Why did the Ninja Turtles wear masks?

[Rakehellion]

They aren't always that way

They all have different skin color to tell them apart.

 

[poofyhairguy]

also the horrible NES turtles game.

Watched The Wizard today and was reminded of that. The underwater part was hell.

 

[RaistlinZ]

They all have different skin color to tell them apart.

As if the different weapons weren't enough, right.

 

[waggy]

that is something i wondered too. why did they all wear eye mask? its not like there are a lot of 3ft turtles walking around.

 

[RollWave]

So of all the nerds of ATOT, not one has a legit explanation?

 

[BladeVenom]

They all have different skin color to tell them apart.

The original comics were black and white. You tell them apart by their weapons.

 

[02ranger]

So of all the nerds of ATOT, not one has a legit explanation?

I assumed it started with the first cartoon to make it easier for kids to tell them apart, and just drifted over to the comics. (Assuming they wear different colors in the comics, I don't know.)

 

[Sho'Nuff]

Is there any answer to this within TMNT lore? Nerd question but I had to ask. Anyone care to chirp up?

Reason is probably marketing. Some toy manufacturer thought that it was a brilliant idea to have four turtles instead of one . . . and he was right. Kids all around the world want all four turtles.

 

[Ichinisan]

Reason is probably marketing. Some toy manufacturer thought that it was a brilliant idea to have four turtles instead of one . . . and he was right. Kids all around the world want all four turtles.

It started out as a low-budget black-and-white comic. It was a hyper-violent caricature of other popular comics...definitely not marketed specifically to kids. It was unexpectedly successful and got re-worked into a popular show and toy lineup...which was not conceived until well after the comic was made.

Since it was black-and-white, that also shoots down my theory about the "masks" existing only as a way to tell the turtles apart.

 

[alkemyst]

They need four MASKS to tie April up.

 

[Williz]

The lore reason in the cartoons / other stuff after the b&W comic was that Splinter was pretty blind so he needed the colour difference to tell them apart.