March 31, 2025

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) - Part 1: From Sewers to Stardom. How Four Mutant Turtles Changed Action Cinema

Episode Summary:
In this bodacious episode of The Fandom Portals Podcast, hosts Aaron and Brash shell out their thoughts on the classic 1990 film, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

They reminisce about their first encounters with the turtles, from the animated series to the iconic movie. The hosts also dive into some totally tubular trivia, behind-the-scenes secrets about the Jim Henson Creature Shop suits, and compare the 90s film to Michael Bay's 2010s take. It's a nostalgic trip filled with pizza, puns, and plenty of turtle power.

Topics:

Gratitudes and Growths: Personal Reflections Before Diving into TMNT
First Takes: Our First Impressions of the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie & Fan Reactions
Fandom Fact Face-Off: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie Trivia Challenge!
Set Secrets: Unmasking the Magic - The 1990 TMNT Animatronic Suits
Devil's Avocado: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Face-Off - 1990s vs. Michael Bay's TMNT Designs
Sign-Off: Calling All Turtle Fans!

Key Takeaways:

The 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie holds a special place in the hearts of many fans, evoking nostalgia for the late 80s and early 90s "Turtle Mania".
The film's success was surprising, as many Hollywood studios were initially hesitant to back it, fearing it would flop like other comic book adaptations of the time.
Jim Henson's Creature Shop created the groundbreaking animatronic suits for the turtles, which, while impressive for their time, had their share of challenges for the stunt performers.
There's debate about the best portrayal of the turtles, with the 1990s film's practical effects being compared to the CGI-heavy designs of Michael Bay's movies.

Quotes:

"As a wise man said, forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
"This is legit peak turtles until the mutant mayhem movie came out."

Call to Action:

Cowabunga! If you enjoyed this trip down memory lane, please subscribe to The Fandom Portals Podcast for more deep dives into the fandoms you love! Leave us a review, and share this episode with your friends on social media using the hashtag #FandomPortalsTurtles .

Apple Podcast Tags:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, TMNT, 1990s movies, comic book movies, nostalgia, pop culture, movie review, film analysis, behind the scenes, Jim Henson, practical effects, CGI, fandom, geek

Instagram: instagram.com/fandomportals/?locale=en
Threads: threads.net/@fandomportals
Email: fandomportals@gmail.com
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/fandomportals

Chapters

00:15 - Introducing the Turtles Episode

01:05 - Movie Background and Community Picks

03:13 - First Encounters With TMNT

09:51 - Fan Reactions and Nostalgia

15:26 - Fandom Fact Face-Off Begins

27:33 - The Turtle Suits: Behind the Scenes

38:06 - Comparing 1990 Turtles to Modern Versions

44:23 - Final Thoughts and Episode Close-Out

Transcript

WEBVTT

00:00:15.275 --> 00:00:15.875
Hello everybody.

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It's Aaron here from the Fandom Portals Podcast.

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I'm joined here, as always, by my amazing turtle brother, brash.

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How you going, brash?

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How about yourself?

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Oh, mate, I'm having a great day.

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It's Boston over time.

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The reason we're talking like this, guys, is because this is our Portal is Pick episode, and we are happy to announce that this episode is all about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the 1990 original motion picture movie.

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We want to thank Biorial Seth on our threads community for suggesting this one.

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You we want to thank Bioreal Seth on our threads community for suggesting this one.

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You guys voted for it amongst some of our other titles that are on our Letterboxd watch list.

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So thank you very much, bioreal Seth.

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This one goes out to you.

00:00:53.155 --> 00:01:01.933
So, yes, today we're going to be talking about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the 1990 version.

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There's been lots and lots of remakes and different kind of medias since then.

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But before we get into all that, we always start with our gratitudes and growths.

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Uh, brash, we're gonna start with you today.

00:01:15.087 --> 00:01:15.608
Oh shit, yeah, all right.

00:01:15.608 --> 00:01:20.742
Uh, I am grateful for having a person above me that can take my on-call phone calls when I'm asleep and I don't answer my phone because it doesn't wake me up.

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Twice now in my week of being on call, I have slept through my phone ringing and they've had to escalate it to the next person up who has issued out those jobs.

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So thank you, graham.

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Thank you, graham.

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Save my ass, all right.

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My gratitude for the week, brash, is you.

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I'm grateful for you because we have kind of chalked out a little space in our week to do this and I look forward to it all the time.

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And I look forward to it not only because I'm doing something that I love, but I also look forward to it because I'm doing it with you.

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Oh, thanks man, Me too, me too.

00:01:57.911 --> 00:02:07.049
Yeah, no, I'm really grateful for you man, really, Really grateful for being such a good friend and sharing interests and, you know, diving into this with me headfirst and being there along the way.

00:02:07.049 --> 00:02:16.359
So we get into some, you know, some big topics in our MVT section sometimes, yeah, and it's good to be able to talk to somebody and, you know, reflect when you need to and do that kind of stuff.

00:02:16.659 --> 00:02:18.162
Yeah, well, there's one of my highlights of my week.

00:02:18.162 --> 00:02:23.348
Hmm, yeah, I really think the highlight I have is when I take Ace to the Dog.

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Well, now there's two and I'm happy to be a part of it.

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But, yeah, thank you, brash, I'm grateful for you.

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Man, oh, thank you All good.

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All right, let's do our first takes segment.

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The first takes segment is where we discuss how we first encountered the movie, what our initial impressions of the movie were and our feelings on the media after having watched it.

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We also share our community's thoughts on the media.

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For those that have contributed to our social pages, if you would like to, those links are in the show notes below.

