Teen Titans (TV series)

Teen Titans
Genre	Action-adventure Superhero Comedy-drama
Created by	Glen Murakami
Based on	Teen Titans by Bob Haney Bruno Premiani
Developed by	David Slack
Voices of	Greg Cipes Scott Menville Khary Payton Tara Strong Hynden Walch
Theme music composer	Andy Sturmer
Opening theme	"Teen Titans Theme", performed by Puffy AmiYumi
Composer(s)	Kristopher Carter Michael McCuistion Lolita Ritmanis
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	65 (+ 1 online) (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Sander Schwartz For Cartoon Network: Sam Register Tramm Wigzell Todd Casey
Producer(s)	Glen Murakami Linda M. Steiner Bruce Timm (seasons 1–2)
Running time	25 minutes
Production company(s)	DC Entertainment Warner Bros. Animation
Distributor	Warner Bros. Television Distribution
Release
Original network	Cartoon Network The WB
Picture format	1080i (HDTV)
Audio format	Stereo (DVD releases)[1] Dolby Surround
Original release	July 19, 2003 (2003-07-19) – September 15, 2006 (2006-09-15)
Chronology
Followed by	Teen Titans Go!
External links
Official website	www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/titans/index.html

Teen Titans is an American animated television series created by Glen Murakami, based on the DC Comics characters of the same name. It is based primarily on the run of stories by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez in the early 1980s New Teen Titans comic book series.

Teen Titans premiered on Cartoon Network on July 19, 2003, and also premiered on Kids' WB!. Initially, only four seasons were planned, but the popularity of the series led to Cartoon Network ordering a fifth season. The final half-hour episode of the show, "Things Change", aired on January 16, 2006; it was later followed by a TV movie, Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo, that premiered on September 15, 2006, serving as the series finale.

Teen Titans became one of Cartoon Network's most beloved and critically acclaimed series, renowned for its character development and serious themes. During its run, the series was nominated for three Annie Awards and one Motion Picture Sound Editors Award. Spin-off media included comics, DVD releases, video games, music albums, and collectible toys. Reruns have aired on Cartoon Network's retro animation sister channel Boomerang. In 2013, the show spawned a spin-off, titled Teen Titans Go!. The show returned for reruns on August 7, 2017. ^[2]

Plot

Characters

The Teen Titans from left to right:
Cyborg, Robin, Beast Boy, Starfire, and Raven

Teen Titans centers around the five main members of the superhero team: Robin (Scott Menville), the intelligent, capable leader of the Teen Titans; Starfire (Hynden Walch), a quirky, curious alien princess from the planet Tamaran; Cyborg (Khary Payton), a half-human/half-robot who is known for his strength and technological prowess; Raven (Tara Strong), a stoic girl from the parallel world Azarath, who draws upon dark energy and psionic abilities; and Beast Boy (Greg Cipes), a ditzy, good-natured joker who can transform into various animals. They are situated in Titans Tower, a large T-shaped structure featuring living quarters as well as a command center and variety of training facilities, on an island just offshore from the fictional West Coast metropolis of Jump City.

The team deals with all manner of criminal activity and threats to the city, while dealing with their own struggles with adolescence, their mutual friendships, and their limitations. Slade, their main enemy, is a newly designed version of the DC villain Deathstroke. The team encounters several allies throughout the series; including Aqualad in the first season; Terra in the second season (who is integral to that season's story arc), as well as Speedy, Hotspot, and Wildebeest; Bumblebee and Más y Menos in the third season (who join Aqualad, Speedy and Bumblebee to form 'Titans East'), and numerous other heroes adapted from the DC universe in the fifth season to aid in the battle against the Brotherhood of Evil.

Secret identities

Unlike most other superhero television series, the Teen Titans characters maintain their superhero identities at all times, with any hints at the concept of an alter ego or secret identity rarely explored. Traditionally, in the comics, the characters Raven, Cyborg, Starfire, Beast Boy, and Terra do not have secret identities (Starfire being a translation of her Tamaranean birth name, Cyborg's real name being public knowledge, Beast Boy's natural appearance being a dead giveaway, and Raven and Terra simply not taking another identity).

