Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV series)

Season 1 (2024)

Season 2 (2025)

• ^st Storyboard director
• ^su Supervising director

Development

According to Christopher Yost, during the middle of production on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (2023), producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were granted approval to develop a canon streaming television series. Yost was then approached to see if he would be interested in meeting Rogen, and after agreeing, the two discussed what the series could be. Alan Wan was brought in to work with Yost.^[1] Between the two, they had experience working on the 2003 Turtles series, the 2012 Turtles series, and the 2018 series Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.^[9]

In July 2023, Variety reported that a film sequel and a 2D animated television series follow-up for Mutant Mayhem had been greenlit.^[10] The series, titled Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, was reported to act as a bridge between Mutant Mayhem and the film sequel,^[10] which has been scheduled to release in theaters in 2026.^[11][12] Yost and Wan were announced as executive producers and showrunners.^[10] Lukas Williams was set to oversee production for Point Grey Pictures which co-produces with Nickelodeon Animation Studio.^[10] Production for Nickelodeon was overseen by Claudia Spinelli, Senior Vice President of Nickelodeon Animation, and Nikki Price, Director of Development and Executive in Charge of Production.^[2]

Despite reportedly being greenlit for two seasons on announcement,^[10] Yost later said in an August 2024 interview that he was unsure if there would be a second season but said they had plenty of ideas for one.^[1] In the January 2025 issue Toy World Magazine, Paramount confirmed that a second season will debut later that year on Paramount+ and Nickelodeon.^[13] In November 2025, it was announced the series was cancelled alongside Dora stemming from management shifts caused by the Paramount-Skydance merger, and the second season would be its final season.^[14]

Casting, voice recording and music

Along with the series' announcement in July 2023, Micah Abbey, Shamon Brown Jr., Nicolas Cantu, and Brady Noon were confirmed to reprise their voice roles from Mutant Mayhem as the four Turtles.^[10] Ayo Edebiri was later confirmed to reprise her role as April O'Neil in February 2024.^[2] Unlike with Mutant Mayhem, in which Abbey, Brown, Cantu, and Noon recorded their voice roles together, for Tales, they recorded independently from one another. The actors felt that the decision affected the way they performed and helped them dig deeper into their respective characters.^[15] Splinter, who was previously voiced by Jackie Chan in Mutant Mayhem, only speaks in a gibberish language called "vermin" in Tales.^[7] Fred Tatasciore provides the voice and is credited as "Splinter Vermin".^[8] The series' opening theme and score was composed by Matt Mahaffey,^[16][8] who previously composed the score for Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and its 2022 film continuation.^[16]

Writing and animation

Unlike previous Turtles series, which were developed as television shows first, Tales is a continuation of a film. This meant the showrunners had to use Mutant Mayhem as a guiding map in development.^[17] Just like with the film, the showrunners emphasized the teenage aspect of the Turtles.^[17] The series is presented from the Turtles point of view. Yost said that they sometimes think of it as "Tales by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", adding that there was a bit of an unreliable narrator element to it.^[1] The showrunners described the world presented in the series as being more grounded than those of previous incarnations of Turtles.^[17] The team made efforts to integrate April O'Neil into the stories and make sure she did not feel too distant from the Turtles.^[18]

Independent animation studio Titmouse's Canadian unit provides the animation for the series.^[1][19] Like with Mutant Mayhem, which took an unconventional approach to its CG animation, Wan wanted the series to take an unconventional 2D animation look. He wanted to capture a "punk rock" feeling and described the style as rough and raw.^[15] The showrunner felt the series' more crude art style helped to distinguish it from its more clean-looking action cartoon peers.^[17] Wan also felt that the art style paid homage to the original Turtles comics by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.^[20] The series uses comic book drawings by Leonardo as a framing device, which the showrunners also added as an homage to the comics.^[21] For the action sequences, the team drew inspiration from various iterations of Turtles, including Mutant Mayhem, the 1990s live-action films, and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.^[20]

Critical response

For the first season, Rotten Tomatoes reported 100% approval with an average rating of 8.0/10 based on 9 reviews.^[26] Overall, the season received positive reviews from critics for its voice performances, animation, and action sequences. Some critics felt that it lived up to standard set up by Mutant Mayhem, while various others opined that it was a downgrade.^{[27][28][7][29][30][31]}

Accolades