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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

List Price: $14.98
Your Price: $11.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Poor Treatment of an Animated Masterpiece
Review: LET THE BUYER BEWARE! When I bought this, I fully expected DVD quality, since I was BUYING A DVD! But no, let it be known that the episodes on this "DVD" are actually just transfers from old VHS tapes. The video quality is quite poor. A couple of reviewers here stated that the quality is "very good" and "amazed at the clarity of the picture". I can see if you're watching these on an old CRT TV, the shows might appear to look fine, but anyone who has a decent screen is going to notice the fuzzy matte lines and picture quality, excessive grain, dirt, artifacts, etc... a real mess from a standpoint of video quality. One of those reviewers points out that at the bottom of the back cover it says "Digitally Mastered". The key word is "Mastered" NOT "Remastered" which is what you should look for in a DVD. Essentially, all "Digitally Mastered" means is "this is digital." Which doesn't say anything, since the DVD format is digital to begin with. TECHNICALLY it's not Digitally Mastered, since that implies that this is equal in quality to a Master Copy, which it is not.

That same reviewer also stated that the DVD was originally planed on being released as an single movie, with the original 5 episode miniseries edited together as a feature film. It should be noted that some of the animation in the original miniseries is on par with some of Japan's best anime, and I personally would have liked to have seen this, but at the same time I can understand and appreciate fans' wanting to see the opening and end credits of each episode remain intact. But if they do end up releasing season 2, you would have seen that on those episodes anyway, so it would have been nice to see that as a viewing option on this disc.

I was disappointed that after a decade, the old TMNT episodes are still owned by FHE, the company that put out the original VHS tapes, which were poor quality also. Now they're back and they're up to their old tricks. The only plus side is that the box comes in a fancy reflective slip case, which successfully tricks you into thinking you bought a quality DVD. On the downside, the cover art is just like all the TMNT merchandise was ten years ago, with ultra-sugary renditions of our favorite heroes, which says to me that FHE still views this as a kid's product. They need to wake up and realize that the target audience of this DVD is now 18-25 year olds. They should market and package it thusly.

My question is, if a DVD comes out and it's not DVD quality, why should I shell out money when I could just keep my bootleg and VHS copies, which are just as good? If I had felt I had gotten my money's worth, this DVD would have had animated menus, chapter breaks, featured some music from the series either as special features or as accompaniment to the menus, and most important of all: been Digitally Remastered from the original source material!

A for effort, but F+ for crushing my hopes and dreams.

But a 10/10 for the shows themselves. I pray they'll get good treatment one day.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Childhood Memories
Review: More than 2 years ago i started thinking about the Turtles, and how i could watch them again. After trying to download some episodes on Kazaa, which never worked for some reason, i logged onto Amazon.com and, by coincidence, the original Ninja Turtles cartoon set had been released for only 2 days!

So far i have watched the first episode, looking at the animation and hearing the voices it is not entirely as i remembered it, you can see the show has aged compared to the latest cartoons of today. But this series for me is the memories of running home off the schoolbus to get home in time to see the show at 3:30pm. This show i am sure, will not appeal to the kids of today, but people of my age will fall in love with the turtles once again!

5 stars for the 5 original episodes
0 stars for the Bonus 4 episodes that i had a quick peek, ridiculous!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Thank God!
Review: Oh praise the lord. No I'm not a religous guy but It just has to be said. I've argued with people about this, I've complained about the new series and the new series coming out on DVD first, but finally, oh finally finally, we have the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on DVD.
Think about it. How good is that.
The fact that the box is crap and they didn't tag the second season on with it (Such as Jem and Saved by the bell) is really annoying, but I am living in the hope that season two and the rest will come along very soon.
Don't stop here 80's cartoon companies. We want all of em. Every 80's cartoon ever made.
So hurry up!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Classic Cartoon gets a fair DVD release
Review: On April 14th, much to my surprise, I found in my local FYE store a shrink-wrapped copy of the DVD in subject. Needless to say I bought it and cancelled my Amazon pre-order when I got home.

Here is a break-down:

The Cover: The image that was touted months ago as promotional "working art" is indeed the final cover. That's good news for those who like it and bad for those who don't (I think it is lame personally; why not some art based on the episodes therein?). You do, however, get a glossy cardboard slip with "bumpy" TMNTs and letters to run you fingers over (wahoo!).

The menus: As Michelangelo would say "lame-ola"! The main menu uses the front cover art and the episode selection uses the back cover art (the only way it could have been any more generic would have been to had the Artisan and FHE logos in the background). No snappy animated sequences to take you to the selection you clicked and worse still, no menu music! That's right no TMNT credit theme, nothing but the hum of your DVD player and television set.

The episodes:

Picture and sound:

No attempt to clean up the picture has been made whatsoever. Picture artifacts abound in the '87 epsidoes. The picture is also a little "grainy" (though I don't think it is bad; It is identical to the FHE laserdisc releases, for any who own them.) The sound was not improved either. While it is clear, it is quite low, similar to 60s cartoons on DVD. The newer episodes on the disc are better of course.

Bonus material:

The "unaired" episodes (already de-mythed by now) are the ONLY bonus material on here at all unfortunately. Perhaps there are some easter eggs, but I couldn't find any.

As for the actual 'toons. I won't waste any bandwidth on them. If you are reading this you've seen them, and if you love them like I do you'll buy this any way. I will mention that they are indeed in their entirety (not the 72 minute edit that was originally slated for release) and including for the 1st time the opening theme, episode title screen and closing credits for all episodes (I should mention that annoyingly enough each episode is on one track only; like on a VCD).

