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The Fandom Portals Podcast
"Welcome to Fandom Portals—the show that explores how your favourite fandoms can help you learn and grow!" 🎙️✨
Each episode, we explore TV, movies, comics, and games to reveal how these worlds and the characters in them help us learn about resilience, courage, friendship, and more.
The Fandom Portals Podcast is hosted by Aaron Davies and Adam Brasher, two friends who are obsessed with fandoms, storytelling, and building a community where passion and positivity come first. From Marvel to Middle-earth, Star Wars to indie comics, we dive deep into the stories you love — and how they help us learn and grow. ✨
The Fandom Portals Podcast
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) - Part One: 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
Contact Us:
Website: https://www.fandomportalspodcast.com/
Instagram: instagram.com/fandomportals/?locale=en
Threads: threads.net/@fandomportals
Email: fandomportals@gmail.com
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/fandomportals
Hello everybody. It's Aaron here from the Fandom Portals Podcast. I'm joined here, as always, by my amazing turtle brother, brash. How you going, brash? How about yourself? Oh, mate, I'm having a great day. It's Boston over time. 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. We want to thank Biorial Seth on our threads community for suggesting this one. You we want to thank Bioreal Seth on our threads community for suggesting this one. You guys voted for it amongst some of our other titles that are on our Letterboxd watch list. So thank you very much, bioreal Seth. This one goes out to you. So, yes, today we're going to be talking about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the 1990 version. There's been lots and lots of remakes and different kind of medias since then.
Speaker 2:But before we get into all that, we always start with our gratitudes and growths. Uh, brash, we're gonna start with you today. Oh shit, yeah, all right. 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. 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. So thank you, graham.
Speaker 1:Thank you, graham. Save my ass, all right. My gratitude for the week, brash, is you. 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. 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.
Speaker 2:Oh, thanks man, Me too, me too.
Speaker 1: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. 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.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there's one of my highlights of my week. Hmm, yeah, I really think the highlight I have is when I take Ace to the Dog.
Speaker 1:Well, now there's two and I'm happy to be a part of it. But, yeah, thank you, brash, I'm grateful for you. Man, oh, thank you All good. All right, let's do our first takes segment. 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. We also share our community's thoughts on the media. For those that have contributed to our social pages, if you would like to, those links are in the show notes below. 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. 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. Now, if you say that in a normal conversation without context, it sounds ludicrous.
Speaker 2:No, it sounds like you need a room in a padded cell exactly right.
Speaker 1:It is definitely a like a far-fetched kind of ip, originating in the 1990s, obviously 1980s actually.
Speaker 2: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. 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.
Speaker 2:Saturday morning so those were my favorite shows growing up. I used to have a dress up of Donatello, yeah, yeah, because he had his quarter staff and everything.
Speaker 1:Very cool. So what about the Ninja Turtles? Is this the first thing that you saw of the Ninja Turtles? Do you think, Do you remember?
Speaker 2: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. The movie's actually quite dark. Yes, yeah, so I don't think I was. 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. 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. 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.
Speaker 1:Honestly, they're like that long lost brother that you haven't seen for a very long time. 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. 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. I was saying off mic before that I thought I had seen this movie but in fact I had not. 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. Turtles in Time, yeah, because I was like when are they going to get into samurai suits? And it never happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or the fifth turtle, venus, venus Venus, her name was oh sorry, yeah sorry, there are four turtles.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, venus.
Speaker 1:Yeah. 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? But it never did. It never came. So this was a delightful surprise to me. 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. They're really good. The 2003 cartoon I believe it was 2003 TMNT, what it was called that used to be on Cheese TV in Australia.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that like blew me away. Oh, that was probably my favourite animated adaption of Champions of the New Geeks.
Speaker 1: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. You know, intergalactic and U-Tron.
Speaker 2:It was such a great animation though. Yeah, the fight scenes were actually really good, and it just got me excited every time I watched it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely I loved it. 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. We had 152 upvotes and over 62 original comments. It says Trapper Keeper says I want an R-rated movie. I believe the Last Ronin is coming out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that should be pretty hectic, because that's when Mickey goes all. 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.
