Should Nickelodeon Reboot the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

It’s a really good time to be a fan of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. But to be more specific, it’s a really good time to be a fan of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Let’s take stock of what’s going on.

First, there was last year’s release of Nickelodeon’s entry into the Super Smash Bros. style of party-fighting game genre, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl (which you can get a taste for with my overview of its Garfield references here). Unlike the previous mash-ups of characters in Nickelodeon Kart Racers and its sequel, which used characters from the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, this one went old school, giving us not only the 1987 versions of Leonardo and Michelangelo as we knew them from the Murakami-Wolf-Swenson/Fred Wolf Films cartoons, but also their respective versions of April O’Neil and (eventually) Shredder, too.

(As an aside, no word yet on where Raphael and Donatello are. They’ll presumably come as downloadable content at some point. Ooh, maybe they can use the 2012 and Rise versions, respectively, and give Raphael an eye patch and Donatello a long purple coat.)

That was peculiar, as Nickelodeon has done little with the 1987 TMNT since their purchase of the brand back in 2009, other than featuring them in a crossover or two, and of course, licensing of retro goods. I don’t think they’ve even aired the original cartoon on any of their networks. You would think they’d have included 2012’s incarnation again, or the more recent Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but no. Instead, we get the vintage version, the oldest incarnation shy of the Mirage Studios black-and-white-and-red-all-over originals.

Then, later this year, we have the upcoming (though announced first) release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge from DotEmu and Tribute Games, which calls back to the classic arcade beat ’em ups from Konami that were, of course, based on the 1987 animated series. Not only are April and Splinter now playable, but more recently, they’ve even revealed that they’ve gone the extra mile and gotten the available voice actors from the original cartoon to reprise their roles.

And if that wasn’t enough, then allow me to introduce you to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection, a 13-game compilation which rounds up all of Konami’s video game output featuring the green teens and will release them in a pizza-powered package… also later this year. Not even sure whether this or Shredder’s Revenge will come out first. Anyway, while some of these titles lean a little more towards the fab four’s comic roots, the vast majority of the package is — you guessed it — based on the 1987 cartoon.

“But that’s just video games!”, you might be thinking. And so far, yes. But then we cast an eye over to the toy aisle, and what do we see?

Over at NECA, they’ve been rolling out a ton of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figures that are very cartoon-accurate, even going so far as to release characters that were never featured by Playmates back in the day, such as Granitor, Roadkill Rodney (both of whom should be familiar to fans of the aforementioned Konami games as well), and Scrag.

On the other side of the coin, if you’re more into the toy aesthetic, then Super7 has you covered with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Ultimates:

Of course, these don’t resemble the cartoons as closely, being based more on Playmates’ toy line from the same period, which also inexplicably bore little resemblance to what appeared on your television screen, but that was sort of the style at the time: use a cartoon that looks nothing like the product you’re selling to promote said product. But, it worked. More importantly to this conversation, though, the toy bios and such effectively followed the same canon seen in homes six days a week.

All of this is to say that, simply put: that is a lot of focus on an incarnation of the brand that hasn’t been seen outside of some odd syndication deals since 1996. That’s more than a quarter of a century ago!

So why all the focus? Well, best as I can tell, there are a couple of reasons. Nostalgia, of course, can’t be ruled out. But moreover, I think that this might be the single most iconic iteration of the Turtles to ever appear. It’s the version that kicked off “Turtle Mania” back in the ’80s and early ’90s, and when a lot of people think about the Turtles, this is the version that comes to mind first. What’s more, thanks to being so iconic to a generation, this version has managed to transcend generations — twice!

Now, I don’t know what Nickelodeon is planning as their next big media venture with the Turtles. Rise of the TMNT — which I personally loved — seems to be done, save for a Netflix movie that was delayed until sometime this year.

So that got me to thinking: Maybe with so much 1987 TMNT going around, maybe a reboot of that original cartoon series is in order?

Of course, the knee-jerk reaction is that the series has already been rebooted, numerous times — by 4Kids, by Nickelodeon, by IDW, by Michael Bay, etc. And that’s all true. But I’m talking about the 1987 cartoon specifically, with all that entails. The same look they’ve been using, the same story conceits (April is a reporter, Splinter is Hamato Yoshi, Shredder and Krang are an old married couple, and so on).

I imagine a modern take might do wonders. Some feel the original cartoon kind of jumped the shark after the original five-part pilot as things were toned down to appease parents, so keeping more of that original feel would be a good start. Couple that with some tighter storytelling — the original cartoon was seriously bloated in an effort to capitalize on the popularity of the Turtles at the time, so there’s a lot of fat that could be trimmed when attempting to modernize that version. You can find out just how bad it got here.

Of course, there was an attempt to modernize and mature the original cartoon… back in 1994, during its original run.

Personally, I loved it… at least, for the first couple of seasons. But regardless of my feelings on it, it was pretty much too little, too late in the face of the rising popularity of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Batman: The Animated Series. That said, I think the different character models, red skies, and less-humorous stories skew a little too far away from what we’re going for here, anyway.

Some would argue to just continue the original, but… that seems like a fruitless endeavour, and a bit of a waste, frankly. For one thing, whether you were there for it or not (and I admittedly wasn’t), the original cartoon did wrap things up pretty conclusively. Sure, it’s not like they killed the Shredder and Krang or anything, and if someone really wanted to, they could write around it, but… why? To what end? Plus, you’d need to reintroduce the origins of everyone for a new generation, particularly since the character dynamics here are so different from pretty much any incarnation since, and if you’re going to do that, why not just start from scratch?

For a time, I felt the original Turtles had their day, and it was time to move on to newer, better things. But now, with all this retro-TMNT goodness floating around, my heart has softened towards the original versions, and I’d like to see them do something new, yet familiar. I’d like to revisit the original TMNT, but not have to wade through tons of crap to find the few diamonds in the rough. And I think rebooting the original cartoon might be a good way to do just that.

Oh, and since most of the original cast are apparently cool with reprising their roles… maybe take advantage of that while you can?

Thanks for reading!

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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.