I briefly fell in love with this show when it was around in my time of the late 80's and early 90's. Unfortunately, now that I'm an adult, I'm not too thrilled with what I see of it now. The storyline is practically nonexistent, the action is mindless (not to mention a mockery of true ninjistsu principles), the dialogue is juvenile, and the imagination is deliberately bankrupt. I didn't like how the turtles did some questionable behavior, and get rewarded for it by living on a diet of junk food, which is not only unutritious, but reveals one's own character as well in a negative way. Speaking of which I initially thought the turtles' lifestyle was the coolest thing since sliced bread, but now that I'm older I realize it's equivalent to living a near purposeless life of eating junk food, loafing around, not helping the world's problems, and engaging in fights for the thrill of it. In true ninjitsu, you respect your opponent, the turtles don't, they humiliate their opponents. While there is a small charm about the turtles that even I can't resist with their (small) personalities, I can't really consider these turtles to be genuine role models. The reason I gave the first live action movie a positive review was because the good message wasn't overshadowed by mindless action. The next animated series after this one did a far better job.

*Possible Spoilers*With this being the first title to assign the colors you can really begin to see the love and care that the people put in to each and every individual character, from Micky and Donnie to Shredder and Splinter. I also truly loved the family friendly look upon the story that this series shows instead of the anger and violence that the comics always showed (Not that the comics weren't exceptional, it's just nice to see a friendly look on such a seemingly silly plot and story), With the Turtles love of pizza and the infinite wisdom that splinter always held for his students. I also loved the villains in this series like Shredder, Bebop, and Rocksteady. Not only these, it was also always fun to see Krang come on and watch the turtles fight to knock him down. It was also fun to watch the turtles struggle to keep themselves hidden away from the real world and the interactions they always had with April O'Neil. The strength of this show can also be seen by the amount of times it was recreated and re-imagined, but never topped. Even though this show took an extreme amount of criticism for the "violence" it showed and the weapons that the turtles carried. Aside from all of the great characters I also always enjoyed all of the voice actors and animation that was so well thought out and portrayed (with the exception of a view lazy moments in animation or the actors voicing the wrong turtles from time to time). Through out the series you will get to really see the group grow together as a whole and train to become some of the greatest ninjas the world has seen. All in all this is one of the greatest moments in 80's animation. Plus, it also has a really catchy intro song, gets stuck in your head easily every time. I give it a 9/10 (because of the few mistakes that the series made over time.)

Loved this show as a kid, but unfortunately I was a little late, because I was born in 1994, but my older brother Johnboy use to come up with them constantly! ( he was born in 1978)and my sister was born in 1984, so I grew up around 80s kids, lol! My brother would have his old tmnt toys laying around and he would give them to me and my twin brother. We started watching it around 2003, because at the time I was watching the 2003 remake of them, and my brother said they had an original one before it, so me and my brother checked it out and loved it ever since! Me And brother practically lived 80s, because before the game cube we used to play the Super Nintendo, like turtles in time and stuff, so actually we were introduced to them in like 1998 without even knowing it! And we use to watch re runs of gargoyles, which lasted a couple years. I love this one and the new one, but this was the original, and is definitely worth watching, I mean I simply loved shredder and Krang, and bebop and rock steady were hilarious! Definitely earns 10/10!

I loved the TMNT graphic novels when I was little. They were dark, they were even scary at times, yet it was charming and enjoyable by even the most discriminatory comic book and manga goers.When I heard there was going to be a TMNT animated series, I was excited. That day in 1987 (or was it 1988), I tuned in to it for the first time. I was outraged and started seeing red after watching this show. I ended up watching this on Saturday mornings because I was waiting for the Super Mario Bros Super Show to come on.This is like turning a PG or PG-13 comic into a G rated Disney fare. I can see why I liked the first live action movie so much better. Shredder in the comics is scary, menacing and just plain blood thirsty. I hate what they did to him in the cartoon. They turned Shredder into a goofy Disney villain wannabe with bumbling sidekicks Rocksteady and Bebop (who were NOT in the original comics). Krang was not scary anymore and was toned down to be a goofball with an annoying voice. Heck, the voice acting and animation was just intolerable, even by 80's standards. Oh and another thing, WHAT HAPPENED TO ANGSTY EMO RAPHAEL? And wasn't Splinter always a rat and never a human? If you want to see an experience close to Eastman and Laird's works, watch the first live action movie. This animated series is suck a friggin' joke. Or even yet, look for the original graphic novels (not the awful Archie comics version though). You'll enjoy them a lot more, I promise ^_^