There's a good chance that you've heard of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles if you were around in the late 80's; it exploded in popularity big time and I was one of the kids caught in the blast. XD It was an obsession! It all started for my brother and me when my mom came home one day with a couple of toys of the turtles along with a VHS of the first episode. We watched the cassette daily, enacted the events in the video with our toys while we watched, built the turtles' lair for our action figures out of various things laying around the house and legos. We even pretty regularly built our own personal turtle lair out of the couch, its cushions, blankets and a Little Tikes picnic table and ate Ego waffles pretending they were pizzas. For Halloweens, I even ended up making a turtle costume with its shell being made out of cardboard and a Shredder costume with arm blades made out of cut up makeup sponges. XD What a fun time to be a kid obsessed with Ninja Turtles!

As time went on, my interest in it waned and I ended up moving on to other things; I didn't really think too much on why it did until recently. Reminiscing though, I admit that I think I was most excited about the series' concept and what happened in the first five episodes; It was so out there compared to anything I'd ever seen before, not only that, but it was a series of episodes that contained continuity that built up to a grand climax of a final showdown between the heroes and the villains. I watched the cartoon on TV for a long time, but I can't say I remember a time when it felt as great as it was in the beginning.

I suspect that aside from me probably wanting something new, it's possible that my interest also waned because of the series' gradual change in tone to be more comedic and child friendly. I remember that being a huge turn off for me as a kid when The Real Ghostbusters started cutting down on the more interesting and creepy material and replacing it with shorts about Slimer and his comedic hijinks with stray animals and at home. I remember characters in the Ninja Turtles cartoon breaking the fourth wall and that it was kinda fun at the time, but it really can go too far as Angry Video Game Nerd mentions in his review of the series; how can you get immersed into a series if the characters themselves can't take anything that's happening to them seriously. I also wasn't really fond of Shredder and Krang becoming incompetent comic relief villains, especially considering how imposing they are in other variations of the franchise.

Nickelodeon started a Ninja Turtles reboot In 2012 that caught my attention a while back. Bear and I've heard a number of good things about it. I've barely seen any of the series, but it seems pretty good so far. =) It's nice feeling that the creators of the new Ninja Turtles are themselves fans of the old, thus them wanting to do the franchise justice. I'd prefer it if April and Casey Jones were a little older, but "what can you do?" right? I'm looking forward to being able to check out more of it when we can. It may have been a long time, but I think I'll always be a Ninja Turtles fan somewhere in my heart. XD