Adaptation Displacement: Most people remember the 1987 series. The comic book that inspired it? Not so much. This has been partially alleviated due to the advent of the internet in the 2000s, and later shows using elements more explicitly from the Mirage comics rather than the 1987 series, although the shows remain far more famous.
Adorkable: Donatello is presented as being a huge nerd, what with his love of science and engineering, but the effect is to make him charming and likable rather than a figure to mock or be creeped out by.
Americans Hate Tingle: Ironically, TMNT has a rather weak Japanese audience. TMNT enjoyed a few years of popularity when it was first brought there in the early 1990s, but it quickly nosedived and failed to find any continuous success due to lack of interest. The Japanese dubs of TMNT shows tend to be short lived and the Imagi movie was put straight-to-video — there were also short-lived anime and manga adaptations that never really caught on. This is often attributed to some of the Japanese elements reaching Shallow Parody levels. The most popular aspect of the series for Japanese fans seems to be the games, which were mostly created by Japanese developers and also avoided the more shallow aspects thanks to their excuse plots.
And You Thought It Would Fail: Hasbro, Mattel and other companies passed on making toys based on the comic thinking It Will Never Catch On. Playmates Toys, who was trying to break into the American market, signed on with the condition of having an associated cartoon, and it resulted in both making this kooky concept a worldwide hit and Playmates a big player in the action figure market.
Venus de Milo. Most fans see her as a Replacement Scrappy for April O'Neil, but some fans think that she is an interesting concept and would like to see her return in one of the current Nickelodeon-helmed adaptations. It's particularly telling that even the franchise's creators have differing opinions on her: While Peter Laird is well-known for outright despising the character, Kevin Eastman has gone on record to say that he likes the character and hopes for her to someday make a comeback, which eventually happened in Issue #127 of the IDW comic.
April herself is the most divisive character of the mainstay cast. One side doesn't mind most of her incarnations, liking for her more motherly nature towards the turtles and sometimes helping them out. The other side tends to get really annoyed with her, with the complaints usually depending on the incarnation of her being constantly kidnapped (1987 series), stealing the spotlight from the turtles (2012 series and 2014 film), or blindly rushing into the action (Rise). The 1990s film trilogy and 2003 versions, however, seem to have very little complaints and are praised for striking the right balance for her role.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Michelangelo breaking out into an opera song(the tune of "O Little Town of Bethlehem") in the middle of We Wish You a Turtles Christmas. Seriously, just try not to laugh too hard. Raphael's "again" statement seems to deny it's a BLAM, while the other two turtles seem to be appropriately baffled.
Given the sheer amount of Lighter and Softer / Darker and Edgier adaptations, this is to be expected. The most notable is between fans of the first and second cartoons (arguably made worse by Turtles Forever's Character Exaggeration of the 1987 turtles). Presently ongoing against the 2018 series for the same tone reasons, and possibly unfamiliarity with being into a franchise fandom.
When Nickelodeon brought the TMNT in 2009, fans have noted that most incarnations of the Turtles made under their ownership have gained more individual design elements and often different designs compared to how they were back when they were still independently owned by Mirage, where the only real distinguishable design elements between them were their weapons, and in adaptations, most notably the multicolored masks and sometimes them being different tints of green and/or having belt buckles with their initials. Some fans don't mind this change in approach and like that the turtles are made to be more unique and distinguishable from each other, while others find it to be unnecessary (given they already have the multicolored masks to distinguish them) and find many of the designs under Nick's ownership (especially the 2014 and 2018 designs) to be too busy and/or off-putting.
Some works. But fans try to forget Next Mutation and the third film.
How most fans of the 1987 series treat the Red Sky seasons (though some are fond of season eight).
Friendly Fandoms: TMNT fans and Usagi Yojimbo fans get along pretty well, thanks to the fact that the creators are friends in real life and have had their characters cross over in each others' series; Usagi has also guest-starred in every animated TMNT adaptation to date, with the exception of the 2018 series.
1984, the year the TMNT comic debuted, is known in the Chinese zodiac as the year of the Wood Rat.
