Who is the best Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?

MICHAELANGELO

I can only predict who will get the least votes (Raphael, duh). I also left out Shredder, Casey, Bebob & Rocksteady, Splinter, April, Krang, etc because it's important to first settle old schoolyard disagreements.

orange, nunchakus, is a party dude

Donatello has the coolest weapon and is down with machinery, I choose him.

Agreed that Donny's got the best weapon though.

Jadakiss

[Raphael and Michaelangelo are tied up back-to-back in chairs with a bomb next to them]
Raphael: We're Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! We oughta be able to escape from a cornball setup like this!
[Raphael notices Michaelangelo rocking side to side]
Raphael: What are you doing?
Michaelangelo: Well, I once saw this movie where this dude was tied up and he just kept rocking back and forth 'til he fell over.
Raphael: It's worth a try.
[Raphael rocks side to side with Michaelangelo and they soon fall over]
Raphael: Great! Then what did he do?
Michaelangelo: I dunno. I went into the kitchen for some popcorn.

michaelangelo was always thoroughly incompetent and in need of help. leonardo was a self-important dickhead, and raphael a sociopath. donatello was always selflessly applying himself for the benefit of others and going unappreciated. in fact, fuck the rest of them, donatello should landslide this.

I am of course referring to the original eastman + laird comic books, not the cartoons and shit that came after.

DAMN!

Leo: Jerry
Raph: George
April: Elaine
Mikey: Kramer
Donny: Bucky Fuller

You know Tom's right...maybe I will login a sock puppet to vote for Donny as well.

Leonardo is Paul. Donatello is George. Raphael is John. Michaelangelo is Ringo. Splinter is George Martin. April is Yoko. Shredder is Dave Clark. Krang is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Usagi Yojimbo is Bob Dylan.

He's from medieval Japan, and another dimension...so of course he speaks English!

lol who remembers bucky o'hare?

http://www.bigcheesepress.com/keller/Buckygreen.jpg

I was amazed to find out they actually licensed the Bo'H characters at all. I somehow managed to read all these bizarre young adult cussin' murderous animals comics in the mid-80s when they were first coming out and by the time they all became television stars I'd grown out of it

I had one graphic novel called TIME BEAVERS

how graphic?

arf

Are you sure it wasn't "Space Beaver"?

poo: ninja turtles parody title

Anyway, Usagi Yojimbo came before TMNT, right? So he's the OG martial arts animal.

no, it was timothy truman's time beavers. I just looked it up. used on amazon for $1.18!

captain bucky o'hare (and the toad wars!)

i voted raphael bcuz he was a wiseacre but my favorite vacillated even when i was a kid between raph and don

Michaelangelo - the slut
Donatello - the innocent
Rafael - the cynic
Leonardo - the sophisticated center

My friend who grew up in Harlem says that everyone likes Raph the best but in my suburban catholic school we liked mike!

yeah, mike wz the go-to turtle

gay donatallo

mike was the most hated! everyone i knew thought he was dumb

michaelangelo was everyone's favorite at my school

i was always partial to leonardo, since he was my first ninja turtle figure

i think at the time i wanted to split the diff between don and raph by being both a nerd and a wiseass.

in the NES game: Donatello
otherwise: Michaelangelo

Leonardo is Paul. Donatello is George. Raphael is John. Michaelangelo is Ringo. Splinter is George Martin. April is Yoko. Shredder is Dave Clark. Krang is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

-- iiiijjjj, Saturday, March 8, 2008 3:49 PM

whoaaa so true

leo and raph all rivalrous but secretly wanting to be each other at the same time

voting leo btw

I think Donatello had the most sexual tension with April, just because as the smartest, most mature turtle, he had the biggest chance of getting in her pants.

exactly

yet he only knew how to show affection by fixing broken equipment

such a bro

I will give them that. All four were total bros. Teenage bros.

Raphael by far. He helped inspire me to the smart ass I am today.

whoa whoa whoa that is like sub-I don't even know who that's sub of. That's terrible. Go back to troll school. Jesus.

A cartoon mutant turtle inspired you? Aim higher, son.

leo was def more mature than don

I think there are full notebooks of drawings like the one at the top of this thread in my parents' basement somewhere. Though probably not so carefully colored.

http://www.ninjaturtles.com/fanart/iantremayne.jpg

Hahaha, same here, circles! My friend asked me to draw a ninja turtle on her leg cast the other day and it really took me back. I think half the reason I liked these guys a lot better than He-Man, GI Joe, etc, is they were easier to draw (and way more awesome).

REALLY thought this would be a latebloomer thread.

I used to draw Ninja Turtles too in my school notebooks. I think it might've been exactly for the same reason as Abbott: they were easy to draw. I never even tried to draw Splinter or Shredder.

By the way, does anyone know why in Europe TMNT were known as Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles? Was "ninja" like an offensive word or something?

UK censorship against promotion of martial arts

Harry Nilsson = Casey Jones
Pete Best = ?

http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0606/2020.jpg

Raphael was my dude! Some kids slept with Teddy bears, I had a Raph doll when I was 4.

TOMBOT def makes a persuasive argument for Donny, though.

