COWABUNGA! For people of a certain vintage, San Diego Comic-Con has just brought incredibly exciting news for fans of pizza-loving, crime-fighting mutant reptiles. Nickelodeon and Paramount have secured the global rights to those heroes in a half shell, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles original animated series — and one of the most iconic television theme songs in history, according to report of Collider.
Just ahead of the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem in cinemas, Nickelodeon have announced they will be broadcasting the famous Fred Wolf series about Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael in their original form, and for all 193 episodes of the series which ran for 9 years. The series will debut digitally on Nickelodeon later this month in the U.S., followed by Nickelodeon-branded channels and digital platforms internationally.
Seth Rogen Unveils ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ Movie Cast
Collider's Aidan Kelley is currently attending the Paramount Pictures panel at SDCC, where the acquisition was announced during their Hall H presentation of Mutant Mayhem. At the event, the director of Mutant Mayhem, Jeff Rowe, and one of the co-creators of the franchise, Kevin Eastman, were present to offer a preview of the upcoming movie. They were representing the creative crew of the movie which was significant pared down from what would once have been expected, as a direct result of the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Unfortunately, these strikes prevented writers and actors from attending the Comic-Con gathering as they fight the corporate bigwigs who won't give them their fair share.
Heroes in a Half-Shell - And They're Green
In 1984, Eastman and Peter Laird created Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, starting it as a comic book series before it gained massive popularity with the animated 1987 series. This success led to a live-action TV series called Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation, along with countless film adaptations, in particular 1990's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live-action film which featured Corey Feldman as Donatello, along with two other sequels — including one where the Turtles were sent back to feudal Japan to help villagers ward off an attack. The trilogy has maintained a massive cult following.
Nickelodeon attempted to give new life into the franchise in 2012 with the CG-animated series and later with the 2D-animated series, Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 2019. Running parallel to this, Paramount took on the task of kickstarting the project for the big screen in 2014 with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its 2016 sequel Out of the Shadows. Now, Mutant Mayhem — from executive producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg — is here to give us some more ninja action, with a slice or two on the side.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem climbs out of the sewers and into theaters on August 2.