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The best place to do it is on Threads and on Instagram, and you can also now do it on our website, which is wwwvendumpoddlespodcastcom.

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Obviously, today we're talking about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles suggested for us for our Pullers Pick episode by Boreal Seth from our Threads community, and this is a movie about four teenage mutant ninja turtles emerging from the shadows to protect New York City from a gang of criminal ninjas who have also kidnapped their rat father.

00:03:19.353 --> 00:03:24.510
Now, if you say that in a normal conversation without context, it sounds ludicrous.

00:03:24.531 --> 00:03:29.026
No, it sounds like you need a room in a padded cell exactly right.

00:03:29.086 --> 00:03:35.788
It is definitely a like a far-fetched kind of ip, originating in the 1990s, obviously 1980s actually.

00:03:36.209 --> 00:03:59.282
But we're going to actually talk now, brash, about how you first encountered these turtles, what was your first memories of them and whether you'd watch this particular movie, the one from 1990, before or not yeah, so my first encounter with this was probably back when I was uh, I'd have to say about five, five or four, probably earlier, but I'll be doing too young to remember that kind of stuff.

00:03:59.282 --> 00:04:15.594
But, um, uh, because it was always ninja Turtles, power Rangers, batman animated series and Biker, meister of Mars and Street Sharks, that is the staples of a very good childhood.

00:04:15.716 --> 00:04:18.689
Saturday morning so those were my favorite shows growing up.

00:04:18.689 --> 00:04:26.326
I used to have a dress up of Donatello, yeah, yeah, because he had his quarter staff and everything.

00:04:27.108 --> 00:04:27.529
Very cool.

00:04:27.529 --> 00:04:29.605
So what about the Ninja Turtles?

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Is this the first thing that you saw of the Ninja Turtles?

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Do you think, Do you remember?

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No, so the animated show would have been the first thing I watched, and I probably didn't watch the actual movie until probably later in the 90s, I reckon, because I think, well, we'll probably get into it a bit later.

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The movie's actually quite dark.

00:04:48.331 --> 00:04:51.434
Yes, yeah, so I don't think I was.

00:04:51.434 --> 00:04:58.540
I mean, even though, to be fair, my sister and my brother have made me watch some pretty heavy stuff when I was younger, because it's Ninja Turtles.

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They probably weren't that interested in it as I was, so it's probably not one of the ones they made me watch, so as I was, so it's probably not one of the ones that made me watch.

00:05:05.425 --> 00:05:10.930
So I had to watch it on my own when I was able to, but later on in life, so for me, the Ninja Turtles I can't remember my life without them in it.

00:05:11.172 --> 00:05:15.156
Honestly, they're like that long lost brother that you haven't seen for a very long time.

00:05:15.156 --> 00:05:28.463
But from from my memory flashbacks, I remember having a bedspread of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the early 90s and from there I also remember watching the cartoon at one of my cousin's house, the theme song.

00:05:28.463 --> 00:05:42.685
I remember my mom singing that with me when I was a kid and this was just like fragments of memories that I've seen as well and I've also felt always connected to the Ninja Turtles, just because of the themes and the colors and the awesomeness of the turtles, how they are For this movie.

00:05:42.685 --> 00:05:48.052
I was saying off mic before that I thought I had seen this movie but in fact I had not.

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The first time I watched this movie was for this podcast, and the one that I thought that I watched that was this one was actually the third one Turtles in Time.

00:05:55.488 --> 00:05:58.242
Turtles in Time, yeah, because I was like when are they going to get into samurai suits?

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And it never happened.

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Yeah, or the fifth turtle, venus, venus Venus, her name was oh sorry, yeah sorry, there are four turtles.

00:06:07.793 --> 00:06:08.656
Yes, yeah, venus.

00:06:11.240 --> 00:06:11.321
Yeah.

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So that was a shock to me because I was waiting for them to go to feudal Japan and I was like how is this going to happen?

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But it never did.

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It never came.

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So this was a delightful surprise to me.

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I also own a lot of the comic books when they updated them to the IDW distributing studio and they're probably one of my favourite kind of comic books that I've read in trade paperback.

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They're really good.

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The 2003 cartoon I believe it was 2003 TMNT, what it was called that used to be on Cheese TV in Australia.

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Yeah, that like blew me away.

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Oh, that was probably my favourite animated adaption of Champions of the New Geeks.

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Yeah, I think so too, and I actually found a lot of similarities between this movie and that cartoon, at least in the first season, at least before they started going.

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You know, intergalactic and U-Tron.

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It was such a great animation though.

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Yeah, the fight scenes were actually really good, and it just got me excited every time I watched it?

00:07:06.211 --> 00:07:07.494
Yeah, absolutely I loved it.

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So yeah, let's flick to our social medias now, because we had quite a number of responses to this one On our Reddit page.

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We had 152 upvotes and over 62 original comments.

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It says Trapper Keeper says I want an R-rated movie.

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I believe the Last Ronin is coming out.

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Yeah, and that should be pretty hectic, because that's when Mickey goes all.

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Yes, he's the last one, yeah, he goes all, but it becomes like it goes like Super Saiyan in it, yeah, yeah, where he's like super powerful and has like extra powers and everything.

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Yeah, and I think the best thing about that version of the Ninja Turtles is that, for the first couple of issues at least, they kept it a very big secret about who that Ronin Turtle was.

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Everybody was trying to guess who it was, and it was a very big shock when it turned out to be Michelangelo.

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Yeah, the one who you'd think would be the most passive, fun-loving one just ends up being this fucking badass brutal.

