Which TMNT series had the better voice acting?

C

calolines

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So I found this site today, comparing the work of the different people who have voiced particular characters. Among them were comparisons of several versions of the TMNT, which made me wonder about the voice acting for both shows in general.

Now, the original TMNT cartoon cast was composed of mostly veteran voice actors, ones you've probably heard in a lot of American cartoons in the past 20 years. They are, for the most part, a lot more recognizable than the 2k3 lot. As the first to actually give the turtles a voice, they provided the standard that everyone else had to either emulate or ignore. It was also a fairly compact crew, with a lot of actors doing more than one voice, including some major ones (Cam Clarke did Leonardo and Rocksteady, Pat Fraley did Krang, Baxter Stockman, and Casey, etc). A list of actors and their characters can be found here.

The 2003 cartoon, on the other hand, was recorded in New York, by a more obscure group mostly known for their work in 4Kids' anime dubs, as well as a handful of newcomers, which, thanks to 4Kids' policy of not crediting actors for specific characters, went mostly unrecognized.
Like with its predecessor there's a lot of double and triple-dipping, thanks in part to a humongous amount of characters. An incomplete list of the cast can be found here.

Curiously, the voice acting for both toons was directed by Susan Blu,at least at first; as far as I know, she is the only non-Mirage staffer to be involved in both shows.

So, taking into consideration the fact that both groups are voicing wildly different incarnations of the characters, which do you think did a better job? More interestingly, if you switched both groups--gave the old toon to the New York crew and the 2003 show to the L.A. VA's--how would you think they would fare? Who would you cast in each role? We already have and indication of how New York would handle the old toon, thanks to Turtles Forever, but how do you think Clarke, Paulsen, Fraley, and co. would handle the newer versions of the character?
 
Personally, I prefer the 2003 voice cast. Not to say that the original wasn't good, I just found I could take the voices of the 2003 version caused me to take the characters more seriously, if that makes any sense, while still being able to pull off the funnier moments as well.
 
The voice casts for each series were best suited for their respective shows; the 1987 voices worked for the goofier, wackier style that that series represented, while the 2003 voices were better suited for the grittier, more comic book-influenced style of that series. Cam Clarke's Leonardo wouldn't have worked on the 2K3 series the same way Frank Frankson's Raphael wouldn't have worked on the 1987 series.

Each show's voices worked best on the series which employed them.
 
I would say the 2003 relaunch of the TMNT franchise had the best voice acting, even though the originl series voices hold a special place in my heart. I remember a time or two in the original series when one of the turtles would say something and it would be in the voice of one of the other turtles, it was kind of sloppy at times, yet priceless in it's own way.

The 2003 series had great voice acting and it was almost always dead on. :D
 
The 2003 series is superior to the original show in every possible way. It's just far and away a better product. I can understand if somone says that they enjoyed the original cartoon more. But I don't think that anyone can argue that the original was in any way a better product than the 2003 cartoon.
 
2003 cartoon, no contest for me. After watching both, the new cartoon voices draw me more to the characters and among other things is the superior show.
 
In my opinion, I think that both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series had good voice acting, although I do think that the 2003 Leonardo had a better voice than the 1987 Leonardo.

As AnimationX mentioned, the 80's series got sloppy with a turtle's voice coming out of another turtle (For example, Donatello speaking with Raphael's voice in one scene in the first episode of the series). I guess whoever put the voice work into the show after an episode was completed must have, at times, mistook one turtle for another. :sweat:
 
Both were good, but the 2003 series. Mostly, the 1987 cast only had to act goofy. The new series needed to convey more emotions, so their VAs had to do more, and it shows.
 
I'd honestly have to give it to the old cast.

The voices for the Turtles, Splinter, April, Shredder/Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady were perfect in the old show. They're all done by talented and experienced actors, so it should come as no surprise.

The 2k3 cast was composed of typical 4kids fair. If these same TMNT acts did the same voices for random anime, nobody would care about them.

Will Veronica Taylor's April be well known in the future? Probably not. People remember her as the voice of Ash from Pokemon, not as April O' Neil.
 
