I may be alone on this, but I don't think that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation ever got it's due. The short-lived Fox kids series was a lot sillier and more slapstick than the popular TMNT movies and the whole Venus de Milo thing was probably a big mistake, but when you accept the show for what it was - a campy kid's action/adventure series produced by Saban - it's not without a certain charm.
The movie Ninja Turtles were created thanks to pioneering work by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, but reportedly the shop was too expensive to hire for the series so the work of building the T.V. turtles fell to the talented Chiodo Brothers studio in L.A. The official TMNT web site has a behind-the-scenes page about the show that includes some pictures of the animatronic Ninja Turtle suits being worked on at Chiodo Bros.
I mention the series because I just watched an old press video for it on YouTube. If you're looking for a fix of `90s nostalgia go take a look. While the new TMNT movie is looking pretty cool, I'll miss those old fashioned animatronic heroes on the half-shell.
