Relive the Entire 80s/90s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cartoon

This is one of those “should have posted this sooner” entries, though amusingly enough, I dare say that it’s as relevant now as when I was originally going to post it. Neat.

An old friend/colleague from the Allspark, Mark Pellegrini, has been writing for a site called “Adventures in Poor Taste!” (or “AiPT!” for short) for a while now, but I only recently began reading his stuff there, starting with a review of a random season of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. And then another. And another. Eventually, I went through the entire archive attached to his name, picking out the stuff I was interested in to look at (I’m not much for horror-based stuff, so I didn’t read those. But there was plenty of other things, like “banned” The Flintstones cartoons!). In fact, it helped me to pass a good deal of time while my wife was being examined and such at the hospital a few months ago.

This isn’t the first time I’ve brought up Pellegrini’s work here, as he also runs TMNT Entity, which provides a pretty thorough look at the history of the green teens in the comics pages, and he knows his stuff, making the cartoon reviews a fun read. But as big as a fan as he is, I wouldn’t say he’s biased; he calls good and bad alike with near-equal measure — and I say “near equal” because the fact of the matter is that there was so much bad compared to good in the original cartoon, but he even gets into why that is.

Reading through these reviews has even made me a little nostalgic for the original cartoon, one I’ve generally been happy to leave behind in favor of newer versions of the characters. I have nowhere near enough time to go through all ten seasons of that run (one season has nearly 50 episodes! For comparison’s sake, the original Transformers cartoon didn’t even break 100), however, so I’m content with the reviews for now. They’ve reminded me of moments both grand, cringe–worthy, and even just downright confusing as the writers displayed all the memory of a mutant goldfish as they seemingly forgot what they wrote one episode if not one page ago.

It’s a roller coaster ride, to be sure, and I recommend it for fans of the original cartoon as well as those who may have been introduced to the franchise through the newer cartoons, movies, or comics, as this is where a lot of ideas that influence all those mediums sprang from during the franchise’s peak popularity.

For convenience, here’s a link to each of his reviews:

Season 1
Season 2 (Part 1)
Season 2 (Part 2)
Season 3 (Part 1)
Season 3 (Part 2)
Season 3 (Part 3)
Season 3 (Part 4)
Season 3 (Part 5)
Season 3 (Part 6)
Season 3 (Part 7)
Season 3 (Part 8)
Season 4 (Part 1)
Season 4 (Part 2)
Season 4 (Part 3)
Season 4 (Part 4)
Season 4 (Part 5)
Season 4 (Part 6)
Season 4 (Part 7)
Season 5 (Part 1)
Season 5 (Part 2)
Season 5 (Part 3)
Season 5 (Part 4)
Season 6 (Part 1)
Season 6 (Part 2)
Season 6 (Part 3)
Season 7 (Part 1)
Season 7 (Part 2)
Season 7 (Part 3)
Season 7 (Part 4)
Season 8
Season 9
Season 10

…yowza. In case you were wondering, yes, that was precisely as much of a pain to get together as you would imagine. If you manage to survive that, he’s got plenty of other Turtles and non-Turtles stuff there, too. Also, I commented on a few of those, so if you do go through, keep an eye out for those.

By the sound of things, it looks like Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation is next up on his list of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles stuff to review, presumably once he gets his will to do so back after all of this. It should be as interesting, maybe even more, since I think that it had a lot of great ideas and concepts, but the execution didn’t live up to their potential. I’m really looking forward to it.

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David Oxford is a freelance writer of many varied interests. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

David Oxford

David Oxford, or “LBD ‘Nytetrayn’,” as he is sometimes also known, is a freelance writer of many varied interests who resides in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. If you’re interested in hiring him, please drop him a line at david.oxford (at) nyteworks.net.

For a full list of places to find him online, click here.