Doctor Who on DVD for North America

I can say without a doubt that the classic Doctor Who is the most expensive series to buy today.  Twenty-six seasons (or portions thereof) are sold not in season/series box set like every other TV program released in the past decade, but by story.  Nor are complete seasons available for download.  Of the 157 stories produced before the year 2000 (including Shada and the TV Movie but not The Curse of the Fatal Death which had been released on VHS), 18 do not have a sufficient number of existing episodes to release separately, two stories with half their episodes can be released (The Underwater Menace & The Crusades), but only Underwater Menace will be released.  That leaves 137 stories that have been released on DVD since 1999.

As of October, 2015 all Classic Doctor Who stories will have been released with the exceptions noted above. Now is the best time to begin purchasing DVDs if you haven't already.  Unlike the VHS releases, which were released over a span of 21 years, the DVD releases were never released as movie editions which eliminated the cliffhangers (The Seeds of Death, Spearhead from Space, Day of the Daleks, The Time Warrior, Death to the Daleks, The Ark in Space, Revenge of the Cybermen, Terror of the Zygons, The Deadly Assassin, The Robots of Death and The Talons of Weng-Chiang).  Other stories were noticeably edited (The Web Planet, Carnival of Monsters, Pyramids of Mars (also movie), The Brain of Morbius (also movie)).  Thus with DVDs you can have an almost totally consistent release of the series, (with the obnoxious release of The Chase in the US and Australia)  More importantly, for the First and Second Doctors, almost all of their episodes have been subject to the VidFIRE treatment to restore the video look to the film telecines that exist today (exceptions include The Time Meddler and Episode 1 of the Crusade. The Moonbase DVD in the U.S. should have had the process applied byt did not)  The Third Doctor's stories that are only available as B&W film telecine and poor quality NTSC tapes have also been colorized with the best technology available.  The Restoration Team that has supervised the releases of Doctor Who has done an extraordinary job with the existing library to produce the best quality releases.

The U.K., (Region 2/Region B) the U.S. (Region 1/Region A) and Australia (Region 4/Region B) are the three major markets for releases of Doctor Who (including the current series, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures).  Everything is available (except for Seasons 4 & 5 of Sarah Jane Blu-ray) in some form or another in each region.  Nonetheless, if you wish to purchase a uniform collection, you should really purchase the Region 2 U.K. releases.

First, new Doctor Who releases in the U.K. begin expensive, but within a few months the prices almost always fall sharply.  New Doctor Who releases in the U.S. begin expensive and seemingly remain expensive to purchase new, seemingly no matter how old.  Older titles (by DVD release date) in the U.K. are often extremely inexpensive (£5-6).

Second, every story is still in print and can be purchased new, today, in the U.K.  In the U.S., there are several stories that have gone out of print, and the prices for them can rise dramatically.  The stories that are out of print in the U.S., with no planned Special Edition to replace them, are :

The Sensorites
The Rescue / The Romans
The Web Planet
The Time Meddler
The Gunfighters
The Invasion
The Krotons
The War Games
Terror of the Autons
Colony in Space
The Time Monster
Planet of the Spiders
City of Death
Black Orchid
Earthshock (included in a barebones edition for The Doctors Revisited Volume Two)
Time-Flight
The Awakening
Frontios
Planet of Fire
Attack of the Cybermen
The Mark of the Rani
The Two Doctors
Happiness Patrol
Dragonfire

Battlefield

Ghost Light
The Curse of Fenric

2003 is the first year where prior DVD releases have not been superceded.  Here are the stories were originally released and have been later replaced with Special Editions :

The Aztecs
The Tomb of the Cybermen
The Seeds of Death
Spearhead from Space
Inferno
The Claws of Axos
The Three Doctors
Carnival of Monsters
The Green Death
The Ark in Space
The Robots of Death
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
The Ribos Operation	US Only Key to Time Box Set
The Pirate Planet	US Only Key to Time Box Set
The Stones of Blood	US Only Key to Time Box Set
The Androids of Tara	US Only Key to Time Box Set
The Power of Kroll	US Only Key to Time Box Set
The Armageddon Factor	US Only Key to Time Box Set
The Visitation
The Five Doctors
Resurrection of the Daleks
The Caves of Androzani
Vengeance on Varos
Remembrance of the Daleks
Doctor Who – The Movie	UK Only

Special Editions are more expensive than the earlier releases, but contain more extras (usually an extra disc) and improved picture and sound quality.  Most Special Editions today have dropped in price so much as to make them not any more expensive than buying now-OOP original DVD releases.

