Your honest opinion of the 1987 cartoon - Then and Now

*Refractive Reflections* · 08-09-2014, 07:15 PM

I still enjoy the series very much, but of course the slapstick can be extreme and the plots can feel forced (the European vacation sideseason) or forgettable at times, but the series was chucking out 40+ episodes a season in the 3rd and 4th seasons, so there's bound to be some clunkers there. I think when most people complain about the comedy (breaking the fourth wall and bad puns), episodic nature (plot being solved within each episode), and animation errors, it reflects more on the cartoons of the time (80s and 90s) rather than just the OT itself.
Most shows (not only children's shows but a significant amount of adult shows as well) of the time couldn't be serial since there was no internet or DVR for viewers to catch up on the more intricate details of the characters, much less know how the episodes were in order, plus it was the syndicated nature of television which could easily attract new viewers.

One thing that made the series alluring for me is the show recognizing how outlandish and ridiculous the TMNT concept is in the first place (it was most common whenever OT Raphael applied "real world" logic to the bizarre situations they got into), and building its charm from there rather than starting off pretentiously as most action-adventure cartoons do with consistent melodrama (especially with cartoons of the 90s). I think it's probably one of the more important key aspects of the series, and one of the humblest, because almost any superhero franchise and its concept is absurd or ridiculous in itself in comparison to the real world. If I really wanted to watch stone-cold crime-fighting drama that paralleled the cruelty of real life, I would choose programming that was more realistic and relatable to the human experience rather than with monsters, mutants, aliens, etc.

08-09-2014, 07:15 PM	#14
Refractive Reflections Mad Scientist $Refractive Reflections's Avatar$ Join Date: Nov 2012 Posts: 2,371	I still enjoy the series very much, but of course the slapstick can be extreme and the plots can feel forced (the European vacation sideseason) or forgettable at times, but the series was chucking out 40+ episodes a season in the 3rd and 4th seasons, so there's bound to be some clunkers there. I think when most people complain about the comedy (breaking the fourth wall and bad puns), episodic nature (plot being solved within each episode), and animation errors, it reflects more on the cartoons of the time (80s and 90s) rather than just the OT itself. Most shows (not only children's shows but a significant amount of adult shows as well) of the time couldn't be serial since there was no internet or DVR for viewers to catch up on the more intricate details of the characters, much less know how the episodes were in order, plus it was the syndicated nature of television which could easily attract new viewers. One thing that made the series alluring for me is the show recognizing how outlandish and ridiculous the TMNT concept is in the first place (it was most common whenever OT Raphael applied "real world" logic to the bizarre situations they got into), and building its charm from there rather than starting off pretentiously as most action-adventure cartoons do with consistent melodrama (especially with cartoons of the 90s). I think it's probably one of the more important key aspects of the series, and one of the humblest, because almost any superhero franchise and its concept is absurd or ridiculous in itself in comparison to the real world. If I really wanted to watch stone-cold crime-fighting drama that paralleled the cruelty of real life, I would choose programming that was more realistic and relatable to the human experience rather than with monsters, mutants, aliens, etc.
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