This is weird because my husband and I were just talking about this last night, and neither one of us saw the Cracked video!
Turns out we both likes Michaelangelo the most when we were kids, so that’s who I voted for. He was just the funniest!
Hrn. Y’really ought include a ‘which version’ option.
Cuz the comics, the 1987 cartoon, the movies, and the 2003 cartoon all present very different takes on the characters (despite the archetypes - Leo the Leader, Don the tech-geek, Mikey the goofball, and Raph the badass - being consistent).
For example, let’s compare Mikey and Raph in the comics and the old cartoon.
Relative to their same-media brothers, Mikey’s a goofball, and Raph’s a badass.
Relative to their cross-media duplicates, Comics-Mikey’s a badass, and Cartoon-Raph’s a goofball - they probably come out to about even with each other.
Or, compare comics or movie Raph to either cartoon Raph, and the snarkers of the cartoons get replaced by rather antisocial jerks.
Then, of course, the 1987 cartoon team would NEVER have killed Shredder, which the comics team did… (The movie and 2003 characters probably would, but never had to.)
Donatello does machines!
Donatello?! But remember that College Humor video where he’s portrayed as the afterthought? That was always how I thought of him as a kid.
I thought for sure it would be Raphael. He’s so tortured and angsty! Like the James Dean of turtles.
ETA: Crap, beaten to it. But antonio, agree, it’s brilliant. (Though Billy WAS my fave Power Ranger…)
I can’t tell one from the other. I was just outside the demographic when they became big, and I barely paid any attention to it. Even now, after some familiarity with versions of the product, I couldn’t tell you which colour bandanna, which personality, or which weapon, goes with which character.
I can’t even decide. I just keep thinking of the action figures my older brother and I would play with as kids. We had a Turtle Van mounted with a gun that shot pizzas. It was awesome. Our Michelangelo’s head kept falling off, and we’d just run with it. We’d be in the middle of a huge battle and Michelangelo would say “Aw, what a time for my head to fall off!”.
raphael cause he’s cool but rude (gimme a break!)
As a kid, definitely Donatello. I was nerdy, non-violent, and he was also the best character to use in many of the games because of his reach.
Now that I am becoming more outgoing and confident, somewhat of an alpha-nerd, I find myself being drawn to Leonardo. Also, swords are freakin’ sweet.
If I was forced to choose, I guess I’d still go with Donatello, but gosh this is hard to choose. It’s like the world’s lamest existential crisis.
I was also a Donatello fan for reasons already mentioned by others: the nerd factor, and the benefit of the staff in the video game.
While I also loved Don’s intelligence, it was also a win by default. I’m not a leader like Leo, am not angsty like Raph, and strove my whole life not to be as annoying as Mikey. Donatello was all that was left, even with his fake science and often afterthought status.
Heck, that last part meant I could use my imagination more, and make him even more like me. I loved characters that I thought were similar to me.
Donatello. Not only does he find happiness working with his machines, but he also ignores the mockery that this causes him to endure from the other turtles.
I started with the Palladium RPG and the comics. Raph all the way.
No votes for Venus?
I wish I could say “Venus who?” without it being a joke. There are people who liked that series?
OK, I can say it without it being a joke. Was there a female turtle introduced at some point?
Holy socks, Batman, I did NOT know that. I’m a little 
too, now that I do - the TMNJs were my friggin’ heroes when I was a kid. Somehow shoehorning in a girl just to up the girl-factor seems lame, and I say that while also being a girl…
Donnie’s the man… er… the turtle. Liked him best ever since I bought his micro-series, the first TMNT comic I ever bought.
VanGogho, I love his crazy style.
I didn’t know about Venus, but wasn’t there an ep where Raphael met a girl lizard mutant…thingy who called herself Mona Lisa? He went above ground to some costume party (where he went as a ninja turtle, naturally) and that’s where he met her. I think it was a party on a boat.