How Soon Is The Original 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' Series Headed To Nickelodeon?

This is an incredibly quick turnaround

Last week, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman announced at the San Diego Comic-Con panel for the upcoming Mutant Mayhem film that, fourteen years after Paramount purchased the franchise, that they had finally secured the rights to air the original animated series which originally aired 193 episodes from 1987-1996 on CBS.

It would be debuting digitally on Nickelodeon later this month in the United States, though Eastman had said “next year”, followed by Nickelodeon-branded channels and digital platforms internationally. This was later clarified to mean Nickelodeon-owned and operated channels such as YouTube, Pluto TV and O&O linear channels. Sure, there wasn’t much room left in the month when it was announced for “later this month” to actually remain true, but it’s happening, according to TV schedule websites like TVPassport. It starts on Monday, July 31 at midnight, so it’s technically into August 1, where two episodes will air every night in that midnight hour on Nicktoons, including weekends. However, Friday nights (into Saturdays) the series will air all night until 6 AM, which currently leads into the channel’s block of 2012 series episodes. They’re the first airings of any kind since leaving CBS in 1997, having last had a cable run on USA Cartoon Express from 1993-1996.

According to Nickandmore, the arrival makes it one of the oldest series to air on the network, as its original premiere predates the original Nicktoons. It is therefore in a class that features Charlie Brown, Tiny Toon Adventures, and through a certain point of view, Dragon Ball Z Kai. In all, the show’s presence gives a bit of age to a lineup that has skewed toward SpongeBob, The Loud House and their respective spinoffs, and other shows that are still rather recent, like Big Nate, and the oldest show before the 1987 TMNT series arrival is… the aforementioned 2012 iteration’s weekend morning blocks. When NickRewind existed under its several names for over a decade on TeenNick, it seemingly alleviated the need for Nicktoons to air some of those classic Nicktoons on an equally regular basis. The few they were when The '90s Are All That launched on the even later end of the late night slots were dropped within a month. This makes it really the first time since then that they’ve had a late night nostalgia block of sorts.

Of course, Nicktoons does fall under Nickelodeon-owned and operated channels, and swooped in to be first in line for landing, as it was expected that Pluto TV’s Totally Turtles channel would be first, bringing all five cartoons together for the first time. YouTube was a sensible spot too. Not only for high quality clips, but with a channel dedicated to the franchise, it’s very possible that the full series will be uploaded, as several shows are getting their full library on their YouTube channels, like The Real Ghostbusters, ALF, and Power Rangers being in progress while G1 The Transformers and Extreme Ghostbusters are complete. The Disney XD YouTube channel has all of the first season of Phineas and Ferb. 193 episodes at 14 episodes a week makes for an initial cycle rate of 13 weeks. Hopefully it can last.

Sources: TVPassport, Nickandmore on Twitter, HyperSchedules on Twitter