Third, copyright clearances are easiest in the U.K., which makes export versions for the U.S. and Australia comparatively more expensive.  Moreover, sometimes music cannot be cleared and must be replaced.  In one instance in the first episode of The Chase, two minutes had to be excised from the U.S. and Australian DVD releases because the Doctor and his companions were watching a concert of The Beatles.  The footage is available on the VHS version of these stories for each country.  Similarly, The Beatles can be heard on the soundtrack of Remembrance of the Daleks on all VHS copies, but that had to be replaced for the U.S. DVD releases.

Fourth, since 2006 the BBC has been releasing story collections of the classic serials in Region 2.  These collections can follow a particular monster like Beneath the Surface, which collects the Silurian and Sea Devil stories, a series of related stories, New Beginnings, which presents the stories surrounding the Fourth Doctor's regeneration, or a looser collection of weaker selling titles like Earthstory, which includes the First Doctor story The Gunfighters and the Fifth Doctor story The Awakening.  In the U.K., virtually none of these box sets had the stories released separately.  Most of the box sets that made it to the U.S. also allowed the stories to be purchased separately.  There are at least nine box sets that never saw a U.S. release, and while the prices may have been high in the beginning, the prices on them have so decreased as to make them very good bargains.  In the U.S. you would have to purchase these stories separately at increased cost.

	US Release	UK Release	Stories Available Separately in US?	Stories Available Separately in UK?
Earthstory	No	Yes	Yes	No
Bred for War	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mara Tales	No	Yes	Yes	No
Revisitations 1-3	No	Yes	Yes	No
Peladon Tales	No	Yes	Yes	No
Mannequin Mania	No	Yes	Yes	No
Time-Flight & Arc of Infinity	No	Yes	Yes	No
Beneath the Surface	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
New Beginnings	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
The Beginning	Yes	Yes	No	No
E-Space Trilogy	Yes	Yes	No	No
The Key to Time	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Lost in Time	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
The Invisible Enemy with K-9 and Company	Yes	Yes	No	No
The Black Guardian Trilogy	Yes	Yes	No	No
Dalek War	Yes	Yes	No	No
The Space Museum & The Chase	Yes	Yes	No	No
The Key to Time (Original Edition)	Yes	No	Yes	N/A
The Doctors Revisited 1-4	Yes	No	Yes	N/A
The Doctors Revisited 5-8	Yes	No	Yes	N/A

Finally, the packaging of the U.K. releases is superior to the U.S. releases.  Each U.K. release came with a booklet discussing the story and giving a listing and description of all the special features on the disc.  These booklets are not available as a paper copy on the U.S. releases.  Also, some U.S. box sets like The Beginning, The Invisible Enemy with K-9 and Company and The Space Museum & The Chase did not have separate cases for each story.

There are, however, a pair of hurdles if you wish to buy Region 2 DVDs outside of the U.K.  First, you must find a seller willing to ship to your country and be prepared to pay for shipping.  Amazon.co.uk. will ship Region 2 U.K. DVDs or Region B U.K. Blu-rays to the U.S., and their shipping charges are very reasonable.  There is a delivery charge of £0.99 per CD, DVD or Blu-ray and a £2.09 combined delivery charge.  This delivery charge does not increase on the number of items in the order.  The delivery time is 5-7 business days.  No VAT or U.S. state sales tax is collected unless perhaps you live in a state where Amazon.com collects the tax.

