Part 2 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Oh man, where to even begin. This was everything to me as a child.
The Turtles began as a dark and gritty comic back in 1984, a whole year before the world was blessed with my presence. Since I wasn't a comic book reader until around my double digit years, my first exposure to The Green Machine wasn't until the late 80's/early 90's with the cartoon. Whenever it was on, I stopped whatever I was doing, because I fell in love with this show immediately.
When I talk about Ninja Turtles, anyone from my generation immediately thinks of the cartoon that ran from 1987 - 1996, which only kept the brand's train rolling. Pretty soon, my entire life was surrounded by Turtles. I needed it all, toys, games, costumes, plastic weapons, bedsheets, VHS tapes (remember those?) figures, everything that had a Ninja Turtles name to it, I had to have it.
The show was fantastic. There was something to like about every Turtle, whether it was Leonardo's loyalty, Mikey's "big kid" attitude, Raphael's one-liners, or Donatello's nerd tendencies, you just wanted to hang out with these guys all the time. I wanted to be an honorary Turtle more than anything. In fact, there was an episode where a kid got to become an honorary Turtle, and I was actually jealous of that kid..."It's a cartoon, moron" I'm telling younger me.
The voice acting in the cartoon was superb from top to bottom. Besides the Turtles themselves, the stand-out to me was Shredder, voiced by the late James Avery (Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince of Bel Air). The acting was the right mix of smart and lighthearted and I loved every second of it.
Of course, the success of the Turtles on the small screen helped propel it to the big screen. Of the 5 movies that currently have been made, I personally enjoy 4 of them. We won't talk about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III, because ugh....gah....bleh...barf...you get the idea.
Which always leads me to one of the coolest things the Turtles ever did, the Coming Out of Their Shells Tour. Oh man!
In 1990, the Turtles decided to take their talents to the stage and formed a band. Touring the country and putting out a cassette (remember THOSE?) and VHS tape, which is probably still in my parent's basement. If this sounds super cheesy, don't worry, it was, but oh man I ate this up and loved it!
This is the equivalent of taking your kids to see The Wiggles now, I suppose, but I have pure, nostalgic love for this, and I do recognize that, yes, this was terrible, but I still love it!
The world domination also bled into the realm of electronic entertainment with MULTIPLE video games, with mixed results. The original Turtles game for NES is a game I played a lot of, but it was a really bad game. The follow up: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, still stands as one of my favorite games of all time!
The Ninja Turtles are still a big deal to this day. The cartoon has gone through a few changes and reboots over the years, with a new cartoon being made now that includes...dinosaurs...sure? Of course, there was the recent Megan Fox/Will Arnett movie with a sequal planned for next year bringing in Arrow's Stephen Amell to play Casey Jones, and WWE's Shaemus playing Rocksteady. Just talking about that is getting my stoked for that movie. Personally, I thought the recent movie was fine, inoffensive, and made me look forward to the sequel.
Alright, let's wrap this up because, honestly, I could talk about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles all day. This brand, and these characters, have been such a huge part of my life, even up to today, whenever I talk about them, or hear the theme song, or see anything with their name on it, I turn into a 5-year-old boy again. I watched the trailers for the recent movie over and over again and got goosebumps. Turtle Power, bitches!
Oh, and also...#TeamDonatello
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