Why did the TMNT kick the butt of Shredder so often in the 1987 cartoon?
 

Why did the TMNT kick the butt of Shredder so often in the 1987 cartoon?

Not until season 9 Dregg appeared, at least giving some new stories. Did kids mostly care for the Shredder episodes? Season 4-5 had at least some solo adventures set in rural USA with street punk gangs, gangsters, other aliens than Krang but I don't know if kids liked them.

*In Mirage they just finish him off in the first story, then fight Foot Clan, street punk gangs, gangsters, aliens from other planets like Triceratons who attack the Earth and whatever.
*Archie had a big number of bad guys and girls (but I though Null could be a human). For a while it was like they tried to write him out of the continuing stories before returning in the Future Shark Trilogy with Armaggon and Verminator X.
*In the movies, the TMNT defeat Shredder, but he survives and returns in the second. But then the third and fourth had other enemies.
*Next Mutations had Dragon Lord, Shredder sometimes.
*The 2003 cartoon followed Mirage-Image, so they had more no Shredder stories.

If it wasn't for the 1987 cartoon (and the UK Hero Turtles comics where he also appeared very often), Shredder wouldn't probably be like a something you directly think of when thinking of TMNT.

When I read this, I thought you meant the episodes when the turtles literally kicked the Shredder in his derriere.

Now that said image is out of my mind, my answer would be that usually that's what the plot called for, a quick and certain frustration of Shredder's schemes by the end of every episode. Also, tripping over Rocksteady and Bebop every other episode didn't help him either.

Plot
 

So, the plot is written before it's decided which characters shall be used?

To make you ask dumb questions. He constantly threatened their way of life. Would you have them just sit there and take it? O_o

And in other news, wrestling is fake.

I enjoyed his character and perfer appearances of The Shredder as they are for the most part more entertaining and interesting. The mob and mad scienetist are bland and not as interesting. Shredder was there since the beginning and accidently created them. He wanted them dead and to conquer the city of New York and the world at large. Shredder was presistent in his quest so he constantly was scheming and fighting the Ninja Turtles.

Playmates asked that Shredder be in half of the episodes as to why he was in so many with Krang,Bebop, and Rocksteady. That helped define him as the arch enemy that constantly fight the TMNT. Its like with the all red mask versus four different colors. It was originally done to sell toys and it worked. Overtime it became definitive that Shredder was the reoccuring arch enemy instead of a one shot villain that was apart of their origin.

Every episode villains is just the way that action cartoons was done back in the day. In the 80's you really weren't going to get an action cartoon where the big bad guy only showed up once every now and then.

Because Krang didn't want to get his tentacles dirty.

The show was slapstick camp goodness. A villain in that environment needs to get his keister handed to him at all times and Shredder fit the bill.

Not so much the plot as it's the premise.

Shredder was an 80's cartoon villain. Like all 80's cartoon villains he was contractually obligated to have his ass handed to him by the heroes every episode.

Yup. All 80's villains were scheming jerks who put too much faith in their brainless goons. Shredder was probably skilled enough to take on the turtles on his own, but he relied too much his Foot Soldiers, Bebop & Rocksteady, and whatever silly plan he came up with.

Krang, Shredder, Bebop & Rocksteady just had a great dynamic. When they were on screen they easily stole the show. Most of the episodes without them are of lesser quality in my eyes. I really think the villains helped a lot in making this show as succesfull as it was.

I seem to always remember the Shredder getting the upper hand when it came to combat with the turtles. But as far as plans go, yeah, those always went downhill.

This is not correct. Shredder's role was vastly expanded past its comic origin in the 2003 series; in fact I'd say that was one of the show's biggest problems. Unlike what you said about the 1987 show, in 2003's version many of the other villains were a lot more interesting than Shredder, and I really got sick of him coming back in one form or another. Still, in the comics he came back as a mutant shark at one point, and that I would have loved to see on TV.

Bingo. Or more specifically, if it wasn't for Playmates' heavy influence on the 1987 cartoon, that wouldn't have happened. The comics were already pretty successful in themselves by the time the show debuted, but they had limited potential for merchandising in other areas because they didn't have a very consistant set of characters or locations. So Shredder was given a bigger part.

As to why he had to be defeated at the end of almost every episode, I would say it's because of the less sophisticated nature of the 1980s. Doing a story arc requires that people tune in regularly. I can't even fault their logic much; although story arcs were a big part of why I liked the 2003 show more, I wasn't really able to get a lot out of it until I started watching it online.

Um...basic Children's cartoon formula?
I mean how often did the Thundercats trounce Mum-Ra? Or G.I. Joe waste Cobra? Or Inspector Gadget foil Dr. Claw?

I wish the Shredder would've won in some episodes. Makes the plot a bit more interesting.

I suppose you could consider "Michelangelo's Birthday" and "The Big Rip Off" to be victories for the Shredder. They are the only real candidates I can think of.

Hey, and episode was called, "Shredder Triumphant".

Don't forget Megatron and the Decepticons!

To add to the list Get Shredder,Beneath the Streets if memory serves, and Incredible Shrinknig Turtles he beat them in that one scene single handedly. It is almost like Shredder does better on his own against the TMNT without Krang,his mutant henchmen, and others.

I think that's a fair statement. He teamed up with Krang and created his own mutants in order to beat Splinter and the Turtles. Yet, perhaps he had the inherent ability to do it all along on his own.