Nerds with Words: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Themes
Its been a while since we did one of these, actually, I believe we’ve only done one, but who’s counting. Anyhow, the premise is pretty simple just sharing Turtles theme songs past and present and you comment on your favorite. This kind of spins out of just randomly listening to my MP3 player, but also a discussion on Twitter the other day about the value of the Ninja Rap, but let’s not waste time!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon)
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When talking about theme songs for the Ninja Turtles, you have to start at the beginning. Arguably one of the greatest theme songs in television history, this theme is known by pretty much everyone of my generation and if it isn’t, they lived under a HUGE rock in Atlantis.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles The Movie
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When people think of Ninja Turtles theme songs from the movie, they tend to think of the one in the second movie, but the one in the first is just as catchy, and explains the story of the movie pretty well. My biggest beef with the song is the fact that is mentions that Ralph is the leader, which may be true in the movie, but we all know Leonardo leads! It says it in the original song!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Secret of the Ooze
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Now this is a song many know, as it is really Vanilla Ice’s only other hit in his career, it is also one of the most jamming tracks to ever grace a movie. Go Ninja Go! Go Ninja Go! Lyrics so deep!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (CBS Version)
http://www.retrojunk.com/tv/videos/12-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles/936/#intro
Sadly, Youtube doesn’t have a version of this theme due to some licensing issue with Lionsgate. Anyhow, this is the rarely mentioned opening when the show switched to CBS and went a bit darker. In addition they replaced Shredder and Krang with some weird alien… yeah even for this show he was weird and kind of boring.
Ninja Turtles: Next Mutation
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This is the one that no one wants to talk about when Ninja Turtles starred in their first live-action TV show and discovered a mysterious 5th member, Venus, it was also known for the crossover with Power Rangers in Space. The show didn’t last long.
Ninja Turtles 2k3 (Animated)
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After the “success” of Next Mutation, the Ninja Turtles took a long hiatus from the public’s eye. Then in 2003, they were revived on Fox Kids with a new edge and a lot more faithful to the comic book source material. The theme song took some getting use to, but turned out okay.
I don’t think they warrant additions here, but the theme song did change twice over the course of the series to reflect the state of the Shredder. The first time to note that he was dead in the series (sorry for the spoilers, but its been 7 years) and the second to note that the Shredder was back, but this time it was the Shredder’s daughter.
Fast Forward
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The show’s ratings started to sag so someone made the call to send the Turtles into the future. I really didn’t care much for this season nor did I really watch it, but just seemed like an excuse to sell toys.
Back to the Sewers
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After sending them to the Future didn’t really get the results Fox expected, the Turtles were then sent back to the past (Well present day), but with a twist as this series focused on a virtual world as well as a real one. Don’t ask!
I believe that does it for the Ninja Turtles, TMNT nor Turtles 3 didn’t really have theme songs or anything associated with them.
Here is a bonus track though when they were announcing the theme for Back to the Sewers, they held fan polls to determine the new theme, here is just one of the rejected contenders.
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Hit up the comments with your thoughts or any that we could have missed.
