4Kids' Ninja Turtles is over. Let's reminisce.

Needless to say this series was the reason I signed up to this site. It was like a re-emergance of the old tmnt toon's phenomenon. People tend to forget that the original tmnt series was HUGE success on par with batman and ghostbusters etc. selling loads of toys. so this new series had a lot to live up to as far as business goes. The movie already proved the turtles could be done seriously. Back when i started posting here there was a lot of trepidation over whether this series would be as successful as the original. My my how attitudes change. Now everyone's kicked the old turtles to the side and put this new one up as the best of them. I don't disagree but I still love the original turtles, sort of in the same way I kind of still have a fondness for the first season of pokemon before it became insane.

That's how it goes in toons I guess. Show starts good, then over stays its welcome. I'm sorry that this show too followed the same path but it really was a quality show that took me back to when saturday toons were good and for that I'm grateful.
 
In the passing years when the Nick TMNT show starts, I am betting people will look back on the 2k3 series nostalgically.

I also can't wait to see when the younger kids who watched this version age a few years and come online, to see what their views of TMNT are compared to most of us who were introduced to the 80's Turtles.

Its ironic how we're now hoping the Nick series lives up to the high standards of the 2k3 series, just like how before we were hoping the 2k3 series became successful like the original series.

It makes me happy knowing there will be a TMNT show for every generation of kids, and even better for older fans who started from the beginning. Its like how Star Trek has 5 different series, how Batman has had dozens of incarnations, and we're seeing TMNT follow the same path. Brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it.
 
the Eighties show and the 2003 show can live together in peace because they are so different. They are pretty much two sides of the Turtles. Both have their good points and their bad points.

Back before this show aired there were people questioning why it needed to be made. People were wondering if we needed a second turtles cartoon and asking "Wasn't the old one good enough?" The old one WAS good enough for what it was trying to do. But this show had a different purpose, it was not cashing in on a popular 80's cartoon like people feared, it's purpose was to be closer to the original comic.

In the past i have compared 88 TMNT to Adam West batman and TMNT 2003 to Batman TAS. I think the comparison is clear. Neither is horrible and both are the same characters but they are very different takes that people can enjoy for different reasons.

Really my fear for the Nick Series is it will end up like "the batman" not knowing what it wants to be and that it really just feels soulless even if it's not horrible.
 
I'm sure I'm not the only one who was hoping to see the 'Shredder Wars' arc. Had they decided to continue the series, I'm sure we would've seen that.
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I've been thinking about that too. My hope is its a mix of everything TMNT is about. At the very least it being CG instead of a cartoon will give it a different feel.
 
Just a real quality show. I really loved the story structure. It was just remarkable with all the arcs, how they all weaved together. I thought the show not only did a good job of honoring the Mirage comics but also built up its own universe very well. And I thought the show pretty much always delivered on what it promised. If it promised a big, epic fight, by God you were getting a big epic fight.

This may sound odd, but I also have to give credit for Fast Forward. At it's initial announcement, it sounded spectacularly stupid. It sounded like the show was dead. But then I watched it and...it wasn't bad. A few of the later episodes were even great. And it, like the earlier seasons, had story arcs that weaved together nicely, balancing out a variety of fresh villains. I really wish we had gotten the 10-episode season and seen resolution for Darius and the Dark Turtles though, but doesn't everyone.

Back to the Sewers was the only time the series really disappointed me, but chalk it up to circumstance. It still wasn't bad considering the conditions surrounding it. And then it led into the fantastic Turtles Forever.

TMNT just showed that when 4Kids tries, they really can care for the fans. They treated TMNT fans like gold - just look at the pure fanservice in Turtles Forever and even Wedding Bells and Bytes. Sure there were some cancelled episodes, but I don't think they can really blamed for that, at least not solely.

But anyway this was just a fantastic series, a big part of my animated watching over the past year. I watched it right when it debuted in 2003 and stayed with it all the way until the very end. It was one of the last great Saturday morning cartoons, and I hope it stays in the collective memory.




I believe the plans for a Shredder Wars season taking place after Back to the Sewer (and before Turtles Forever) were confirmed by a 4Kids rep on the Technodrome actually, which of course now can't happen.

But Turtles Forever is the series finale no matter how you look at it, so we still got the proper ending.
 
As for the Shredder Wars, as I said, view it as an alternate future. Khan said he killed the Turtles in that sequence, or as he put it, "destroyed them," so we can chalk it up as an alternate reality.

The best thing about the show is all 3 Shredder's were killed by the end of the series. Demon Shredder was sliced in half, Cyber Shredder was destroyed, and Ch'rell met his end in "Turtles Forever."

In fact, all the main villains were handled really well. This is of the few shows where most of the main villains were either given closure or were killed off. And Hun being doomed to walk around as a mutant turtle, something he hates, is a fitting end to his character.
 
I loved this when it first started in 2003, especially the first season. I remember the "FoxBox" had a countdown for it and I was PUMPED. My heart was racing up until the premiere. The new Shredder looked awesome! I loved the first Konami video game too. I lost interest because it become harder for me to watch as I was doing other things. But I will never forget this show or its theme song!
 
TMNT 2K3 has to make the TZ Blog's Top 25 Series of the '00!

Season One was solid gold, especially the Shredder!
Season Two took things to a whole new level w/ the Fugitoid arc and the Battle Nexus.
Season Three opened w/ an epic Triceraton Invasion and closed w/ Exodus.
Season Four had some solid filler whilst delving into Leo's angst.
Season Five was just plain fun, loved the Foot Mystics getting more screentime.
Season Six. Fast Forward. Meh.
Season Seven: happy for the return but wasn't into the toyetic cyber gmimmick.
Turtles Forever. Eff Yeah!!!

This TMNT series definitely makes my Top 10 of '00, perhaps even Top 5!
 
If I really started to, I couldn't possibly gush enough over how much I loved the 2K3 Turtles. And I was an 80s Turtlemaniac, but the 2K3 show just stomped all over the 80s show. I never read the original comics, either; I just loved that the 2K3 show tried to be serious and not cheesy.

Because of that lack of exposure to the comics, I was weirded out at first by many of the "changes." No eyeballs for the Turtles? No Bebop, no Rocksteady, no Krang, no Technodrome? Baxter Stockman is black? April's not a news reporter? I could go on as you all well know. Fortunately, the show was well written, well animated and had a great vision, and I was a fan from episode one. In my not-so-humble opinion, EVERYTHING about 2K3 was better than the 80s toon. Even Fast Forward and BTTS. Both far better than the garbage the 80s toon became when it went into red sky mode. At that point I just stopped watching. Which is why I was incredibly surprised to find that I still loved 2K3 Turtles when they started bringing in villains other than The Shredder.

I'm so glad 4Kids got the show and not WB as creativerealms mentioned. I hated those designs, I hated that theme song (and as an aside, I also love all 3+ of the 2K3 theme songs. A lot of people reminisce for the 80s theme song, but with theme music as good as 2K3 had, I'm glad they left the 80s theme in the 80s.)

I really wish that the 2K3 run didn't have to end, and I'm extremely worried for the Nick version of the show, because I don't see how 2K3 can be topped, and I have my doubts that Nickelodeon executives have any interest in a series like 2K3. In my mind I can only picture them wanting the pizza-eating Turtles that live in an idiocracy. I also can't imagine better voice actors for TMNT than the 4Kids group; and a big part of me hopes that they continue to do the voices in 2012. Either way, I hope the outcome is good and that I'm just being paranoid. Difficult to say goodbye, is all.
 
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