Aside from both being shows that ran like 30-minute commercials, do you know what they have in common?

Answer, fans who hate any new rendition of the franchise and mistakenly think that the series and toy line was the original. WRONG. The 80's several-inch plastic GI Joe figures were not in fact the origina GI Joe action figures. While the TV series may have been a pioneer of violent, cliche 80's cartoon programming with moral messages at the end, the action figures were not the very first. The very first GI Joe action figures were three feet tall and made of fancier stuff, and were created in the 60's. And these happen to be collected by people in their late forties and fifties, not quite as young as but not very much older than 80's GI Joe, TMNT, and Transformers fans. And these people would be happy to point out the other lines of GI Joe action figures that came out after the original line and before the 80s lines. Not to denigrate the 80's GI Joe show, especially since I can understand the riveting nostalgia that resounds within people who were fans of the show and its toys (Hey, I'm crazy nostalgic for the 90's). I'm only pointing this out because I've had run-ins with angry people who talked smack about any post-80's GI Joe merchandise or shows, based on their claims that the 80's line of GI Joe toys was the first and all.

Which leads me to my second point, about TMNT fans. I've seen older TMNT fans get all screechy fall-on-the-floor-and-thump-around angry about the tone of the TV show launched in 2003, about its plot, about almost everything, but here comes the false 'the show was the original thing' concept. You see, before the merchandise machine that was the pop-culture-loaded TMNT animated TV show, it was a comic. Yes, a comic. One that parodied the teen-freak-hero fad in comics, and the gritty-deathy-bleedy-mature-y-doomy-killy-deathy-gritty trend in 80's comics. It's still running. The comic wrought large interest, and thus the TV show was born. However, it had to be toned down and edited and rewritten for kids, and additional editing had to be done for some regions. I myself watched tapes of the episodes that I rented out of Blockbuster religiously, and I loved it, so don't think I'm just spouting criticism here. I am, but I'm giving well structured criticism, of a chunk of the fanhoods. Anyways, so once the 2003 show premiered, it had already been the subject of much controversy, shouting, moaning, whining, and general irritating 'but the original was sooooooo much beeeeeeetteeeeeer' talk, and the plot, art, cast, characters, settings, opening theme, credits, toys, posters, merchandise, commercials, and anything related to it was bashed. What fans of the 80's TMNT show did not understand was that this show held up to the actual plot and maturity of the comics much better, and did not have to justify itself with imitations of its predecessor. The 80's show was not the original product, it was an adaptation. But it always gets to me that people are saying that the original thing (which they think is the 80's TV show) was better, or that even the shows following it, but before the 2003 series, were better, but not realizing that the shows all operated by different standards. Yeah. I had to get that out.