Saturday, August 29, 2020

Rein-Toon-Ation: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003)

After 4Kids Entertainment was entrusted with programming Fox's Saturday morning block in 2002, it was a matter of time before they'd find a tentpole to build the block around.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was brought back with a shiny new coat, if ya will, as a mid-season replacement, debuting in February 2003. It was a completely new continuity, with a new voice cast, but with the same ol' attitude. As shown in the following intro, Casey Jones was already established by the time this series premiered, and the producers decided on making Casey and April O'Neil into a couple.

The series went through a few format changes over the course of its Fox run, and has been brought back again since, with the last two iterations airing on Nickelodeon.

Here's that intro. Mind the cheesy theme song, which is worse than the original series.



Rating: B.

2 comments:

Steven Dolce said...

This is what got me into the franchise.

hobbyfan said...

The series bowed a year shy of the franchise's 20th anniversary in print. The Turtles have been around since the mid-80's.