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Animation Investigation

The 8 Craziest ’90s TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES Ripoffs

Since the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles‘ inauspicious beginnings in a single comic book in 1984, the shelled foursome has spawned multiple video games, countless television shows, big screen blockbusters, and wave after wave of toys. All of that success is why there’s one more thing they also produced in abundance: inferior knockoffs, especially during the ’90s. The decade was awash in TMNT ripoffs, and some of them were totally bonkers. But which ones were the craziest? That sounds like a totally tubular question for of our series dedicated to all things toon, Animation Investigation.

This week, Hector Navarro dives into the sewers of video games and shows that were inspired by (or blatantly stole from) the Turtles playbook. From talking toads, to chatty cows, to mouthy mice, the most important lesson Hollywood took away from the success of the heroes-in-a-half-shell was that people must love watching anthropomorphic cartoon animals who liked to fight, preferably if they could then be turned into action figures.

Somehow a story about sewer turtles who mutated into crime-fighting martial artists with a rat sensei isn’t as bizarre as most of these ripoffs. That Might Ducks series might be the most absurd premise in TV history. Though if we’re being honest, we would definitely lose our minds if we got an Extreme Dinosaurs reboot. “It’s like the Ninja Turtles, but with dinosaurs!” is a pretty great premise.

Which knockoff was your favorite? Be a cool dude and tell us in the comments below.

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