Nickelodeon renews Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for a third season

When the latest incarnation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles premiered to stellar ratings back in September, Nickelodeon immediately announced that it had renewed the CG-animated show for a second season. Now, with the hit series just three quarters of the way through its first season, the network has moved to ensure that the Heroes in a Half Shell remain part of its programming schedule long-term by ordering a third season of 26 episodes.

The third animated offering from the TMNT franchise features an impressive voice cast which includes Jason Biggs (American Reunion) as Leonardo, Sean Astin (The Lord of the Rings) as Raphael and Greg Cipes (Ultimate Spider-Man) as Michelangelo, while Rob Paulsen (who voiced Raphael in the classic 1987-1996 series) now portrays Donatello. Other regulars include Mae Whitman (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) as April O'Neil, Kevin Michael Richardson (ThunderCats) as the Shredder and Hoon Lee (Premium Rush) as Splinter.

The third season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will presumably take the show through to 2015 at the earliest, by which point the Turtles will have also returned to the big screen courtesy of producer Michael Bay (Transformers) and director Jonathan Liebesman (Wrath of the Titans), who have the live-action Ninja Turtles scheduled for release on May 16th, 2014.