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Yeah, all right, we have Jay Buds on our Reddit that says as a wise man said, forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza.

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That was a very common quote obviously from the movie we have.

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Asco says that it's absolute cinema, which was also agreed upon by 43 other users.

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Some people have said that it is easily the best comic book adaptation movie of all time.

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On our Reddits as well.

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We have Dirty Old Sock Life from Reddit, great name comic book adaptation movie of all time.

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On our reddits as well.

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We have dirty old sock life from reddit.

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Great name says this is legit peak turtles until the mutant mayhem movie came out.

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Yeah, we also have easy goat from reddit.

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That says remarkably dark for a children's franchise, whereas the sequels are much more flippant and typical family action films.

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The original was unique and was my first introduction to heavier themes in a film as a young person and there is a reason for that too yeah, yeah, and we'll probably go into that a little bit later.

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Over onto our threads we put a post up that says what do you think of this movie, the teenage mutant ninja turtles movie from 1990.

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We put the poster up there and we have thrash and treasure podcast.

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Who's a good friend his name's also aaron, by the way he says why are you asking such a loaded question?

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We all know this is a cinematic masterpiece.

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Kamozi Mills says I enjoyed it, splinter had my favorite moments in the whole movie and we also had Agent Sonar who said I think you spelled cinematic masterpiece wrong.

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So there's a lot of fans of this movie, brash.

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And the word nostalgia comes to mind once again through the 1990s, because during the time when this came out it was like in the late 80s, early 90s, incredibly popular ip.

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It was like everywhere there was turtle mania that was streaming through, especially america, and, um, you know, there was a toy line.

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There was the famous cartoon, obviously, that obviously debuted in 1987, which made it very popular for kids, and there was the comic book that was created by Eastman and Laird.

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That really surprised them when they released it to have it be so popular.

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So there's definitely some love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

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All right, are you ready to get into our fandom fact face-off?

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Brash, ready, ready, all right, everybody.

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This is our fandom fact face off.

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One hosts ask another a series of trivia questions associated with the focus media.

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The host with the most collected points from the fandom fact face off segment will shout the opposing co-host to an all expenses paid trip to the movies.

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Now, this is our last week for the month of may and we're at eight.

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All I'm instigating.

00:10:23.282 --> 00:10:24.884
Another rule, brash, oh, okay.

00:10:24.884 --> 00:10:32.533
The rule is you can ask clarifying questions, but you're only allowed to ask for one hint through the whole segment.

00:10:32.533 --> 00:10:34.634
Okay, okay, because we've got to get to it.

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Okay, now remember, this movie was directed by Steve Barron, it was written by Kevin Eastman, peter Laird and it actually stars Judith Hogue and Elias Cochise, who plays April O'Neill, and also Casey Jones, before we jump into the Fandom Fact Face-Off segment.

00:10:49.826 --> 00:10:51.726
Brash, probably not a question of yours.

00:10:51.726 --> 00:10:55.945
If it is, I'll cut it, but do you know the budget for this movie?

00:10:57.549 --> 00:11:02.624
Um was it like 1.25 mil no it was a little bit more than that 1.3 mil.

00:11:02.624 --> 00:11:05.207
It was $13 million.

00:11:05.207 --> 00:11:06.409
Yeah $13 or 1.3?

00:11:06.409 --> 00:11:07.231
No, $13.

00:11:07.231 --> 00:11:08.013
$13.

00:11:08.013 --> 00:11:10.056
, yeah, yeah, $13 million.

00:11:10.056 --> 00:11:20.804
It was the highest grossing independent movie of all time, until the Blair Witch Project came out, and it made $202 million gross, so it was definitely something that people slept on in terms of IP.

00:11:20.804 --> 00:11:22.528
Do you want to go first or me?

00:11:22.528 --> 00:11:23.168
I'll go first.

00:11:23.308 --> 00:11:24.149
I'll go first All right.

00:11:24.149 --> 00:11:27.235
Okay, first question.

00:11:27.235 --> 00:11:37.225
Well, do you know what Michelangelo hated as a topping on his pizza in the movie that he actually loved in the cartoon?

00:11:38.109 --> 00:11:38.941
Yes, I do so.

00:11:38.941 --> 00:11:40.486
He's on the phone in his lair.

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That's the first time we see the lair in full.

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Really great set design.

00:11:44.202 --> 00:11:45.725
And he hates anchovies.

00:11:45.725 --> 00:11:48.754
He does hate anchovies, but loves them in the cartoons?

00:11:48.793 --> 00:11:52.647
Yeah, loves them in the cartoons and you know it makes sense because he's a turtle and turtles eat more fish.

00:11:52.647 --> 00:11:54.013
Okay, so it does make sense.

00:11:54.013 --> 00:12:14.173
And watching the cartoon with my son this morning the original 1987 cartoon they, in the very first episode that was run by, like the foot ninja and things like that, and rafael ordered a sashimi pizza and the remaining three turtles ordered a whipped cream pizza.

00:12:14.173 --> 00:12:15.977
I was like, you know, anchovies on the pizza doesn't seem so out of place, but I digress.

00:12:15.977 --> 00:12:19.784
Um, so that's one for me, thank goodness, and all right, my question.

00:12:19.784 --> 00:12:20.265
Here we go.

00:12:20.265 --> 00:12:29.686
So with my question, there are a number of key story elements from the original comics that was adapted into this film script.

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Can you tell me, because most of it was, as we said, adapted from the comic books and it had a bit of a darker vibe, but they did borrow some things from the 1987 cartoon.

