Time To Shell-abrate!

Happy 25th birthday Turtles

BY COLIN ENQUIST

In 1984, the town of Northampton, Massachusetts, something was born from pen and paper that took the world by storm. It was a concept that arose from sketches by Kevin Eastman, who was just having a casual evening with his good friend Peter Laird. The two young artists set out with their tax refund money and a loan from a family member, to create a comic book parody of four popular comics of the early 1980s, Marvel Comics’ Daredevil and New Mutants, Frank Miller’s Ronin and Dave Sim’s Cerebus.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was born. The independent comic book, published by Mirage Studios, also founded by Eastman and Laird, was a huge success. Printed in black & white in an oversized magazine style format, the limited print run of 3,000 copies, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles become the hot collector’s item any creator could hope for. They would eventually sell over 1, 000, 000 copies of issue one. The instant success helped catapult the Turtles into other forms of media, making their creators multi-millionaires.

Most of the general public think Turtles as a cute show for kids, not knowing about the early comics, which were very violent and dark. My brother and I both grew up watching Turtles on Saturday morning cartoons. I have had Turtles everything, from having video games, Halloween costumes and action figures. Now I even own all 3 live action films, the newest CGI film (TMNT) and the first 6 volumes of the original series sitting on my DVD shelf. To celebrate the Turtles 25th birthday I run down some of the best moments in my opinion in the Turtles celebrated history.

Best moments:

Raph vs Leo in TMNT: Being from the newest Turtles movie this may have a head start on everything because it is the most fresh in my mind. Watching this scene play out on the rooftops on the big screen was fantastic. It was almost like the entire show(s), films and comics were waiting for this moment.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game: This was the game that took hours from my life. I even bought a copy a few years ago for my NES at a flea market. Best $20 I ever spent, as it took more hours from me! The game was so much fun, building on the success of the first game which many people believed was fun but very difficult. This arcade style Turtles game seemed to have the cowabunga attitude the Turtles shared.

Turtles Issue 1: Hard to argue that this wasn’t a fantastic read. With the gritty pencil styles and the black and white pages, the Turtles jumped off the page as you learn their origin and witness their first encounter with the Shredder.

April faints, twice!: The 1987 series opens with the Turtles emerging from the shadows to save April O’Neil. April faints meeting the famous shellheads and then again when she meets Master Splinter. This comedic aspect was the tone the entire series uses for its 10 year run.

Food tie ins galore: Turtles, turtles everywhere, Ninja Turtles Cereal, Chef Boyardee TMNT Pasta, TMNT Cracks (think goldfish crackers but with Turtles), Farley’s Fruit Snacks, McCain TMNT Frozen Pizza and Royal OOZE Gelatin Desserts were just some of the food related items they had. Not including the advertising for Pizza Hut and other companies the Turtles did when they weren’t in the sewers.

Pizza Thrower: With a good chunk of the toy market already in the palm of their hands Playmates decides to diversify. We start to get a lot of accessories, play sets (the Technodrome) and vehicles flooding the market. None were as fun as the Donatello’s gadget, the Pizza Thrower.

2003 TV series: Darker and edgier, this is the Turtles of the comic books. The new series took a different turn story wise, adding sub plots and stories that run over entire seasons. Most episodes are actually stand alone, we get a few stories that run over a 2-4 episode span. Another slight change, while keeping the science fiction aspect of the original show, a supernatural element has been added, going so far as Shredder actually being a demon. An argument can be made that this show is more along the lines of Batman: The Animated series then the original Turtles show.

Success at the box office: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the movie has grossed over $200 million worldwide, it was the highest grossing independent film of all time when it was released. The success spawned sequels as well as a live action TV series. The move was thematically closer to the comic series, but took a few items from the original cartoon. Lighter tones were taken for the films sequels, even to Eastman and Laird’s dismay, who created Tokka and Razhar for the second film because they didn’t want the director to portray Bebop and Rocksteady as laughable goons they are in the 1987 series.