In particular, some fans debated which Robin leads the Teen Titans, with several hints throughout the series suggesting it is Dick Grayson. These include Robin's alternate dimensional counterpart Larry in the episode "Fractured" being named Nosyarg Kcid ("Dick Grayson" spelled backwards), Robin's counterpart in the episode "How Long Is Forever?" having taken on the identity of Nightwing (Grayson's identity in the DC continuity), and a glimpse into Robin's consciousness by Raven in the episode "Haunted" showing the memory of two acrobats falling from a trapeze (the death of Grayson's acrobat parents being the catalyst for him becoming Robin). Further connections to the Batman mythos include two references in the episode "The Apprentice, Pt. II", when Robin responds to a suggestion by the villain Deathstroke that he "might be like a father to [him]" with "I already have a father" (which transitions to a shot of flying bats) and a fight scene on the rooftop of a building labeled Wayne Enterprises.

It was really important to me that little kids watching it could identify with characters. And I thought that the minute you start giving them secret identities then kids couldn't project themselves onto the characters anymore. And that was important to me. I know it's kind of important to have secret identities and stuff like that but we wanted everything to be realyl, really, iconic. Like, "Oh, there's the robot guy. There's the alien girl. There's the witch girl. There's the shape-changing boy." There's the we [sic] just wanted it really clean like that. We wanted it like old Star Trek. We just wanted it simple...

...And the whole "Who's Robin?" controversy is really kind of interesting to me. My big concern is just trying to make Robin cool. And just really set Robin apart from Batman. So if it seems like I'm avoiding the question, I sort of am. Because I don't think it's really important. My concern is how do I make Robin a really strong lead character without all that other stuff. And I feel that way about all the characters. How can I keep all the characters really iconic and really clean.

— Glen Murakami, Drawing Inspiration: An Interview with Glen Murakami, April 2004^[3]

The policy of not mentioning the characters' secret identities is broken in the fifth season, where the Doom Patrol members refer to Beast Boy by his real name, Garfield (though the Titans still continue to call him Beast Boy). In "Go", the Titans ask Beast Boy about his mask and he states it hides his true identity, though Raven points out that with green skin, pointed ears, and fangs, he "has no secret to hide".

Episodes

Each season contains a distinct story arc that is centric to a specific Titan on the team. Starfire is the only member who was part of the original roster to not have a season focus on her.

Cancellation

In mid-November 2005, TitansTower.com reported that prospects for a sixth season were looking extremely unlikely, and fans were urged^[8] to express their support for the show to Cartoon Network. Several days after this initial posting, word came that Cartoon Network had officially terminated the show.^[9] According to Wil Wheaton, the actor who provided the voice of Aqualad, the series was terminated by new Warner Bros. Feature Animation executives who made the decision not to renew the series based on its sixth season pitch.^[10] Wheaton's story was contradicted by series story editor Rob Hoegee, who stated that the decision came from Cartoon Network, not WB, and that there were never any plans for a sixth season.^[11]

After the last episode, Warner Bros. Animation announced a feature film titled Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo. The film premiered at San Diego Comic-Con International and was shown on Cartoon Network first on September 15, 2006, aired on Kids' WB on September 16, 2006, and finally released on DVD on February 6, 2007.

DC Nation shorts and reboot

The series was revisited as a series of old shorts in 2012 for the DC Nation programming block on Cartoon Network. Dubbed New Teen Titans, the shorts began airing on September 11, 2012. The shorts featured the Titans in chibi form, with the principal cast members of the original series returning.^[12]

Teen Titans Go! was announced as a spin-off, but not significantly related in terms of story to both the Teen Titans series, and the New Teen Titans shorts.^[13] The series premiered on April 23, 2013.^[14]

In other media

• Payton, Cipes, and Walch reprised their respective character roles as Cyborg, Beast Boy, Starfire and Blackfire in DC Super Hero Girls.
• Several character details from Teen Titans, like Raven's standard incantation Azarath Metrion Zinthos and Beast Boy's super-werewolf form from the episode "The Beast Within", were incorporated into the animated movie Justice League vs. Teen Titans.