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Can you name three of those things, three things from the cartoon?

00:12:44.429 --> 00:12:50.149
Yes, that made it into this movie and was not from the comic books uh, the colored headbands correct?

00:12:50.590 --> 00:12:57.192
uh is what I said, what I said earlier about um april and neil being a tv reporter instead of a love assistant, correct?

00:12:57.192 --> 00:12:58.984
The third one?

00:12:58.984 --> 00:13:01.068
Oh, then that's the other thing we're talking about too.

00:13:01.068 --> 00:13:04.065
I believe uh, splinter, he was actually uh.

00:13:04.065 --> 00:13:20.919
In the cartoon he's a man turned into a rat, but it realistically he's just a rat with that used to train like watch his master train, and that's how he learned how to do ninja stuff and yep, exactly so those are three things that had appeared in the comic books that they borrowed for or changed uh in the movie.

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Some other things I would have accepted was the turtles love for pizza.

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That came from the cartoon.

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And wasn't actually part of the comic books.

00:13:27.988 --> 00:13:32.692
Another one that I had was Michelangelo's surfer accent.

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Obviously you can't do that in a comic book, but that was directly ripped from the cartoon.

00:13:37.932 --> 00:13:42.328
He spoke differently to all his brothers and they brought it into the movie as well.

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Fun fact as well.

00:13:43.812 --> 00:13:47.871
Everybody kind of wonders why Splinter talks the way he does.

00:13:47.871 --> 00:13:52.929
He raised the turtles and then the turtles speaking those fancy and different kind of American accents.

00:13:52.929 --> 00:13:53.751
Do you know why they do that?

00:13:54.033 --> 00:13:54.433
I don't.

00:13:54.433 --> 00:14:06.940
I do know that in the movie the voice of Raphael, his voice to be very thick Boston accent, was actually just something that his voice had to come up with and suggested to do Exactly right.

00:14:06.940 --> 00:14:08.527
That's why he's got such a thick Boston accent?

00:14:08.679 --> 00:14:11.308
Yeah, I think it works for the character of Raphael 100%.

00:14:11.308 --> 00:14:17.967
Yeah, and that's Josh Payas, who is the only one to have done both roles in the turtle suit, and also the voice actor.

00:14:17.967 --> 00:14:26.153
Yeah, and he suggested that, I think, because it made him sound a little bit tougher and he was obviously the tougher that New York accent.

00:14:26.193 --> 00:14:28.556
Yeah, more New York turtle I'm walking in.

00:14:28.615 --> 00:14:30.365
Yeah, exactly six runs.

00:14:30.365 --> 00:14:40.669
So no, the actual reason that they all talk in those different kind of American accents was because the turtles were raised on TV like they watch so much American TV.

00:14:40.669 --> 00:14:41.472
Yep, yep, yep, true, true.

00:14:41.472 --> 00:14:55.729
And you can see it kind of in this movie where they take their inspirations from, in terms of different characters that they would have seen in 90s TV, where Raphael dresses up in a hat and a trench coat, which was very like PI kind of vibes, and he has that Boston American accent which is what those characters had.

00:14:58.563 --> 00:15:07.024
Mikey obviously watched a lot of vibe, uh, and then, yeah, so they got it from watching too much tv and you see it when that splinter is trying to say you know, everyone's sitting down, calm your mind.

00:15:07.024 --> 00:15:16.065
And instead they go off and just start dancing and singing whatever they want, yeah, yeah, yeah, and ordering a pizza and ordering pizza exactly right and doing the yeah, the.

00:15:16.346 --> 00:15:18.861
You know, you know how many movies we've actually done that have a dance sequence in it.

00:15:18.861 --> 00:15:22.969
It's just, yeah, the ninjutsu tequila dance.

00:15:22.969 --> 00:15:28.186
Funny, you know, if I had a nickel for every time that happens, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot.

00:15:28.225 --> 00:15:32.289
But Great karaoke song that tequila.

00:15:32.610 --> 00:15:41.703
Oh yeah, stand up and wiggle a little and then say tequila, exactly, and you can say it differently every single time, all right, so that makes it one all in our fandoma-fandom.

00:15:41.703 --> 00:15:43.788
Fact face-off with your question coming Brash.

00:15:44.229 --> 00:15:49.850
Okay, my question is what pizza company do they use in the movie?

00:15:49.850 --> 00:15:52.447
And there's a fun fact question after this if you can get it.

00:15:52.708 --> 00:15:52.929
Okay.

00:15:52.929 --> 00:15:55.679
So Mikey orders his pizza.

00:15:55.679 --> 00:16:05.884
They had a 30-minute guarantee, which they now have revoked due to the fact that they had too many traffic collisions trying to keep to that 30 minutes and that they had too many traffic collisions, trying to keep to that 30 minutes and it was Domino's.

00:16:05.904 --> 00:16:07.486
It was Domino's.

00:16:07.486 --> 00:16:08.048
Now for a fun fact.

00:16:08.048 --> 00:16:09.149
Who actually sponsored?

00:16:09.188 --> 00:16:12.533
the movie I know this as well it was actually sponsored by Pizza Hut.

00:16:12.533 --> 00:16:17.184
So in post-production, after the movie had been made, Pizza Hut.

00:16:17.205 --> 00:16:18.950
They did a special promotion through Pizza Hut.

00:16:18.950 --> 00:16:19.191
They did.

00:16:19.299 --> 00:16:29.553
And it was about a $20 million post-production product placement promotion where you know they did the advertisement and some people that have the old vhs can still see that advertisement play before the movie.