Speaker 1: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. Everybody was trying to guess who it was, and it was a very big shock when it turned out to be Michelangelo.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the one who you'd think would be the most passive, fun-loving one just ends up being this fucking badass brutal.
Speaker 1: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.
Speaker 2:That was a very common quote obviously from the movie we have.
Speaker 1:Asco says that it's absolute cinema, which was also agreed upon by 43 other users. Some people have said that it is easily the best comic book adaptation movie of all time. On our Reddits as well. We have Dirty Old Sock Life from Reddit, great name comic book adaptation movie of all time. On our reddits as well. We have dirty old sock life from reddit. Great name says this is legit peak turtles until the mutant mayhem movie came out. Yeah, we also have easy goat from reddit. That says remarkably dark for a children's franchise, whereas the sequels are much more flippant and typical family action films. 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.
Speaker 1: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. We put the poster up there and we have thrash and treasure podcast. Who's a good friend his name's also aaron, by the way he says why are you asking such a loaded question? We all know this is a cinematic masterpiece. 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.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of fans of this movie, brash. 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. It was like everywhere there was turtle mania that was streaming through, especially america, and, um, you know, there was a toy line. 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. That really surprised them when they released it to have it be so popular. So there's definitely some love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Speaker 1:All right, are you ready to get into our fandom fact face-off? Brash, ready, ready, all right, everybody. This is our fandom fact face off. One hosts ask another a series of trivia questions associated with the focus media. 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. Now, this is our last week for the month of may and we're at eight. All I'm instigating. Another rule, brash, oh, okay. The rule is you can ask clarifying questions, but you're only allowed to ask for one hint through the whole segment. Okay, okay, because we've got to get to it. 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. Brash, probably not a question of yours. If it is, I'll cut it, but do you know the budget for this movie?
Speaker 1:Um was it like 1.25 mil no it was a little bit more than that 1.3 mil. It was $13 million. Yeah $13 or 1.3? No, $13. $13., yeah, yeah, $13 million. 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. Do you want to go first or me? I'll go first.
Speaker 2:I'll go first All right. Okay, first question. Well, do you know what Michelangelo hated as a topping on his pizza in the movie that he actually loved in the cartoon?
Speaker 1:Yes, I do so. He's on the phone in his lair. That's the first time we see the lair in full. Really great set design. And he hates anchovies. He does hate anchovies, but loves them in the cartoons?
Speaker 1:Yeah, loves them in the cartoons and you know it makes sense because he's a turtle and turtles eat more fish. Okay, so it does make sense. 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. I was like, you know, anchovies on the pizza doesn't seem so out of place, but I digress. Um, so that's one for me, thank goodness, and all right, my question. Here we go. So with my question, there are a number of key story elements from the original comics that was adapted into this film script. 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. Can you name three of those things, three things from the cartoon? Yes, that made it into this movie and was not from the comic books uh, the colored headbands correct?
Speaker 2:uh is what I said, what I said earlier about um april and neil being a tv reporter instead of a love assistant, correct? The third one? Oh, then that's the other thing we're talking about too. I believe uh, splinter, he was actually uh. 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.
Speaker 1:Some other things I would have accepted was the turtles love for pizza.
Speaker 2:That came from the cartoon.
Speaker 1:And wasn't actually part of the comic books. Another one that I had was Michelangelo's surfer accent. Obviously you can't do that in a comic book, but that was directly ripped from the cartoon. He spoke differently to all his brothers and they brought it into the movie as well. Fun fact as well. Everybody kind of wonders why Splinter talks the way he does. He raised the turtles and then the turtles speaking those fancy and different kind of American accents. Do you know why they do that?
Speaker 2:I don't. 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. That's why he's got such a thick Boston accent?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it works for the character of Raphael 100%. 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. 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.
