Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in 1984, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) debuted in the world of American comics, published by independent publisher Mirage Comics. The comic focused on the four anthropomorphic turtles, who, as one might infer from the name, are also teenagers, mutants and ninjas. There were four turtles: Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michaelangelo.The concept was apparently borne from a comical drawing that played upon the inherent contradiction of a slow, cold-blooded reptile with the speed and agility of the Japanese martial art. The comic became a loose parody of two of the most popular comics of the early 1980's: Marvel Comics' X-Men, which featured teenage mutants, and Daredevil, which featured ninja clans dueling for control of the New York City underworld. Eastman and Laird cite the influential work of Jack Kirby and Frank Miller as their major artistic influences.
The small-press black & white comic book was successful enough to inspire a Saturday morning cartoon, which catapulted the characters into a nation-wide merchandising craze. The cartoon, while obviously inspired by the comic book, diverged in almost every way. While the comic was meant for an older audience, the cartoon focused on more standard children's fare and typically avoided overt human violence and any semblance of real conflict. Popularity exploded with the release of a live-action feature film (which more closely followed the comic) and its two sequels. There was also a long-running spinoff comic published by Archie Comics that started out following the cartoon, but as time progressed, diverged into rather overtly propagandistic environmentalist and animal-rights themes.
As the origin story goes, the four pet turtles were exposed to a liquid mutagen during a traffic accident at which their young owner, Chet, was a bystander. Most comics fans will recognize the accident, involving a blind man and a truck carrying radioactive waste, as an allusion to Daredevil, which was one of the primary influences in the creation of the TMNT. This mutagen caused the affected animals to become more human-like in intelligence and dexterity. Also exposed to the mutagen was Splinter, a pet rat once owned by ninjutsu expert Hamato Yoshi. Splinter taught himself the art of ninjutsu by mimicking Yoshi during his practice sessions. Trying to escape a bitter love triangle, Yoshi emigrated from Japan to the United States, but was murdered by his rival, Oroku Saki (aka Shredder). This left Splinter homeless, wandering the streets and sewers of New York City. Still fresh from their accident and wallowing in mutagen, Splinter happened upon the turtles and adopted them. Within days Splinter and the turtles had grown to humanoid size and had developed the power of speech. It was then that Splinter decided to train the young turtles in ninjutsu, so they would grow strong enough to exact revenge on the Shredder for the murder of Splinter's beloved Master Yoshi.
The four turtles were named after famed master Renaissance artists whose work their master admired: Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo. Although Michelangelo was indeed misspelled as Michaelangelo, it was an error that stuck until Volume 4 of the TMNT comic, which began publication in late 2001.
Volume One of the comics series began in May, 1984, with the publication of issue #1. It was printed in an oversized "magazine-style" format using cheap newsprint. The first issue premiered at a comic book convention in Portsmouth, NH, and had a print run of only 3,000 copies. In May, 1987, Mirage began publishing a sister book, Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which introduced many peripheral characters who were to return later in the series. Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles continued, albeit sporadically, for nine years, terminating with the publication of issue #62 in August, 1993. During this period the book had a multitude of guest artists, giving the series a disjointed, almost anthology-type feel. Some of these artists, including Michael Dooney, Eric Talbot, Craig Farley, Ryan Brown, and Jim Lawson, continued to work with Mirage Studios for years to come.
Volume Two was launched by Mirage Studios in October, 1993, as a full-color series that maintained the continuity of the previous volume. This short-lived series lasted only two years, with the final issue, #13, published in October 1995.
Erik Larsen came to the rescue in June, 1996, by relaunching the comics series with the publication of TMNT Volume 3, which was published in black and white under the Image Comics banner. The 23 monthly issues were written by Gary Carlson and pencilled by Frank Fosco. This volume is notable for having a faster pace, more action, and inflicting major changes on the turtles themselves (e.g. Raphael losing an eye, Leonardo losing a hand, and Donatello becoming a cyborg). However, it is not considered part of the "official" TMNT comics continuity.
Peter Laird and Jim Lawson brought the turtles back to their roots with the publication of TMNT Volume 4 in December, 2001. It continues to be published, along with a relaunched version of Tales of the TMNT, by Mirage Studios to this day.
In animation, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are four wise-cracking, teenaged, pizza-scarfing cartoon turtles who fought the forces of evil from their neighborhood sewer hangout. This cartoon series, known as the 1987 TMNT cartoon series, was made by Murakami-Wolf-Swenson Film Productions Inc. Mirage Studios does not own the rights to the old 1987 TMNT cartoon series.
The origin story in the 1987 cartoon series differs greatly from that of the original Mirage Studios comics, evidently to make the often confusing origin easier for children to understand. Here we see that Splinter was formerly a human being, an honorable ninja master named Hamato Yoshi. Yoshi was banished from his clan after being deceived by the malicious Oroku Saki, who tricked him into drawing a blade before their sensei. In this version, the turtles came to Yoshi before being exposed to the mutagen. Yoshi returned one day from his explorations around New York to find the turtles covered by mutagen. The mutagen caused the turtles- most recently exposed to Yoshi- to become human while Yoshi- most recently exposed to sewer rats- became a humanoid rat.
