Nickelodeon buys Teenage Mutant Ninja Turltes!

[frogboy4]

I've found that quite a few artists and creative people can be notoriously hard to be pleased with their own work.

Sometimes even I find myself not completely 100% proud of something I've accomplished... heck, it's been several months now, but I've actually grown to despise one of my own fanfics that I was initially very proud of when I finished it.

And there's how we feel about someone else handling our creations. That's a hard thing to do, but I adore 99.9% of Zim.

 

[Drtooth]

I always thought it was the sexual nature of the program that got John K fired and that the other info was the legal excuse. Was it really a budget issue? Vasquez was naive. Fantastically creative, but unreasonable when it came to marketing the program. I love all the Zim seasons and don't understand his problem with how they turned out.

There's a long list of reasons why network executives and John K have clashed in the past. While the romantic thing is to say that he was fired for making a show that wasn't child friendly, that was only part of it.

And really, to know what I mean by naive on the case of Vasquez... well there was a LOT of stuff he wanted on the show that Nick never ever ever ever would let on the show. In fact, the end of the series was supposed to be the gruesome killing of Dib, and then something about a crossover with Johnny the Homicidal maniac. And I'm agreeing exactly what you said. I'm surprised he got away with everything they left in. But at the end of the day, not enough ankle biters were watching, and it was canceled. If it didn't reach cult status and hit the Hot Topic set, it would have been completely lost.

On that side note, there are actually a few times when something got through an initial airing, and then were pulled, or edited when someone actually caught a joke or someone complained... the Mighty Mouse flower bit, the Road Rovers Russian Names song (check it out on Youtube) and the Cow and Chicken episode "Buffalo Gals" But usually, the censors catch everything before hand.

One more thing while I'm on the subject, I feel it much more clever when animators and writers try to dance around the standards and practices as opposed to, say having almost total creative freedom. look at how iffy Ren and Stimpy Adult Cartoon party was.

I remember Spongebob rising to insane popularity right out of the gate in 99. It was here in SF, but this is a small "alpha-consumer" city with a lot of creative types.

Yeah... I think it hit more regionally, and it probably started with a cult following... but I didn't hear anything major with the show until mid-late 2000, and I really didn't see it explode with merchandising until 2001.

I still think of (all the studios out there) that Fox is the lesser of the evils. WB, Sony and Paramount are among the worst. What studio would you prefer the Turtles to reside? Maybe Disney could do them justice?

There are 2 things I would love to address here...

Firstly, I would rather it didn't have to "go" somewhere, and I wish they'd continue to have it run independently. I really think that was the only reason why they always were able to keep the rights to all the characters... Mirage studios didn't actually own the cartoon rights, but they had the rights to ALL the characters. I remember the Tick cartoon... Saban (and now Disney) owns any character that wasn't pre-existing in the comic... leading, of course, to the lame Die Fledermaus and American Maid clones they had to use in the live action series. Plus, the reason why the Turtles were able to come back as different shows was due in part to being independently owned. And I really feel that Paramount may just try them once, and put them back in the closet.

Secondly, I agree... lesser of 2 evils (news organization aside ) Fox could stand to do a good job. Sony pretty much looks at any adult fanbase with disdain... basically telling the Ghostbusters fans that they ONLY planned on releasing the EGB DVD's in kiddy best of collections because it WAS only a cartoon show. Thank frog Time Life stepped in. As for Disney... well, I like what they've been doing for the Muppets lately, but face it... it took them long enough to do it (especially after the rushed OZ was the measure of their expectations). I still don't know what the heck they intend for Marvel, but there's too much pressure for them to screw up. However, I look at what they've done with the Saban properties and shudder. They had bad blood with Marvel over their DVD releases (some bull about selling DVD's hurting rerun ratings on Toon Disney), and while I've never been a fan, they really ticked off the Power Rangers' large and respectable fanbase, especially after canning it for Disney's usual shenanigans.

 

[D'Snowth]

And there's how we feel about someone else handling our creations.

Personally, I was never a believer in selling your creations to another larger company, which again usually ends up getting messy (e.g. Muppets Vs. Disney, Chipmunks Vs. Universal, etc).