The comic was meant to parody Funny Animals, Dark and Gritty comics, among other things that were popular; ironically, this comic started the fad of animal teams.
In the second movie, Raph insists it wasn't slime, it was ooze. Now, many years later, the entire franchise is owned by Nickelodeon, who has been "sliming" people since before the line was spoken.
In 2016, a short called "Don Vs Raph" by Jhonen Vasquez involved Donnie and Raph fighting each other with trivial contests. In 2018, there was a Splatoon 2 contest themed after who the best Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle was, with Pearl siding with Raphael and Michelangelo, and Marina with Leonardo and Donatello. The finale of the Splatfest was Raphael vs Donatello (which Donatello ended up winning).
Ho Yay: The Archie comics had some panels with some possible subtext between Bebop and Rocksteady. In one, Bebop complains about having to wear clothing. After they are stranded on a wilderness planet, both of them are seen stripping, with Bebop relieved...and Rocksteady looking at him with a rather warm expression.
After the Turtles hit the big time following the success of the 1987 cartoon and toys, many members of the Mirage comics' small but dedicated fanbase were turned off. The letters pages erupted with accusations that Eastman and Laird were "sellouts", circulation dipped, and sales of the adult-oriented Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness role-playing game slowed down to a crawl. This is not really the case nowadays, since most adult fans - even those who do prefer the Mirage comics - grew up on the post-1987 merchandising empire to begin with.
Though no one was under any illusions that the Turtles weren't popular, Peter Laird's 2009 sale of the Turtles rights to Viacom shocked and alienated a number of fans, who had grown to appreciate the rare fact that such a huge and iconic media franchise was still owned by its original creator.
"God, I love being a Turtle!"Explanation From the 1990 live-action movie, Mikey says this after ducking his head into his shell to dodge an attack. The phrase has appeared in subsequent films and other media since.
"NINJA-KICK THE DAMN RABBIT!"Explanation From the 1990 movie, Mikey's reaction as he and Donnie watch a cartoon based on "The Tortoise and the Hare".
And who can forget "COWABUNGA!"Explanation The Turtles' catchphrase.
COWABUNGA IT ISExplanation A close-up image of Mikey's face captioned with the aforementioned phrase, used as a reaction image to scenarios where someone's about to do something exceedingly stupid, reckless, or rebellious.
"Help! I'm a turtle, and I can't get up!"Explanation From the third live-action movie.
"Donatello does machines."Explanation One of the lines from the 1987 animated show can be taken a certain way.
Some iterations of the boys look downright scary. Hell, even the concept itself of four human sized turtles that know the art of ninjitsu is freaky, even if they are the good guys.
The very last scene in the "Coming out of Their Shells" video.
Pandering to the Base: After Nickelodeon acquired the franchise, its various entries tend to steer much closer to the 1987 cartoon adaptation, due to a large amount of the series' fans having grown up on it. While the strategy has been largely successful, this has resulted in some people who were introduced to the broader franchise through material such as the movies or the 2003 series taking umbrage with the apparent favoritism.
Pop-Cultural Osmosis: Nowadays, mention the Turtles' names and there's a fair chance people will think of them first instead of the Renaissance artists they're named for. Especially Donatello, who is less well-known than the "trinity" of Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael. The webcomic xkcd and the webseries Epic Rap Battles of History have bothjoked about him this way. And because Michelangelo the turtle's name was misspelled with an extra A for many years until it was quietly fixed, and thus pronounced "Michael Angelo" to this day (hence his nickname is Mike/Mikey, not Mick), odds are that people who grew up with the franchise will also apply this to Michelangelo the Italian artist until they're corrected.
Replacement Scrappy: Any version of April who is not the news reporter per the 1987 series or the live action movies is considered this to some. Except for the original April who is neither a reporter, a replacement, nor a Scrappy, making later fans view this version of the character as basically Early-Installment Weirdness.
