Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reigned supreme in the carton world from the late 1980's to mid 1990's. Unlike the pretenders to the throne, ThunderCats and Ulysses 31, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had a substantial anime and comic back-history and also spawned its own film in 1990. This page is about the cartoon that ran from 1987- approximately 1996 that was called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles here in the UK (and also in Germany, Austria and Scandanavia).
The basic storyline is that the turtles were exposed to radioactive slime when they were babies, and this slime merged their DNA with that of the last animal they touched. In the case of the turtles this was a human, and so the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were born. The turtles were brought up in a sewer by their master Splinter. Splinter was also touched by the radioactive slime, Splinter was originally a human Hamato Yoshi, unfortunately the last animal he touched before the slime was a rat, and so he is transformed into a mutant rat! Hamato had been a ninja master when he was human, so he taught the turtles to become ninjas as they grew up. This results in four full-sized teenage turtles, capapble of walking, talking, dancing and wise-cracking, who fight for good to help humans, but can never reveal themselves above ground.
The most memorable bad-guy has got to be Hamato Yoshi's (Splinter's) old enemy Oroku Saki (who becomes known as Shredder). Shredder leads an evil Clan of ninjas called 'the Foot' (who want the normal undefined bad-guy stuff such as world domination, power, money etc.). In addition to Shredder and the Foot there is also Krang a being from Dimension X (like a giant brain without a body!) and also two hench-men Beebop and RockSteady. The series was very funny, and bound to catch on as it had everything kids wanted, ninjas, robots, aliens, swords, pizza and crazy surfer lingo to quote in the playground such as 'Cowabunga!' and 'Radical', 'Awesome', 'tuberific!'
Michelangelo
Okay, so Michelangelo was the party dude of the turtles. He wore the orange bandana (interestingly in the original Mirage anime cartoons all of the turtles wore red bandanas - they just colour coded them for the cartoon so that kids could easily identify each turtle). Michelangelo is the youngest of the four turtles and baiscally provies most of the comic relief for the series. He loves his pizzas and the writers obviously had fun making up as many crazy recipes as they could such as 'jelly bean and mushroom' and 'anchovy and peanut butter' both of which are mentioned as some of his favs. Michelangelo uses the nunchuka as his weapon.
Raphael
Raphael was a bit of a wise-cracking turtle, always producing the one-liners for the show. Raphael used the Sai as his weapon, however when you watch the original cartoon you realise how little they actually used the weapons. The weapons were generally used for slicing up pizza, rather than bad-guys!
Of the bunch Raphael is probably the one with the worst attitude, he's quixck to anger adn often gets annoyed withthe others. Raphael is also the turtle that brings Casey Jones into the series. Raphael meets and challenges Casey one night and they eventually end up friends.
Leonardo
Leonardo is the leader of the turtles, probably because of his age, he is the oldest of the bunch, and probably the calmest. Leonardo is never explicitly named as the leader of the turtles in the comics or the films, and I suspect it was mainly added into the cartoon as it gives a nice ring to the opening credits - 'Leonardo Leads...' etc.
Leonardo uses katana blades to fight with and wears the blue bandana. In the set of Image comic books which followed the original Mirage series Leonardo actually loses his hand whilst fighting but this is never reflected in the cartoon or the films of the turtles).
Donatello
Donatello is probably the brains of the outfit, he wears the purple bandana and uses the bo-staff. Donatello is probably at the calmer end of the spectrum (with Leonardo) as opposed to Mikey and Raphael who are a bit more reactive and headstrong.
Donatello is named after the sculptor of the same name, and in the cartoon he is the one responsible for building all their machines, fixing the turtle van etc. In the English language version of the cartoon Donatello is voiced by Barry Gordon (who also voiced Beebop!)
April O'Neil
April O'Neil is the turtles main human ally (later they befriend Casy Jones and he falls in love with April). She is their main link with the outside world and the conduit through which the turtles successes are broadcast to the world. April is a reporter for Hapy Hour News at Channel 6. One day April is chased into the sewers by a gang of thugs (including the human versions of Beebop and Rocksteady), the turtles of course rescue her, they fall in love with her and she falls in love with their story.
Master Splinter
In the cartoon Splinter is the transformed version of the human Hamato Yoshi. Whereas in the film he is Hamato Yoshi's pet rat (which learnt martial arts by watching his master). Splinter finds the turtles and names each of them after a famous Italian painter/sculptor. Splinter teaches them all he knows of martial arts and is like a father figure to the turtles.
Krang
Krang is a completely random element (that does not appear in the films or earlier comics) thrown into the cartoon to give it a dose of space alien/robot/technology which was popular at the time. Krang as you can see from his picture is pure evil! He comes from a place called Dimension X, where he stole the technodrome ( a globe like battle fortress/tank) and its Rock Soldiers. Unfortunately an accident - which is never really explained - resulted in Krang losing his body and becoming a giant pink brain thing and also the entire technodrome being transported to planet Earth. During his time on Earth Krang has one thing on his mind, power up the technodrome and use it to take over the world!
Shredder allies himself with Krang as he needs Krang's army and technology to help him beat the turtles. In recompense for using Krang's resources Shredder builds Krang a robot body for him to control.
In the end both Shredder and Krang and the Technodorme get banished to Dimension X and are never heard of again (although this takes several attempts throughout the eight seasons!)
Shredder
Shredder is Splinter's arch-enenmy. Shredder's real name is Oroku Saki and he and Splinter used to be students together in the Foot Clan in Japan, until Shredder got Splinter thrown out of the clan (see episode one of the cartoon). Shredder now leads the Foot clan (which in the cartoon is a bunch of robots, rather than humans - again so that they can basically be killed over and over, without injuring young children's minds too much!). Shredder was voiced by James Avery, who played Philip Banks in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air!
It is Shredder that dumped the mutagen in the sewers in an attempt to kill his old foe, and throguhout the series he basically just wants to get Splinter (and by association the turtles). Shredder is shown to be a superior fighter to the turtles, only really equalled by Splinter himself.
Being a cartoon Shredder's evilness is toned down quite a bit form the comic books and the film. Basically he recruits two humans Bebop and RockSteady that he uses the Mutagen to convert into a mutant Warthog and Rhinoceros respectively. Most of the cartoons then involve Shredder, Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady blaming each other for being foiled by the turtles.
Ninja Turtles: Lyrics
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Heroes in a half-shell - Turtle power!
They're the world's most fearsome fighting team
(We're really hip!)
They're heroes in a half-shell and they're green
(Hey - get a grip!)
When the evil Shredder attacks
These Turtle boys don't cut him no slack!
