Yes, the whole title. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, not TMNT. That’s what a friend and I spent the ride to my house talking about our Friday night viewing habits as kids, and this came up. Out of sheer curiosity, I tried Googling the show just to see what came up. Apparently, the old school Ninja Turtles I liked before just weren’t cool enough, because it was difficult scrounging up images of the real show. Behold the evolution of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
Vintage 2D animation
With a little airbrushing, but the faces are still the same
They stopped looking friendly. Aww.
And then started looking truly badass.
Then they became really dorky.
Whatever happened to the good ‘ol cartoon? Not kick-ass enough for today’s kids?
You have to wonder if this phenomenon started with the gloomy square-jawed Batman series aired on friday nights.
great obvservation, but the funny thing is that the turtles didn’t start out kid-friendly. the show was adapted from a graphic novel with “deadly” ninja turtles. there was lots of blood, little humor, and the turtles weren’t even distinguishable with no color variety on their headbands.