Set in New York City, the series follows the adventures of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their allies as they battle the Shredder, Krang, and numerous other villains and criminals.

The pilot was shown during the week of December 28, 1987 in syndication as a five-part miniseries, and the show began its full-time run on October 1, 1988, and ended on November 2, 1996.

Action figures, breakfast cereals, plush toys, and other merchandise featuring the characters appeared on the market during the late 1980s and early 1990s and became top sellers worldwide.

In this version, Splinter was formerly human, an honorable ninja master named Hamato Yoshi who studied art history as a hobby.

Disgraced, Yoshi was forced to leave his native Japan and relocate to New York City, where he began living in the sewers with the rats as his only friends.

It is also around this time that he begins working with Krang, a disembodied alien brain from Dimension X who ruled his native realm with an iron fist until he was stripped of his body and banished to Earth.

To this end, Krang provides the Shredder with a vast array of powerful technology from Dimension X, including the Technodrome, and funds most of his schemes throughout the series.

The Turtles, who had rarely left the sewers prior to meeting April, also began to take on the role of semi-vigilante crime fighters.

Reluctant to expose themselves to the outside world, the Turtles initially wear disguises whenever they leave the sewers, although this is slowly relaxed as the series progresses and they gain the trust of the broader populace, whom they have saved from Shredder and other villains on many occasions.

Shredder, Krang, Bebop & Rocksteady, Baxter Stockman, and their legions of Foot soldiers repeatedly try to destroy the Turtles and take over the world.

Some episodes feature other minor villains, such as the Rat King, Leatherhead, Slash, General Traag and Granitor, and many others, or involve the TMNT getting themselves and the city out of a mess that they had inadvertently caused.

The humor was toned down significantly, the animation became darker, the color of the sky in each episode was changed to a continuous, ominous dark-red sky (commonplace with newer action-oriented children's programming at the time), the theme song was changed, the introduction sequence added in clips from the first live-action film, and the show took on a darker, more action-oriented atmosphere, reminiscent to the original comics.

[8] The series' main antagonists—Shredder, Krang, Bebop, and Rocksteady—who had previously been depicted as dangerous but comically inept villains, were now portrayed as a more menacing, unified threat.

Additionally, Krang was revealed to have seized power in Dimension X through numerous betrayals and widespread destruction, resulting in old enemies seeking vengeance.

As a result, the villains were stranded on Earth without any weapons or power, and were forced to work out of an old science building until they could find a way back into Dimension X to retrieve the Technodrome.

The Turtles, taking advantage of the situation, pursue their arch enemies relentlessly in an effort to put an end to their schemes once and for all.

At the end of Season 8, the TMNT finally banish Shredder, Krang, Bebop, and Rocksteady to Dimension X by destroying the Technodrome's engines and trans-dimensional portal, preventing them from returning to Earth.

Additionally, the Turtles began to suffer from secondary mutations that temporarily transformed them into monstrous hulks with diminished intelligence, a problem that would not be completely resolved until Season 10.

The TMNT also gain a new ally in the form of Carter, a brash African American male who initially sought out Master Splinter for training in ninjitsu, but is eventually exposed to mutagen and contracts an incurable mutation disease.

In the final season of the series, Dregg's sycophantic henchman Mung encounters Shredder and Krang, who are still stranded in Dimension X.

The Turtles initially have the upper hand in the fight, but Shredder and Krang are able to subdue them after reluctantly agreeing to work with Dregg.

[11] Shredder spends the next two episodes finding a way to heal Krang and dispose of Dregg so that they may take control of his armies and conquer the Earth, but in the ensuing confrontation they are permanently transported back to Dimension X. Carter also bids farewell to the Turtles as he travels to the future to look for a cure for his mutation.

[12] In the final episode of the series, Michaelangelo and Donatello travel to Dimension X to retrieve Krang's mechanical body from the (now abandoned and completely destroyed) Technodrome, which is sitting on a hill standing upright (whereas at the end of Season 8, an alien plant had dragged it down into a deep pit), suggesting that Shredder and Krang initially tried to repair the Technodrome before declaring it a lost cause.

By 1986, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic series by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had experienced two years of success.

Wise left the series partway through the ninth season, and Jeffrey Scott took over as the story editor and chief writer for the rest of the show's run.

Those guys put the heart and soul into those turtles and came up with those personalities".Through most of the series, the episodes featured a recurring background music which reflected the mood of the situation, as well as leitmotifs for settings such as the Technodrome, the New York City sewers, Channel 6, etc.

Fred Wolf Films, owners of the rights to the show, have licensed the series to Lionsgate Home Entertainment, who have been responsible for the original DVD and retail streaming releases.

On November 13, 2012, Lionsgate Family Entertainment released Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – The Complete Classic Series Collection on DVD in Region 1.

[50] On October 15, 2024, Nickelodeon and Paramount Home Entertainment released the new version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – The Complete Classic Series Collection on DVD.

Co-creator, Peter Laird, has publicly shared his distaste with the show on numerous occasions but has also acknowledged that it was extremely successful with and beloved by its audience and, while he would have preferred a different approach to the material, it might not have been as popular as what was produced.