All licensing rights recently reverted back to Northampton, Massachusetts-based Mirage Licensing, which is what's left of Mirage Studios which gave birth to the original comic book incarnation of the Turtles back in 1984. Mirage is shopping the property around, and carefully evalutating a strategy to reintroduce the property to older fans who read the original comic book series, tween fans of the animated series and live-action movies, and introduce Michaelangelo, Donatello, Raphael and Leonardo to a whole new kid audience. Mirage compares the revamp to sucessful retreads such as Batman Beyond, or the evergreen Power Rangers property which gets virtually reinvented every year.

Playmates Toys, who enjoyed an incredibly long run of TMNT-related merchandise is, apparently, still attached to the property. Whatever new line of Turtles toys comes to light, expect it to be more kid-friendly than collector driven.

Reboot, while lacking the long history of the Ninja Turtles, has an extremely dedicated fan base. The show became something of a cult hit when it debuted on ABC in 1994 but not enough to sustain it past the 1996 season. The series went into syndication at that point, but a third season of the show didn't make it to American television until last year as part of the Cartoon Network's Toonami block where the show has been performing solidly and attracting new fans.

In April of this year, Mainframe Entertainment announced they would be producing two new Reboot made-for-television movies.

"ReBoot fans around the world have never given up hope that we would continue the story," says Mainframe President and CEO, and ReBoot co-creator, Ian Pearson. "Even though season three wasn't seen in the US until the last year, the fans have never deserted the show. ReBoot has always attracted a wide audience of both kids and adults because of its multi-level stories and ensemble cast. With these new TV movies we get a to say a great big 'thank-you' to our fans, and mark my words, they will not be disappointed. Fans may, in fact, be shocked, as we answer some of those questions that have been on their minds for years." The first TV movie is entitled Daemon Rising which picks up the storyline where season three of the TV series left off. The second movie is yet to be titled.

Along with the new movies fans can look forward to new Reboot merchandise, too. Master toy licensee Irwin will be releasing new action figures and play environments in the 4th quarter, with a build up to Toy Fair 2001.

RTM will be continuing to monitor these properties, and their toy line spinoffs, as they develop.

[Posted 5/30/2000]