The Scrappy: Ace Duck, an early character from the toy line who was the pilot of the Turtle Blimp, is often mocked for being superfluous (why would they need a pilot when Donatello could do it and they rarely use the blimp anyway?) and for having an uninteresting design and personality. He's never had a substantial role in any adaptation, and the scant appearances he has made have always served to make fun of him- in the Adventures comics he was a Miles Gloriosus who was always shown losing to his opponents, and in the 2012 series, Shredder dismisses him as useless.
So Bad, It Was Better: The franchise's... odd tonal situation, with the goofy 1987 Turtles and the dark and serious Mirage Turtles constantly jockeying for position as the "main" line of the franchise, has resulted in a lot of fans who grew up with the (largely considered to be So Bad, It's Good) 1987 series outright rejecting the darker, "better" versions of the Turtles.
Try watching the Christmas Special, We Wish You a Turtles Christmas without laughing.
Some episodes of the 1987 series.
Special Effect Failure: Any live-action Ninja Turtles production that wasn't a movie, save for the first one (due to being done by an experienced company), will inevitably wind up in the Unintentional Uncanny Valley for whatever reason. "Turtle Tunes" and "We Wish You a Turtles Christmas" are the worst offenders in this regard; with the turtles sporting rictus grins and barely blinking eyes, and the costumes don't even bother with the obligatory foot pieces to complete the look, settling on black socks instead.
Fans of the original Mirage Comics dish on the 1987 series for "selling out". Fans of the 1987 series say this about the 2003 version and its more serious tone. Fans of the first five seasons of the 2003 series will scream obscenities at Fast Forward due to its radical shift in tone, setting, and look. This was Lampshaded in Turtles Forever when the 1987 turtles and 2003 turtles arrive in the 1984 (Mirage) universe. The Mirage Turtles there call the others ' sellouts' though they eventually settle their differences.
As per tradition, the 2018 series is being blasted with this as well, most prominently for Splinter's characterization as well as Raphael being the leader at the beginning.
Tropes that pertain to the 1989 Nintendo Entertainment System video game:
Anticlimax Boss: After all the crap it takes to reach him, Shredder is a relative pushover due to the fact that he's the only boss in the game that can be knocked back. Players who get him in the right rhythm can just keep smacking him without giving him a chance to counter.
Awesome Music: Even critics of the original NES game have to admit that the music is pretty catchy, especially the title theme, the sewer theme, the warehouse theme, and the main boss theme. The fact that none of it is based on music from the '87 series and still leaves an impression is even more impressive.
Breather Boss: The Big Mouser at the end of level 4. It's completely stationary, and its only attacks are occasionally firing an eye laser and dropping regular mousers. If you stand under it with Donatello and spam your upwards attack at its weak point, neither of these will ever hit you.
Common Knowledge: The Dam stage is not the hardest part of the game; much like the infamous Turbo Tunnel from Battletoads, it's merely where the game starts getting much more difficult.
Demonic Spiders: It's bad enough that there are respawning enemies but there are some enemies that really make this game unfair and annoying to play.
The worst enemy that you will encounter in the game are the Rocket Men armed with laser guns in the later sections of the Technodrome. They appear and move so quickly that you almost can't react to them without getting hit. What's even worse is that there are sections of narrow halls that make getting shot or running into them an inevitability. It also takes two shots from the Scroll, the best sub-weapon in the game, to kill them. Or if you have single shurikens, it can kill them just as quickly.
The Climb Busters, large spider-like robots in Area 5, are notorious for making climbing sections a total pain since they move fast towards you and you're completely defenseless while climbing the wall.
Needle Beasts are large porcupine in the underground sections of Area 5. They're cheap and unpredictable as they jump and attack in completely random patterns, making it hard to not get hit by them.
By pausing the game at the right time, you can make the Giant Mouser boss fight even easier. Normally, you have to wait for it to open its mouth to attack, but pausing the game makes it vulnerable at all times.