Well, this is hard to go on, because some of the characters are just so different in both incarnations.

Who is the better Shredder for example? Well, I don't feel I could answer because one Shredder was played as a more comedic villain, while the other Shredder is played as a Complete Monster and very, very scary. Two different characters entirely.
 
Funny how your opinion is always "old >>>>new".

Nobody knows what will be remembered in the future because it hasn't happened yet. And conversely, how many people remember can name April O' Neil's voice actress from the 1987 syndicated show?

For the record, her name was
Renae Jacobs.
 
However the 2k3 show simply wasn't as popular as the original series was, (and this we know by ratings and the fact that the original TMNT was as big as Pokemon), so it winds up being more known to fans.

This is why you still have fans asking for Bebop/Rocksteady yet nobody is asking for "Hun and Bishop" or any other new character from the 2k3 series.

I like both TMNT cartoons almost equally for different reasons, but considering 2k3 uses typical 4kids VA's while the old toon Turtles were professional actors, is a very big difference. Rob Paulsen did a billion cartoons. What could compare to his Raph, Pinky and the Brain, and so forth?
 
I love Rob Paulsen. He's my favorite voice actor from the `90s. That being said...his Ralph was the worse. And NO ONE considers him the definitive Ralph. Josh Pais who voiced Ralph in the 1990 live-action movie is the definitive Ralph. Think about it. Every actor who voices Ralph uses Pais' heavy New Yorker accent as the basis to voicing the character.
 
That's right. Kids aged 12 and under are talking about the 1987 syndicated Ninja Turtles series all of the time. :shrug: Your logic is flawed because (as usual) you're assuming that everyone on Earth comes from your generation and that everyone feels the same way about the shows that you do. Naturally, the syndicated series is superior to you because your attitude is always "The original is always superior, no matter what."

Also, the reason why fans are asking for Bebop and Rocksteady and not Hun and Bishop is because the latter 2 are featured in the current TMNT series, while the former 2 are not. It has nothing to do with the voice actors or the alleged superiority of the syndicated show.
 
You're judging by notoriety alone, which is flawed logic not only since there are a ton of people who don't know who Rob Paulsen is, but also because the 2 versions of Raphael on those respective shows are so vastly different.

Paulsen's Raph worked for the '87 series because there Raph was a wisecracking smart-aleck; his Raph VA wouldn't have worked on the hot-headed, street-tough badass Raph from the '03 series. If any version of Rapahel can be considered the definitive one, it's Josh Pais' voicing of Raph from the first live-action movie, since that characterization was more or less a direct iteration of Raph from the original comics and all of the subsequent portrayals of Raph are based on Pais' Raph voice, not Paulsen's.
 
The thing is the fans from the original simply outnumber the fans of the 2k3 series. That being said, most old TMNT fans loved the 2k3 series too, but if there's less, "casual kid fans" watching a said show, that alone reduces the number of overall fans.

I have yet to meet any kid in real life whose a major fan of the TMNT 2k3 series. They're always into whatever was airing on CN or Nick, or stuff like Chaotic and 4kids other stuff, not TMNT.



10 years from now, I doubt "Hun and Bishop" will replace "Bebop and Rocksteady" as "classic TMNT villains that everyone knows."

Its like saying The Batman will eventually become more well-known than B:TAS in 10 years time when those kids grow up. B:TAS was more popular and well known, same reason everyone asks for Kevin Conroy yet the guy who played him in The Batman doesn't get the same recognition. And I know he's a famous actor too.

Why does Kevin Conroy come back to play Batman in the new DC movies when the DCAU is over? Simple, as they said on the special features of the Public Enemies DVD, everyone asks at the Comic Con, "When is Kevin Conroy coming back?" "Will Kevin Conroy play Batman again?"



I really don't see how you can say this. Wise-cracking Raphael is a classic in the TMNT fandom and almost everyone has nothing but praise for Rob Paulsen's Raph. Its probably because old toon Raph was the most drastically different than all its other incarnations, and everyone loved it. If you ever go into the TMNT fandom, you'll see people have always loved Rob Paulsen's wise-cracking Raph despite the altered personality from Mirage canon.
 
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