Do you root for the villains in the 80s series?
 

Oftentimes when watching the old cartoon, I often find myself excited when the villains make progress, or show fighting skill. I think this boils down to a couple of reasons:

1. The villains are likable and despite often having murderous intent, they still have really fun personalities.
2. The turtles almost win at the end of every episode, so seeing the villains get the upper hand is a fresh breath of air. I often find myself rooting for both the turtles and the villains at the same time.
3. The villains have many abilities despite their frequent losses (Shredder's ninja skills, Krang's tech, Bebop and Rocksteady's strength etc.), so a villain victory often showcases unique aspects of their characters.

Thoughts?

Do I root for the villains who alternatively want to conquer earth or turn it into a wasteland for no good reason? No, not really. Maybe if Krang genuinely believed he needed to save the Utrom race like in IDW or if Shredder had some good reason to take over the planet, but that's a big if and their ultimate goal would still be pretty damn evil.

The way they're actually portrayed in the show, the closest you get is pity for what inept, ineffective, incompetent, worthless, idiotic, pathetic, sad little losers they actually are. Their plans are thwarted over a hundred times by literal sewer hobos despite all the resources they have, it's not even like other versions of the franchise where the sewer hobos win through infiltration, subversion and getting powerful allies. The FW villains just keep losing to the sewer hobos in open conflict all the time, like they were sheep to slaughter.

"Sewer hobos" :tlol:

Sounds like an insult Shredder would use.

1987 Shredder does make me laugh, but no, I don’t ever want him to win. That’d be like rooting for the Sanderson Sisters to win; sure they’re charming and funny, but they are child-eating witches, and that’s pretty messed up.

Noo. lol

I have only lightly rooted for a villain once, when Shredder fought Batman, and out of franchise loyalty, so nothing against Batman.

Only time I rooted for them was "The Big Rip-Off"

I love how Bebop and Rocksteady were the ones to get the job done at the end of that episode, rather than Shredder and Krang.

Not really. I kinda rooted for Shredder in season 10’s three-parter, though, as he was shown to care about Krang and was quite competent in that season.

During the first 7 seasons, rooting for Shredder and Krang didn't really mean any actual harm coming to anyone. So I did root for them, as them having any type of success did make the show more interesting. Whereas say during the 4Kids or Nick cartoons, rooting for Shredder would've meant actual harm coming to others.

I mean, if anything, I rooted for Baxter to become human again. He's only still evil cause he's going crazy as a mutant fly.

Also feel bad for Slash. Sure he has temper problems but he went through a lot of **** on literally his first day as a mutant. That last part where he yells out 'EVERYBODY TRICKS ME!!!" made me feel for the guy. It also rubs me the wrong way when the Turtles make fun of him and call him dumb, they pretty much didn't know how the world worked either the first time they hit the streets with April. I mean it's hard to think of it nowadays, but Donatello didn't even know how a phone worked in the first season.

Donatello Trashes Slash really made fun of the fact that Slash was dumb under all the brain enhancements. In those brief moments when he didn't act dumb, they rally messed up his character. I mean, he was dumb in his other appearances, but not "Tell me about the Turtles, George" dumb.

Yeah. I hated that. He was more 'first day as a mutant' naive not flat out dumb.

They were downing on him a lot to better set up the surprise that omg he's a genius now, but he was never that dumb to begin with.

Nah

I find Shredder, Krang and Bebop and Rockstrady funny and all, but wouldn't say I root for them.

The "we need to repower/free the Technodrome" plots as well as Shredder wanting his soldiers in Season 2 got old fast especially on rewatches. So when they finally do succeed, it's usually handled well. And despite hints in Season 8, we never really expected them to almost completely vanish after Turtle Trek.

I rooted for Bebop and Rocksteady in 'Cowabunga Shredhead'. It was an episode where they finally did something right and had a blast doing it.