History WesternAnimation / TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987

* AbsoluteCleavage: Subverted: Although April's jumpsuit was occasionally left open enough for this trope depending on the artist, her cleavage was usually left undrawn whenever this happened, as seen in her [[http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/Perez85/AprilCharacterModel.jpg character]] [[http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/Perez85/April.png model]][[note]] The first one is from the original cartoon and the second is its ''WesternAnimation/TurtlesForever'' reproduction[[/note]]. Fan artists, on the other hand...

* WolverinePublicity: Michaelangelo.
* [[ItsAWonderfulPlot Wonderful Life]]: The episode ''Shredderville''.

* YouHaveFailedMe[=/=]YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: These are Shredder's reasons for sending Baxter into Dimension X, and sacrificing him so that Bebop and Rocksteady can be sent to help fight against the turtles.
** Krang also did this to Berserko, as explained by the Season 8 opener.
** Dregg does this to his number one man Hi-Tech in the tenth season's premiere, by launching him into space. He later does it in the series finale to Mung by leaving him at the mercy of his nanobots.

** From "Turtles on Trial", Bebop and Rocksteady are seen watching ''The Slurps'', a thinly disguised parody of ''WesternAnimation/TheSmurfs''.

* SmurfettePrinciple: Tempestra is the only woman in the Rogues, [[LegionOfDoom a band of villains]] assembled of Shredder.

** While Muckman and Joe Eyeball were seemingly set up for recurring appearances, they didn't show up again.

* LightningCanDoAnything: When Baxter died in Season 2, the next season revealed that he was actually [[{{Intangibility}} intangible]]. He touched a lightning rod that was hit by lightning and was restored to fully tangible.

* JustIgnoreIt: Once, and only once in "Rock Around The Block", the turtles stopped the Technodrome by doing nothing.

* LaterInstallmentWeirdness: The last few seasons came to be noted as the "Red Sky" seasons and switched the BigBad from Shredder and Krang to Lord Dregg.

* PityTheKidnapper: In "Turtle Terminator", Shredder, Bebop, and Rocksteady all learn that kidnapping Irma is really ''not'' a good idea.

** Irma, brown-haired HollywoodNerd type.

%%* MoralDissonance: [[AlasPoorVillain Poor]] [[AndIMustScream Baxter Stockman]].

%%* {{Meganekko}}: Irma.

%%* MediumAwareness: A regular feature of the series.

* MerchandiseDriven: Obviously, being one of the most successful toy lines of the late 80s into the 90s. This also blends with EarlyInstallmentWeirdness as many of the characters and toys were designed before the cartoon:

%%* MoralGuardians:
%%** The British censors. "Teenage Mutant ''Ninja'' Turtles?! No, no; far too violent. Let's call them Teenage Mutant ''Hero'' Turtles! Much better!"
%%** [[FridgeLogic They said that the word "ninja" was too violent, so they switched the words "those ninja teens" to "those fighting teens", because apparently they think that the word "ninja" is more violent than the word "fighting". Yeah, let that one soak in for a while.]]
%%** Michelangelo's nunchuku are taboo in the opening. Every scene of him swinging his weapons is cut or replaced with other footage. Even a closeup of his hand holding a nunchaku is gone. Oh, but Leonardo cutting the screen in two? No problem!
%%** What did their theme song sound like? [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fujd94i3EYs This]].
%%** The best bit is that everyone in Britain called and calls them the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles anyway.

** April O'Neil carrying a HANDGUN as a weapon, and even later figures seemed to treat her as more of a badass than the show did as even towards the end of the toy line she would often come packed with various weapons, plus her packaging artwork and character bio would often depict her as more of a brazen warrior woman than the "damsel in distress" the cartoon made her out to be.

*** The shading and overall drawing quality of the Japanese-animated episodes tend to be a little better than the other episodes as well, but even there, there are coloring errors and some wonky movements; it's the action sequences where they shined.
** The episodes handled by Creator/WangFilmProductions stand out for being more rubbery and bouncy than the other studios, but at the cost of consistency, with the style changing often between both scenes ''and'' shots.

** The ''Vacation in Europe'' episodes are probably the worst for this, as they were animated by a European studio with a much smaller budget than the rest of the series. Season 9 suffers a similar issue.
** Several Season 3 episodes, as well as the first half of Season 4 were animated in Dublin. Fans generally consider these episodes to be among the poorest in regards to the show's animation, due to how choppy everything moves and sloppy everything looks.

* BadassPacifist:
** M.A.C.C., the robot from the future.
** Donatello also.
* BaldOfAwesome: The Turtles themselves are this by default due to reptiles not having hair.

* TakeThat: One episode (''Raphael meets his match'') started with the turtles complaining a lot about tiny pizzas available at Pick A Peck O' Pizza, which is owned by ''UsefulNotes/{{McDonald|s}} [[Creator/DonaldTrump Crump]]''.

* MoralGuardians:
** The British censors. "Teenage Mutant ''Ninja'' Turtles?! No, no; far too violent. Let's call them Teenage Mutant ''Hero'' Turtles! Much better!"
** [[FridgeLogic They said that the word "ninja" was too violent, so they switched the words "those ninja teens" to "those fighting teens", because apparently they think that the word "ninja" is more violent than the word "fighting". Yeah, let that one soak in for a while.]]
** Michelangelo's nunchuku are taboo in the opening. Every scene of him swinging his weapons is cut or replaced with other footage. Even a closeup of his hand holding a nunchaku is gone. Oh, but Leonardo cutting the screen in two? No problem!
** What did their theme song sound like? [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fujd94i3EYs This]].
** The best bit is that everyone in Britain called and calls them the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles anyway.