Why do you think you want the Fred Wolf cartoon back?

[neatoman]

Alright, so the announcement of Shredder's Revenge and the display of the animated intro, has some people... Either thinking this is an example of why the Fred Wolf show should be brought back, or even a little sadder, thinking the game itself is an indicator that it will happen. Of course, the game really only went with the Fred Wolf thing in order to better homage the Konami games, it's seriously doubtful there is anything more in the works.

Now... It's probably never actually going to happen... Sorry. It just makes less sense than you might think it does. The majority of the people who think they want the show back are roughly 40 years old by now (the show itself ended 25 years ago), so understandably such a revival would mainly appeal to them, but the Fred Wolf show was very clearly made for young children back in the late 80's and it's questionable if those particular versions of the ideas would even still work for them. And when you can just make a new cartoon without the baggage of old continuity, wouldn't that be more likely to grab the attention of children?

I'm just gonna break down why every potential version of this idea I can think of wouldn't really work.

First off, and this applies to all versions of this idea, you will not get the same people behind it and even those who may return will be different.
You will most likely never watch an episode written by the same people who wrote the Fred Wolf cartoon, and certainly not by David Wise. Most of the characters would be recast, even if some actors return their voices will be different simply because they're older. You may not think it's a very big deal, but in terms of making it come across like nothing happened, it is. You will know the difference. Just the fact that it wouldn't use traditional cel animation would be enough to throw you off. Now granted, that does mean it wouldn't actually suffer the horrible writing or constant errors the show had, which is a good thing, but would certainly fail to really feel like the same show.

Now then, what about continuity? Would you be satisfied with either an actual sequel or something that is just a reboot that sticks to the status quo of the show?
I don't think you'd like either and be disappointed with both. If it was an actual sequel it would have to adress the Red Sky seasons and adress the changes made there, if ignored it's just going to lead to confusion. At that point it would have to pick between either continuing where the Red Sky seasons left off, or essentially pick and choose what to continue and what not to, at which point you might question why they even bothered? If it's basically just a reboot, then why bother with the slavish copying of the Fred Wolf cartoon? If that happens you are essentially just watching a remake of the old show with maybe better writing and definitely better animation, with maybe a couple of new stories. Of then the writers would also have to limit themselves to an old formula, an old formula they didn't create and might not be comfortable with. And if they are allowed to take the story in whatever direction they want to, then differences will keep piling up and how long will it take before it stops being anything like the Fred Wolf show?

As for the target audience, who should that be? Children or adults?
If it is actual children, it doesn't make much sense to make a show connected to something they might have never seen before. It would be full of references they wouldn't really understand and the exact tastes of children today might differ too much from what they were back then. It is a better idea to simply start over from scratch and test some pilots on a focus group. If the target audience are adults, the show definitely won't be written as the Fred Wolf show. At that point, it would likely try to add some themes and plot points more suitable for adults, which wouldn't necessarily be bad but it would stray quite far from wha the Fred Wolf show was. If these changes go into the more typical directions of adult animation, it would completely change the tone and simply could not be called the Fred Wolf show anymore.

So yeah, I really don't think that whatever they'd make would even remotely be what you have in mind, nor do I think what you have in mind even can be achieved.

If it's a kids show that continues the story from some arbitrary point, that would just be pointless, forgettable wank. You'd likely just forget about it and any kids watching it would be confused.

If it is on the other hand a show that uses the character designs but has an unrelated story, adult themes, a serious tone, lets the writers have total creative freedom and piles up differences over time... Well, that wouldn't have to be bad, it just wouldn't be the Fred Wolf show. It would be a total reboot that just superficially looks like the Fred Wolf show.