Did you believe the ideas were original as a child?
 

If you watched the 1987-1996 series as a child, did you believe the ideas for the stories were original.

I thought so of most concept for many years, except recognizing a Ducktales episode where that girl, it seems her name is Webby Vanderquack, temporary became a giant, just like Irma in "Attack of the 50 Foot Irma". I also watched a Superfriends series, and thought Mxyzptlk reminded of Ogg.

I can't speak for this show in particular but it comes to cartoons in general, I can't remember. I guess that I must have encountered these sorts of cliché plots for the first time at some point, it's only logical that I would but I can't honestly remember any particular cartoon being my first.

All I can remember is that I noticed how cartoons often had similar plots when episodes tended to be self-contained.:ohwell:

Since it was one of the first shows I watched or paid attention too, sure. I never realized how nearly every plot of the original cartoon is based on old sci-fi movies, or old gangster movies, or old kung fu flicks in general.

It wasn't until I rediscovered the TMNT I learnt what the episodes were based on.

It's been so long, it's hard to say. I think I at least vaguely recognized that some themes were commonly done by cartoons, including TMNT. The giant, as you say, as well as the King Kong, Phantom of the Oprah, etc.

Even today's cartoons (not just TMNT, and maybe not so much Nick) do 'that episode' that had to happen eventually.

On my first viewings of many episodes, I didn't realize that many were not original but I knew there was eventually bound to be a shrinking episode, clip show, annoying alien episode like most shows at the show (with many new episodes using the same common ideas again>)

I kinda knew stuff like the shrinking ep, the giant ep, amnesia ep, mind switch etc were done in other cartoons.

Didn't really put much thought into it.

I guess it depends on how much other animated series you could watch as a child.

As a kid I didn't think too much about it. And when I was older and rewatched the show I was already aware of the ideas the episodes was based off.

I not even watched much other animated series before.

Didn't realise that either as a kid until I was much older.

Did you even manage to catch many other animated action-adventure series before?

Same for me. I never thought much about junk I watched as a kid. The only important thing I cared about was, "does it entertain me".

Also, most episode titles didn't make any sense for me until much later.

I remember as kid just accepting that there were some plots that almost every cartoon series used though I didn't know why (shrinking episodes, made younger episodes, someone made a giant episodes) but I do recall liking the different versions of them. When I got older, I could be more critical of certain elements but even now, they can entertain me. I can make fun of how it was overdone but I have to admit, I still enjoy them

Also, not all ideas came from animated series. Much of the science fiction stuff came from Startrek, something i didn't even know.

I learned pretty early that there's no such thing as an original idea, so no, not even close.

I thought they were all original ideas until some years ago when I watched AVGN's video looking at the show. I was surprised as to how many plots were similar or inspired by 50's sci-fi movies and horrors. David Wise comments on the show as well as other writers confirm this. To me that's genius because no one at that age would realise the plots weren't original yet there were so many of them introduced, to a new generation with an 80s/90s update you'd never notice. I've always said that in terms of sci-fi Mirage TMNT's sci-fi was cyberpunk while the FW series sci-fi was from the retro futuristic.

That's pretty much all I care about now, too.