COWABUNGA DUDES! The complete first season of Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series is hitting the shelves in a delightful 4-disc box set! Thanks to our friends at Paramount, I was able to review this awesome box set. It’s packed with special features and a few surprises that will tickle the fancy of any TMNT fan!

Within the box set you’ll find 3 DVD cases (the third one contains 2 discs). The packaging is excellent; open one of the cases and you’ll find a cool profile on one of the turtles with lots of fun information to read about. Each of the cases has its own title like “Rise of the Turtles”, and “Enter the Shredder”, which can get confusing when you’re trying to watch the episodes in order.

There’s also a cool little booklet, kind of a sample of artwork from the book Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History. It’s got some images from the original TMNT comics, as well as the original Saturday morning cartoon and its subsequent reboots through the years.

The coolest thing about this box set is the amount of special features. My favorite feature is called “mutation of a scene”, where it plays through a sequence from one of the episodes starting with the storyboard animatic, then the rough animation and the final animation. As an animation student, I’m always trying to learn more about how animated shows are produced. There are several of these featurettes per disc.

Other special features include a karaoke music video for the updated TMNT theme song, digital comics that you can flip through with your DVD remote, and “making of” animatics. When compared to other video companies, for example Shout! Factory, the special features are much more fan-centric.

As for the show itself, I think Nick’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a great reboot series. While it’s definitely a kids’ show, the ninja action is well choreographed and animated. The low-budget nature of CG television series definitely shows through, but you get used to it. The art direction clearly is a nod to the style of the original comics. There is a distinct story arc within this first season involving old foes like Shredder, Krang, and Karai and many new ones. If you’re a veteran TMNT fan wanting to introduce your kids to the franchise, Nick’s series is an excellent choice.