During the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem Hall H panel at San Diego Comic-Con this week, Paramount announced that the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series will be coming to Nickelodeon.
Although the focus of the panel was on the upcoming Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem movie, franchise co-creator Kevin Eastman, who made a surprise appearance on the panel, announced the exciting news.
“We just found out today — this is breaking news — Nickelodeon and Paramount have secured the rights to broadcast the original cartoon series,” Eastman announced. “[It was] the beginning. The first time those characters came to life with voices and movement, and Chuck Lorre wrote an amazing theme song for us back in the day before he was Chuck Lorre. It’s so fantastic. We’re so excited to announce this, so congratulations to all of us. We get to see it again!”
The series was based on the comic book characters created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. It was set in New York City and followed Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael as they battled against Shredder, Krang, and other villains in New York City. Although based on the comics, the series did take some creative liberties with the source material, including deviating largely from the darker tones of the comics in order to make it more suitable for children.
All 193 episodes of the original series — which from 1987 to 1996 — will debut digitally on Nickelodeon-owned and operated channels later this month. This includes YouTube, Pluto TV and O&O linear channels.
In addition to this announcement, fans in attendance were treated to 20 minutes of footage from the upcoming CG-animated movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. According to those who saw it, the footage showed the Turtles' origin story. For the rest of us at home, we got a mere 30-second clip.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is written and directed by Jeff Rowe and co-directed by Kyler Spears. It's the seventh TMNT theatrical film but Nickelodeon Animation's first CG-animated theatrical production. The movie stars Micah Abbey as Donatello, Shamon Brown Jr. as Michelangelo, Nicolas Cantu as Leonardo, and Brady Noon as Raphael. The cast is rounded out with Hannibal Burress as Leatherhead, John Cena as Rocksteady, Seth Rogen as Bebop, Jackie Chan as Splinter, Ice Cube as Superfly, Natasha Demetriou as Wingnut, Paul Rudd as Mondo Gecko, and Ayo Edebiri as April O'Neil.
The movie is set to hit theaters on August 2, 2023.