Final analysis: This sure beats having the former FHE releases of the mini-series on 3 SLP tapes (and taped from TV versions of the "unaired" eps). If you have the laserdisc releases of the mini-series and don't like the "unaired" episodes (I know some didn't like the "red sky" days. I personally thought they were great) you may want to pass, as the quality is exactly the same.

- poor menus, one track per episode, lame artwork, no extras, "unaired episodes" advertisement misleading, no remaster job.

+ great mini-series finally in one place with titles and all. 9 episodes on one disc.

Cartoon - 10
DVD - 7

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: teenage mutant ninja turtles rule !!!
Review: the first 5 episodes are great but one thing bad is that they should've made the bonus episodes like one from season 8 called REVENGE OF THE FLY(last appearences of baxter the fly which he goes mad on revenge n turns every one in the city into mutant insects like himself). They also should put (turtles trek episode for bonus to cuz that's the last regular episode of long time enemy shredder where the technodrome gets destoryed)...

MY favorit teenage mutant ninja turtles character which is one of the bad guys is BAXTER STOCKMAN the fly, unfortionally they don't show him as a fly on DVD.

I already have a tons of ninja turtles VHS tapes, but I search though the whole tire internet an can't find REVENGE OF THE FLY, and TURTLES TREK episodes to buy or down load.

turtles trek is one season 9 on tmnt series.

But it was nice of them to put dregg on bonus episodes cuz I like him to, but I'm still dissappointed cuz there's alot of old skool ninja turtles episodes out there that I want to see, defenly the 2 I listed.

The new ninja turtles on fox 25 is a good show but not near as good as the old skool ninja turtles that I grew up watching.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Better order pizza
Review: The turtles are one of the best cartoons i have ever seen growing up and when they went off the air and they had the new ones replace them it made me mad because i really loved the Turtles growing up and I have been looking for the original TMNT on the internet but no luck but then i found it on Amazon.com and now that I have found it it's great so get this DVD and order some pizza because "it's pizza time"

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Teenaged Show still has good kicks
Review: This Dvd has the first 5 TMNT cartoons aired back in the late 1980's. Though not as dark as the original comic book, this is what most of the world percieves as the correct Ninja Turtles. The best show I'm debating between the original and the new but they are more then worthy to pick up. Most of us remember the cartoons when it was on CBS for a good 5-7 years. but These episodes were the original syndacated episodes with the original intro sequeance, different style of animation and some different voice actors. All in all though these episodes are the ones where we meet all the recurring charechters- The Turtles, Splinter, April, Shredder, Krang, Baxter Stockman, Bebop, Rocksteady, the Foot Soldier, Aprils boss Vern and a slightly less annoying Vernon. All in all it's a great set to get. However the 4 bonus episodes are from the second half of the last turtles storyarc when they fought against an alien named Dregg instead of Shedder. While not as good as the originals the Last season of the original show was more edgier and dark using the animation style of the Batman animated series. Even this is somewhat of a bonus (though it seems they might not do every season) I say this is a good buy

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: only watch the first set of episodes
Review: This dvd has the very first five episodes and then four of the very last ones. Don't watch the last ones; they are ridiculous. The first ones are classic, though. Definitely worth watching. This DVD is good if you REALLY need the episodes on DVD right away. I'm sure that, given time, a good set will be released with more episodes on it and some extras, but for anyone who strongly desires the episodes right now(like myself) this is a decent set.

I only watched two of the four last episodes. I had to stop. I don't think I'll ever watch the other two unless I get extremely bored.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: at last! the original series on DVD!
Review: This DVD is a must have for anyone who watched the TMNT in the 80'es!!!

At last, fans in Denmark can now also watch this great cartoon as it was ment to be seen! Our Danish public service station over here, TV2, aired the show around the same time as it ran in the UK, and unfortunatlly we also had to put up with the terrible versions of all of the episodes! All the need stuff and the word ninja was edited out in each and every one of them, and "the teenage mutant ninja turtles" were renamed "the teenage mutant hero turtles", terrible! and the only glimpses we got from the first season was the 72 minute cut version "how it all began"!

With this DVD release though, we can now enjoy this first season in it's full length with opening and end-credits included just like they should be!!

Sound and picture quality is great, although it annoys me a bit that the navigation menue does not include any animated secments or tmnt-theme music. Just the humm from my DVD-drive! Another thing which is not that great, is the inclusion of the bonus episodes. They should have waited to release these on the correct season dvd in the correct order!

The reason why I am giving this title five stars anyway, is the great version we're getting of the original five parter miniseries, really great!! Hopefully Artisan will release the intire series on DVD in the near future!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Finally, a great classic cartoon on DVD!
Review: This has been a long time coming. The original 80s TMNT was the best and should have been release a long time ago! This DVD has the 5 episodes that make up the 1st season, plus 4 episodes from the 10th and final season. The picture looks great, not bad for a kind-of old cartoon. The sound is pretty good too. Hopefully this is the first of many releases for this show! The fact that the insert refers to the 5 episodes as "Season 1" and refers to the bonus episodes by their correct episode numbers (187,188,191,192) makes me hopeful that a season 2 is in the works. The episodes on this DVD are as follows:

Episode 1. Turtle Tracks
Episode 2. Enter the Shredder
Episode 3. A Thing About Rats
Episode 4. Hot-Rodding Teenagers from Dimension X
Episode 5. Shredder & Splintered
Episode 187. The Beginning of the End
Episode 188. The Return of Dregg
Episode 191. Mobster from Dimension X
Episode 192. The Day the Earth Disappeared

My only complaint is that they put The Return of Dregg after The Beginning of the End and call it Episode 188, when it's really Episode 186. They messed up there, but since they're just bonus episodes that aren't really that important, it's not a big deal.

Buy this DVD! It is totally worth it for anyone who liked this show back in the day. It's classic! Please release Season 2!!!!


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