Turtles in Time on easy with Donatello is beatable in like 15 minutes.

http://www.myairshoes.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/custom-air-max-90-raphael-ninja-turtle-shoes-3.jpg

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a388/ninja_otter/RaphLemon.jpg

http://images.quizilla.com/B/Bigpig/1057784440_lesRaphael.gif

where is 1p3 thread with kids in TMNT costumes?

i guess i identified with raphael cause of all my four-year-old rage

'roid rage

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

michaelangelo was always thoroughly incompetent and in need of help. leonardo was a self-important dickhead, and raphael a sociopath. donatello was always selflessly applying himself for the benefit of others and going unappreciated. in fact, fuck the rest of them, donatello should landslide this.

Yup. Michaelangelo was also the gay turtle and not Donatello, contrary to popular belief.

donatello b/c he was awesome in the arcade game (longest reach).

what's the difference between raphael and michaelangelo again? is raphael the emo turtle?

also relevant:

poo: ninja turtles parody title

Donatello was best in the arcade game by far but I voted for Raphael because he was an asshole.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Whoa, for some reason I thought Leonardo would win. I've lost touch.

the right result.

What! I voted for Don for his underdog appeal!?! I thought Mike had this locked (and raph, without much of a chance, either).
Also, Leonardo is far worth more than 6 votes.

http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0606/2020.jpg

I had this toy! But I don't know what it is! What is it! I have no idea where most of the TMNT toys I had were taken from. From the comics, perhaps? I only had a few of those.

I was torn between Raphael and Donatello in my youth too, I'm not sure why I had the fondness for Raph since I was all nerd and no smartass.

That's SLASH, i think he's from dimension X or something, one of those awful characters invented for the cartoons. He doesn't even have a wikipedia entry.

good summary of ilxors right here

tru. i only liked leo and raph

and the serious lack of mikeys on ilx is self-evident

and ilxors thinking raph was the cool one when he was actually not

New movie RULES.

Interesting approach to make them younger than in any previous iteration, and April a high schooler working for her school paper rather than a professional reporter. She's black, as arguably she was in the original comics, and in what is still very uncommon for a female character in an animated movie she doesn't look like a supermodel, which is nice.

Splinter is voiced by Jackie Chan and gets to do a vintage Jackie fight scene, complete with comedic moments, use of props, etc. I guess since he's getting up there in years voicing cartoons that emulate his glory years wouldn't be a bad move. He also does a flashback of how he learned martial arts that features tons of clips of old Jackie Chan films - cool but kinda cringe that the narration mentions him learning "ninjustu" during them, between this and the Karate Kid reboot... The movie also turns into a kaiju film at the climax, really knows how to push every single one of my buttons.

Def a post-Spiderverse film but I'd be wary of going too far with that take, the art style is quite distinct, way grodier, less elegant than Spiderverse, feels more like a claymation type feel and the characters on the whole are a lot more ugly (in a good way). The Nu Yawk stuff is reminiscent of course but that's part of TMNT lore just as it is with Spidey. And the soundtrack's very different: Spiderverse goes for contemporary Hip-Hop while this is a total nostalgia trip for the generation that grew up with the '87 show, "Bring The Pain", "No Diggity", "Ante Up" TWICE (and why not!). An interesting mix of nostalgia bait and trying to appeal to the young 'uns overall - Donnie's an Attack On Titan fan!

Everyone leaving the screening afterwards just had a big goofy grin on their faces.

also ICE CUBE as the baddie so great

it looks and sounds amazing, tbh i think it helps that the original series and movies were total crap. attempted to revisit a few years ago, it was a cringefest and they lost me completely at "neutrinos from the planet x". the trailer is great and it seems like they've redeemed it.

been meaning to post about the new Gremlins animated series which was extremely disappointing.

Yup, really good (revived another thread but I'll say it here again!) -- for all the nostalgia touches I think it feels very 'now' in a good way, like culture blended together. Makes sense, you can see it all around.

The'89 cartoon series is indeed not very good but in its defense it's got a lot of cool character designs. Listened to an episode of the What A Cartoon ep that suggests the first season is best because animated by Toei but I never vibed with those eps that much as a kid, preferred later seasons where there was a whole bestiary of insane mutant characters (many of which show up in this new film!).

Rewatched the original film and I'll say this much: the costumes are impressive (it's Jim Henson!), the fight coreography surprisingly good considering the obvious limitations (it's Golden Harvest!) and of course the NYC of that era has vibes for days.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqqoWFlva10

xp I agree with all that. The original movie is visually stunning and very NYC and def not as bad as the series, which has cool drawings but the script is just relentless sci fi cliches without a trace of satire or irony. I def feel like both only existed to sell toys. Not familiar with later series.

Not familiar with later series

Could never really get into any of them, but fwiw the Turtles Forever film, which teams up the 80's and 00's incarnations, is very good fun. One of the jokes is that of course the 00's version is grittier, so they all find the original Turtles annoying, except for Michaelangelo who loves them. Some really loving recreation of stuff from the original series in there, including aping the incidental music sound cues that are burned into my brain. There's also a multiverse element which means at one point you get to see a bunch of incarnations, including the original comics ones.

Also very much enjoyed the TMNT/Batman crossover cartoon movie from a few years back. Funny, knows what it is, hits the right notes.

Turtles Forever sounds fun! I was like 80% gonna see the new movie anyhow, but 100% after reading your review