Fifteen years underground, and the first trip to the surface goes about as well as four sewer-raised teenagers with weapons could expect. Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo climb out on their fifteenth birthday, trained in ninjutsu by their rat sensei Splinter, and find a New York with its own mutants, aliens and armored men who want them gone.

Nickelodeon's version, developed by Ciro Nieli, Joshua Sternin and Jennifer Ventimilia, swapped the flat animation of older Turtles cartoons for computer animation with cartoon timing: rubbery faces, comic-book panel wipes, hand-drawn gag inserts whenever a joke lands better sketched. The action plays broad and fast. The writing leans on four brothers annoying each other in a sewer they cannot leave. Leonardo takes the leader job too seriously, Raphael hits first, Donatello builds gadgets and pines, Michelangelo eats.

Voice work carries a lot of it, with Jason Biggs, Sean Astin, Rob Paulsen, Greg Cipes and Hoon Lee filling out the family and Seth Green taking over Leonardo partway through the run.

The show ran from September 2012 to November 2017, long enough to move past monster-of-the-week episodes into longer arcs and odder corners of the mythology. It suits kids who want slapstick with real stakes, and older fans who want the brothers written as actual teenagers.