Each ninja turtle wore a mask over his eyes having a distinctive color, carried and used a distinctive weapon, and had a favorite flavor of pizza. The color of each turtle's mask is the favorite color of each of the turtles.
As of 2003, the Fox Network revived the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise with the help of 4Kids Entertainment as a Saturday-morning cartoon in Fox's Fox Box programming block. The 2003 TMNT cartoon series was produced by Mirage Studios according to Big Cartoon DataBase.
The new show deviates from the 1987-96 cartoon significantly. While still a Saturday morning cartoon, the show bears more resemblance to the original, "darker and edgier" comics, published by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird's Mirage Studios. Gone are a foolish Shredder and his inept mutant/alien associates. Rocksteady and Bebop are no longer in the new show, and Shredder is a lot more menacing and threatening than his previous incarnations. In addition, the show is more rewarding if one views it sequentially because there is a main plot and several sub-plots running through each episode in the series, revealing hints for plot points which will become more developed as the series unfolds. For example, the identity of black-clad people and the biomechanical suit fished out of New York Harbor are never explained clearly at first, but subsequent viewings definitely should provide some clues. In the new show, Splinter was depicted as a rat who has been mutated to sapian form, instead of being a man who has been mutated to rat form. This is also how it was in the movie and comic books. Also, in the new show, Baxter Stockman is African-American, and that is also how he was portrayed in the Eastman and Laird comic book series.
Eventually, the various plot points and story arcs culminate in a way many fans of the franchise have never seen, as Peter Laird introduced radical new origins for The Shredder, making him a renegade alien Utrom, at war with his peaceful race, the decision to make him an alien spawned controversy among the fandom, but the majority adored the concept.
In February 2004 a TMNT trading card game based on this cartoon was released by Upper Deck Entertainment.
Mirage Studios owns the rights to the 2003 show, but not the 1987 show.
Not only did the Ninja Turtles have a successful toy line, cartoon series, and movies, but they also starred in many video games. Japanese video game manufacturer Konami was largely responsible for them. Popular in the arcades during the 1990s was the first TMNT arcade game, a side-scrolling "beat-em-up." It was successful enough to be followed by an arcade sequel known as Turtles in Time, which later appeared on the Super Nintendo. Several games were made for the NES, Game Boy, Genesis, Super NES, and others. The first NES TMNT game is called Gekikame Ninja Den in Japan. The second NES TMNT game is an adaptation of the original arcade game, with two additional levels. It was featured in Nintendo Power Volume #21 and rated no. 1 in the Nintendo Power Top 30 in Nintendo Power Volume #25, having Super Mario Bros. 3 in second place, but Super Mario Bros. 3 returned to first place in the following issue of Nintendo Power, putting the second NES TMNT game in second place. The third NES TMNT game was called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III: The Manhattan Project. It was featured on the cover of Nintendo Power Volume #32. Konami was recently commissioned to transform the current 2003 series into a video game franchise, gracing the PC, Sony PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo GameCube, and Microsoft Xbox. The result of the first modern TMNT game was panned by many critics for uninspired design and failing to live up to the originals, the second game, released recently has received similar critics, making both of them totally forgetable. The older TMNT games are based on the old 1987 TMNT cartoon show, while the modern TMNT games are based on the new 2003 TMNT cartoon show.
Upon TMNT's first arrival in the United Kingdom, the name was changed to "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" (or TMHT for short), since local censorship policies deemed the word ninja to have too violent associations and connotations. Consequently, everything related to the Turtles had to be renamed before being released in the UK (or Ireland). The lyrics were also changed, eliminating the word ninja, such as changing "Splinter taught them to be ninja teens" to "Splinter taught them to be fighting teens." The policies also had other effects, such as removing Michelangelo's nunchakus on the same basis. At the start of the later comeback these policies had been abolished, and no changes were made to the 2003 TMNT show. The name Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles remained unchanged for the 2003 show. As a result, in the U.K., the 1987 show is still called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles and the 2003 show is called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.TMNT: The Mirage Studios Comic Books
TMNT: The Series (December 10, 1987-November 2, 1996) (1987 Cartoon Version)
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have also appeared as guest stars in Usagi Yojimbo (book 3), summoned to the Edo period of Japan by magic.'The Next Mutation'
In the late '90s, a live-action TV series was made. A fifth turtle was introduced, a female named "Venus de Milo", and the series took place generally after the storyline of the 1987 cartoon series, as Shredder had been defeated and the Ninja Turtles had new villans.
Also, these ninja turtles made a guest appearance on ,
a similar live-action superhero show of the time. It wasn't very popular and was canceled after one season.TMNT: The Series (February 8, 2003-present) (2003 Cartoon Version)
Video games
Censorship and Hero turtles