Last commenter missed the point. I’m sure the studios were very happy with this arrangement. It’s a win-win.
The '80s/'90s were a time of deep and powerful moral panics about children’s entertainment. When TMNT came out in the UK, Thatcher (I believe)'s government freaked out about… not the show overtly being an ad for toys, but the word “ninja”. Ninjas are violent murderers! So they became “hero turtles” instead.
Pearl-clutching conservatives are incredibly, unbelievably dense people.
… And so by replacing murder with hard-to-articulate horror (it’s creepy because it’s so close to being innocuous), studios completely disarm the pearl-clutchers and their simplistic narratives while retaining (or even strengthening) the emotional/narrative element.
Last commenter missed the point. I’m sure the studios were very happy with this arrangement. It’s a win-win.
The '80s/'90s were a time of deep and powerful moral panics about children’s entertainment. When TMNT came out in the UK, Thatcher (I believe)'s government freaked out about… not the show overtly being an ad for toys, but the word “ninja”. Ninjas are violent murderers! So they became “hero turtles” instead.
Pearl-clutching conservatives are incredibly, unbelievably dense people.
… And so by replacing murder with hard-to-articulate horror (it’s creepy because it’s so close to being innocuous), studios completely disarm the pearl-clutchers and their simplistic narratives while retaining (or even strengthening) the emotional/narrative element.