A studio other than Fred Wolf?
 

I'm just wondering, what would the first ever TMNT show was produced by another studio? It all depends on the studio of course but what would be different about it? Would it have been more accurate to the comics? Even less? Shorter? Longer?

Just to get the ball rolling, here are a few suggestions.

• Sunbow
• Dic
• Ruby-Spears
• Hanna-Barbera
• Filmation
• Saban

DIC Entertainment = Produced Captain Planet, so maybe more environmental-polticial messages?

Filmation = stupid messages after the episodes, like "Don't play with fire".

Hanna-Barbera = Stuck in the late-1960's and early-1970's? Turtles, meet the turtles, and have a cowabunga time!

Saban Entertainment - Next Mutation 10 years earlier?

One thing that would have been interesting is if Ninja Turtles (1987) was produced by Hanna-Barbera. It had kid versions of its classics as its last real putout before being bought by Turner Broadcasting in the twilight of William Hanna and Joe Barbera's careers. That being said what if it produced the Ninja Turtles cartoon and the success never changed? Would Hanna Barbera have been bought out by Turner Broadcasting? The early years under the Turner banner put out Johnny Bravo and Dexter's Laboratory and that was really it. Would there have been a renaissance of sorts because of the TMNT and not just early put out if bought out? An interesting concept!

All those companies cartoons in the 80's were either horrible or too toned down for kids. Superfriends was produced back then, it is damn near awful.

Censors were much tougher during the 1970's and early-1980's.

Yeah, the original cartoon seems tame for today's standards, but at the time it was actually considered the most violent/action packed cartoon of its day...until Batman: TAS came out in 1992 and revolutionized kids cartoons. There are a whole bunch of articles back then about parents complaining about how violent the TMNT show was, and protesters which seems laughable now.

I doubt any other show would have had self-aware humor and characters with personalities that bounce off each other the way the Turtles did, as well as Shredder/Krang and the villains. Plus all the sci-fi plots and parodies carried the show.

Censors were still tough when Heman debuted in September 1983:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/12-insane-fa...uni-1619470015

It's a shame the Christian Soccer Moms ruined kids cartoons for a decade because they thought Little Timmy could not be exposed to characters punching each other in action cartoons.

I think much is because by September 1973, when Superfriends started, the USA had just left North Vietnam (starting after the Paris peace treaty in late-January that year). The hippie and flower power movemenst had been big, and the international peace movmenet would remain strong until the early-1990's.

If Hanna-Barbera made TMNT they probably would have rebooted it every year like Scooby-Doo and then released a hundred straight to DVD films with WWE wrestlers.:lol:

To be honest the animation would have been too fluid as well.

- Sunbow - They eventually went under I think. Probably would have produced it for a few years, cancelled it and then years later spend my three weeks of work experience with Metrodome pleading for them to release the series. :D

- Ruby-Spears - even with a handful of successful animated shows they still went bankrupt. We probably would have got two years with little ambition or inventiveness the Fred Wolf series provided.

- Hanna-Barbera - see above.

- Filmation - can't see this happening. They may have thought it was a good idea but the animation would have had the usual cheap, limited quality from Filmation's other series. Add to the fact Filmation was more or less gone by the time the FW series premiered.

- Saban - the problem here is that back in the 80s Saban wasn't making cartoons so not sure how this would have worked.

- Dic - ah now DIC I can see producing TMNT. The show would have been allowed to continue for a good number of years and the animation would have been more consistent. It would have looked like The Real Ghostbusters so yeah this definitely could have worked.


I remember reading a rumour that one of the shows to most get attacked by these types of people to the point of cancellation was The Legend of Prince Valiant. The final straw I think was one of the female characters appearing nude in the water. Obviously you only saw her nude shoulders but that apparently got the show cancelled.

Filmation
 

Filmation closed on 3 February 1989

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmation

So we would maybe get just two seasons

Eh, more likely just one. Bravestarr, their final series, premiered a few months before FW's TMNT, and the only things Filmation made after 1987 were a film for Bravestarr (which saw a very limited release in early 1988 ) and a DTV Snow White movie which had its US release delayed until 1993 because of the studio's closure. They were in no shape to do a series like Ninja Turtles beyond the obligatory 5 episode mini-series.

I'd like to see a TMNT series produced by Sunrise or Madhouse.

But with TMNT becoming popular, maybe Filmation could survive for a longer time?

Unlikely. Star Trek: The Animated Series did pretty well at the time but they didn't have the money to continue making it. I think Filmation would have lost interest if they started making seasons of TMNT, then again the animation would have been quite stilted so probably for the best.

I think Sunbow could've done a good job; they handled the Hasbro shows with a decent level of quality, and probably wouldn't have gotten as totally silly as Fred wolf did. I could see the rest of the series staying as serious as season one did under them.

I don't see TMNT under Sunbow turning out well as Transformers is a testament to that. Yes I know the show was a phenomenon but it was a worse cartoon than the FW series. We dodged a bullet.

Since the first season of FW tmnt was animated by toei, what if Laird and Eastman decided that they (Toei) could produce the show as well in Japan and have it dubbed in English by Funimation like in the case of the Dragonball TV series so that its exposed to a wider audience.

Then we would probably have major interests for anime and manga outside Japan by 1989 instead of 1995.

I can see that working. We would have got at least eight seasons although it's worldwide popularity, TMNT being a household name would have been less likely. Probably niche.