In 1987, when "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" first aired in syndication as a five-part animated miniseries, it served as the perfect advertising for a line of action figures and accessories to be released in conjunction, which was the name of the game at this time. Based on characters first introduced in thematically darker comic books created by artists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in 1984, the show built off of the original concept of four baby turtles who — with the help of a little radioactive ooze — morph into walking, talking, crime-fighting martial arts experts and ran with it all the way to the bank, much to the delight of young Gen Xers looking to pair their well-loved He-Man and G.I. Joe toys with capable new opponents.
Eastman and Laird's core characters Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo did not start off as family-friendly. They cursed, drank and exacted vengeance in ways far more gruesome than what would be deemed acceptable for children. It wasn't until they sold the rights to Playmates Toys in the '80s, who insisted on promotion via cartoons, that the turtles' edges began to soften, both figuratively as well as literally. In the original comics — which you can purchase or re-purchase on Ebay or elsewhere now for hundreds of dollars in mint condition — they're frightful, frowny creatures. But with some toy money behind them, they became colorful, smirking chonky little things that jumped easily off the screen into blister-packed articulation, finding their way under Christmas trees and into birthday wrapping paper for years to come.
