Teeny Mutant Ninja Turtles, a New Preschool TMNT Series, Premieres July 24 on Nick Jr. YouTube

Nickelodeon has a new corner of the Turtle-verse launching this week. Teeny Mutant Ninja Turtles, an original animated series from Nickelodeon Digital Studio, premieres Friday, July 24 on the Nick Jr. YouTube channel with 30 episodes running about four minutes each.

The series scales the heroes down to their earliest days. Rather than the teenagers fans know, it follows Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo during their childhood as ninjas-in-training, before they became the heroes in a half shell. Their friend April O’Neil is along for the ride, and the young turtles run into foes including Bebop, Rocksteady and Karai.

The four Teeny Mutant Ninja Turtles face a giant sentient pizza inside the sewer lair in a still from the new series.

Source: Paramount / Nickelodeon Digital Studio

The look leans on the character designs from the 2012 Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series more than any other version, though there are nods to other eras too, including the initial letters on each turtle’s belt buckle, a callback to the 1987 cartoon. The reveal stills released with the official teaser center on a run-in with a giant, talking pizza, a villain that resembles Pizza Face from the 2012 show. According to reporting from Polygon, the young turtles carry softened, more colorful takes on their signature weapons, with Leonardo wielding a single sword.

Teeny Mutant Ninja Turtles is a preschool-aimed take on the property, arriving just over ten years after Nickelodeon’s earlier all-ages TMNT brand extension, Half Shell Heroes, which launched in 2015 with the special Blast to the Past plus a toy line. The new series continues Nickelodeon’s stewardship of the characters, which the company has held since acquiring TMNT in 2009.

Collectors watching the Bebop and Rocksteady mutant-henchmen roster, and April O’Neil in her many incarnations, get another design variant to track when the episodes go live.

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