What could have been: 1st season of 87 toon
 

Anyway, I always wondered why the look, and tone of the old show changed so much from the 1st season to the other seasons besides redsky.
to the general person, it may seem the same, but watching return of shredder after shredder is splintered is disheartening.
I mean even though the universe was different from the Mirage stuff, I can still watch the 1st season still.
I wonder why they shifted it a mostly action show w/gjokes to a mostly comedy show/with action as a side dish.
also,Shredder being somewhat competent and skilled in ninjitsu as opposed to being a goofball, etc.
Was Playmates dictating the tone of the show or did the writers feel that a goofy approach would be easily ingested by kids than a serious one?
Also, would it kill them to use some regualr criminals instead of either

1) Shredder/krang/bebop/rocksteady
2)goofy cliche aliens
3) generic mad scientists

Also, Im surprised they never adapted any of the Mirage stuff. I mean i couldnt see return to ny/city at war, but the gosei/hattori mind story, more ninja-centric storylines.

Also, i wish they would have kept the animation company of season 1, the desings are more E+L ish, and Shred looks more ripped.

Thoughts.

Same here... what could have been... Plus Leo and Rocksteady's voices sounded more bad-ass and manlier in season 1 compared to all the other seasons. Maybe Rocksteady not wearing his helmet anymore cause him some brain damage from being conked on the head so many times...

It was always kinda ridiculous to see the TMNT kick ass in the movies, comics and games, and not the cartoon itself. I mean I remember the parents complaining about their lil kids running around doing jumpkicks and yelling out 'hai-ya! i'm a ninja turtle!' when the TMNT themselves hardly did any martial arts in the show anymore. They were practically defeating Bebop and Rocksteady by tripping them up with banana peels or using their own incompetence against them.

Its weird how long they tricked me with that stuff, too. It took a while to realize "they're kind of not doing any fighting anymore and Michelangelo doesnt have his nunchucks out ever.." I guess that I wasnt paying real close attention to every episode though, I was probably playing with toys or running around half the time anyway. It irritates me knowing that the show had to hold back on so much and we were deprived a better, more violent saturday morning.

Not that the show was ever heavy or was intended to be, and I appreciate the series mainly for its comedy, but there are certain episodes where they do manage to work in some real tension and excitement, and you can tell in other episodes where there could have been but they were forced to do something lame instead.

I remember in 'Get Shredder' where Shredder blew up the Channel 6 building, after Mike was worried about the deaths of April and Irma, Leo said to Shredder 'You miserable maggot!' in a tone of voice that you can tell he wanted to say something stronger like 'you $%&@$&in bastard!' but couldn't say anything stronger than 'miserable maggot'.

Don't you remember any of the mobsters they had, like Don Turtelli, Tony Vivaldi, Pinky McFingers, etc. There were plenty of cat burglars and mobsters in the old toon. There was plenty of variety when it came to villains in the old toon.
There was still a lot of kicking, flipping, acrobatics, and grabbing/throwing enemies. The only real thing is that weapon use was kept somewhat low, but that's all.

I call it the Barbra Bush fallout of 1990. All the "Just Say No!" bullsh*t, Mikey appearing in "Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue", and the network censors complaining about violence, with the TMNT catching all the sh*t because they were the most prominent cartoon of the era.

Hell, I remember that when I was little, my mom's (sadly overly religious) friends were trying to convince her that TMNT was an evil Asian plot to preach subliminal Hindu ideals to children and make new converts. We stopped dealing with those fascists soon thereafter.

Ok i forgot those, but a lot of them werent that menacing. I mean wasnt turtelli the one who tickled people with a feather as his main intimidation game?
And the rest where mostly generic imo.

I do have to give them credit for Lotus blossom, Usagi episodes.
And it was nice to see Rat King being somewhat of a wild card.

No joke, in the second intro (halfway through season four) they show mike whirling a grappling hook intstead of his chucks!

Anyway the original pilot eps were amazing! I can't even imagine how huge tmnt would have been had every single ep been as good as the first few.