00:16:29.553 --> 00:16:33.972
And you know they did a toy line through through, uh, pizza hut sponsorship as well.

00:16:33.972 --> 00:16:41.221
So, yeah, it's, it's very amazing to see that they allowed the domino's guy to be in the movie but then heavily sponsored by pizza hut crazy.

00:16:41.221 --> 00:16:49.114
Another fun fact about that do you know the special actor that was involved in that scene being the pizza delivery guy?

00:16:49.114 --> 00:16:49.413
Do you know?

00:16:49.433 --> 00:16:52.126
Oh, yeah, the guy who does the voice of Michelangelo.

00:16:52.327 --> 00:16:54.898
Exactly so Michelangelo was delivering pizza to himself.

00:16:54.898 --> 00:17:13.925
Yeah, the guy that was in the suit of Michelangelo because the director, steve Barron, wanted all the stuntmen who played in the suits to have a little cameo outside of the suits in the movie Michelangelo's cameo who was Michel and Sisti actually delivered pizza to himself in that incident.

00:17:14.261 --> 00:17:16.981
Do you know where all the other voice?

00:17:17.021 --> 00:17:17.603
actors were placed.

00:17:17.603 --> 00:17:19.548
I know where rafael's was.

00:17:19.548 --> 00:17:22.040
Rafael is in the back of the taxi that hits rafael.

00:17:22.040 --> 00:17:26.406
Yep, I don't know the others, so donatello's.

00:17:26.886 --> 00:17:31.073
He's was, uh, the foot ninja.

00:17:31.073 --> 00:17:43.074
Um that talks to april in the subway, the one that slaps her yep, yep and um leonardo's was the thug that was standing next to Tatsu.

00:17:43.074 --> 00:17:47.325
When Casey fights Tatsu, he's the one smoking a cigar.

00:17:47.325 --> 00:17:48.208
I believe.

00:17:48.208 --> 00:17:51.788
Thug number three, thug number three next to Tatsu, very good.

00:17:51.847 --> 00:17:59.426
Very cool, yeah, so they all got their little cameo appearance, which is, you know, a small little reward for the arduous work that they did.

00:17:59.426 --> 00:18:04.548
We're going to go into that a little bit later too, all right, so that is two for me with my question to come.

00:18:04.548 --> 00:18:06.472
All right, your question, brash.

00:18:06.472 --> 00:18:12.798
Why did major Hollywood studios refuse to back the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1990?

00:18:12.798 --> 00:18:14.727
, given that it was such a powerful IP.

00:18:14.727 --> 00:18:19.042
It had an established cartoon brand, it was a big comic book IP.

00:18:19.042 --> 00:18:20.448
There was a toy line.

00:18:20.448 --> 00:18:28.511
Even that withstanding, a lot of the major distribution companies failed to back the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

00:18:29.701 --> 00:18:35.394
Was it because I think I'll do this, or this might be another reason, or for something else?

00:18:35.394 --> 00:18:39.367
But was it because they thought it was going to bomb just like Masters of the Universe?

00:18:39.809 --> 00:18:40.330
Exactly right.

00:18:40.330 --> 00:18:41.647
Yes, he-man Masters of the Universe came out and it was going to ruin, just like Masters of the Universe.

00:18:41.647 --> 00:18:46.367
Exactly right, yes, he-man Masters of the Universe came out and it was going to ruin their toy sales Just before yep, and they thought it would ruin their toy sales.

00:18:46.367 --> 00:18:53.828
Another reason I would have accepted was because during the late 1980s, hollywood was very skeptical about comic movies in general.

00:18:53.828 --> 00:18:59.531
George Lucas's next project after his Star Wars trilogy was Howard the Duck.

00:19:00.521 --> 00:19:01.345
Which is a little bit obscure.

00:19:01.345 --> 00:19:02.489
We don't talk about Howard the Duck.

00:19:04.060 --> 00:19:08.112
But you know it had that obscure sort of reference like the TMNT was.

00:19:08.112 --> 00:19:15.859
It had animatronics in terms of the lead sort of character design as well and it didn't go very well at all Howard the Duck.

00:19:15.859 --> 00:19:17.626
So there was a lot of lost faith.

00:19:17.626 --> 00:19:20.226
The Superman sequels as well.

00:19:20.226 --> 00:19:22.892
After the initial Superman the movie didn't go so well.

00:19:22.892 --> 00:19:27.131
The only outlier was the 1989 Tim Burton Batman film.

00:19:27.131 --> 00:19:34.846
However, studios backed that because it had Tim Burton as the director backing it and they also had Michael Keaton who was a very famous actor at the time.

00:19:34.846 --> 00:19:37.048
So that pull allowed studios to get behind it.

00:19:37.048 --> 00:20:00.063
But this one here, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, everybody passed on it, thinking that it would bomb, and they ended up going to a Hong Kong film company called Golden Harvest that financed some of the films and then it was actually distributed by New Line Cinema, which at the time was a very indie and niche distribution company that was just getting its start.

00:20:00.063 --> 00:20:04.086
So without New Line Cinema we wouldn't have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

00:20:04.086 --> 00:20:06.627
So that's another one correct for you, brash.

00:20:06.900 --> 00:20:17.806
And I only knew that because I only just sort of I didn't even mean to stumble upon it, but I just saw it there because when I was doing the research on the Pizza Art one question that I had, it sort of popped up too, saying how that?

00:20:17.806 --> 00:20:27.106
Saying that even though it had this $20 million pizza deal after the post-production they struggled to even start because of the fact that they're worried about the toy sales.

