Being a TMNT fan in 1998-2002.
 

What was it like being a TMNT fan after the FW series ended and before the 2k3 series came along? TNM came after the end of the FW series but that flopped and most people didn't like. Also I'm sure many didn't even watch it at the time. I had not heard of TNM until 2005 or so. I know there's also the Image series in the mid-late 2000s but even less people knew of that.

Personally, I got into the Turtles around the time the FW series had already been over. So I was a big fan of the cartoon in the late 90s and especially in the early 2000s. I'd watch and record the reruns religiously.

It was a bit lonely being a TMNT fan at this time because the fad was pretty much dead. So if you were a young kid getting into the FW series at this time... there were no comics or action figures for sale on toy shops for you to buy and play with. I had to wait until the 2k3 series came along for me to get my first Turtle action figures... and good lord what a glorious day that was. :lol:

I had never expected for the TMNT to ever get a new cartoon. And I also feared the franchise would die for good once the 2k3 series was over.

What about the older users in here? For those of you born in the early 80s who were watching the FW series back when it aired, how did it feel being a TMNT fan after the fad was over and before the 2k3 cartoon began?

Weren't there a bunch of comics in that gap?

Yes, the Image series I believe? But again, Most TMNT fans weren't aware of that. I bet lot of people in here only discovered the comics after the 2k3 series came out. Or they knew about them for a while but only managed to truly get into them in the past 10 years or so since internet shopping and such made it a lot easier.

So yeah, not many TMNT fans were reading the comics coming out in 1998-2002, I bet.

TMNT was just a childhood memory for me at the time. Videotapes, comics and some action figures.

I never really thought about what it was like to be a tmnt fan back then, tbh. I kinda moved on to other fads such as Pokemon and Yugioh. I still watched reruns of the Fred Wolf toon every now and then on rte two, though I never thought there would be another tmnt cartoon either. Became interested in the franchise in 2002 when I started visiting this forum. It was a great surprise to find out that there was going to be a new cartoon starting in early 2003.

At that time most fans were either re-discovering the series through VHS tapes (remember DVDs didn't exist at the time for the original cartoon :lol: ) and there were all those old fansites and webrings like geocities sites beginning the earliest online TMNT fandom.

Overall you have to remember the age range of most fans back then was very young, mostly ranging in the 12-14 or so age. Most of us were barely entering our teens back then, besides some of the older fans.

I was born early '84 and got into TMNT during '89. So...yeah I definitely grew up with this franchise. I remained as invested in it as I could throughout the 90's. Enjoyed all 3 movies, owned a couple dozen Archie TMNT comics and even got a Mirage trade. I knew about Image in the late 90's, but only ever found issues 2-4. Comics were never my thing, so I probably could have found more, but i've never frequented any comic stores. I really loved the "Red Sky" seasons back in the day. Turtlemania never exactly died for me, especially throughout the 90s. I was hugely upset during the '95-'96 TMNT seasons where an episode was supposedly going to be shown but something else aired instead. Usually golf or something. I still was able to tape the entirety of season 9 and more than half of 10(including the entire 3 part story). I loved Next Mutation as it aired. It's ok now...what I've seen of it, just kinda bland.

During 2001- early 2003 I ended up starting to search the internet and used stores very often in the search for more TMNT VHS tapes(that I did not own). Even at this point I owned about 1/4 of the series and buying more of the tapes brought that up to maybe 1/3. I saw the premier of the 2K3 series and loved it. But mostly starting late in 2002 till sometime in '06, Anime largely became my main "franchise" of interest. In 2006 I got back into Turtles more, and haven't really stopped since. TMNT is hardly my only or even main "franchise of interest" but it is the oldest one for me and it meant a lot to me as a quiet, depressed, shy kid with very few friends.

My TMNT obsession never waned, so I didn't quite realize the "dead" period. I was still watching tapes, finding toys in Kay-Bee & other stores, eating pizza, playing with games/toys/prop weapons among friends, finding comics/books, etc.

I recall missing TMNT so much during those years.

As a kid time moved slower. Funnily enough TMNT was only "dead" for about 5 years, even less if you count Next Mutation.

But as a kid 5 years feels like an eternity. That's why when the 2k3 series started it felt like TMNT had been gone for so long...but it really wasn't.

1998-2002? I was in my late teens to early 20's. I just didn't spend a whole lot of time during those years focused on TMNT. My passion for action cartoons/figures during those years were filled with Beast Wars/Machines Transformers. Also during those years I transitioned from the Beverly Hills, 90210/Melrose Place era to Buffy The Vampire Slayer/Angel.

I should clarify that, while I did first get into the FW series around 1996-1998 or so(cant' recall), I then suddenly stopped watching it one day until I did it again around 2002-2003 when I found reruns on TV again here. So now that I think about it... the TMNT "dead period" also coincided with the time TMNT wasn't really that much on my mind.

Actually... it might as well have been gone for about 8-9 years, since Turtlemania was already on a fast decline around 1993. Many people didn't even know of Red Sky until many years later and TNM was the final nail on the coffin for TNMT. The 3rd live action movie from 1993 also most likely contributed to the popularity waning since it was clearly inferior to the first two movies.

So basically, even if the Turtles had only not been on TV for about 5 years, it makes sense their absence felt way longer than that since the last big screen appearance had been in 1993 and their tv and pop culture relevance died around that time as well.

FWIW my brother is from the generation that grew up with the FW series. He told me that the Turtles were HUGE in 1990-1991(the cartoon debuted here in 1990 after the movie only) and by the time 1992-1993 rolled in pretty much nobody cared about them anymore.

Did seasons 8-10 even air in Portugal?

Yes. The FW series rerunning here often in the late 90s and early/mid 2000s on a cable channel. Some years ago that channel was rerunning the 2k3 series. I hope they changed its name tho since the 2k3 series here was called "Novas Tartarugas Ninja" meaning.... the new ninja turtles :lol:

"Novas Tartarugas Ninja" in Portugal

"Tartarugas Mutantes Ninja" in Brazil

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenag...senho_de_2003))

I was a little too old to enjoy TNM, but I still watched it and it was sort of a guilty pleasure. I had kind of shunned the Red Sky seasons of the OT, so it had been a while since I'd had new material to watch. I really spent a few years reminiscing and wanting more. I only had a bootleg of the third film, so I was still watching it a few times a year, but honestly, that was it other than a few VHS's I had.

Well the original series had run it's course and I had stopped watching it. There was other stuff to see and do. I do remember rolling my eyes at The Next Mutation for how childish it was. I think liking retro cartoons or video games in the early 2000s made you look a bit of an outcast. It wasn't until the mid-2000s that it became trendy again to like that stuff.

I remember seeing Season 7 episodes dubbed and wished they were in English. :cry:

Why the heck is it dubbed for different versions of Portuguese? If a series is dubbed into English, it's not one different for each English-speaking country.

The FW series was never dubbed into European Portuguese. it aired here in English with subtitles. Dubbing cartoons was not the norm in Portugal until the mid-late 90s when DBZ and Pokemon got dubbed.

Well, why would the English and the Aussies dub American cartoons? In Portugal we don't dub a movie if it's from Brazil either... although we did watch Cidade Deus(City of God) in HS... with the subtitles on, because it's hard to understand the uneducated slang and expressions many characters in that movie used. If you dropped an American in rural Scotland he'd struggle too.

Not even during the reruns you caught by the late-1990's and early-2000's?