Second, you will need a region 2 or region free DVD player to play these discs.  I think that the vast majority of people who play Region 2 DVDs in a Region 1 country these days use VLC Player.  VLC will work fine with Doctor Who Region 2 DVDs, so long as the drive does not have a region code (RPC-1) is hard-coded to Region 2.  I now recommend using MakeMKV to backup your Doctor Who episodes.  MakeMKV is a modern program that is trialware, but you can always get a new trial period when it upgrades to a new version.  MakeMKV will easily rip all video and audio tracks losslessly from a disc.

Ripping four episodes of Doctor Who takes about 15 minutes on my PC.  To figure out what to rip, I use VLC or PowerDVD to select each individual episode and mark down the Title number when that episode plays.  Having a list of the episode times helps, which are provided at the excellent and venerable Doctor Who: A Brief History of Time Travel site : http://www.shannonsullivan.com/drwho/

Even though the PS3 will not play PAL content from a DVD, even if the DVD is a region free copy, it has no problems playing the extracted, uncompressed content via a media server.  My flat screen LCD and my CRTs have no trouble displaying the resulting streamed video.  With the latter, presumably the PS3 is outputing an NTSC-compatible video signal (NTSC color encoding, 525 lines/59.94i), and it does it very well.  While the PS3 does not natively play MKV files, with PS3 Media Server, that is not a problem.

Last month, I began ordering all available DVDs from Amazon.co.uk, buying the regularly released boxsets (not limited editions) to save money. On Amazon.co.uk, you can only order 50 items at a time, so for a complete classic Doctor Who set you will need at least two orders.  I was able to get my first batch of purchases into two orders, but the site can get error prone when trying to order so many things at one time.  Prices fluctuate frequently on Doctor Who DVDs, so you may get a better or worse price depending on when you put an item in your shopping basket versus when you actually complete an order.

Fortunately, the value between the British Pound Sterling and the U.S. Dollar has been fairly favorable for the past three years, generally hovering around $1 USD equaling between £1.50-1.70.  However, your credit card will charge a fee to perform the conversion.  My card charged me approximately 3% of the total cost of the order, including shipping.

If you place a large order, Amazon will ship out DVDs several at a time.  You will not get one big box, but maybe eight smaller shipments.  Each time a shipment is sent from the factory, your card will get charged.  I have not encountered a damaged disc, but three cases have had some minor issues with damage.  Also, for one story, the DVD insert booklet was not present, but I understand that the issue does occasionally rear itself.

Having purchased all the Region 2 Doctor Who DVDs, I can definitely say that now is the time to buy.  The BBC apparently is not keen about producing new Special Editions of previously released stories.  The last was back in August, 2013.  Additionally, there are no classic episodes left to be released, save for The Underwater Menace Episode 2.  That story may receive a release with animation or telesnap reconstruction, probably the latter.  Buy before stories go out of print.

Dark Shadows - The Achievement of Getting Through it All

Where to begin?  Last year I acquired the complete 1,225 episodes series of Dark Shadows.  It took me thirteen months to watch the series from start to end.

My introduction to Dark Shadows came in 1991 with the revival.  I thought that the revival was a great show at the time and I still have a certain fondness for it.  I have also recently watched the DVD release of the series.  The presentation is sadly flawed, the picture has been cropped from 1.33:1 to a "widescreen friendly" 1.78:1 ratio.  Additionally, this show was shot on 35mm color film and several scenes were shot day for night.  It is easier to film during the daytime, and a filter could be applied to camera lens or the colors could be manipulated in post-processing to give a "nighttime" effect.  Usually the result has a tendency to emphasize the blue.  Unfortunately, the day for night processing was ignored for the DVD release, so there are incorrect scenes of vampires walking around in daylight (before Barnabas' treatments take effect) or at best in the late afternoon.    The original MPI VHS releases, each episode being released individually, did not have these problems and showed extended versions of the first and final episodes.

I also at some point saw House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows, the films made in the wake of the original series' TV success.  They were released on VHS, but a DVD release did not come until 2012, where there was a simultaneous DVD/Blu-ray release.  This functioned as my only exposure to the original series for quite some time.