Heck, ironically, it was Walt Disney himself who advised less-experienced people in the industry (like Sid and Marty Krofft at the time) to never sell anything that you create; and that's been one piece of advice that many people, including my own mother have continued to drill into my head growing, and honestly, I don't care if even the largest studio/company in the world offered me a hundred tractor-trailers full of cash, I do not intend to ever sell any of my creations, and the day I die is the day those creations will be laid to rest as well.

 

[Count von Count]

I grew up with TMNT, but I think this could work.

TMNT has changed alot. Maybe Nick can make TMNT old- school agin

 

[frogboy4]

Independent ownership is best for integrity, but it is also very tiresome and quite cumbersome. Artists just get worn out dealing with all the uncreative elements - especially having to pitch their already established brand because they don't have big-studio backing.

The internet is changing things. If Invader Zim had been able to produce webisodes it might not ever have left. That is the only format that would give Vasquez anything close to the freedom he wanted. It would be nice if they found a way to bring it all back but on the web and on Vasquez' terms. Dreaming there. Still, it would be nice to see other of his work self-published. Look at what it's done for Whedon.

 

[frogboy4]

I just picked up the 100 first episode Spongebob collection. I always wanted to collect all of them, but didn't much like the split up seasons within season sets. This covers almost 5 of the 7 seasons. It's 38 hours of squarecut goodness for about $70. Maybe Viacom will be so kind to the Turtles collections.

 

[Drtooth]

Maybe Viacom will be so kind to the Turtles collections.

If they did, yay... but other than Spongebob they really don't do collector friendly box sets plus, most of the original series is on DVD (albiet in the form of poor source material supplied to them)... the rush is on for Lionsgate to get the last 2 seasons of the set out before they're shut up forever... though, frankly, I'd only buy season 9... season 10, the Lord Dregg episodes suck.

What I'm more concerned about is the amazing 2k3 Fox Box series. Funimation has been handling them poorly, spacing and slowly releasing the seasons in half sets (as each season had 26 episodes), and then stopped completely after the second season. They've been scrambling to find a DVD licensee for a while now, putting a completely finished 25th anniversary DVD special in jeopardy of only being aired once on Saturday morning... and no date has been set yet.

 

[JJandJanice]

Well from what I understand, Nick/viacom doesn't own the either TMNT cartoon series. Just future cartoon series, so I doubt their be a big Turtle box set released like they did for Spongebob.

Plus like Drtooth said, Spongebob is really the only series on there that has a really respectable line of DVD releases. I still don't like the way they release Rocko's Modern Life. I would also love a season set of AHHHH! Real Monsters and Angry Beavers.

 

[JJandJanice]

TMNT has changed alot. Maybe Nick can make TMNT old- school agin

Also what excatly do you mean by that?

 

[Drtooth]

Well from what I understand, Nick/viacom doesn't own the either TMNT cartoon series. Just future cartoon series, so I doubt their be a big Turtle box set released like they did for Spongebob.

No! Trust me! They own it ALL! Maybe the exception of Next Mutation (Disney still owns that, and they tend to put most of the Saban/Fox Kids stuff in the vault and lock it away from the fans who liked it)... but trust me... they own it ALL! In fact, 4kids got a 10 million dollars cut for the sale. And they do indeed plan on rerunning both, all the while focusing most on the older series... the rumor has it that their future projects will be old series related.

Personally, I'm just worried about the future of the franchise as a comic. While I still watch both shows, they're done... and a new series was going to come out eventually... but this was sold to a company that doesn't do comics... they sub-license their properties for comic books (Ren and Stimpy, Rocko, and Beavis and Butthead had comics published by Marvel... as did a couple Terrytoons properties)... but they don't have the muscle to own their own comic company...

I'm afraid the comic will yet again be bogged down and distorted and even hidden for more "Cowabungas." That stuff was made to sell a cartoon series that sold a toy line... but we must never forget the amazing Cinderella story of the franchise that started right here in Massachusetts from a small indie comic... so small, they constantly went over self imposed deadlines. Their slogan at one point was "If it's not late, it's not a Mirage book!" And really, the core of that seems to be gone.