Where would you place TMNT in the world of pop culture?
 

As we all know, the TMNT are quite famous all over the world. Most people on Earth have heard of them at one point or another, and I've never met anyone who has not so far. But we also know that the TMNT are not as big or a constant presence as Batman, Spider-man, Super Mario, Star Wars, etc. are.

So basically, the TMNT are very well known, but not the most well-known thing around. They're not obscure when ti comes to their cartoons and movies, but their comics are, especially Mirage.

I know this sounds a bit of an odd question, but let's say you had to divide pop culture into tiers of fame/success/revenue/wtv... where would you place the Turtles? I'd personally place them lower than the likes of Looney Tunes character, Disney characters, Super Mario Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Many of the Marvel heroes I can't name, Star Wars, DBZ and I guess even Naruto and One Piece.

So that's a lot of popular properties for TMNT to be below of. For a non-obscure franchise that once spawned the most popular cartoon on the planet and the highest grossing independent movie ever(dunno if it still holds that record or not...) it sure goes under the radar for a lot of people. Everyone forgot about the 2k3 series, and the Nick toon seems to have lost steam 2-3 seasons in. TMNT are like that sports team that has one good season every 9-10 seasons or so, finishing in the middle or bottom of them table in the rest. It won the biggest trophy achievable over 20 years ago and is forever remembered as that... well perhaps this isn't a good analogy, let me try another one. TMNT is like a small country that once had done cool things in its history but has lost a lot of its relevancy since then. Or it's a small rather wealthy country but lacks population and GDP to be put on the same league as the major powers.

I dunno, thoughts? Or am I being silly?

I think the best way to describe them is "Discount X-Men".

TMNT was more less spawaned from the X-Men and they do this day still feature similarities to the X-Men (even if the average Joe off the street might think TMNT is some weird comedy), the main difference is that TMNT doesn't really compare in terms of success. TMNT isn't exactly obscure but it's probably never going to have a movie making more than what the first Bay movie earned, it's never going to have as many movies as X-Men, it's never going to sell as many comics as X-men (not counting the Batman crossover of course) and it's not nearly as respected as the X-Men.

Oh and TMNT is never going to have a TV show as good as Legion, I think (given the current direction) that it only barely has a chance to top X-Men Evolution in terms of quality.

It's a shame TMNT will never have the push DC or Marvel superheroes get, but that's what's to be expected. Mirage was an indie comic publisher and Nick only just recently bought the property.

How about this... The #1 underdogs. On both sides of the screen/page. The littler guy still able to stand shoulder to shoulder with the big(er-ish) franchises sometimes, and has had its own turn at showing pop culture who is boss, though they've unfortunately also suffered a stigma that a lot of those other properties have not. But despite it, they're still hanging around. Hey, it's not easy being mostly not human and lacking superpowers. :) But they do okay. People love them too much to let them fall into obscurity.

They certainly win one of the down to earth lovable badass awards though. I mean, how many other hero groups might people imagine would be totally up for crashing in front of the tv with you for the evening with a pizza and some movies. :trazz: The love for the Turtles is just different than it is for some other properties.


DC... I dunno, with their visits with that property, I'm kind of wondering if that relationship will continue to grow into more.

TMNT hasn't existed as long as those franchises yet.

It's been around for over 30 years now, that's long enough.

Nothing compared to Superman and Batman.

It's there just barely.

There are younger franchises much more famous, like Pokemon.

I say for now its B grade popular, its no where near as close to something like DBZ,Marvel,DC, Pokemon, or One Piece but it is fairly known

One Piece? Who in America knows what One Piece is outside of anime fans? It's only big in Japan.

You go to your average fan and mention TMNT, or DC and Marvel superheroes and they'll know who they are even if they don't follow the franchises. That's what "mainstream" is. You go to your average joe and ask them who "Luffy" is....and they'll stare at you blank faced.

Even Goku may not be that recognizeable to people who don't watch anime.

Yeah... perspective really varies. I couldn't name any of that personally. Pikachu is the only Pokemon character I can name (and granted I had to look up the spelling). Know nothing of Dragon Ball Z (if I assume correctly that's what DBZ is). (From my vantage point the Turtles are WAY bigger than all that, and given their age deservedly so... but that's me.)

However, I never really followed DC or Marvel, but I'm sure I could no doubt list a whole bunch of character names, even if I wouldn't be entirely sure which belongs to which brand. And maybe a few that belonged to neither... dunno.

I think you mean thankfully TMNT is never going to have a TV show as "good" as Legion.

Well the thread is talking about the world not just in America and OP is really popular in Japan

What do you have against Legion?

Seriously these three are as niche as you can get. Only fans of Japanese anime may have heard of those properties. No, TMNT is more recognisable than them.

DBZ is certainly bigger than TMNT. Everyone has heard of DBZ, dude. You're seriously calling DBZ "niche"?

Naruto was pretty big for some years. Granted its popularity didn't match the FW series in its prime, but it has been more on the minds of the general audience than the TMNT have I'd say. Remember tons of people all over the world love anime. And even non-big anime fans watch the bigger anime such as Pokémon, DBZ, naruto, etc.

Tbh I dunno if OP is more or less popular than Naruto. I know that Naruto has always been more popular in USA than OP, so that might explain why CyberCubed thinks only Japanese know and care about OP, but OP is pretty big outside of Japan as well. That being said the Turtles, the characters themselves, are more well known than the main characters of Naruto and OP overall, I'd say.

I heard of it from some videogame magazines during the mid-1990's.

It's also worth mentioning that Dragon Ball, One Piece and Naruto are the top 3 best selling manga of all time, they're in the top 15 best selling comics of all time for god's sake! I seriously doubt any TMNT comic is even in the top 500.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...g_comic_series

And if you add up the episodes of their respective TV shows, One piece has 816 episodes, Naruto has 807 and Dragon Ball has 627 (which for the last one, by the way, is because the creator chose to lay the series to rest for 18 years). This makes TMNT's 499 seem like a joke when you remember the others didn't need to reboot and are probably going to continue out-classing it.

Well anime airs weekly all year around with no breaks. American cartoons generally have just 26 episode seasons. Of course shonen anime, most of it is filler, is going to have hundreds of episodes.

Same reason Simpsons only has a little over 600 episodes despite airing for nearly 30 years. You would expect Simpsons to have over 1000 eps by now but it doesn't, and its been airing for 3 decades.