MPI released the series on DVD in 26 Collection volumes, beginning from episode 210, which introduces Barnabas, to the last episode.  Then they released 6 "The Beginning" DVD Collections covering episodes 1-209.  The company had previously released the series on VHS in 254 single volume tapes!  The enormous task of obtaining so many VHS or DVDs and the expense when I was too busy with Doctor Who delayed made my introduction to the original series.  Fortunately, MPI re-released the complete original series in one complete box set shaped as a coffin.  In this coffin will be found 22 boxes containing 131 DVDs!  Not only does this drastically reduce the amount of shelf space to hold the series, the Complete Series is much, much more affordable.

When one approaches the original series, there are four names that simply cannot be ignored, Frid, Hall, Parker and Selby, a.k.a. Barnabas Collins, Dr. Julia Hoffman, Angelique and Quentin Collins.  Jonathan Frid was a Canadian stage actor who seemingly came out of nowhere to play Barnabas, and after the series ended quickly disappeared back into the shadows.  Before Dark Shadows, the IMDB lists no film or television credits for him, and after that only two movies made soon after the series ended.  During the four years on the show, he created a portrayal of one of the most compelling characters to appear on television.  First a villain with an unhealthy devotion to finding his long-dead love Josette, then a reluctant test-subject and test overseer, finally an outright champion of the Collins family with the occasional lapse into selfishness or to slake his thirst for blood.  Frid could portray a menacing monster, cold & calculating manipulator, a sympathetic and warm cousin or a hot-tempered romantic.  Of course, among the cast members he frequently had trouble with his lines, his delivery showing a great deal of hesitation.  In the movie he seems in greater command of his delivery, doubtless the greater time to rehearse and more lenient demands of film on an actor helped him significantly.

Frid only played two characters, Barnabas and Bramwell Collins.  Grayson Hall, who was an Oscar-nominated actress prior to joining the Dark Shadows cast, played multiple characters.  Her primary character was Dr. Julia Hoffman.  For the late 60s a female doctor or scientist was an unusual role, and Hall was not intended to become a permanent addition to the regular cast.  (The character of Dr. Hoffman was originally designed for a man).  Lucky for her that her husband, Sam Hall, was one of the series main writers.  Her Julia Hoffman had a difficult relationship with Barnabas at first, but during the Adam & Eve plot line they become firm allies and except for one temporary instance they remained so thereafter.  Much fan-fiction has been devoted to exploring the relationship between the two.  Male-female partnerships (outside of marriage) were not yet commonplace in the late 60s.  The Avengers (future article) with John Steed and Catherine Gale, Emma Peel or Tara King is the best known of these partnerships from this time.  Unlike The Avengers, where Steed usually saved his (still capable) female partners, Barnabas and Julia had a more equal relationship.  Barnabas may have saved Julia from some supernatural entity but she saved him from being staked.

Hall's performance as Dr. Julia Hoffman was really twitchy.  She often wore a terrible wardrobe, blinked twice as much as her costars, wore unflattering wigs, could be counted to be very animated and when she became emotional, it was strange.  She has been described as playing her character as though she was on the stage.  To be fair, a more subtle approach may have been lost considering the relatively-low definition video being broadcasted over the air onto a 20-inch TV screen would benefit from a broader playing.  Hall also played aristocratic Countess Natalie Du Pres in the 1795 storyline, the earthy Magda Rakowski in 1897, the Mrs. Danvers-like maid Julia Hoffman in 1970 Parallel Time and the family standard bearer Julia Collins in 1841 Parallel Time.  In these roles, she seemed to tone down her more eccentric acting traits most of the time.

In 1795, we meet Angelique  the author of Barnabas' curse and many troubles thereafter.  Angelique went by many names : Miranda DuVal, Anglique Bouchard, Valerie Collins, Cassandra Collins, Anglique Rumson and, of course, Angelique Collins.  She would never stay defeated for long and her powers seemed to give her a certain form of immortality.  Against anyone but Barnabas or some supernatural power she could seemingly afflict or kill just about anyone.  All she needed was a voodoo doll and something a person owned and she could have the ultimate weapon over that person.  Of course, it helps that the actress, Lara Parker has an insane wide-eyed stare and looked comparatively frightening when she was playing a vampire for a while.  Angelique Stokes Collins was the chief villain in 1970 Parallel Time, essentially a life-essence vampire.  Parker's final role was the 1841 Parallel Time heroine Catherine Harridge Collins.  Unlike her previous roles, her last did not have any supernatural powers but did have a rational and forceful mind.

