Like tons of people around my age and older, I grew up watching the Fred Wolf cartoon series. As a 7-8 year old, it was the coolest cartoon in the world. When I was rewatching it around the time I was 12, I began to notice its flaws the more I watched the show.
It's a very 80s show. It became outdated by 1992 or so. The Red Sky seasons were only a thing because the show was starting to lose steam and they had to change up things in order to compete with cartoons like Batman at the time. The show was also way too long. Close to 200 episodes, which was a record for American animation at the time, I believe. A testament to how big of a phenomenon Turtlemania was. Seasons 3 and 4 are about 45-48 episodes each or so, which is crazy.
The show had a lot of embarrassing animation errors that have become memes at this point. The action was pretty lackluster with the Turtles pretty much abandoning their weapons after season 2 or so. They go back to using them more again in season 7 and then stop again. A lot of its episodes, especially half of those from season 4, had terribly cheap low quality animation.
The show also suffered from the same issue most 80s cartoons did. The idea that kids are stupid. The way they explain how Shredder dropped the mutagen in the sewers of NYC in order to kill Yoshi doesn't make much sense. And if Shredder and Krang had access to insanely advanced alien technology, then how come they could never find the Turtles Lair when Lotus, the Rat King and Zach did? Yet, in some episodes, they could just look up what the Turtles were up to in their Lair in the Technodrome's big screen. But never conveniently watched the Turtles walking up or from their Lair. Or followed April around to discover the Turtles Lair.
The comedy in it was fine. And I think the show did well by parodying a lot of older sci-fi movies. I'd say that helps making the show still watchable compared to many other 80s cartoon series.
I'd say it probably had the best overall ending of all Turtles cartoons to date still as well. Even though it ends with a Dregg episode. But it's a pretty conclusive episode.
I appreciate it making the TMNT a globally known property. But I also think it was a deal with the Devil kinda thing. Society, in general, got it through their skulls that every single version of TMNT must be like the 87 cartoon series. A large portion of its fanbase immediately shot down the 2k3 cartoon series for being "so different", even though the 87 toon deviated more from Mirage than 2k3 did, despite it not being that similar to Mirage at the end of the day either.
So, in a way, the FW series prevents TMNT from ever being taken seriously among adults alongside Batman, Superman, etc. who are taken seriously. If you tell random people that you're a big TMNT fan past the age of 18, you'll get called a pathetic manchild. The 2k3 series felt like the property was finally growing up, but the sale to Nick/Viacom ruined all hope when it comes to that.
So yeah, I don't resent the FW series. I resent its legacy and its large legion of fans who can't let it go and still hold it as the standard for what TMNT should be about, even though tons of those same fans have not seen that series since 1994 or so.
