Between two separate comic companies and the cartoon there were already a number of different iterations of the “heroes in a half-shell”. Throw in the live-action movies and series, the latter of which may or may not share the movie continuity, the “Coming Out Of Their Shells” musical Turtles, and what they were doing in Japan with manga and anime and somehow the original concept was getting lost. The first movie relatively faithful to the comics within the limits of a kids movie, but it did keep angry Raphael, the origin of the characters (though Oroku Saki and Oroku Nagi were merged into the same character without the dying part), and Casey shows up far earlier but maintains the same personality. They still managed to use enough of the regular show iconography to be recognized by fans who didn’t know about the comics, even as the later movies started doing their own thing, so even then the cartoons were the influence and kids were the target.

2003 brought a new incarnation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, airing on the Fox Box and brought to life by Dong Woo Animation while being produced by the bane of anime purists, 4Kids Entertainment! 4Kids, as I’ve gone over numerous times, were not a dubbing studio. They produced kids shows for kids in the United States, and that’s how they approached their shows. Complain all you want about jelly donuts but how many kids were introduced to Japanese animation and shows that could bridge the gap between kids and adults, what we used to call “all-ages”, outside of the DCAU at that time in TV history? My favorites of theirs were the American-produced ones like this show, Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, and WMAC Masters. In fact my calling this period “the best” of Ninja Turtles is admittedly me showing all the bias because this is my favorite version of the Ninja Turtles. The first episode starts with a re-enactment of the “trash-strewn alley” that started the first comic. Then the intro begins.

Continue reading →