Finally, there is Quentin Collins, who like Barnabas started out villainous but eventually became heroic, if somewhat-self centered.  (In a soap opera, everyone has their own interests at heart).  When he was first introduced in 1968, he was played by the 28 year old David Selby.  His first incarnation was the malevolent Ghost of Quentin Collins, and the mutton chops and unflattering makeup he had to wear, combined with the lack of lines for his first twenty or so episodes, must have been unusual for an actor with looks that could have landed him leading-man status on a daytime soap.  Selby played five characters named Quentin Collins : the Ghost, Quentin Collins 1897, 1969-70 & 1995, Quentin Collins in 1970 Parallel Time, Quentin Collins 1840, and Quentin Collins in 1841 Parallel Time.  His main character's power, immortality, was inspired by Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Grey.  He was also cursed with Lycanthropy.  Selby could not don the werewolf makeup, the process would have taken hours, so the Stunt Coordinator was pressed into service.

Dark Shadows was taped in New York at ABC's Studio 2 and later 16.  It was produced by Dan Curtis and his eponymous production company, which was previously best known for filming golf tournaments for broadcasting.  Most of the actors cast were primarily stage actors, although the series hired Joan Bennett for audience draw.  Bennett was a movie star until the mid-1950s and was hired to provide some recognizable name where the rest of the cast were mainly unknowns.

One of the more unusual elements in this show was its involved use of child actors.  David Henesy, who played David Collins and other Collins children, was only nine years old when he was first on Dark Shadows, and he was there for almost throughout the whole show.  The demands of a five-day-a-week soap opera were taxing on the seasoned adult professionals, and this kid was expected to remember his lines, act appropriately and hit his marks.  On top of that, his was a challenging role, playing a troubled young boy with serious parental issues and the supernatural happening all around him to boot.  For the first hundred episodes, he was among the most dangerous members of the main cast.  He acted alongside a succession of young female actresses, including Sharon Smyth as the ghostly and non-ghostly Sarah Collins and Denise Nickerson as Amy Jennings and others.  Smyth had a blank affect about her that was ideal for a ghost, and Denise Nickerson had an extremely natural screen presence.  A soap opera may have more to do with children than many normal dramas, but Dark Shadows employed children well.  Since Dark Shadows was broadcast at 3:30PM or 4:00PM, having younger members in the audience was no doubt calculated to appeal to younger children doing their homework after school.

Once the show went to color in episode 295, any and all location filming ceased.  The series had shot location footage, including the actors, during the first year.  The only color film ever shown seemed to be the waves in the title sequence and an establishing shot of the Blue Whale.  The opening shots of Collinwood were static day or night shots of the Seaview Terrace/Carey Mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, the building chosen as the image of Collinwood.  Outside scenes were always shot on sets or by blue screening the actors over a static image backdrop.

Portraiture was very important in Dark Shadows.  Portraits of Josette Du Pres, Laura Collins, Barnabas, Angelique and Quentin seemed to have powers of their own.  Josette's spirit seemed to emerge from her portrait in the old house, and unlike later portraits the face does not correspond identically with any of the main cast.  Laura Collins portraits were intended as a warning of her true nature.  Barnabas used his portrait to "will" the greedy to his chained coffin on more than one occasion.  Angelique's portraits were used to influence minds, and Quentin's held his mortality and kept his particular curse at bay.  I doubt the actors sat for most of the portraits, I would suggest the painters worked from photographs.

The music for the series was composed by Robert Colbert, who would also compose music for the 1991 revival and House and Night of Dark Shadows.  His scores were unusually moody and evocative for the time, whether for a soap opera or something else.  As the series progressed, there would be new music added.  The well-known Barnabas' theme with its low strings was not introduced with the character.  Similarly, the haunting Josette's music box theme was added some time after Barnabas gives the box to Maggie Evans.  Characters would have their own themes, Quentin's' early 20th century phonograph theme being especially prominent.  During the early episodes the jukebox in The Blue Whale plays actual music from the pop stars of the day.

