Replacement characters for April?
 

So it seems that the topic of wheter or not April is interesting or really important enough to appear as the human friend of the Turtles in every iteration. An argument brought up is that franchises where the human characters are not really as important as the non-humans around them, the prime example of that being Transformers. Now when it comes to Transformers iterations we tend to get the same robot characters but new human characters every time, the human sidekicks could easily have been Spike, Carly and Chip from the G1 cartoon most of the time but what we have now are about twenty different sidekick characters in Transformers.

And it appears that some people feel the same, now I don't really agree with them but I see where they are coming from. If the April from the Nickelodeon series was called Jenny or something instead, would you really think that she was originally intended to be April? Maybe out of tradition you would think that but then she does deviate from how April is typically potrayed. Hell, even the April in the Fred Wolf cartoon is remarkably different from the one we see in the Mirage comics. There has even been attempts to replace, such as in the case with Cody.

So what do you think? Could April be replaced by another character?

It reminds me of when I used to watch the Sune cartoon (I wasn't kid a that time, it was the one from the 2000s, not the one with just silent pictures and Anders Jacobsson reading from the books), and remember Herman for some reason being replaced with Joakim Fröberg. He was exactly like Joakim from the books, radio series/cassette-tapes and live-action series, he lived with his mother in an apartment building (oh, the books are so muh better...).

It's not April, it's the writing. Changing her name isn't going to change the writing. Making her a dude only further reinforces the problem that the writers have an issue with compelling female characters.

There's nobody else they could use. IDW is trying with Angel and I guess that's the closest we'll see to a female replacement for April.

That cartoon has very little to with the books to begin with...

Oops, I mean Herman in the cartoon replaced Joakim Fröberg from the other Sune universes.

Well, yeah he did, I was pretty sure that's what you meant. What I was pointing was that the cartoon seems like a rather loose adaptation, like I don't remember any plots from the books making it into the cartoon and the characters don't seem to behave much their book counterparts.

April as a concept is a good idea. As a character she is strong, determined, caring and warm. As a function she provides a link between the turtles and the wider world with which they have limited access and experience.

HOWEVER.... It seems that once she is established in a universe, the writers don't know what to do with her to keep her engaging. She falls into whatever neat category has been established for her. For example, in the OT it was: blindly pursues a news story, gets herself into trouble and in need of rescue; in Nick it is: has special powers and a backstory that is more unbelievable than the mutant turtles she is friends with; in the second film it is: gatherer of information and deliverer of messages. I could go on.

A human link is essential. What's the point of mutant turtles if there is no frame of reference to "normal"? - a point the Nick writers seem to be missing. The turtles could be part of a universe of humanoid animals, but then... they are just ordinary parts of their own ordinary world. They would no longer be so special.

So basically I love the idea of April, but have only seen her written well for very brief moments.

Yeah, I agree. Talking of changed characters, the 2000's cartoon version also had one character called Maria, who was supposed to be a Muslim in the 2004 videogame version "Sune och pussjakten" based on the 2000's cartoon (she appeared with veil at the outdoor basketball court). The only one of Sune's classmates named Maria in the books is Maria Perez, also an immigrant girl to Sweden, but who seemed to be from somewhere in Central America or South America. I doubt the books mentioned it very much, but since she first appeared in "Sune börjar tvåan" from 1985 (sadly I don't have just that book, but I'm still a great fan of Sune and Bert), it wouldn't be surprising if her parents were on the run from military dictatorships of Chile under Augusto Pinochet, Argentina under Jorge Videla or Paraguay under Alfredo Stroessner, Nicaragua under the Somoza family (Olof Palme hated those governments, so many refugees from Central America or South America got political asylum in Sweden) or whatever and ended up in Sweden. Roman Catholic branch of Christianity would make muh more sense even in the cartoon!

I always wondered why Isabelle was abscent, but she isn't even in much live-action universes (despite being born in Självklart, Sune from 1986).

From Sune to TMNT (actually, they were both created in 1983, Sune in mid-year, TMNT in November), I'm not a fan of 2012 schoolgoril April. April shall be the turtles' strongest link to human so she needs to have some education and a work where she can give them information (like computer company employee, reporter or scientist).

Although April has always played an important role in every origin story of the TMNT as their first (for all practical purposes despite later retcons) contact with the human world, I am surprised no other version has yet to replace her with a reasonable facsimile named George or Liz or whatever. Despite her being the key character for introducing the Turtles to the human world in the Mirage, Fred Wolf, live-action film trilogy, 4Kids, Nick, IDW, and Platinum Dunes universes, most continuities rarely have a good handle on what to do with her "normal" character mold soon after the introduction period. In an attempt to overcompensate and make her "relevant" again, the various incarnations have a tendency to resort to some really weird ideas like writing her as an overnight success-story ninja and Olympic level gymnast (Imagi, 4Kids and to a lesser extent Archie and Mirage) or else revealing she's really not so normal (Nick or Mirage).

I really like her character, but folks have real trouble figuring out what to do with her. Heck, in the context of films, she's of the few female fictional reporters who apparently doesn't sleep with her sources or co-workers! Surprisingly, the Plantinum Dunes film decided to give her character more focus than any other incarnation (to a fault, of course), the opposite of what I would have expected for a summer action film aimed toward children.

And April, despite all her generic-ness has historically broken the mold when it comes to female action figures in toy lines marketed towards boys. April probably has more toy variants than some of the bigger name female super heroes of Marvel & DC fame.

Maybe someday, the cartoon and comic book writers will figure out how to fully realize her potential as a character.

Or maybe someday we'll just have a TMNT universe in which George and Lizzy are new best buds of the Ninja Turtles.

I always wonder why she isn't in Next Mutation?

Because Venus was the main female of the show.

She and Casey were planned to be in a season 2, with the return of Shredder. But the show was long dead at this point. As well as the death of a family member

I like April in small amounts, I don't think she needs to be fudged into every episode. I honestly hate the Nick version, but then again I hate April and Casey as teens. April is great as college aged, with sparing appearance, I prefer Casey as an adult (not an April/Casey fan), if yo want a peer for the Turtles, why not introduce Shadow? The idea of middle aged, single parent Casey would be an interesting angle, plus I could just imagine hearing Splinter and Casey discussing parenting methods.

I don't know when Saban decided to canceled NM, but it didn't get nixed for bad views. It was a very popular show, and was sacrificed for furthering Power Rangers.

In 1998, after season 1 (1997-1998)

Wait, what?

I didn't understand that last part, but the reference is pretty ominous.

No one can replace April, she's essential!

I still can't see Venus as a replacement for April, it's two different roles.

One trick all of the various Turtle incarnations have missed almost entirely is that it would be a LONG time until the Turtles would encounter a human who would react to them the way April or Casey do.
Most of humanity would find them repulsive, scary, alien and would want them locked in cages, paraded on TV, used for experiments or even killed.
In reality, the Turtles would have had to kill pretty much all humans who happened to see them, because they couldn't afford to have someone blabbering about mutant aliens in the sewers. Next thing you know, there's cops, National Guard, Marines, Homeland Security and whatnot on their tail.