The North American MS-DOS version has a required jump that is literally impossible to accomplish. However, you can still beat the game without cheats, if you do a sequence of extremely strange actions (although you still skip the rest of that level). If you have rope, there's a place on the overworld that you can walk, which triggers the use of the rope. Suddenly, you're using the climbing animation on the overworld. If you now enter a specific building, you will fall through the floor into a glitched level. You might end up dead, or the game asking you to insert another disk, or just trapped in a broken level, but there is a chance that the game will instead teleport you to the beginning of the next level. [1]
"Don't let the Foot Clan destroy the dam. You have my support."Explanation April tells the Turtles this when they rescue her. Then the dam level begins.
Cowabunga...COWA-FUCKIN' PIECE OF DOG SHIT!Explanation AVGN's concluding rant of the NES game begins with this phrase. He also used it for his full theme song and the review of the third live-action movie.
Misblamed: Franchise co-creator Kevin Eastman recalls people getting mad at him for the Dam level, apparently thinking he and Peter Laird made the game themselves and designed it. In reality, while they were involved in aspects of the games, they weren't the level designers, and Kevin Eastman himself admits to never having beaten that level.
Overshadowed by Controversy: You cannot bring up the PC port without someone bringing up the Unintentionally UnwinnableGame-Breaking Bug in the third stage. It's physically impossible. The port is already quite bad in general, but this bug is responsible for at least 90% of the discussion surrounding it.
Porting Disaster: The North American PC version to say the least. The third stage cannot be completed without cheating or a very strange glitch because of a design flaw in one of the sections in the sewers. The jump is impossible to make because of the ceiling being shorter and the platform on the other side being too far away. The UK Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles corrected this by extending the platform, but retained the other design decisions that made many aspects unintentionally more difficult.
As shown by James Rolfe, the Commodore 64 version is definitely inferior to the NES version, with two of the biggest problems being the slower gameplay and that jump and attack share the same button.
The Problem with Licensed Games: The original NES game is infamous for its extreme difficulty, including unbalanced characters, a sudden gameplay shift in the form of a timed swimming section, a steep difficulty curve halfway through, and nonstop hordes of strong enemies. (And to top if off, the MS-DOS port is even worse.)
Surprise Difficulty: Sure, the game's reputation precedes it nowadays, but back in '89 when the game dropped, at the height of Turtlemania... let's just say there were a lot of pissed-off youngsters.
The first few seconds of the intro music sounds incredibly similar to "Stone Cold Crazy" by Queen.
The Area 5 overworld theme resembles the opening riff of The Beatles' "Come Together".
That One Boss: The Technodrome boss in level 5. First of all, level 5 is That One Level in itself due to the fact that the boss is randomly placed at the end of one of three caves. As for the Technodrome itself, the prong in its front fires a powerful lightning beam that covers a third of the play area, making it nigh impossible to approach without using secondary weapons to destroy said prongnote or exploiting a glitch with the pause menu that makes the bottom half of the beam disappear. On top of that, it also has two turrets on the body firing a constant stream of bullets at you, as well as the open compartment at the top which spawns infinite Foot Soldiers to further hinder you. All of these have to be taken out if you want any chance of safely attacking the eye at the top, which is the boss's true weak point. Hope you packed a lunch!
The notorious dam level, dubbed "That Damn Dam" by some, and some fan theories persist that this level was what turned famed movie critic Roger Ebert off of video games (he played to this level, which allowed him to spot an inaccuracy in The Wizard.) The dam level owes its infamy to the following factors...
It's a Timed Mission. You are charged with defusing eight bombs under a time limit, with annoying sea life everywhere trying to inhibit your progress. Failing to defuse them all before time runs out will result in a...
Non Standard Game Over. It doesn't matter how many turtles you have left; you fail once, and it's all over. Luckily it's the only game over of its kind in this game, since according to gamers who managed to pass this level, the game gets even harder.
Then when you get to the later levels, it doesn't get any easier from here in. The third level is a maze where you have to find the correct solution to it. The fourth level, the Foot Air Base, will have you pulling your hair out. It's not only another maze, but it's also full of dangerous hazards, including liquid flame pits in some of the underground tunnels that will kill any turtle instantly on contact. Thankfully, the boss of the level itself isn't too difficult.
