Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Tropes that pertain to the cartoon show

  • Adaptation Displacement: Most people remember the Fred Wolf cartoon. The comic book that inspired it? Not so much.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: IDW is starting up a "back-to-the-roots" TMNT comic? AND they're reprinting the originals in hardcover format? Yay!
  • Big Mouthed Turtle Moment: Michaelangelo breaking out into an opera song in the middle of We Wish You a Turtles Christmas. Seriously, just try not to laugh too hard. Note how Raphael's "again" statement seems to deny it's a BLAM, while the other two turtles seem to be appropriately baffled.
  • Broken Base: 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.
  • Crazy Awesome: Casey
  • Crossover Ship: Michelangelo with Sara "Horridus" Hill from the Savage Dragon.
  • Ear Worm: Pick a theme. Any theme.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: The Rat King.
    • Fred Wolf Series: This series' version of April O' Neil tends to be more.... fondly remembered by the fans. Also, Irma gets this treatment as well.
    • Bishop is probably the most popular character created for the 2k3 cartoon.
  • Fanon Discontinuity: Some works. But nearly everyone tries to forget Next Mutation.
  • Funny Moments: In the 2007 movie, Splinter talking about his "stories", especially him muttering to himself about how "Cody is going to break up with Donna, I just know it."
  • Girls Need Role Models: The only reason for Venus de Milo's creation in the first place.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: 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.
  • Ink Stain Adaptation: The original cartoon. Not bad, but eclipsed the other works.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Shadow, in Tales of the TMNT #69.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • "God, I love being a Turtle!"
    • "NINJA-KICK THE DAMN RABBIT!"
    • And who can forget "COWABUNGA!"
    • "Help! I'm a turtle, and I can't get up!"
  • Memetic Sex Goddess: April O' Neil in the Fred Wolf series. Irma gets this treatment to a lesser extent as well.
  • Nightmare Fuel:
    • 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.
  • Ruined FOREVER: Part of the fandom didn't react well to the rights being sold to Nickelodeon.
    • That's nothing compared to how fans are reacting to the Michael Bay film...
  • The Scrappy: Several in each incarnation.
  • So Bad It's Good: Try watching the Christmas Special, We Wish You a Turtles Christmas without laughing.
    • About 90% of the 80's series.
  • Special Effect Failure: Any live action Ninja Turtles production that wasn't a movie. "Turtle Tunes" and "We Wish You a Turtles Christmas" being the worst offenders.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks:
    • Fans of the Fred Wolf show will say this about the 4Kids show. Fans of the first five seasons of 4Kids show will scream obscenities at Fast Forward due to its radical shift in tone, setting, and look.
      • Which is a case of Did Not Do the Research, since the 4Kids show is much more faithful to the original Mirage comic than the Fred Wolf series was.
        • No, the trope is They Changed It, Now It Sucks, not "They Strayed From the Original Now It Sucks". These are fans of the Fred Wolf show complaining about straying from *that*, so research has nothing to do with it.
    • Fans of the original Mirage Comics hate the Fred Wolf show for "selling out".

This was Lampshaded in Turtles Forever when the Fred Wolf turtles and 4Kids turtles arrive in the 1984 (Mirage) universe. The original turtles there call the others 'sell outs' though they eventually settle their differences.

  • Too Cool to Live: Splinter, in the Mirage series.
  • Uncanny Valley: Usually a problem with the turtles in Live Action Adaptations, most notably the cheap Coming Out of their Shells Tour and We Wish You A Turtles Christmas Special. Splinter often looks even worse.
    • The 2007 CGI movie, on the other hand, makes the turtles look quite nice, but the human models have been accused of this.
    • The costumes in the Operation Blue Line promotional video—which was about a light rail service that went from Los Angeles to Long Beach, and released only in California for free—blow everything else out of the water. [1]
  • Weird Al Effect: The original comic is a spot on pastiche of Frank Miller's work circa the early to mid 80s (mostly Ronin and Daredevil). The best example is The Foot, who are based on Marvel's The Hand (get it?).
    • Also compared Daredevil's master (Stick) to the Turtle's master (Splinter). Both origins involve a truck of toxic waste too.
    • A few elements were cribbed from X-Men as well; Leonardo was Cyclops and Raphael was Wolverine; and when Krang and Shredder appear together, they seem eerily similar to Mojo and Spiral. While the X-Men have gone onto prominence in their own right, for a while they were less known to the public than the Turtles.
    • Ask any fan of the series if he knows about Daredevil or Ronin.
  • The Woobie: The Fugitoid.