Speaker 2:Yeah, more New York turtle I'm walking in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly six runs. 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. Yep, yep, yep, true, true. 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.
Speaker 2: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. 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.
Speaker 1:You know, you know how many movies we've actually done that have a dance sequence in it. It's just, yeah, the ninjutsu tequila dance. Funny, you know, if I had a nickel for every time that happens, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot.
Speaker 2:But Great karaoke song that tequila.
Speaker 1: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. Fact face-off with your question coming Brash.
Speaker 2:Okay, my question is what pizza company do they use in the movie? And there's a fun fact question after this if you can get it.
Speaker 1:Okay. So Mikey orders his pizza. 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.
Speaker 2:It was Domino's. Now for a fun fact. Who actually sponsored?
Speaker 1:the movie I know this as well it was actually sponsored by Pizza Hut. So in post-production, after the movie had been made, Pizza Hut.
Speaker 2:They did a special promotion through Pizza Hut. They did.
Speaker 1: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. And you know they did a toy line through through, uh, pizza hut sponsorship as well. 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. Another fun fact about that do you know the special actor that was involved in that scene being the pizza delivery guy? Do you know?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, the guy who does the voice of Michelangelo.
Speaker 1:Exactly so Michelangelo was delivering pizza to himself. 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.
Speaker 2:Do you know where all the other voice?
Speaker 1:actors were placed. I know where rafael's was. Rafael is in the back of the taxi that hits rafael. Yep, I don't know the others, so donatello's.
Speaker 2:He's was, uh, the foot ninja. 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. When Casey fights Tatsu, he's the one smoking a cigar. I believe. Thug number three, thug number three next to Tatsu, very good.
Speaker 1: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. 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. All right, your question, brash. Why did major Hollywood studios refuse to back the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 1990?, given that it was such a powerful IP. It had an established cartoon brand, it was a big comic book IP. There was a toy line. Even that withstanding, a lot of the major distribution companies failed to back the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Speaker 2:Was it because I think I'll do this, or this might be another reason, or for something else? But was it because they thought it was going to bomb just like Masters of the Universe?
Speaker 1:Exactly right. Yes, he-man Masters of the Universe came out and it was going to ruin, just like Masters of the Universe. 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. Another reason I would have accepted was because during the late 1980s, hollywood was very skeptical about comic movies in general. George Lucas's next project after his Star Wars trilogy was Howard the Duck.
Speaker 2:Which is a little bit obscure. We don't talk about Howard the Duck.
Speaker 1:But you know it had that obscure sort of reference like the TMNT was. 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. So there was a lot of lost faith. The Superman sequels as well. After the initial Superman the movie didn't go so well. The only outlier was the 1989 Tim Burton Batman film. 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. So that pull allowed studios to get behind it. 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. So without New Line Cinema we wouldn't have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So that's another one correct for you, brash.
Speaker 2: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? 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. Yeah, yeah, the only reason why I know it, otherwise I wouldn't have known it, and toy sales were big back then.
Speaker 1:you know, not like now where it's. You know toy sales and video and gaming and things like that, so definitely a big part of their budget which they needed. All right, your third and last question, rash.
Speaker 2:Got to make it a hard one because one of us has to lose. I do have two, I just don't know which one would be harder.
Speaker 1:Well, we both have our clues remaining, true, true.
Speaker 2:No, this one's the easy one, but I like this one. Because I like this one, a prominent actor plays a, not a foot thug, but one of the teenage thugs. Do you know who it is?
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course you do. Yeah, I know who this is. This is a young Rob Lowe. No, no, not Rob Lowe, it is a young Sam Rockwell.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, oh my god, sam Rockwell. My sphincter tightened then.
Speaker 1:Lucky we don't accept first answers here, we get a chance to run it back. 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. And he did so by saying like, do like, do you have any smokes? And the guy was just like regular or menthol.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 1:Laird Mid-Island, because Laird was the last of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yeah, good question. But yeah, I do like that fact as well. Yeah, I love Sam Rockwell. Yeah, yeah, and this was one of his. 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. So they kind of knew that he was going to go on to some some bigger and better things. But there you go, got his start. I like that. Well done, all right. So I am.
