Turtles Network?

Originally Posted by pferreira (Post 1799974)

Well YouTube made sure to get rid that option now. :ohwell:

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan (Post 1799991)

There are many other similair services, like Dailymotion and Vimeo.

Originally Posted by Vintage (Post 1803292)

Now you all got me hyped up. Are all these episodes available for free on you tube right now?