In the season 8 episode Turtle Trek, the Turtles destroy the engines of the Technodrome, trapping it and its inhabitants in Dimension X for good and putting an end to Shredder's plans (for most fans, Shredder's removal as a regular villain was the point where the show jumped the shark).

Upon TMNT's first arrival in the United Kingdom, the name was changed to "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" (or TMHT, for short), since local censorship policies deemed the word ninja to have excessively violent connotations for a children's program. Consequently, everything related to the Turtles had to be renamed before being released in the UK. The lyrics were also changed, such as changing "Splinter taught them to be ninja teens" to "Splinter taught them to be fighting teens."

The policies also had other effects, such as removing Michelangelo's nunchaku (which were at the time banned from appearing in even 18-rated movies) and generally toning down the usage of all the turtles' weapons. After many seasons of never using his nunchaku, they eventually disappeared entirely, replaced by a turtle shell shaped grappling hook called the "Turtle Line".

By the time of the 2003 TV series, these censorship policies had been abolished, and no changes have occurred in the content of the show. The name "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" remained unchanged for the 2003 show. As a result, in the UK, the 1987 program is still called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles and the 2003 program is called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.