The Abandoned Warehouse is the fifth level and it's quite difficult due to many factors: The enemies in the caves are Demonic Spiders, and one of the three caves contains the boss, the Technodrome Defense System. If it doesn't, it brings you to an empty room, and you're forced to backtrack to the beginning of the cave. The game generates it before you enter the level, and there's no clear indication on which cave is correct until you either find an empty room or the boss. To make things worse, the enemies respawn when you exit the empty room, so you'll inevitably have at least one turtle with low health.
The final level, inside the Technodrome, definitely takes the cake. No checkpoints, an array of Demonic Spiders unique to this level, and some rooms are full of spikes. Fortunately, Shredder is an Anti-Climax Boss, and even then, he may sneak in a One-Hit Kill if you don't know the trick to defeating him, forcing you to resume from the beginning of the level.
Tier-Induced Scrappy: Really, everybody except for Donatello is low tier, and Donatello is high tier.
Donatello's attacks are slow, but have a lot of reach and do 200% damage. The only reason to play as anyone who isn't Donatello is if Don is low on health and you're trying to keep him alive, or you're playing a part of the game that doesn't involve attacking (e.g. disarming the bombs in Level 2). That being said, he's also the only character that can't normally hit low-to-the-ground enemies; he has to use a downthrust to hit them and his downthrust's horizontal range is terrible.
Leonardo is arguably the second best, but far, FAR worse than Donatello. His weapon is tied for weakest in the game, but at least it has a decent mix of range and speed.
Raphael's attack does 150% damage, and that is the only thing he has going for him. Going against him, his attack has terrible range - instead of thrusting his sai daggers forward like he should, he just sticks out his arm and spins them in place. This means it's a good chance you'll take damage while trying to damage the enemies. One could even argue that his inability to stay out of his enemies' attack range in the later levels makes him more useless than Michaelangelo, but... see below.
Michaelangelo is the worst character at all - there are not any situations in which he has utility aside from soaking up damage for the other turtles. He shares the lowest attack power in the game with Leonardo, and his nunchukus are slower and have less range than Leonardo's katanas. At least if Raphael's getting swarmed by enemies his attack speed and extra damage means he can clear his way out a little more effectively. Even if you know the quirk to Mike (His attack strength doubles when his health is low), the fact that he has to be at half-health or lower to abuse this quirk puts players in an awkward spot of avoiding healing Mike to keep him usable makes him very impractical, unless one is extremely desperate.
This is lampshaded along with the difficulty of the game in this video here.
Underused Game Mechanic: Using ropes to cross gaps. There's only one rope item in the entire game, and you use it on a couple of gaps immediately afterward, amounting to a couple of cutscenes of your turtle throwing a rope, and that's it. The devs seem to have implemented the rope item and felt obligated to use it somehow.
And You Thought It Would Fail: Many major studios such as Walt Disney Pictures, Columbia Pictures, MGM/UA, Orion Pictures, Paramount (whose parent company Viacom would ironically enough acquire the TMNT property in 2009) and Warner Bros. turned down the first film for distribution as they were worried that despite the popularity of the 1987 series and the toy line, the film would potentially be a box office disappointment like Masters of the Universe was just a couple years prior. The film finally found distribution roughly halfway through the initial production via the then small and independent production company New Line Cinema which at that point had been known more for distributing low budget B movies and arthouse fare. New line at the time was mainly making its profits at that point from the Nightmare On Elm Street movies. The film would end up becoming a box office hit, having the second largest opening at the US box office at the time (behind 1989's Batman) and going on to make $200 million worldwide.
Anti-Climax Boss: The Turtles finally confront Shredder in the first film and he spends roughly three minutes defeating them with little difficulty. Then Splinter appears and defeats the Shredder in one move.
The main theme for the Turtles in the first two movies.
The build-up music for the climax in the first movie.
"Message From Splinter," So awesome and bittersweet that it would be later used to pay tribute to the late James Avery in recognition of his role in the cartoon.
Turtle Power!