00:20:27.106 --> 00:20:30.772
Yeah, yeah, the only reason why I know it, otherwise I wouldn't have known it, and toy sales were big back then.

00:20:30.792 --> 00:20:35.644
you know, not like now where it's.

00:20:35.644 --> 00:20:40.950
You know toy sales and video and gaming and things like that, so definitely a big part of their budget which they needed.

00:20:40.950 --> 00:20:43.972
All right, your third and last question, rash.

00:20:44.353 --> 00:20:46.875
Got to make it a hard one because one of us has to lose.

00:20:46.875 --> 00:20:52.007
I do have two, I just don't know which one would be harder.

00:20:52.508 --> 00:20:54.692
Well, we both have our clues remaining, true, true.

00:20:55.032 --> 00:20:56.394
No, this one's the easy one, but I like this one.

00:20:56.394 --> 00:21:05.178
Because I like this one, a prominent actor plays a, not a foot thug, but one of the teenage thugs.

00:21:05.178 --> 00:21:06.682
Do you know who it is?

00:21:07.243 --> 00:21:07.846
Yeah, of course you do.

00:21:07.846 --> 00:21:08.722
Yeah, I know who this is.

00:21:08.722 --> 00:21:10.228
This is a young Rob Lowe.

00:21:10.228 --> 00:21:15.606
No, no, not Rob Lowe, it is a young Sam Rockwell.

00:21:15.667 --> 00:21:17.838
Yes, yes, oh my god, sam Rockwell.

00:21:17.838 --> 00:21:19.965
My sphincter tightened then.

00:21:20.366 --> 00:21:24.806
Lucky we don't accept first answers here, we get a chance to run it back.

00:21:24.806 --> 00:21:34.625
But yeah, sam Rockwell, he was the guy on the stairs who was introducing the new children to, you know, the Pleasure Island sort of foot clan teenage wasteland fun house.

00:21:34.625 --> 00:21:37.384
And he did so by saying like, do like, do you have any smokes?

00:21:37.384 --> 00:21:38.928
And the guy was just like regular or menthol.

00:21:39.388 --> 00:21:52.048
That was Sam Rockwell yep, he's also the one at the end that talks to the police chief and when they ask him or he says if you want to know, go to go to the east, east, end, eastman and Laird who were actually Laird.

00:21:52.891 --> 00:22:01.392
Laird Mid-Island, because Laird was the last of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

00:22:01.392 --> 00:22:02.614
Yeah, good question.

00:22:02.614 --> 00:22:04.125
But yeah, I do like that fact as well.

00:22:04.125 --> 00:22:06.865
Yeah, I love Sam Rockwell.

00:22:06.865 --> 00:22:08.048
Yeah, yeah, and this was one of his.

00:22:08.048 --> 00:22:21.165
This was actually his first role and I looked at the director's commentary done by Steve Barron and he said you know, this was his first role and we we could also see like a little bit of inspired acting there, even though he did have a smaller role.

00:22:21.165 --> 00:22:23.769
So they kind of knew that he was going to go on to some some bigger and better things.

00:22:23.769 --> 00:22:25.450
But there you go, got his start.

00:22:25.450 --> 00:22:26.111
I like that.

00:22:26.111 --> 00:22:26.851
Well done, all right.

00:22:26.851 --> 00:22:27.491
So I am.

00:22:28.032 --> 00:22:29.334
You know, full scores, three a piece.

00:22:29.334 --> 00:22:30.694
Here we go brash.

00:22:30.694 --> 00:22:32.155
Last one.

00:22:32.155 --> 00:22:32.936
All right.

00:22:32.936 --> 00:22:44.611
So this movie legal challenges when they were releasing the movie in the United Kingdom, in England.

00:22:44.611 --> 00:22:49.188
One of those was that they had to rename the movie from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.

00:22:49.188 --> 00:22:58.909
However, they had to do some clever editing to fix another thing in the movie that they would not accept in their UK release.

00:22:58.909 --> 00:22:59.810
Do you know what that was?

00:23:00.861 --> 00:23:02.144
Don't have a clue.

00:23:02.164 --> 00:23:02.906
Do you want your clue?

00:23:02.906 --> 00:23:03.750
Yes, please.

00:23:03.750 --> 00:23:10.365
Okay, so your clue is it had to do with an item that is restricted in the United Kingdom and they couldn't show it on film.

00:23:11.342 --> 00:23:13.369
Oh, an item that's restricted.

00:23:13.369 --> 00:23:19.000
My first thought goes to like a firearm, but I don't know, you don't know, nah, all right.

00:23:19.040 --> 00:23:21.807
So in the 1990s I don't know, you don't know, nah, all right.

00:23:21.807 --> 00:23:28.067
So in the 1990s the UK had very strict regulations on the depiction of martial arts weapons, most notably nunchucks.

00:23:28.067 --> 00:23:33.902
Really, yeah, yeah, michelangelo's nunchucks.

00:23:33.902 --> 00:23:49.951
They had to edit around his use of his signature weapon and they were only allowed to show him using punching and kicking to the point where they actually followed that through and obviously making some tonal changes in number two and number three of these Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie where they start to fight with more comical sort of objects like food and things like that.

00:23:49.951 --> 00:24:03.105
So the nunchuck had to be banned and avoided and couldn't be promoted and the censorship around that would remain in place for years until they released the uncut version in about 2012.

00:24:03.185 --> 00:24:07.787
That's so dumb I know that's so dumb Out of all the weapons nunchucks.

00:24:08.108 --> 00:24:12.390
Yeah, the blunt force trauma weapon, but the katana's okay, the size is okay.

