In the original cartoon, did most of the city know the Turtles existed?
 

Not only do we see April do a broadcast about the Turtles in the last episode of Season 1, but it seemed to me that most of the city was well aware of the Turtles existence back in the old toon.

Whenever the Turtles would take off their disguises in public, some random people would automatically recognize them, or you'd often hear a character say, "Hey, you're one of those Ninja Turtles" when they walk out in the open.

One thing that was strange is the Turtles would often wear their disguises in public, but whenever disaster struck they'd just take off their clothes in front of everyone.

I realize the Turtles often walked out in broad daylight in the old toon, but I'm wondering how much of the world knew they existed.

Well, they obviously wanted the public to realise'em for the heros they where, and not the crooks they often where portayed as.

The show was actually not too bad with kind of stuff in the first 3 seasons, but after that they were always savin the day at 1 pm with no masks. But they did publically save NYC at the end of season 3, so that got people off their backs I guess.

Yes
 

Yes, the number of people knowing about them increased, especially after the TMNT save the Earth when season 3 ends.

In Season 7 or 8, everyone suddenly randomly hated them again though? There did seem to be random episodes where they were either known or not known and loved or hated.

Their second mutations started scaring people, plus I remember Dregg somehow turning the public against them.

I just remember that scene in "Turtle Tracks" when the old lady spots the Turtles and April coming out of the sewers and she refers to them as "Monsters." Then she points a shotgun at them.

Love it
 

I love it! The gun lady is perfect to show human fear of the unknown and different.

It's when shredder blows up the channel 6 building in ep "Get Shredder!" the turtle bashing starts!

Season 8
 

That's the season 8 (1994) opening episode, kicking the red sky years (1994-1996) off.

As I've said here before the OT tried to have it's cake and eat it too in regards to whether the turtles existence was public knowledge and whether they were loved or loathed by the public.

After the fifth episode the existence of the turtles was undeniably public knowledge and opinion was split about them. Some thought they were heroes, others thought they were dangerous outlaws. Strangely we even had people unaware of the turtles or other mutants existence.

It did seem that after the third season finale an effort was made by the writers to have the turtles firmly as heroes in the eyes of the public and yet everyso often we get people treating them with prejudice and again people who are shocked at the existence of mutants.

Of course the Red Sky seasons had Burne doing his smear campeign and Dregg also tried to rally the public against them.

Burne and Vernon
 

And Burne and Vernon always tried to blame the Ninja Turtles.