NICKELODEON UNSHELLS NEW TAKE ON TURTLES
Network pulled back merchandise to reinvent and relaunch familiar characters
As long as pizza remains popular, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will be ripe for reinvention.
What began as a comic book series in 1984 is now one of the most durable properties in kids’ media. In September, Nickelodeon debuted the 2D animated series “Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” the network’s second reboot of the property following a Cgi-animated show that ran from 2012-17.
According to Pam Kaufman, Viacom/nickelodeon’s president of consumer products, merchandise played a key role in both reboots. “Back in 2010, we were thinking of making a meaningful play in the consumer products business,” she says. “Frankly, in our own portfolio of development, there wasn’t a property that would go down the action figure aisle.”
So Viacom found TMNT, which was then a dormant intellectual property. “It felt like Nickelodeon: Four brothers, it’s funny, amazing adventures, wasn’t that violent. And then we found a creative team that was ready to reinvent it.”
After relaunching it for a new generation of kids and their nostalgic parents, Kaufman says, “it quickly became the No. 1 selling action figure, for multiple years. So: mission accomplished.”
But there’s a property life cycle to all IP, and Kaufman eventually noticed a consumer products decline in the Turtles merchandise. “In late 2015, we decided that we want to manage our own future and our own contractions of retail,” she says. “So we took a pretty bold step, and decided as a company: we’re going to pull back on Turtles. It’s time to reinvent. So we slowly removed product from the shelves.”
For the 2018 2D relaunch, in which co-executive producers Ant Ward and Andy Suriano return to the humor and action of the original comic book, with a young, multicultural cast (and different species of turtles), Viacom collaborated with Playmates to invent a new toy line, replacing the older products on the shelves.
Thirty-five years into the Turtles life cycle, Kaufman says it still feels new. “It’s a property that has reinvention in its DNA. Our creative team has always had a blast working on it.”