More Cheesy: 80's Turtles cartoon or 60's Batman show

E

Eelco

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I am not sure if this is the right board for it, I am comparing a cartoon to a live action series, in reguards to comic book franchises. If this topic has to be moved mirrored to another board fine.

I was discuessing the late 80's / early 90's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon yesterday on this website, and the more I broke the series and its place in the franchise, it is vasicly different from ever other incarnation of the Turtles. (though the live action movies did have some of the silliness of the cartoon) Ever other incarnation of the Turtles is much more darker and serious. But the cartoon is what made the franchise mainstream.

The more thought of it, but the cartoon is just like the 1960's Batman live action show, and its role in the franchise. Batman has always been dark and gloomy, all except the 1960's series.

Which one is more cheesy or more of a detertained to the hard core of the respective franchises.

Personally I don't hate either show, but I can understand why hard core fans want to pretend either show ever happened.

My thoughts, they each have their pros and cons, the 80's Turtles did try to reference comics at times, and it didn't have the mid episode formula of the heros getting put in a over elaporate death trap every episode. While the Batman show didn't have a annoying character like April. (I am just referring to the 80's cartoon series April) And more varity of villains.
 
I wouldn't say the 80's toon was cheesy. It was basically a self-aware cartoon that poked fun at itself. The characters constantly broke the 4th wall and the plots were bizarre and wacky on purpose.

The thing about the 80's Turtles is it was still extremely well written for the time. The main cast and villains all had well-defined personalities and played off each other extremely well.

The original TMNT was never meant to be a serious cartoon. It was a comedy series with a little action in it.

60's Batman on the other hand was actually meant to be that way at the time. What was cheesy now, was "normal" back then.
 
The Ninja Turtles is a parody. The original comics are over the top dark because they are a parody of over the top dark comics by Frank Miller. It's meant to be ridiculous. The cartoon is like a kid's version of that.

Batman has not always been dark and gloomy, in fact for many years he was rather lighthearted in the 1950s. But the Batman TV show is nearly the opposite of the approach taken to Turtles. Instead of taking a property for adults and making a kid's show like they did with the Turtles, the Batman producers took a property for kids and instead of making a straight kid's show made something intended to also appeal to adults with over the top and knowing 1960s camp.

I think they're both intentionally cheesy, but the Turtles are probably slightly cheesier because of the restrictions of kid vid and the need to constantly market toys through the show.
 
At least the Turtles mained a level of coolness, Adam West's Batman was cool in his own way, but Robin what a geek. He was such a boy scout, and his catchphrase "Gee welerkers", I mean really?

I would loved to have seen a Turtles vs Footclan battle in the 60's Batman show style. Actully I would love to see any battle done in the 60's Batman style.

To get back to the point on how the old Batman show took the opposite approach of the Turtles 80's cartoon, they also took the opposite approach with the importantce of the villains. In the comics, Shreeder didn't play a major role as he would later after the 80's cartoon made him an important character. While the Joker was Batman's arch nemesis, he appeared much more often than any other villain, in the 60's show there was no arch nemessis, the big 4 or 5 villains appear close to equal amount of episodes, infact if my memory is correct I thought the Ridler appeared the most.

The 80's cartoon created an arch nemesis for the Turtles when they really didn't have one in the comics, at least not Shreeder, while the 60's Batman show wanted more variety in villians and demoted the Joker's role.

Of course I could be wrong about the Joker, maybe he wasn't the nemesis in the 50's and became it later on?
 
But relative to most cartoons of the 80s, the Turtles aren't any more or less "cheesy" than most of them

Batman was seen by more than just kids, adults watched it too. Hence by many people's standards the 60s Batman is more cheesy.

But I agree that both of them are intentionally so.



NO. While 60s TV shows have always been campy somewhat, it is quite obvious on viewing any given Batman episode that the show knew it was being silly.
 
The Joker's always been Batman's archnemesis from day one (his first appearance in "Batman" #1 in 1940). Though he wasn't as overexposed then as he is in current comics (or the one-note killing machine he is now), he still put in plenty of appearances in Bat-books of the day...

-B.
 
See, I don't think that hardcore fans hate these shows, but that they want to be taken serious by the mainstream public. And to them, the key to being popular is to dismiss shows that aren't overly dark and risque.
 
And in the cases of the both franchises, these shows saved them. Batman had become a struggling comic in the 60's and DC was thinking of canceling it. And the Turtles was an obscure underground comic no one in the mainsteam heard of before the cartoon Having an underground following would only last so long.

I am not bashing these shows, I am acknowleging how different and out of place they are to the rest of their franchises. And thought it be nice to compare them and see which is more out of place.
 
I have to go with the 60's Batman show being cheesier.

While the 80's Ninja Turtles series was cheesy at times, I don't think that it was cheesy as 60's Batman. Not to mention that the 80's Ninja Turtles series got darker by following the "Red Sky" theme it was going for, in it's last 3 seasons.
 
Exactly. And it was actually a cleverly written kind of sillyness, which made the show attract a large adult audience, which is something the original TMNT show never did, as it was written solely for kids.
 
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