Makeup is another area where Dark Shadows attempted to innovate.  When Julia's experiments to cure Barnabas' backfire and turn him to his natural age, the makeup designed by Dick Smith is fantastic.  Perhaps the makeup was a little generous considering Barnabas was intended to be almost 200 years old, but the result is extremely convincing at aging the man.  In fact, the makeup does not look too far off how Frid actually looked in his final years.  Smith topped his performance with the makeup job for the aged Barnabas in House of Dark Shadows.  Other makeup effects were usually decent.  It makes up for the terrible vampire bat effects, which were either the suspended from wires or the video shadow insert variety.

The show took itself seriously, but the production and the storylines were that of a soap opera, so the watcher has to watch this show in a certain spirit of fun.  Every time an actor flubs a line or obviously looks at the teleprompter, a boom mike, a TV camera or a grip finds his way into the scene, its always fun.  Sometimes the period costumes for the men were somewhat tight fitting to the actor and a bulge could be seen.  A drinking game could be constructed based on such oft-repeated lines "Let me go, you're hurting me" or "He is one of the living dead" and my particular favorite "I'll explain everything later."  The show frequently had to cut the credits short or eliminate them entirely to fit it and the commercials into the 30 minute time slot.

I saw the Johnny Depp/Tim Burton movie in the theater and thought it was a decent homage, but not the best pairing of the two.  (Personally I would say Ed Wood, but many others would point to Edward Scissorhands).  Like the 1991 revival, it focuses on the conflict between Barnabas and Angelique.  It does touch on certain other themes present in the original series, the precarious financial situation of the Collins family, the orphan status of Victoria Winters, the strained relationship between father Roger and son David, the rebellious Carolyn, the supernatural nature of David's mother and the Collins' Cannery & Fishing Fleet.  Unlike the original Barnabas, who had few difficulties blending into the late 60s (he learned to drive a car), the Barnabas of this movie is continually perplexed by modern innovations, something the movie uses for much of its humor.  The movie itself fits comfortably into the post-Ed Wood Depp/Burton series of film adaptations of famous works.  In short it is light, entertaining fare with little underneath the surface.

It is no mean feat to commit to a single massive series (and all the film spinoffs) and stick with it until the end.  While no one is likely to look at Dark Shadows fifty years in the future as a seminal piece of television, it was certainly entertaining and groundbreaking in its own small way.  It may never have broken into the top 10 of soap operas during its run, but all its episodes survive in one form or another, and 98% of them are on color or black and white videotape.  The other 2% come from kinescopes, and the quality is much poorer and the color is lost.  Only one episode is missing, and there is a fan recording of its audio.  Many other soap operas junked their episodes made before the 1980s.  To survive five years, broadcast over 1,000 shows that were seen by and entertained millions in a highly competitive environment and to have had lasting influence to this day is worth a few words.

Ninja Turtles Mania

You would be hard pressed to find a boy who grew up in the 1980's who was not a fan of the green quartet known as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.   Our interests at Nerdly Pleasures are very broad, and we certainly remain very fond of them today.  In this article, we will reflect on the major incarnations of the Turtles to-date.

My introduction to the Turtles was typical. I first saw them in the original cartoon series which was first broadcast at the end of 1987 and lasted until 1996. This series was so tremendously popular that it became cemented in pop-culture heritage.  As they did not aspire to the high artistic merits of series like Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies, Silly Symphonies or even Tom & Jerry, they tend not to earn serious attention from animation critics.

In 1988 only the first mini-series had been broadcast, so it was the earliest stages of TMNT mania.
 Playmates toys just landed on the store shelves, video games were in the works, and the live-action films were not yet on the horizon.  

The cartoon series lived up to its intent to be goofy fun.  The good guys were fun and funny, the bad guys inept but never truly vicious, and there was plenty of ninja action to go around.  Real effort was put into making the turtles unique from each other beyond the color of their bandanas:  Leonardo the leader, Donatello the nerd, Raphael the wise-cracker and Michaelangelo the wild and crazy dude.  There was even a small extent of character development over the series.

