Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, commonly abbreviated as TMNT, is a media franchise created by the comic book artists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.

It follows Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo, four anthropomorphic turtle brothers trained in ninjutsu who fight evil in New York City.

[1] That November, Eastman drew a masked turtle standing on its hind legs armed with nunchucks to make Laird laugh.

[2] Using money from a tax refund and a loan from Eastman's uncle, they printed copies of the first issue of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and advertised it in Comics Buyer's Guide Magazine.

[2] In the United Kingdom and some other European regions, the franchise was renamed Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles for the violent connotations of the word "ninja".

[2] In response to concerns that the series was drifting from its origins, Eastman and Laird published an editorial in the comic in 1989, writing: "We've allowed the wacky side to happen, and enjoy it very much.

[30] The Shredder allies with Baxter Stockman, a mad scientist who is often transformed into a mutant fly in his appearances,[30] and Krang, an alien warlord.

[30] Eastman and Laird's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles premiered in May 1984, at a comic book convention held at a local Sheraton Hotel in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

It was published by their company Mirage Studios in an oversized magazine-style format using black and white artwork on cheap newsprint, limited to a print run of 3000 copies.

Mirage also published a companion book entitled Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was designed to fill in the gaps of continuity in the TMNT universe.

This third volume of the main series, intended as a continuation of the Mirage comics, saw Splinter become a bat, Donatello a cyborg, Leonardo lose a hand and Raphael become scarred and assume the identity of the new Shredder.

[2] In 2018, IDW began reprinting the series in full color as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Urban Legends, and commissioned Carlson and Fusco to create three additional issues to tie up the unfinished story.

In the first four issues, which were the only ones directly adapted from the TV series, the story was told from the perspectives of April, Baxter, Casey, and a pair of New York City police officers.

This series lasted until 2009, ending with a feature-length television movie titled Turtles Forever, which was produced in conjunction with the 25th anniversary of the franchise.

Nickelodeon acquired the global rights to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from the Mirage Group and 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. and announced a new CGI-animated TMNT television series.

The Turtles were played by various actors in costumes featuring animatronic heads, initially produced by Jim Henson's Creature Shop.

A reboot, also titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles produced by Platinum Dunes, Nickelodeon Movies, and Paramount Pictures was released in 2014.

[64] During the run of the 1987 TV series, Playmates Toys produced hundreds of TMNT action figures, along with vehicles, playsets, and accessories, becoming one of the top collectibles for children.

[65] Staff artists at Northampton, Massachusetts-based Mirage Studios provided conceptual designs for many of the figures, vehicles, and playsets and creator credit can be found in the legal text printed on the back of the toy packaging.

The series was highly popular in the UK, where in the run-up to Christmas, the Army & Navy Store in London's Lewisham devoted its entire basement to everything Turtle, including games, videos, costumes, and other items.

In 1991, Konami released The Manhattan Project for the NES, and another arcade game, Turtles in Time, which was ported to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) in 1992.

[69][70] A beat 'em up game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Arcade Attack was released for the Nintendo DS in 2009, to coincide with the series' 25th anniversary.

[71] In 2013, Activision released the downloadable game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, based on the 2012 TV series and developed by Red Fly Studio for the Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and Steam.

The campaign is playable either single-player or co-op and has an original story written by Tom Waltz, IDW comic writer and editor.

[73] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Legends, a free-to-play Role-playing video game was released by Ludia in summer 2016 for iPhone, iPad, Android, and Kindle Fire.

The turtles are playable characters in the DC Comics fighting game Injustice 2 as a part of the "Fighter Pack 3" DLC, with Corey Krueger, Joe Brugie, Ben Rausch and Ryan Cooper voicing their roles.

In the games, Cam Clarke, Townsend Coleman, Barry Gordon, Rob Paulsen, and Jim Cummings reprise their roles from the 1987 animated series while Abby Trott voices April.

In March 2023, Paramount Global announced that a AAA video game based on The Last Ronin, a 5-issue miniseries that was published from 2020 to 2022, was in development.

Once the Turtles broke into the mainstream, parodies also proliferated in other media, such as in satire magazines Cracked and Mad and numerous TV series of the period.

The satirical British television series Spitting Image featured a recurring sketch "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turds".