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Heartwarming / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)

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  • Most of the Ship Tease between Kala and Mikey.
  • In the fifth episode of the first season, Shredder creates a retromutagen gun that can turn Splinter back to a human. Later on Shredder is about to use it on the Turtles, which will turn them back into ordinary turtles. Splinter emerges from the subway, and immediately throws his staff, destroying the gun. Splinter did this knowing that the retromutagen gun was the only chance he would ever have to be human again. Didn't matter. Splinter's sons were in danger; that's all there was to it.
    Leonardo: Master, that device was your only hope of being human again!
    Splinter: I had to destroy it to save you.
  • "Splinter No More" features the Turtles enthusiastically encouraging Splinter to regain his lost humanity. After he leaves, it's then shown that they all are miserable because they believe that he will leave them forever, but they hide their true feelings for his sake.
    • It becomes even more heartwarming by the time of "Were-Rats From Channel 6," by which time he had become reconciled to his rat nature. He states that being a rat allows him to live with and take care of the four Turtles, with the warmth in his voice showing how much he loves them.
  • The Season 7 episode The Starchild had Splinter disguising himself as the titular childlike alien's father and convincing him to grow up as well as the now adult Quarx offering to use his powers to undo the damage he had caused to the other aliens on their homeworlds.
  • The Season 7 episode Combat Land featured robotic duplicates made of Leonardo and Michelangelo which were then sent against Raphael and Donatello. As Raphael battles the Michelangelo copy, he draws his fist back for a punch but then stops and says
    Raphael: Oh, he looks too much like Michelangelo, I can't do it.
  • The final episode ends with Splinter telling the Turtles they no longer need to call him "sensei" because that time has passed. Their defeat of Dregg has convinced Splinter that his time training them has ended since they have convinced him they have outgrown the need for his teachings, and they are now his equals. Given how few kids shows openly acknowledge that they are ending, especially a less serialized show like this one, it’s a really sweet way to sign off. Not just for the Turtles, but for the kids who grew up with the show and made it and the franchise the global phenomenon it came to be. This is how they say goodbye. The now defunct official TMNT website (prior to the Nick buyout) even said it’s not the end, but just the beginning, a great way for this generation of Turtle fans to sign off and move on to the future.

See also the Turtles Forever page.

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