Not too long after I started watching the cartoon regularly, I was introduced to the Turtles' original media, the comic books.  I was never really a comic book junkie, but I quickly became a fan of the Mirage Comics series.

These Turtles were a revelation to me having watched their juvenile versions on TV.  They lived in a rather gritty world, they fought and argued with each other and actually killed their enemies!

The cartoon always had problems with Leonardo's Katanas and to a lesser extent Raphael's sais, as the sharp and pointy implements would cut and piece flesh instead of merely brusing it. Censors overseas had more problems with Michaelangelo's nunchucks, frequently editing them out of the broadcasts. Nunchucks are quite lethal in their own right, but Europe and Australia were in the midst of a moral panic over the concept of ninja in entertainment, believing children would copy the ninja moves they saw on TV.  However, katanas and sais remained in the program.  In contrast, in the comic book, Leo and Raph would not hesitate to use the business end of their weapons on any enemy.

As I mostly acquired the colorized graphic novels, I had difficulty appreciating that TMNT was a black and white comic.  When TMNT was first being published in the mid-1980s, the creators were essentially self-publishing the comic.   Self-publishing in those days was often something one did part-time, a status which would continue until if and when your book really began to sell.  Printing in color was simply beyond the resources of the TMNT creators, Eastman and Laird.  Even the comic book's cover did not gain full-color until #5 (after 1-4 and Raphael 1).  Like Cerebus, what began as a necessity continued as an artistic choice.

I really enjoyed Volume 1 of TMNT through issue 21, which concluded the Return to New York storyline.  After that, even I could tell that its creators were no longer seemingly involved in the stories and the style varied so wildly from issue to issue that I quickly became turned off.  I never did manage to read Volumes 2 or 4, and what little I read of Volume 3 did not encourage me to want to read more.  Officially it is treated as a red-headed stepchild.

Having acquired a love for all things Turtles, naturally my attention was drawn to the reports that there would be a TMNT game for the NES.  The NES was a constant companion in those days, and I eagerly awaited the release of the game with great anticipation.  I remember calling every toy shop and electronics place around to see whether they had the game in stock on opening day.  None did.  A week later my mom and I confirmed the existence of the game at a distant store and we traveled in the early morning to get there to get my copy before they ran out.

The game itself had been widely commented and criticized, but I will give you my impressions.  First, although based off the cartoon, the TMNT theme did not seem to be well-integrated into the gameplay.   No Krang, Baxter, theme music, mousers and foot soldiers that barely looked the part and somewhat of a grim atmosphere.  Second, the game was cruelly unforgiving.  Limited continues, poor hit detection, large hit area for your characters, nearly constantly respawning enemies, tricky jumps, lots of pits, limited health items.  Michaelangelo and Raphael were nearly useless due to their short attack ranges.  Donatello's bo was the most powerful weapon, so he had to be saved for bosses at all costs.  The graphics, although flickery, and non-traditional sound were very well done, a testament to the skills of Konami (published under its Ultra Games label).  However, the game really felt like it originally was not intended to be a TMNT game but the imagery was later tacked on.  On the other hand, back in 1989 when the game was first released, TMNT was still pretty new and the TV show concepts still somewhat under-defined.

Still, the game sold millions and Konami made up for it in its other TMNT games.  The Arcade Game was awesome.  One of the best beat-em-ups ever, it allowed for four player simultaneous action, which may not have ever been done in the beat-em-up before.  It had very colorful graphics, upbeat and catchy tunes and followed the cartoon to a T.   It sucked many a quarter or two out of me back in the day.  Its NES port may not have been anywhere as graphically impressive, but it was a superb port.  Konami tightened the control scheme in the NES port and even added additional levels not found in the Arcade version.  Konami followed it up on the NES with The Manhattan Project and the Arcade with Turtles in Time.  Ports of the latter game to the SNES and (more loosely) to the Genesis were also top notch.  Most ports of hot media properties to video games tend to be (especially back then) to be crap.  Not so with the Turtles, thanks to the talented designers at Konami.

