lack of ongoing popularity= lack of humans? - Page 2

notebook · 10-16-2008, 05:45 AM

Do you think the TMNT's decline in popularity (for both the first and second times) is due to its relative lack of human characters?

As a child of the OT era, I reached an age where I saw the whole anthromorphic thing as either way more directed towards younger kids or just "weird" (Raph and Ninjara in bed). TMNTA had a lot of strong points, but it got tiresome after a while to see all these guys like Chien Khan, Charlie Llama, and Katmandu (I don't think they were even mutants, just animalz with attitude). Hell, even Fast Forward falls into the trap as it's a whoe lot of aliens and robots- Cody and Darius are like the only humans in NYC in a hundred years- wtf?

When cartoons like X-men, Batman, and Spider-man became cool in the early 90's, I was much more into watching Rogue and Magneto. Aside from April, we rarely ever saw Casey (and he wasn't even in the Archie seres) and though secondary characters like the Channel 6 News team were great comedic relief, it's not like kids wished they could be like Irma or Vernon.

Like a lot of other kids, I left the TMNT behind in those days.
Besides independent comic books notwithstanding, TMNT as they were represented in the mainstream were losing their appeal. The OT was getting stale (though S7 was a return to consistent quality) and TMNT III sucked. After 1993 (94 at the latest), there weren't even any more videogames coming out, and the toy line became an endless stream of variants.

While the TMNT are obviously very human characters, it was easier to "relate to" characters that were actually human, especially as I/my generation got older. The franchise was put to rest for a while and rebooted only when there was a new generation of kids.

I guess this may go hand in hand with the TMNT's burden as something that's always going to be primarly directed towards younger audiences, despite the older and more vocal internet fanbase.

10-16-2008, 05:45 AM	#1
notebook Hench Mutant Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 275	lack of ongoing popularity= lack of humans? Do you think the TMNT's decline in popularity (for both the first and second times) is due to its relative lack of human characters? As a child of the OT era, I reached an age where I saw the whole anthromorphic thing as either way more directed towards younger kids or just "weird" (Raph and Ninjara in bed). TMNTA had a lot of strong points, but it got tiresome after a while to see all these guys like Chien Khan, Charlie Llama, and Katmandu (I don't think they were even mutants, just animalz with attitude). Hell, even Fast Forward falls into the trap as it's a whoe lot of aliens and robots- Cody and Darius are like the only humans in NYC in a hundred years- wtf? When cartoons like X-men, Batman, and Spider-man became cool in the early 90's, I was much more into watching Rogue and Magneto. Aside from April, we rarely ever saw Casey (and he wasn't even in the Archie seres) and though secondary characters like the Channel 6 News team were great comedic relief, it's not like kids wished they could be like Irma or Vernon. Like a lot of other kids, I left the TMNT behind in those days. Besides independent comic books notwithstanding, TMNT as they were represented in the mainstream were losing their appeal. The OT was getting stale (though S7 was a return to consistent quality) and TMNT III sucked. After 1993 (94 at the latest), there weren't even any more videogames coming out, and the toy line became an endless stream of variants. While the TMNT are obviously very human characters, it was easier to "relate to" characters that were actually human, especially as I/my generation got older. The franchise was put to rest for a while and rebooted only when there was a new generation of kids. I guess this may go hand in hand with the TMNT's burden as something that's always going to be primarly directed towards younger audiences, despite the older and more vocal internet fanbase.