Impact on DC continuity

Teen Titans has never been established to be a part of the larger DC animated universe or The Batman animated series. Series producer Bruce Timm stated the series would not cross over with Justice League Unlimited. The character Speedy, who first appeared in the episode "Winner Take All", later appeared in Justice League Unlimited with the same costume design and voice actor (Mike Erwin) as the Teen Titans incarnation (though he is older in appearance). Kid Flash was voiced by Michael Rosenbaum in his appearances in the show, who was the same actor who voiced the Flash in Justice League Unlimited. The follow-up series, Teen Titans Go!, has featured several appearances by Batman, but they have all been non-speaking appearances. Both Batman and Alfred Pennyworth appear in DC Nation's New Teen Titans "Red X Unmasked." In the season 2 episode of Teen Titans Go!, "Let's Get Serious", Aqualad (voiced by Khary Payton), Superboy, and Miss Martian of the Young Justice team appear.

Much like X-Men: Evolution and Batman: the Animated Series, the series has affected the comics that initially inspired it, including: Beast Boy adopting the series' purple and black outfit during DC's "52" storyline and later appearing with the pointed ears and fanged teeth originated by the series,^[15] future Cyborg having the same armor pattern of his animated counterpart in the Titans Tomorrow storyline,^[16] Raven adapting her animated counterpart's costume design in the "One Year Later" storyline, the characters Más Y Menos making appearances in 52 and the Final Crisis limited series,^[17] the character Joto was renamed "Hotspot" during 52 to match his cartoon counterpart,^[18] and the villain Cinderblock appearing in a fight with the most recent comic incarnation of the Titans.^[19]

Media

Comics

Toys

Bandai released a line of action figures based on the Teen Titans animated series. The line included 1.5 inch "Comic Book Hero" mini figures, 3.5 inch action figures (including "Teen Titans Launch Tower Playset", "Teen Titans Command Center", "Battling Machines", "T-Vehicles", "T-Sub Deluxe Vehicles"), 5 inch action figures, 6.5 inch plush Super-D Toys, and 10 inch figures. Amongst the characters included in the line were the main members of the Teen Titans, Titans East, and various allies and villains.^[20][21]

Reception

While early reception to the series was mixed to positive, it would go on to receive critical acclaim in later years. Early into the series' run, Executive Producer and Cartoon Network Vice President Sam Register responded to criticism regarding the style of the show with a statement slightly contradicting Murakami's statement about wanting Robin to "be cool" with his metal-tipped boots:

Justice League is awesome and Samurai Jack is awesome and we buy a lot of anime shows that are great, but those shows really are directed more towards the nine to fourteen age group, and the six and seven and eight-year-olds were not gelling with the Justice League and some of the more of the fanboy shows...The main mission was making a good superhero show for kids. Now if the fanboys happen to like the Teen Titans also, that's great, but that was not our mission.

— Sam Register, CBR News interview, May 8, 2004

However, while the series' creators initially stated that younger children were the intended audience for the series, Teen Titans Go! writer J. Torres notes that the progression and deeper themes of the show widened the appeal to a much broader audience:

... [The show] started out skewed a lot younger... but along the way, I think the producers discovered it was reaching a wider audience. ... [the show] got into some darker story lines, and they introduced a lot more characters, so they expanded on it, and they let the show evolve with the audience.

— J. Torres, Titans Companion 2 by Glen Cadigan.^[22]

In 2009, Teen Titans was named the 83rd best animated series by IGN.^[23] In 2014, WatchMojo.com ranked Teen Titans as the sixth best cartoon to have been cancelled.^[24]

Awards and nominations

2005 Annie Awards

• Outstanding Storyboarding in an Animated Television Production (Nominated)

2004 Annie Awards

• Outstanding Music in an Animated Television Production (Nominated)
• Outstanding Storyboarding in an Animated Television Production (Nominated)

2004 Motion Picture Sound Editors Awards

• Best Sound Editing in Television Animation (Nominated)

See also

• Justice League (TV series)
• Justice League Unlimited
• Young Justice (TV series)

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Teen Titans

• Official website
• Teen Titans at TV.com
• Teen Titans on IMDb
• David Slack Interviews: Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4, Season 5