00:24:12.451 --> 00:24:12.912
Size is okay.

00:24:12.912 --> 00:24:16.606
Donnie's quarterstaff, which is pretty much nunchucks without the chain.

00:24:18.009 --> 00:24:24.259
Absolutely, that's fine, fine, yeah, righto, yep.

00:24:24.259 --> 00:24:28.930
So that whole scene in the middle when they crash through April O'Neil's antique shop roof and they have that nunchaku off, you might say scrapped completely from the movie.

00:24:28.930 --> 00:24:30.953
They don't have it in there, yep, in the British version.

00:24:30.953 --> 00:24:32.323
So, yeah, that means I win.

00:24:32.323 --> 00:24:33.385
I win.

00:24:33.385 --> 00:24:35.392
How you doing, woohoo.

00:24:35.392 --> 00:24:46.214
So with a total of 11 points and you ended up with a total of 10 points, very close which means we'll be going to the cinema on your dollar and I'm so happy.

00:24:46.234 --> 00:24:50.185
I wonder actually, because my other question was um there, uh, there's a reason.

00:24:50.185 --> 00:24:58.150
April o'neill's character that character after o'neill doesn't look like her character from either the comics or the uh cartoon.

00:24:58.510 --> 00:25:01.244
That they do know why is this in terms of a yellow jumpsuit?

00:25:01.244 --> 00:25:03.464
Yes, I know that it.

00:25:03.464 --> 00:25:04.844
Maybe it wasn't practical.

00:25:04.844 --> 00:25:06.127
She thought it was overly sexualized.

00:25:06.127 --> 00:25:07.070
I don't know that one.

00:25:07.701 --> 00:25:10.963
No, it's just, it's because the actress thought it was gaudy.

00:25:10.963 --> 00:25:14.631
She's like it looks ugly, I don't want to wear it.

00:25:14.631 --> 00:25:15.993
No, thank you.

00:25:15.993 --> 00:25:22.133
I was like, ah, so you're just ruining the whole time character because you think the jumpsuit looks ugly.

00:25:22.133 --> 00:25:25.450
Yeah, yeah, because it's like well, she's not even really overly sexualized too, because it's a jumpsuit.

00:25:25.450 --> 00:25:27.007
It's a full body jumpsuit, exactly.

00:25:27.007 --> 00:25:29.385
But yeah, because she thought it was gaudy.

00:25:30.580 --> 00:25:34.987
I do know that they kind of paid homage to it because at the very start, in one of her first scenes, she was wearing a yellow raincoat.

00:25:34.987 --> 00:25:47.795
Yes, that was the part, the compromise and she was like, okay, I'll do that, but I'm not wearing that ugly suit the whole time through.

00:25:47.795 --> 00:25:49.894
Um, my other question that I was going to give you was there is a special reason why splinter gives each turtle their weapons.

00:25:49.809 --> 00:25:49.921
Do you know?

00:25:49.836 --> 00:25:50.128
what they are.

00:25:50.128 --> 00:25:50.403
Oh no, I wouldn't know either.

00:25:50.403 --> 00:25:59.867
Like so, leonardo has a lot of good leadership traits and is realistically the one who is most capable of deciding whether somebody should live or die in combat.

00:25:59.907 --> 00:26:02.032
So the sword is a lethal kind of weapon.

00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:11.210
Raphael has size because traditionally they're used as a defensive weapon and he's a very aggressive and hot-headed, so it's training him to use a defensive fighting style instead of an offensive fighting style.

00:26:11.210 --> 00:26:16.107
Michelangelo is very bombastic and he is impulsive.

00:26:17.160 --> 00:26:22.038
And dumpt trucks take a lot more focus to use and discipline and not to injure yourself with and.

00:26:22.058 --> 00:26:28.500
Donatello is very tech savvy and into technology and smart he's given like the most basic simple stick.

00:26:29.102 --> 00:26:32.923
Yeah, because that's the same reason they use in the later, later movie.

00:26:32.943 --> 00:26:33.928
Yeah, and I really like that.

00:26:33.928 --> 00:26:40.644
I thought that's a really good way to like tell you something about the characters, just by inserting a simple weapon.

00:26:40.644 --> 00:26:47.273
Another thing I really like because I have read the original comic books and in the first few issues, every single turtle does have a red bandana.

00:26:47.273 --> 00:27:05.401
And the reason that they have a red bandana is because when you're introduced to the turtles, they talk about one of their turtle brothers that is lost, and the turtle that's lost is Raphael, so they're all wearing red in homage to him, to try and find him and just keep it constantly on their mind that that's what they're doing, yeah, but then later on in the series they they change to the traditional colors that you see.

00:27:05.401 --> 00:27:06.904
So, uh, I like that.

00:27:06.904 --> 00:27:14.061
In this movie they followed the the cartoon sort of channel, and the reason they did that was obviously because children need to be able to tell the turtles apart as well.

00:27:14.083 --> 00:27:25.124
So, yeah, realistically, the only way you could tell any of them really apart is probably raf, a bit easier to tell apart because he's got all the scars and scratches on his shells, because he's always he's bruising jumping into trouble.

00:27:25.484 --> 00:27:26.428
That's it, alright.

00:27:26.428 --> 00:27:29.393
So that was our fandom fact face off segment for the month of March.

00:27:29.393 --> 00:27:31.339
We'll be bringing you another one in April.

00:27:31.339 --> 00:27:33.567
Alright, we're going to move to our set secret segment.

00:27:33.567 --> 00:27:46.056
Our set secret segment is where the hosts take a look behind the scenes of the famous movie to give you all the information on what went right, what went wrong and what was interesting about the way the movie was made.

