It's Turtle Time, Again

As a childhood fan of the late '80s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon (and later the comics), I always pay attention to the goings on of the Turtles.

A couple weekends ago a new cartoon dropped on Nickelodeon. Being a little jaded because of the re-makes that seem to be popping up everywhere, I wasn't excited about the 2012 Nickelodeon Turtles. The 2003 re-make did get me excited about watching Saturday morning cartoons again, even though I was still in high school. That excitement quickly faded after the first season and I completely stopped watching sometime in the second season. But being a college student also had something to do with that.

Anyway, I realized while watching the 2003 Turtles that I like my heroes-in-a-half-shell goofy. At least while they're on TV. The one good thing that came out of the 2003 series was Turtles Forever. A crazy mash-up of all the TMNT universes, Turtles Forever brought the 1987 crew and 2003 crew together with the comic book crew. Twelve turtles. Count 'em. Twelve. The coolest part was seeing all the different art styles mesh together. But the 1987 Turtle Van is the best Turtle Van so far. I will argue that point to the death.

I haven't seen a Turtle Van in the 2012 series yet, but they have alluded to it. "That means we have a van!" says Michelangelo while he and his brothers are staking out a rooftop. And I laughed. I laughed a lot, actually. The two-part, first episode was funny. The same goes for the third episode, "Turtle Temper" that aired this past weekend. I don't think we're going to get Bebop and Rocksteady, but so far, the 2012 series is goofy. I actually watched the first, two-part episode with a good buddy and fellow Turtles fan on Saturday. We both had our gripes. But we both enjoyed the show.

Donatello is still my favorite of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; he is one of the reasons that I was (and still am) so interested in technology. I'm glad he's remaining nerdy and goofy in this newest installment. For now, I'll keep watching.