Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1255374-20160227224555/@comment-995426-20160328172300

Have I really pasted that image that often? o.o ...I mean, I believe you, but... Okay. Hm, I guess I really should diversify my forum image selections.

Anyway, my point was, Turtles Forever was right to mock the 1987 series because it didn't deserve to be celebrated. Even Mirage and its readers hated it, for reasons you're well aware of. It wasn't TMNT&mdash;it was an anti-TMNT&mdash;in so many ways the opposite of what actually made TMNT good.

Murakami-Wolf-Swenson made it clear early on that they didn't want Eastman and Laird's input, and shut them out of the show's creative process very early on, and viewed them as an unwelcome adult comics nuisance&mdash;MWS made sure by design that Mirage TMNT would have as little influence on the show as possible. When you start out practically penniless, you can't really pick all the best business deals, and E&L may not have made all the wisest business decisions. But still...if you were someone who preferred Mirage TMNT, what got shown on the airwaves was really quite awful. And the fact that what was a mature adult character-driven action-drama became a frivolous cheap comedy just for little kids or adults nostalgic about being little kids, and that it was that formula that became the "TMNT" to a far larger number of people to this very day, is probably the franchise's greatest tragedy.

It might have ultimately been better had MWS made the series they wanted with a completely different name and completely different characters, even if it meant TMNT would have never become as well-known, because the long-term damage MWS did to TMNT's brand and reputation was not unlike the long-term damage a certain kitschy 1960s sitcom did to Batman until the more mature Tim Burton, Animated Series and Christopher Nolan versions helped rehabilitate its reputation with adults (the Joel Schumacher lapses notwithstanding). Such an embarrassing chapter deserves either to be forgotten or to be mocked, but it does not deserve the power to continually hijack most new versions of TMNT that follow. When Tim Burton made the 1989 Batman film, he was under great pressure to pay homages to the 1960s series or at least give Adam West a cameo, but he stuck to his guns and refused, and what he made turned out to be exceptionally good. If only more TMNT TV shows and movies had done the same in ignoring the 1987 series.

So, at the end of the day, I'm not against the 1987 turtles having an appearance or cameo, as long as they're something like a sight gag or a punchline. The Manhattan Project, Part 1 and Part 2 was acceptable in this regard because they remained a big-lipped alligator moment in what was otherwise a pretty good 2012 TV series season 2 episode.