Turtle Power
Am I excited for the release of TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES: MUTANT MAYHEM?
Yeah, I’m excited.
Despite the fact that there have now been more Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies in my lifetime than US Presidents, I will never not be interested in watching a movie about anthropomorphic turtles who dabble in martial arts. The TMNT are baked into my DNA - introduced at the exact right moment in my childhood when I might accept such fantastical heroes. They are now forever linked to my interests and personality. My love of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is as much a part of who I am as my hair color or foot size.
I don’t remember exactly how I learned of the Ninja Turtles. It must have been on the playground at school - a childhood friend clued me in on the cartoon series and accompanying action figure line in the same way a college freshman is introduced to pot and the Grateful Dead by their RA. “Here, man. You’re going to dig this.” And dig it I did - I dug it deeper than my drug-related references are dated.
From the catchy theme song to the colorful assortment of grotesque villains to the playground-ready catchphrases (“Cowabunga!”), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle franchise was almost scientifically designed to spread through the minds and hearts of America’s adolescent boy population. Factor in the release of 1990’s live-action TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE movie, the Archie comic book series and Playmate’s extensive action figure line and I was hooked line and sinker on the characters and their world.
I suspect one of the biggest appeals for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles characters was just how easy it was to draw them as a child. A few shapes, some pointy weapons and some strategically-placed lines and *poof* you’ve got a Ninja Turtle.
There’s a simplicity to the Ninja Turtle design and simplicity to their appeal. They are fantastic creatures with funny names who love the things kids love (pizza, skateboarding, living in sewers with rats) but know the things kids don’t (martial arts, how to talk to cute female reporters, how to live in a sewer with a rat and not die from malnutrition and disease). The Ninja Turtles are wish-fulfillment - but then why did I have recurring nightmares about becoming one as a kid?
When I was five years old, my older sister Amy gave me a jar of “Ooze” as a present. Inside the ooze - slimy green gook that would definitely leave a stain on the carpet if spilled - there was a special Ninja Turtle toy. I just had to open up the container of ooze, reach in and find the toy and it could be mine. Except I refused to. I was petrified of even getting a drop of ooze on me lest I be turned into any number of the mutant menaces the Ninja Turtles tussled with every Saturday on television.
“But what if you become a Ninja Turtle?” my sister asked. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”
Never mind the fact that my sister really should have been focused on breaking me of my assumption that mutants were real, I didn’t want to become a mutant turtle. I liked my five fingers and my lack of shell. I was secure in who I was as a child and had no interest in being green, scaley, and possessing a small stubby tail.
And so I treated the Ninja Turtles with a mixture of respect and fear. I was obsessed with acquiring every bit of Turtle-induced dopamine rush I could get, but I enjoyed them as one might enjoy looking at a live tiger - safely behind a thick sheet of glass. I collected Ninja Turtle merchandise and wore Ninja Turtle t-shirts and ate Ninja Turtle cereal and played with my Ninja Turtle dolls but I never imagined myself as a Ninja Turtle. Until I did.
Amy, back up to her old enabler tricks, made me a homemade Ninja Turtle costume that consisted of a bandana with holes cut out and aluminum foil-wrapped pieces of cardboard, assembled into the rough shape of a sai. Faced with this new opportunity to finally (and safely) step into the shoes of my favorite heroes, I only paused for a moment before declaring myself Raphael incarnate and storming through the house. I threw my weapon at pets, spun on my imaginary shell, and tried my best to do a flying kick - only succeeding in falling on my butt. Something was missing. I might be wearing the clothes of a Ninja Turtle, but I was not a Ninja Turtle. One can only achieve greatness by risking it all. I needed the Ooze.
And so, with little pomp or ceremony, I finally opened my little canister of mutagenic chemical waste and stuck a finger in it. Over the next few hours, I waited for the changes to come. As hours became days, I waited for my fingers to fuse together and the skin on my back to harden. I waited for my facial muscles to contort until my head was a smooth, bald football-shaped lump. I waited to become a turtle.
In many ways, I’m still waiting.
Passions have come and gone over my lifetime. My interests have changed with the seasons and the things that make me excited as a thirty-eight-year-old are not the same things that excited me as a child. Except for the Ninja Turtles.
Always the Ninja Turtles.
Go ninja, go ninja go. August can’t come soon enough.