There's a song on the album called "Pizza Power," after all

July 13, 2020 10:47 PM

How the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles became a rock band.
posted by Chrysostom (6 comments total)

I used to have every single line of this VHS tape memorized. I sat next to the TV with a cassette recorder to get an audio tape I could listen to every night before bed. It was incredibly cheesy, but to a seven year old it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. Very excited to read this.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 11:10 PM on July 13, 2020 [1 favorite]

A lot of comic book characters, there's a lot of top-down control of how the characters are used and presented, how their history is, you have to follow the 'bible' closely or you lose your rights, any divergence is seen as a dilution of the brand. Eastman and Laird, however, seemed like they were up for anything if you brought them a thought-out product:

"How about a dark and gritty movie, like Batman?" - "Sure!"

"We want to make toys, but goofball toys where the turtles are dressed as surfers and baseball players?" - "Go for it!"

"Saturday morning cartoons!" - "Why the fuck not!"

"Dark and gritty role-playing game, like your original comics?" - "Have fun."

"Hey, we're Archie comics, and we know you already make comics, but we wanna do our own!" - "SET THE MONEY OVER THERE"

And this -- "Rock and roll turtle broadway musical" and they didn't seem to miss a beat in accepting the offer.

The thing is: none of this really has diluted the brand; about the only thing which really gets put down are the TMNT movie sequels, but those are largely due to poor effort put into the process. Like, giving the turtles noses in the last movie was the biggest complaint. It's like TMNT is a blank slate that starts with "four martial arts turtles named after artists, a rat master, and a bunch of weird-ass enemies but mostly The Shredder" and anything else goes.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:22 AM on July 14, 2020 [3 favorites]

I was more inclined to the original comics and the dark and gritty role-playing game as a kid, but the blank slate nature of the turtles is definitely part of their enduring appeal! I still remember hearing someone say "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" out loud for the first time and thinking, "That's the stupidest name for a superhero I've ever heard!" and yet here we are.

And my favorite piece of TMNT trivia is that the original cartoon theme song was co-written by Chuck Lorre, who later gave up his budding career in music as a jazz guitarist after seeing a 16 year old Pat Metheny teach a class and realizing he'd never be that good. So he became a famous TV producer instead.
posted by grog at 6:35 AM on July 14, 2020 [1 favorite]

Ok I finished the article and it really is like AzraelBrown describes. Everyone involved was basically like "Wouldn't it be hilarious if..." and they just went with it. Oprah went with it. And when the actors couldn't manage the turtle shells on stage, they just got rid of the turtle shells. Anything goes!
posted by grog at 6:39 AM on July 14, 2020 [2 favorites]

"Chicago has an extraordinarily clean sewer system, we were very surprised"
posted by rebent at 4:38 PM on July 14, 2020

'Cause singin' in the sewers is a wonderful souuuuund
posted by unregistered_animagus at 7:39 PM on July 14, 2020