How do you feel about the Turtles learning about humans from watching TV?
 

In the first episode Raph tells April, "Relax we know all about humans." April responds, "How?" and Mike says, "We watch a lot of TV." followed by April's, "We're in serious trouble."

Therefore for 15 years in the OT, the Turtles learned about humans through watching their old 80's style antenna TV. They probably watched 80's sitcoms and dramas from around that time.

Well.. It all depends what channels they were watching, don't you think..

I'm more curious on how they got a working tv and electricity

Finding an old beat up 80's TV in the sewers or garbage isn't unreasonable. It was even missing one of its legs that they had to put 3 books under it to hold it up.

Donatello probably handled that.

I feel it makes perfect sense.

Nowadays they watch Jeremy Kyle.

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Uh hum, it is in fact Donatello who says "Relax, we know all about humans..."

I've heard stories about immigrants learning the native language by watching programs in that language, so I don't think it's that unusual.

I think you guys are missing the point. He's not asking if it's far-fetched. I think the idea here is that TV may not be a great means of learning about how 'real life' really is. So many things are exaggerated, censored, made up, etc, that it could lead the turtles to think we're a lot different than we are.

Anyway, I don't think it would've been too bad in their time compared to how things are now. Reality TV is hardly what it claims to be, things are far more sexualized/materialistic now, and most programs seem to have a very obvious agenda.

They knew April from watching the news, didn't they? It's been a while since I watched the first ep.

It may be an imperfect window but it does help them learn a LOT about the world outside of the sewers. Not sure how they will handle it in the new show but I imagine them down in the sewer with donnie having some kind of rigged internet connection while they all sit around and watch youtube

I'd rather them think people were like characters from 80's television than garbage like Jersey Shore.

I think it's just a gag. April's reaction basically cements Powder's theory that if they learned about humanity from the boob-tube, then they have a very jaundiced view of how we operate. All in all it was a throwaway line in a comedy series. :P

I find it quite a brave conquest for the Turtles to use the media to learn the ways of the world, as it really can persuade the humans that the Turtles are heroes. However, until the Turtles saved April since she was about to be kidnapped by thugs that happened to be in the sewers, the Turtles would feel that the best thing to do is to learn from the outsiders and only apply when it is necessary, and live with their underground trappings. They may have been too afraid to be kidnapped by normal humans without having any real purpose in their lives, even if someone like April would view them as cute, unusual animals. So watching TV helped the Turtles prepare for the overworld in case the sewers no longer became habitable or an enemy attack such as the Shredder forced them above ground.

Once April belived in the Turtles/Splinter's origins, it was the Turtles' first human friend, and with April's topside skills, allowed the Turtles to explore the overworld for the first time safely since with April on their side, could protect them from suspicious people such as the Gun-totting Granny.

Well according to some episodes the Turtles watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. There was an ep where Raph says, "Do we have to get Vanna to start showing us letters?" or something like that.

In the second movie Raphael wanted to watch Oprah. :D

Isn't this how real life children learn about things these days?

Hmm it wasn't 15 years in the Fred Wolf show. Their transformation to teens was instant.

Indeed. My mother learned Spanish by watching spanish TV, especialy kids shows like Sesame Street.

They called themselves teenagers though, it had to have been 15 years.

They may not have been kid forms but its not like episode 1 of the OT took place the day after they were mutated.

I think it's very realistic that they learned about humans from television since they weren't allowed to venture outside.

And I learned some French from watching the Canadian version of Sesame Street. I even was counting to twelve in French by the time I entered kindergarten.