Best & Worst of the Old Toon
 

Best
----
s1 - Turtle Tracks
s3 - Turtles on Trial (best animation, great story, awesome action)
s3 - Cowabunga Shredhead (funny and clever, wonderful voice acting)
s3 - The Big Blow Out (so epic)


Worst
-----
s4 - Michelangelo Toys Around (this doesn't even seem like a TMNT story, incredibly boring)
s3 - Mr. Ogg Goes to Town (just so freaking annoying, turns everything into a farce)
s9 - Split Second (horribly weak writing, annoying villain, by-the-#'s plot)
s5 - Donatello's Badd Time (an insult to Don's ninja skills, annoying villains)


Having re-watched all the seasons, Season 4 easily has the worst with so many subpar eps, although it does has a few gems to make up for it.
Things I considered:
-Plot
-Animation
-Backgrounds
-Dialog
-Overall Direction

What are your votes?

The one thing I appreciate the Old Toon is that because most of its stories are episodic, a person can just happily skip the really really bad episodes/arc knowing that doing so wouldn't make any confusion in watching future episodes.

Vacation in Europe comes to mind. Oh *facepalm*.

I agree that even the old shows absolute worst episodes are still worth watching simply because of how stupid/funny they are.

I can sit through some of the crappier episodes and still get some type of enjoyment out of them, simply because this was not meant to be a serious cartoon.

The only episodes I ever really had a hard time sitting through were the European Vacation ones. Not only were the plots bad, but the substitute voice for Raph was horrible, and I love Jim Cummings but I prefer James Avery as Shredder. Everything else besides those episodes are at the very least tolerable.

The Best
-All of Season 1
-Return of the Technodrome
-Enter: The Rat King
-"The Big" trilogy episodes of Season 3
-The Dimension X Story
-Splinter Vanishes
-My Brother the Bad Guy
-Legend of Koji
-Shredder Triumphant
-Turtle Trek

Ones I enjoy that will deserve mention
-The Eye of Zarnoth 4-part
-20,000 Leaks Under The Sea
-Cowabunga Shredhead
-Green with Jealousy
-Pizza By The Shred
-Beware The Lotus
-Blast From The Past
-Shredder's Mom
-Were-rats from Channel 6
-Farewell Lotus Blossom
-What's Michaelangelo Good For
-Rock Around The Block
-The Sword of Yurikawa
-Phantom of the Sewers (this episode was way outside of my comfort zone but for some reason, I do enjoy it because it makes me appreciate other episodes more. lol...)
-Snakes Alive
-Tower Of Power (yes I did enjoy some of the European ones :P )
-A Real Snow Job
-Night of the Dark Turtles
-White Belt, Black Heart
-Night of the Rogues (great episode but could have been 10x better if it were a 2-parter with better bad guys)
-Combat Land

The Worst
These are the episodes that, for whatever reason, I don't/never cared for:

-New York's Shiniest
-Attack of the Big MACC
-The Making of Metalhead (just seems pointless)
-Donatello Makes Time (not a bad episode but executed poorly)
-Rebel Without A Fin (worst episode ever?!)

It seems that when I went through the list then, Season 4 and 5 consist mostly of "meh!" episodes. Ones that I would consider for my "The Worst" list but since there are so many, I feel like they are a step above some of the songs I mentioned. But, as someone mentioned above, there are gems in each.
I think Season 7, aside from 1, has the best list of episodes overall. The best consistency whereas Season 3 has a lot of fun ones too but also lots of "meh!" episodes.

Any list of the worst Old Toon episodes MUST include "The Gang's All Here." It's just a travesty of logic and animation.

Best episodes:
1)All of season 1
2)Enter The Fly
3)Return of the Technodrome
4)Enter the Rat King
5)Leatherhead meets the Rat King
6)The Big Rip Off,The Big Break In,and the Big Blow Out
7)The Dimension X Story
8)My Brother,the Bad Guy
9)Planet of the Turtleoids,Return of the Turtleoid,and Escape from the
Planet of the Turtleoids
10)Rock Around the Block
11)Night of the Rogues
12)Landlord of the Flies
13)Shredder Triumphant
14)Get Shredder!
15)The three part with Shredder,Krang,and Lord Dregg

The Worst episodes:
1)New York's Shiniest
2)Attack of the Big Macc
3)Funny,they Shrunk Michaelangelo
4)Most of the European episodes
5)Mr. Nice Guy
6)What's Michaelangelo Good For?
7)State of Shock

Huh, why is it that so many people seem to hate "New York's Shiniest?" I rather liked Rex-1 and the episode in general, in spite of all the numerous gaping plot holes... (even more than the series' usual fare).

"Funny,they Shrunk Michaelangelo" is pretty bad, if nothing else than that everybody talks in squeaky chipmunk voices the whole episode. In fact, the whole episode reminds me of a really terrible rip-off of Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers.

I'd rather go streaking in a blizzard than ever watch "The Turtle Terminator" again.

Totally agree with "Funny, the shrunk Mike", but I have a nostalgic fondness for "NY's Shiniest" since it was on the "Cowabunga Shredhead" VHS tape and that's one of the few I had when I was a kid.

Mr. Ogg. As a Rob Paulsen fan, that episode just hurts.

All I'm going to say is that my favorite episode of the entire series is "Raphael Drives Em Wild". I just loved the chase scenes!

Y'know... I don't hate that one. It used to be on my "never watch again" list, but I just randomly watched it one time cause I was too lazy to get up and change the disc and it's actually kind of enjoyable on a super goofy level.

The Best for me were:

The Dimention X Story-Even though the nutrinos are in it its still fun to watch
Any episode with Casey Jones
The Foot Soliders are revolting
;) Rapheal Meets his match-because of you know who
Shedder Triumpant
A Real Snow job-The best of the Vacation episodes.
The Arc dealing with the ailen fregment


Worst:
Poor little rich girl
What Michaelangelos are good for
Mr Og
There are several others that I can't remember.

The original miniseries were the greatest episodes, in my opinion. The animation was great, the balance of humor and action was perfect, and everything was so new and exciting.

But, man, how can you guys talk about best episodes and not mention The Case of the Killer Pizzas? Or The Incredible Shrinking Turtles?

Also, I really liked Leatherhead Meets the Rat King.

As for "worst," I remember hating "The Great Boldini" and any other episode involving Zack. He gave off a real "Junior Ghostbusters" kind of vibe. The Turtles are already teenagers, now they're also babysitters? Gimme a break.

Best:
All the Season 1 Episodes
The Eye of Sarnath Episodes
Return of the Technodrome
The Big Rip Off / Break In / Blow Out trilogy
My Brother the Bad Guy
Rock Around The Block
All the Season 7 (not including Europe Vacation) episodes
All the Red Sky episodes

Worst:
Artless

I liked cowabunga shredhead episode because of its great animation ,anyone knows the names of other episodes using the same animation ? One of them was with april and princess who were lookalikes i think.

I only have to say Mr.ogg

That type of animation was always my least favourite. It appeared a few times in Season 3 but more often in Season 4 I think.
All of the episodes (except Shredder's Mom) before CBS got it in Season 4, I think, have that animation. Like Turtles of the Jungle, Michaelangelo Toys Around, etc.

I think its not the same animation in season 4,look at this, looks much better :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_WTQDnZsJ8

Oh yeah. It is a bit different. I just remember both seeming sloppy to me. I think this one wasn't used as much but I do remember April's Fool being an episode with animation that no other episode had.