Is it "off-brand" to put characters without FW counterparts in FW based stuff?

[neatoman]

So discussion on how that "Saturday Morning" comic made a bunch of homages to the Tournament Fighters game (while still not including certain characters in that game), and to a lesser extent the appearance of Super Shredder in Shredder's Revenge, got me thinking a bit. Since Tournament Fighters itself included a bunch of characters who were never part of the Fred Wolf cartoon and Super Shredder was never in the Fred Wolf cartoon despite SR's obsession with sticking to what was in it, how "off-brand" would it be to you if/when characters who were never in the Fred Wolf cartoon when it aired are used in stuff that otherwise makes use of the Fred Wolf cartoon as a basis?

So, for example. Imagine that Nickelodeon decides to make a special all about the Fred Wolf turtles. Every returning is voiced by a surviving cast member, April is a News reporter without psychic powers or anything, Shredder and Krang are hanging out in he Technodrome pulling the same types of schemes, the Foot Clan are all robots and all that. None of the elements present in the Fred Wolf cartoon are in any way substantially different from the Fred Wolf cartoon, a direct comparison would be required to tell the difference. And most importantly, it is not a crossover with whatever version is currently on the air. But here's the catch, Savanti Romero, The Fugitoid, Karai, Hun, Bishop etc. are characters in this special. None of whom were in the Fred Wolf cartoon when it was still airing. Would you consider this special to be "off-brand"?