Tropes that pertain to the 1989 Nintendo Entertainment System video game

Tropes that pertain to the films

  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: Mako being the voice of Splinter. Plus the fact that Jim Henson designed the creatures, and the trailer for the first film (which didn't even have the Turtles' proper voices dubbed in yet) made a lot of people think the first movie might actually be worth watching.
  • Awesome Music:
    • "Shredder's Suite", the song that plays throughout the first film during different scenes, usually when the Shredder or the Foot Clan are a big part of the scene. The first film in general had a nice soundtrack.
    • "Ninja Rap" wanted to be this, though at best it's a Guilty Pleasures or So Bad It's Good.
    • In the fourth movie, Raphael fights a small monster inside a cafe kitchen accompanied by Big City Rock's cover of "Black Betty".
  • Complete Monster: This version of the Shredder really is just a bastard with no redeeming features that might be present in other versions. The fact that he recruits lonely, impressionable kids as future Foot Clan members really helps sell this.
  • Continuity Lock Out: The fourth movie introduces Karai and shows her leading the Foot now. However, unless you're familiar with the comics or the 2003 series, you will have no clue about her history with the Foot or Shredder. This is generally not a problem, but without the proper context, her anguished "You!" when she goes out of her to attack the Turtles upon their first encounter doesn't carry as much weight and may seem out of place.
    • It's not too bad. She'd already talked about losing the Shredder and the difficulties that caused, and was obviously pained by it. If the only Turtles you'd seen was the first two movies, and weren't being deliberately dim, you could probably figure out "Oh, she knew the Shredder and she's ticked at the turtles for killing him."
  • Ear Worm
    • From the first movie, "Turtle Power" by Partners In Kryme. Although it incorrectly cites Raph as leader, it's still a narm charming rap of the highest caliber. It would be reused in the soundtrack CD of the third movie, though that might've been because the guys in charge just didn't care. Spunkadelic's "9.95," thought to a much lesser extent, is also catchy in its own right, and would be reused in the trailer for the second movie.
    • The second—of course—features "The Ninja Rap" by Vanilla Ice, which asks you if you've "ever seen a turtle get down" and requests all ninjas to advance forward...in other words, "GO NINJA GO NINJA GO!"
    • The third movie has ZZ Top's "Can't Stop Rockin'" and Baltimora's "Tarzan Boy," although both were former '80s chart toppers.
    • TMNT features "Shell Shock" by Gym Class Heroes, which is catchier than it had any right to be.
  • First Installment Wins
  • 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.
  • Ho Yay: One of Donatello's phone calls in the fourth movies that truly gets crap past the radar: "No, sir, I'm not playing hard to get. I'm telling you, it's not that kind of phone line!"
  • Internet Backdraft: Michael Bay and Aliens. It's best not to even bring those two things up together in a TMNT forum.
  • Magic Franchise Word: "Man, I love being a turtle!"
  • Nightmare Fuel: In the first movie The Shredder himself is made of Nightmare Fuel, he's like a faster and more agile version of Darth Vader with more pointy things.
  • Sequelitis: Especially with the third movie.
    • Ironically the third movie is far more like the supposedly beloved original cartoon series than the first movie, with the second movie shading more that way as well. Apparently "true" TMNT fans only like the first movie and nothing else.
  • Special Effect Failure: There was a slight decline between the suit quality between the first and second films (They still worked fine and looked rather impressive, but the executives made them dial back the details somewhat). In the first film each suit was individually made with a build and details unique to each turtle (Raphael has some tough-guy scars, Mikey is the shortest, Donatello is kind of chubby, and Leonardo is the slimmest turtle) In the second they had four (basically) identical suits with different heads for each turtle. The third film made the Turtles look like sock puppet frogs and Splinter like a retarded Chuck E. Cheese.
    • Now consider how the makers of the suits for that outing also did the animatronics of Short Circuit... Says a lot, doesn't it?
      • Other failures that don't involve the animatronics (directly or indirectly) include:
    • Walker's death in Ninja Turtles III, where he falls to a watery grave without making a splash, apparently just disappearing while making a splash sound. After examining this failure, AVGN noted that if the crew didn't want to spend extra money on animating a splash, they could've cut to a shot of the turtles watching the plunge as an off-screen splash is heard.
    • In the first movie 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, and another where you can see the face of Donatello's actor peeking though his mouth.
  • Tear Jerker: The campfire scene in the first movie is perhaps the film series' greatest tear jerker. Still gets this now grown up troper to this day. It comes off as even more sad if you see it as how Splinter probably intended it to be: a final goodbye.
    • The scene becomes even stronger when Michelangelo, who until that point, had been the among the most laid-back about the overall situation (along with Donatello) actually starts crying and has to have Donatello comfort him, whilst he wipes the tears away.
    • There's actually one at the beginning of the movie too where Splinter confronts Raphael about his anger and Raph breaks down in tears over his perceived failures.
  • They Just Didn't Care: The only possible justification for the half-assed costumes and animatronics of the third movie, although this could also be assumed in regards to the lack of original music in its soundtrack. Whereas the others had original songs, the suits in charge of the third movie's album grabbed a bunch of older songs and called it an "Original Motion Picture Soundtrack."
    • As noted above though, the third movie has some of the best fights of the live-action trilogy. You win some, you lose some.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: More like wasting a hinted plot in the fourth movie. The Sequel Hook has Karai suggesting the Turtles will have to someday face the return of the Shredder, which fans probably would've preferred to being the actual plot instead of the one we got.
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The animatronic suits and puppets from the first two movies still look unbelievably good even today; they should, since they were created by the Jim Henson creature shop and were the predecessors of all the current systems used for their full-bodied animatronics.
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