Complete Monster: Oroku Saki, the Shredder, is the mysterious, hateful leader of the Foot Clan, using it to satisfy his own greed and vengeful goals. Years ago murdering the object of his affections, Tang Shen, and the man she loved to sate his own jealous rage, Shredder lured dozens of troubled youths to join his Foot Clan by preying on their need for a family and turning them into criminals, all while uncaring of their well-being and subjecting them to harsh beatings as part of their daily lives. Capturing and torturing Master Splinter to gain info on the Ninja Turtles, Shredder orders the rat killed before trying to murder his surrogate turtle sons as well, claiming he will spare one of their number if the rest surrender, only to try to kill them all anyway. Returning in the sequel, Shredder forces Professor Perry to create the mutant beasts Tokka and Rahzar, threatening to execute all three of them for failure when the monsters have the minds of "stupid infants" before bragging plans to unleash Tokka and Rahzar onto Central Park and endanger countless people. When his plans are foiled, Shredder takes an innocent woman as a hostage, threatening to douse her in mutagen and monstrously transform her while he makes his escape.
Critical Dissonance: None of the films have gotten positive enough reviews to warrant a fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, although the first film, while not considered a work of art, has a much more positive and enjoyable reception from audiences, particularly among fans of the franchise.
First Installment Wins: The first film is the only one whose quality the fanbase can widely regard as good. The Secret of the Ooze has its defenders, but many criticize it for being Lighter and Softer and not having enough action, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III is widely considered the worst film in the entire franchise, and TMNT is a Contested Sequel at its finest. To say nothing of how divisive the Bay-produced films are, although Out of The Shadows is considered a mild step-up.
Franchise Original Sin: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) often gets flack for making April the focus of the story, though the film still centers around the turtles. The Turtles personalities are well done, but they don't get much character development. Lacking Casey Jonesnote who was MIA in Secret of the Ooze and putting in a villain (Eric Sacks) who had nothing to do with any of the comics or cartoons prior to that point was a mitigating factor too. The thing is that this problem can be found all the way back in the 1990 original. As pointed out by CinemaSins, Raphael is the only one who gets a character arc of some sort, Leo gets some, and Donnie and Mikey don't get any at all. Plus, Danny, a minor character, had a sub-plot that while did not take over the whole film, was an odd decision. The reason why it wasn't noticeable back then was due to it being the Turtle's first film, the hype surrounding it, and a well written story with great practical effects and action scenes. The sequel, Secret of the Ooze, tried to fix the character development issue by putting the focus on Donnie's arcnote When the turtles find out they were created by accident., but it never really goes anywhere. Turtles III and TMNT (2007) both featured villains that had nothing to do with the comics or cartoons, albeit, the latter had Karai with hints of Shredder returning in a sequel that was never made. Tatsu wasn't in any prior media either, acting as a stand in for Karai, but he was the right hand man to Shredder, so that was okay. Karai was still obscure at the time unless one read the original comics, so that was understandable. Ooze had Tokka and Rahzar as expies for Bebop and Rocksteady, because Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman did not want them in the film. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, the sequel to the 2014 movie, attempted to address these complaints by putting more focus on the Turtles themselves, and also included fan-favorites Bebop and Rocksteady.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Any sports fan over the last decade who's read the stories on steroid use can now look back on Raph's comment on Casey's Jose Canseco bat with a whole new meaning.
It was a two-for-one sale.
Donatello gets ragged on by his brothers for trying to make the word "Acapella" sound cool. Years later Eminem finishes what Don started, by using that word and the meaning behind it in a crucial moment against Papa Doc in 8 Mile.
In one fight scene, Casey defeats Tatsu by swinging a golf club at him, and he promptly kisses the club, saying, "I'll never call golf a dull game again." There's a ninja game for the Atari called Ninja Golf.
The song "Turtle Power" has Raphael erroneously identified as the leader. And then comes Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, where Raphael actually is the leader of the turtles.
Kids nowadays, watching the scene with the teens in the warehouse, may have trouble understanding what is so subversive and rebellious about using an indoor skateboarding park, playing an electric bass, spraypainting a wall clearly set up for the purpose of spraypainting, playing arcade games, and doing a little recreational gambling. Now it seems that the least horrifying thing in the '80's ("Regular, or Menthol?") is the only bad behavior in the entire scene.