00:27:46.056 --> 00:27:54.954
And the most interesting and unique thing about this movie, directed by Steve Barron the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1990, was those incredible suits Brash.

00:27:55.621 --> 00:27:57.788
Those animatronic puppeteered suits.

00:27:57.788 --> 00:27:59.420
They brought these turtles to life.

00:27:59.420 --> 00:28:01.891
It was cutting edge in 1990.

00:28:01.891 --> 00:28:05.398
So today in our set secret segment, we're going to talk to you all about those.

00:28:05.398 --> 00:28:17.209
These suits were commissioned by the Jim Henson's creature shop and a little fun fact about that was when Steve Barron came on he actually suggested that they use animatronics and suits.

00:28:17.209 --> 00:28:28.846
Prior to that it was going to be like a who Framed Roger Rabbit sort of situation, which would have been weird yeah, really weird, and probably not really fitting to the tones that they wanted to use in the movie.

00:28:29.823 --> 00:28:34.929
So he actually commissioned Jim Henson's Creature Shop before they got budget to make them.

00:28:34.929 --> 00:28:37.788
So Jim Henson agreed because he was very curious?

00:28:38.441 --> 00:28:51.990
Yeah, because they're the most advanced sort of suit puppets, animatronics he's ever made, yeah, and the combination of the suit and then the person in the suit, as well as the puppeteer conducting the animatronics in the head.

00:28:51.990 --> 00:29:05.112
It was all a different challenge to him, so he agreed to do it and then the only reason that they were able to continue because they had to fly them over to North Carolina from London was that they had that New Line Cinema backing that came in at the final hour to do it.

00:29:05.112 --> 00:29:06.526
Otherwise Turtles would have been scrapped.

00:29:06.526 --> 00:29:18.202
So they're probably the most expensive thing in the whole movie and a lot of budget sort of had to be moved around in order for them to keep those Turtles looking how they did Before we go any further Brash.

00:29:18.202 --> 00:29:19.728
How do you think they hold up?

00:29:19.728 --> 00:29:22.403
How do you think they look did, uh, before we go any further, brash what?

00:29:22.423 --> 00:29:23.044
how do you think they hold up?

00:29:23.044 --> 00:29:23.724
How do you think they look?

00:29:23.724 --> 00:29:24.365
What do you think of them?

00:29:24.365 --> 00:29:24.666
Nightmare fuel?

00:29:24.666 --> 00:29:28.941
Yeah, no, they're pretty good, but yeah, nightmare like the like.

00:29:28.941 --> 00:29:32.768
I wouldn't say that they're bad per se well at all, really.

00:29:32.768 --> 00:29:44.467
But just if I was to come across any of these guys in a dark alley and I saw their faces move like that, that would scare the living hell out of me.

00:29:45.147 --> 00:29:46.088
Yep, I could see that.

00:29:48.049 --> 00:29:48.631
They are weird.

00:29:48.851 --> 00:29:49.230
Yeah, they are.

00:29:49.230 --> 00:29:53.535
They're definitely weird and you know what the animatronics in them as well are.

00:29:53.535 --> 00:29:55.135
You know, for the time it was revolutionary.

00:29:55.135 --> 00:30:04.440
Looking at it now I think they do hold up and they do give that mutant kind of vibe, but there's definitely something unsettling about the way that they look.

00:30:04.820 --> 00:30:08.111
I think it's because they're sort of like the first of their sort of kind.

00:30:08.111 --> 00:30:12.088
They're still very robotic.

00:30:12.088 --> 00:30:28.924
So even though they are doing those like giving, like the expressions and the facial expressions, they're unsettling, I think, because they're robotic, and so when they're smiling, I don't know really how to explain it.

00:30:28.924 --> 00:30:32.741
It's just, it's just it's just unnatural.

00:30:32.843 --> 00:30:39.440
Yeah, I actually found myself watching the faces of these turtles move, uh, during scenes.

00:30:39.440 --> 00:30:44.119
So I watched the way their lips move, I watched what their eyebrows did, their eyes widen, and you know what?

00:30:44.119 --> 00:30:47.712
I agree with you, they're extremely unsettling at times.

00:30:47.712 --> 00:30:50.682
I think it works for the movie and I think they're done really, really well.

00:30:50.682 --> 00:30:55.911
Uh, but they actually took a collaboration between multiple performers to do so.

00:30:55.911 --> 00:31:05.967
As we talked about before, there was the stunt performers inside the suits, which was made out of latex and rubber, which they molded on fiberglass and molded off of the actors or the stunt men's bodies.

00:31:05.967 --> 00:31:24.521
Then they also had the puppeteer who robotically controlled the animatronics in the head, and they had to listen to pre-recorded dialogue and kind of do it on the fly, so they actually had to react to what they were hearing and that was being relayed through servos and radio waves inside the head of the actual turtle.

00:31:24.521 --> 00:31:31.505
And then they obviously had the voice actors as well, which recorded in a studio, and then their lines were what we hear in the movie.

00:31:31.505 --> 00:31:35.736
So three different performers per turtle, so 12 people in total, were what we hear in the movie.

00:31:35.736 --> 00:31:38.998
So three different performers per turtle, so 12 people in total, and we're actually responsible for bringing those turtles to us.

00:31:38.998 --> 00:31:40.118
Did you know as well?

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Master Splinter took three puppeteers to maneuver, and one of them is very famous.

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Do you know who he is?

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I did see that it was Kevin Clash, who you might recognize as the puppeteer who controls Elmo.

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