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The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have been such an enduring concept, in part because everything you need to know about the characters is right there in the title. They are mutant turtles who do martial arts, and they like to party and eat pizza because they are teenagers. The simplicity of that concept has allowed TMNT to remain a pop culture phenomenon since the launch of their first animated series in 1987 up through today.
Paramount Studios is planning on banking on that popularity by ordering more Turtles content. However, instead of just doing another series about Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Leonardo, Paramount is doing several shows, a movie, an updated toy line, and more, each for very different audiences. The strategy embraces the inherent elasticity of the Turtles, which have always worked best when reinterpreted for different audiences.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the studio is still planning to make a sequel to Mutant Mayhem, the well-received animated reimagining from 2023. However, it is also giving the green light to Teeny Mutant Ninja Turtles, “30-episode CG-animated series exploring the early days of the brothers as ninjas-in-training” in the vein of the pre-K focused Spidey and his Amazing Friends. At the same time, the studio is developing an R-rated movie adaptation of The Last Ronin, a bleak dystopian tale about Michelangelo continuing the fight after the death of his brothers.
That’s three very different versions of the Turtles, but multiple versions of the team have always coexisted—even if the rights holders acted like there was only one. As most fans know, the Turtles came to be when cartoonists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird self-published their black and white Daredevil homage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 in 1984. Three years later, the duo softened their characters for a younger audience by licensing the Turtles to toy maker Playmates. The toy deal led to the creation of the 1987 animated series, a smash hit that sold not just toys, but also tie-in food, clothes, and, of course, a rock album and concert tour.
But when the 1990 movie combined elements of both the cartoon and the original comic book series (including swear words, much to the dismay of this writer, who saw the film in theaters with very conservative parents), fans had to face the fact that there were two very different sets of TMNT stories, for very different audiences.
Over the years, it seems like the TMNT franchise has wrestled against that fact. While the characters get regularly rebooted in films and television to appeal to a new audience, it generally seems as if 4Kids Entertainment, Paramount/Nickelodeon, or whoever owns the rights at the time wants there to be just one version of the team at any given moment. The prime audience tends to be new kids who can jump onto whatever take has been most recently launched. The 2009 movie Turtles Forever, in which the team from the 2003 relaunch met the original characters from 1987, was the exception that proved the rule.
While that approach tended to work with new sets of 10-to-14-year-olds, it seemed to leave out a lot of potential fans. Those who grew up with the series were given a clean jumping-off point with every new take on the characters, and those who were younger felt like the team belonged to their big siblings.
However, the new strategy shows that Paramount has realized that there are enough Turtles for everyone. Fundamentally, the team is both a violent sci-fi tale and a goofy story about outrageous amphibians. The new approach lets creators emphasize different elements, giving everyone their own favorite version of the Turtles. Moreover, it proves that, like a deep dish slice of pizza, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles concept offers plenty to chew on.
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