God, I love being a TURTLE!!!Explanation Mikey says this after ducking his head into his shell to dodge an attack. The phrase has appeared in subsequent films and other media since.
DAMN!!!Explanation Raphael chases after Casey. Cut to Distant Reaction Shot of the New York skyline. Raphael yells.
Ninja kick the damn rabbit!Explanation Mikey's reaction as he and Donnie watch a cartoon based on "The Tortoise and the Hare".
You dirty rat! You killed my brother!
Do you like penicillin on your pizza? (Proceeds to hum "Taps".)
Wise men say: forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza.Explanation Mikey shortchanges the pizza delivery guy for being late and gives this line when he protests.
The gang member who snitches to the cops at the conclusion is a young Sam Rockwell. He also delivers the line "Regular or Menthol" when asked if he had smokes.
This was one of the first live-action adaptations of an animated property ever to become a major unqualified success, paving the way for future adaptations like the 1994 film adaptation of The Flintstones, the 2002 live action adaptation of Scooby-Doo, and Disney's whole slate of live-action remakes. If you're used to those sorts of films being semi-regular fixtures at the box office, it can be difficult to imagine what a big deal Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was in 1990 (indeed, many people at the time were flabbergasted when news broke that it would be live-action).
The animatronics themselves also fall under this. While they were groundbreaking for 1989/1990, not only was this process used for the sequels (the third to not as successful results) and other projects by Jim Henson's Creature Shop; but many other effects artists would use similar methods to build upon and advance animatronics both for People in Rubber Suits effects and in general.
Roger Ebert: I was surprised to discover it's a live-action film. I expected animation - a spinoff of the Saturday morning Turtle cartoon show. But no. These are actual human beings for the most part, including stunt men inside the life-size turtle suits (certain other characters have been created artificially by the Jim Henson folks).
Special Effect Failure: While most of the effects work still holds up, there are instances where it does falter.
A clearly human hand swings in front of the camera as Donatello does a spin on his skateboard, there's a moment where you can clearly see a microphone cord dangling from Raphael's shell, a few instances where the head and neck seams aren't bended in properly (Michelangelo when he and Donatello are talking about what Splinter told them while waiting for the pizza being a notable example), and a moment during Raphael's recovery where you can see the teeth of Donatello's actor Leif Tilden peeking though his mouth.
The switch from the hero suits (with the animatronics) and the stunt suits (with the static faces) is rather obvious.
The scene with the turtle yelling out Splinter's name is supposed to be Raphael, but you can see nunchucks (Michelangelo's weapon) on the side. This was to try and cover up a deleted subplot involving Mikey.
Unintentional Period Piece: The first film is a nice little snapshot of very, very late 80s culture: New Jack Swing soundtrack? Check. Skateboard ramps inside Shredder's warehouse? Check. Bulky Macintosh computer in April's shop? Check. Spiked hair and Casey mistaking Raphael for a punk? Check. April's gigantic, Kenny G-style perm? Check. And then there's Michaelangelo's James Cagney impression, which dates the movie with what was nostalgic at the time.
Visual Effects of Awesome: Above errors aside, the animatronic suits and puppets still look unbelievably good even today; they should, since they were created by the Jim Henson's Creature Shop and were the predecessors of all the current systems used for their full-bodied animatronics.
Woolseyism: The European Spanish dub of the film is a rather infamous example, and also overlaps with Spice Up the Subtitles as well: Unlike with what happened with the dubs of the animated series and later movies, the famous "Cowabunga!" was translated as "¡De puta madre!" (literally "That's fucking great!") at the end of the movie. The worst part of the whole thing is the fact that Master Splinter, of all people, was the one who came out with the idea of using that word. It should be noted that latter reruns of the movie in Spaniard TV gets that word censored through.
Raphael's "again" statement seems to deny it's a BLAM, while the other two turtles seem to be appropriately baffled.
