Original Series Turtles Animation Studio List
 

Recently I've become really interested in re-watching the original Ninja Turtles series, seeing the changes in animation depending on the studio working on the episode. I was wondering whether any one could compile a list showing which episodes were animated by which animation studio. Before I re-watch the episodes I'd like to know which episodes companies like TMS, Dai Won, etc were responsible for. For example I'd be interested to know who animated the episodes like The Mean Machines and Peking Turtle. If that isn't possible could someone direct to a list someone else has done? Thanks, this will be most appreciated. :)

According to the credits, all we know is that Season 1 was done by Toei in Tokyo, Season 2 by A-1 productions somewhere in East Asia, the "Badly animated" episodes of Seasons 3 and 4 in Dublin (all with the MW Dublin logo at the end of the credits), the European Vacation episodes by Studio IDDH- Blois in France, Seasons 8 and 10 by Dai Won, and Season 9 was animated by Shanghai Morning Sun. All other episodes/seasons remain unknown.

Well we know that TMS did Turtles on Trial. Turtles of the Jungle was by Fred Wolf Dublin. Also as you mentioned Toei did Season 1. I think we need to start a new project. Anyone care to contribute any more studio names for individual episodes? I've always wondered did TMS do The Mean Machines?

Is there a reason why the animation was outsourced to multiple companies? The '87 TMNT toon wasn't the only one to do this, other toons did too. I'm only curious.

It was an industry standard from what I can tell.

Back in those days, many TV cartoon shows were created with syndication in mind from the very beginning. Networks and studios often expected a cartoon show's first "season" (a relatively modern concept for animated programs, mind you) to consist of 65 episodes. I can't imagine how daunting of a task it must have been to create 65 episodes in less than a year. Thus, outscoring animation to different overseas studios was practically a necessity.

Clearly that 65 episode policy didn't apply in TMNT's case (the first two seasons seemed to follow the G.I.JOE: Real America Hero pattern of pumping out mini-series and compact story arcs for the first few years in order to ensure a cross promotion with the toy line), but by the third and fourth seasons of the Fred Wolf series, the show was pumping out episodes in a hurry.

I guess that makes sense. Lots of production in a limited amount of time. But sadly when it's outsourced to so many different studios, the quality is decreased. I dunno much about animation today and what they do these days, but I surely hope they're not in such a rush like that, having to outsource to multiple co's.

I just think it would be good for reference to have a list that tells us in advance who studio animated which episode so we know what to expect in terms of animation style and quality.

I know this is an old thread but I found this vid interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcQ8E3y7-Uc

It's a comparison between the animation studios of Batman: TAS. Why can't someone make a vid like this for the old TMNT toon? That'd be awesome! Anyway I noticed with BTAS the artwork was always different from episode to episode, just like in TMNT. And as always, the Japanese studios always had the best artwork.

I'd love to see something like this for Turtles! :)

Although uncredited, I've found info that Dai Wong also animated the CBS episodes of Season 7, and that Hanho Heung-Up and Wang Film Productions animated some uncredited episodes somewhere in the middle seasons (3-6). Since TMS/Turtles on Trial was mentioned, I believe they also animated more Season 3 episodes due to the large number of episodes that season.

What kind of Animationstyle did those Studios use? Got any Screenshots?

It would be easier to identify which episode was animated by which studio if we had comparising Screenshots...

Also - I think that Enter the Fly was either done by TMS or maybe outsorced by Toei (or one of their animationdepartments) because it had a very similar Animationstyle to the Season 1 Episodes.

Yeah, I'd like to see that happen. It would be useful if someone had the expertise to do that, it's a difficult task.