Following our rough chronology, I soon learned that the Turtles were coming to the big screen.  The first TMNT movie is pure corn, and the sequels even more juvenile.  The movies did not seem to take themselves any more seriously than the cartoon.  But this was live-action, and the silliness that the cartoon could get away with looked foolish at the multiplex.  The guys in green looked exactly like what they were, actors and stuntmen in costume.  The costumes were pretty good looking, and the face masks did a nice job of lip-syncing, but the facial expressions were rather limited.  At least the Shredder had an air of menace until he stupidly tried to run Splinter through with his spear.  And I know Splinter has always been depicted as old, but in this movie he seems positively arthritic and you could almost see his wires or motors being manipulated.  The Turtles were born in comics and found a home in cartoons, but just cannot fit within the confines of live action film.  I have yet to see the computer-animated film, but it is in my Netflix queue.

Like many childhood interests, my interest in TMNT faded as I grew older.  Lately, feeling the need to recapture some of my youth, I have reawakened my interest in the franchise.  I had known that there was a new cartoon series, closer to the darker, more mature (non-Archie) comics.  But being on the 4kids channel and often on Saturday mornings, I never got around to watching them.  However, when they did a countdown of the 10 greatest episodes recently, I used my DVR to examine this series.

Upon watching several episodes, I was struck how closely the series hewed to some of the old Mirage storylines.  Being a more maturer version than the '87, series, it is incredibly violent for a kids' show.  The Shredder is a vicious creature indeed.  A fair comparison between the old cartoon Shredder and the new would be Cesar Romero to Heath Ledger's respective Jokers in Batman.  Characters die and even get maimed in the show.  The foot soldiers, while still not much more than the Turtles' practice dummies, are human beings, not robots as in the original show.

There are many positive things about the new show.  It takes itself seriously and treats the Turtles with respect.  Raphael is his true bad-tempered self, Leonardo practically embodies the concepts of honor and fidelity.  Donatello is more sensitive and Michelangelo (preferred spelling), is good-natured without constantly spouting dated one-liners or looking for a pizza.  Having read the comics, it is fun to watch how the episodes deviate from the printed stories.  There is a strong sense of continuity throughout the series with returning allies and villains.  Eventually, the series started to progress to season-long storylines, which people tend to love or hate.  (My view tends to be closer to hate, unless the whole series is on DVD or demand.)

A digression before I conclude.  TMNT and Other Strangeness by Palladium Books was my first experience with a pencil and paper RPG.   This book was awesome, but it took me a while to really appreciate it. It had artwork from Eastman and Laird, even an original story or two.  It gave the stats for all the major characters that had appeared in the TMNT Mirage comic up to that point.  As the point was issue #4 (after Raphael #1).  It had pages of equipment, multiple adventure scenarios, and an excellent animal character creation system.  However, it was not the ideal game to bring a brand new player into RPGs.  Also, unless the RPG was AD&D, it was difficult to find other players.

This week I watched the TV movie TMNT Forever.  This is a movie-length episode of the new series where the current Turtles meet up with the Turtles from the old cartoon.   The modern Turtles and characters were the same as always, but the older cartoon characters seemed to suffer by comparion.  The modern characters always remark on how silly the behavior, ideas and technology of the old characters by comparison.  The movie shows that the old cartoon Turtles are seemingly unequipped to deal with the challenges faced by the modern Turtles.  Still, it was an entertaining hour-and-a-half and nice to see the old characters return to the screen after nearly fifteen years,  Shame they couldn't get the old voice talent.

To conclude this epic post, I would  point to the title.  I always used to hear non-fans refer to the franchise referred to as "Ninja Turtles".  No Teenage, Mutant and often not even a "the".  That pretty much summed it up for those who could not appreciate it.  Appreciation of the franchise requires a love of the ridiculous, which is appropriate for an idea that began as a parody of serious comic books like Daredevil and Ronin.  The franchise has been accused of being the epitome of banal commercialism.  Yet it appealed to a generation of young boys, for a while.  Not too long after it became popular, it seemed  you were a dork for admitting to liking the Turtles.  Each one of my elementary/middle school associates was quicker to distance himself than the last.