When the convention ends, the adventure continues at Broward Center and The Parker, sponsor of this article.

Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird’s original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic was a dark, gritty, and violent homage to Frank Miller’s Daredevil. The 1987 cartoon was a bit lighter. In fact, it was downright goofy. The animated series had over-the-top villains, fourth-wall-breaking gags, and sarcastic one-liners.

(For the record, TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman loved the irreverent tone.)

However, they were attempts to make the cartoon more serious, but those efforts were thwarted by the Turtles themselves.

“Every season we would come into the studio and they would say, ‘This year, it’s going to be darker. We’re going to be serious,’” April O’Neil voice actress Renae Jacobs says during a panel at Florida Supercon. “The first few episodes of each season were toned down. And whoever was in the booth saying that kind of laughed. Like, ‘Okay, good. We’re on track.’ And these guys would start throwing around again and it would go right back. And we kept getting told, ‘Oh no, we want it darker.’ And these guys are so fun and brilliant and the world was dark enough.”

The series would eventually get a dark revamp in 1994, which became known as the “Red Skies seasons.” Let’s be real though, the goofy early seasons are the ones we remember and revisit. I suppose we can thank the goofball Turtle actors for keeping things silly in the recording booth. 

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