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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (known as Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland after the second season, and in some other European countries) is an American animated television series produced by Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, Inc. It premiered December 14, 1987, first as a five-part mini-series. The series features the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters created in comic book form by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, but the property was changed considerably from the darker-toned comic in order to make it more suitable for children.
The show was in Saturday morning syndication from October 1, 1988 to September 23, 1989. After it became an instant hit, the show was expanded to five days a week and aired weekday afternoons in syndication in most markets, from September 25, 1989 to September 17, 1993. On September 8, 1990, the series began its secondary run on CBS's Saturday morning lineup, beginning as a 60-minute block from 1990 to 1994 and then as a 30-minute block until the series ended on November 2, 1996.
The show helped launch the characters into mainstream popularity and became one of the most popular animated series in television history.[citation needed] Breakfast cereals, plush toys, and all manner of products featuring the characters appeared on the market during the late 1980s and early 1990s. A successful Archie Comics comic book based on the animated show instead of the original black-and-white comics was published throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. Action figures were top-sellers around the world. In 1990, the cartoon series was being shown daily on more than 125 television stations, and the comic books sold 125,000 copies a month.
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