Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

TMNT - December 1987 to November 1996

This version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the most distinctive from its MIRAGE comic origins. It thrived more on humor instead of a dark attitude, especially in earlier seasons. Its creativity and bizarre humor made it something in the late '80s and early '90s something that had never been done before, so it drew in fans and grew to syndication on USA's Cartoon Express and new episodes would be aired weekends on CBS in late 1990.

Four turtles fall into the sewers and are befriended by Hamato Yoshi, a Japanese man who fled from New York and had nowhere to live but in the sewers. He was framed by his enemy, Oroku Saki, in a plot to kill the sensei. One day he sees a strange green glow which transforms the four turtles into human-like creatures. Hamato (now Master Splinter) changes into a giant rat from the green glow and teaches the turtles the skills of the ninja as they team up with Channel 6 news reporter April O'Neil to battle against Yoshi's archenemy Shredder and Krang, an alien warlord from Dimension X. There would be other enemies as well. Season 3 gave new opportunities outside the Shredder storyline, such as Don Turtelli, the Rat King, and Leatherhead. Especially in later CBS episodes, where there were many episodes without the Turtles battling Shredder, enemies such as Pinky McFingers and other minor recurring villains would fight the Turtles as well.

After Season 7, the show took a dark turn towards the action storyline that made it more of a mainstream American adventure cartoon as Dregg and other characters were created and gave the Turtles quite a zealous collection of adventures before they finally faded out in 1996. In the U.K, TMNT was broadcast under the name Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles due to fears that the "ninja" part of the logo was too extreme a word to use on British television at the time.

Knightmare

Knightmare - September 1987 to November 1994

Knightmare was an innovative and popular UK television programme for children, produced by Broadsword Productions for Anglia Television and aired on ITV from 7 September 1987 to 11 November 1994. The show is most noted for its advanced use of 'virtual reality' interactive gameplay on television, and further popularised the medieval-style fantasy games craze of the 1980s popularised by the likes of Dungeons & Dragons.

The show featured teams of four children (around 11-16 years old). On the call of "Enter, Stranger", the first member of the team (the dungeoneer) would enter Knightmare Castle via an antechamber belonging to Treguard of Dunshelm (played by Hugo Myatt). After giving his or her name, the dungeoneer would be asked by Treguard to call their three advisors, who would magically appear next to the viewing apparatus beside them (though, in Series 8, all members of the team appeared at once). Before entering the dungeon, the dungeoneer would be given a knapsack to wear, in which they were to place food found along the way, in order to replenish Life Force. In addition, the Helmet of Justice was put on the dungeoneer's head, blocking their vision except for the area immediately around them. The story was that this was to protect the dungeoneer from seeing the real danger ahead.

Star Trek : The Next Generation

Star Trek : The Next Generation - September 1987 to May 1994

Star Trek: The Next Generation (often abbreviated to TNG) is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman and Michael Pillerserved as executive producers at different times throughout the production. The show was created 21 years after the original Star Trek show, and set in the 24th century from the year 2364 through 2370 (about 100 years after the original series timeframe). The program features a new crew and a new starship Enterprise. Patrick Stewart's voice-over introduction during each episode's opening credits stated the starship's purpose (albeit modified from the original series):

“

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.

”

It premiered the week of September 28, 1987 to 27 million viewers with the two-hour pilot "Encounter at Farpoint". With 178 episodes spread over seven seasons, it ran longer than any other Star Trek series, ending with the two-hour finale "All Good Things..." the week of May 23, 1994.

The series was broadcast in first-run syndication, with dates and times varying among individual television stations. The show gained a considerable following during its run and, like The Original Series, remains popular in syndicated reruns. It was the first of several series (the others being Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Enterprise) that kept new Star Trek episodes airing until 2005. Star Trek: The Next Generation won 18 Emmy Awards and, in its seventh season, became the first, and currently only, syndicated television show to be nominated for the Emmy for Best Dramatic Series. It was nominated for three Hugo Awards and won two. The first-season episode "The Big Goodbye" also won the Peabody Award for excellence in television programming. The series formed the basis of the seventh through the tenth Star Trek films.

Ducktales

Ducktales - September 1987 to March 1990


At first, DuckTales was intended as a 1-hour network series. However, when Bob Jacquemin, head of the studio's newly formed syndication unit, learned of the series, he realized that it had the potential to be his first hit. After immense internal lobbying, Jacquemin convinced Michael Einser to let him have DuckTales, and in doing so, he virtually reinvented television animation.


One of the first decisions he announced was that Donald Duck would play a minor role in the series, for the emphasis this time was going to be on Uncle Scrooge and his three nephews. To explain Donald's absence, the writers had him enlist in the Navy after leaving his nephews with Scrooge. The studio also created some new additions to the Disney stable. Among these were Launchpad McQuack, Mrs. Beakley, Webbigail (Webby) Vanderquack, Doofus, Duckworth, Fenton Crackshell, and Bubba Duck.


DuckTales had a special 2-hour premiere in most markets on September 18, 1987, with the first regular episode airing on September 21. 87 episodes were orginally aired, 100 in total if you count the special episodes: Treasure of the Golden Suns, Time Is Money and Super DuckTales that were later split into 30 minute shows.