It lasted for 7 seasons and 156 episodes, ending in February 2009.
The series storyline stuck much closer to the original Mirage comic book series, but was still less violent.
The property lay dormant until in 2003 a new animated TV series also entitled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles began to air on Fox Box ( 4Kids TV). The series was called Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation and introduced a fifth, female turtle called Venus De Milo, but was largely unsuccessful and was canceled after one season. After the end of the cartoon series, a live action series in the vein of the films was created in 1997 in conjunction with Saban Entertainment. The film became one of the most successful independent films, and spawned two sequels, as well as inspiring a 3D animated film set in the same continuity, which was released in 2007 under the title TMNT. In 1990 a live-action feature film was released, with the turtles and Splinter being portrayed by actors in partially animatronic suits created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop. While the animated TV series, which lasted for 10 seasons until 1996, was more light-hearted, the comic book series continued in a much darker and grittier tone. At the height of the frenzy, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Turtles' likenesses could be found on a wide range of children's merchandise, from Pez dispensers to skateboards, breakfast cereal, video games, school supplies, linens, towels, cameras, and even toy shaving kits. Accompanied by the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1987 TV series, and the subsequent action figure line, the TMNT were soon catapulted into pop culture history. Once the product started selling, the show got syndicated and picked up and backed by Group W, which funded the next round of animation.
The miniseries was repeated three times before it found an audience. David Wise, Michael Charles Hill, and Michael Reaves wrote most of the scripts. As the series developed, veteran writer Jack Mendelsohn came on board as both a story editor and scriptwriter. Phrases like "Heroes in a Half Shell" and many of the comical catch phrases and battle slogans ("Turtle Power!") came from the writing and conceptualization of this creative team. Playmates and their team essentially served as associate producers and contributing writers to the miniseries that was first launched to sell-in the toy action figures. The sense of humor was honed with the collaboration of the MWS animation firm's writers. Sachs called the high-concept pitch "Green Against Brick". Schulte and worked out the simple backstory that would live on toy packaging for the entire run of the product and show. Wolf and his team combined concepts and ideas with the Playmates marketing crew, headed by Karl Aaronian, VP of sales Richard Sallis and President of Playmates Bill Carlson.Īaronian brought on several designers, and concepteur and writer John C.
Development was undertaken by a creative team of companies and individuals: Jerry Sachs, ad man of Sachs-Finley Agency, brought together the animators at Murakami-Wolf-Swenson headed by Fred Wolf. In January 1987, Eastman and Laird visited the offices of Playmates Toys Inc, a small California toy company that wanted to expand into the action figure market. In 1986, Dark Horse Miniatures produced a set of 15 mm lead figurines. The Turtles started their rise to mainstream success when a licensing agent, Mark Freedman, sought out Eastman and Laird to propose wider merchandising opportunities for the franchise. The TMNT comic series has been published in various incarnations by various comic book companies since 1984. Using money from a tax refund, together with a loan from Eastman’s uncle, the young artists self-published a single-issue comic intended to parody four of the most popular comics of the early 1980s: Marvel Comics’ Daredevil and New Mutants, Dave Sim’s Cerebus, and Frank Miller’s Ronin. The concept arose from a humorous drawing sketched out by Kevin Eastman during a casual evening of brainstorming with friend Peter Laird. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first appeared in an American comic book published by Mirage Studios in 1984 in Dover, New Hampshire.