Speaker 1:You know, full scores, three a piece. Here we go brash. Last one. All right. So this movie legal challenges when they were releasing the movie in the United Kingdom, in England. One of those was that they had to rename the movie from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. However, they had to do some clever editing to fix another thing in the movie that they would not accept in their UK release. Do you know what that was?
Speaker 2:Don't have a clue.
Speaker 1:Do you want your clue? Yes, please. 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.
Speaker 2:Oh, an item that's restricted. My first thought goes to like a firearm, but I don't know, you don't know, nah, all right.
Speaker 1:So in the 1990s I don't know, you don't know, nah, all right. So in the 1990s the UK had very strict regulations on the depiction of martial arts weapons, most notably nunchucks. Really, yeah, yeah, michelangelo's nunchucks. 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. 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.
Speaker 2:That's so dumb I know that's so dumb Out of all the weapons nunchucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the blunt force trauma weapon, but the katana's okay, the size is okay.
Speaker 2:Size is okay. Donnie's quarterstaff, which is pretty much nunchucks without the chain.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, that's fine, fine, yeah, righto, yep. 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. They don't have it in there, yep, in the British version. So, yeah, that means I win. I win. How you doing, woohoo. 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.
Speaker 2:I wonder actually, because my other question was um there, uh, there's a reason. April o'neill's character that character after o'neill doesn't look like her character from either the comics or the uh cartoon.
Speaker 1:That they do know why is this in terms of a yellow jumpsuit? Yes, I know that it. Maybe it wasn't practical. She thought it was overly sexualized. I don't know that one.
Speaker 2:No, it's just, it's because the actress thought it was gaudy. She's like it looks ugly, I don't want to wear it. No, thank you. I was like, ah, so you're just ruining the whole time character because you think the jumpsuit looks ugly. Yeah, yeah, because it's like well, she's not even really overly sexualized too, because it's a jumpsuit. It's a full body jumpsuit, exactly. But yeah, because she thought it was gaudy.
Speaker 1: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. 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. Um, my other question that I was going to give you was there is a special reason why splinter gives each turtle their weapons.
Speaker 2:Do you know?
Speaker 1:what they are. Oh no, I wouldn't know either. 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.
Speaker 2:So the sword is a lethal kind of weapon.
Speaker 1: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. Michelangelo is very bombastic and he is impulsive.
Speaker 2:And dumpt trucks take a lot more focus to use and discipline and not to injure yourself with and.
Speaker 1:Donatello is very tech savvy and into technology and smart he's given like the most basic simple stick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that's the same reason they use in the later, later movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I really like that. I thought that's a really good way to like tell you something about the characters, just by inserting a simple weapon. 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. 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. So, uh, I like that. 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.
Speaker 2: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.
Speaker 1:That's it, alright. So that was our fandom fact face off segment for the month of March. We'll be bringing you another one in April. Alright, we're going to move to our set secret segment. 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. 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.
Speaker 1:Those animatronic puppeteered suits. They brought these turtles to life. It was cutting edge in 1990. So today in our set secret segment, we're going to talk to you all about those. 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. 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.
Speaker 1:So he actually commissioned Jim Henson's Creature Shop before they got budget to make them. So Jim Henson agreed because he was very curious?
Speaker 1: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. 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. Otherwise Turtles would have been scrapped. 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. How do you think they hold up? How do you think they look did, uh, before we go any further, brash what?
Speaker 2:how do you think they hold up? How do you think they look? What do you think of them? Nightmare fuel? Yeah, no, they're pretty good, but yeah, nightmare like the like. I wouldn't say that they're bad per se well at all, really. 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.
Speaker 1:Yep, I could see that.
Speaker 2:They are weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they are. They're definitely weird and you know what the animatronics in them as well are. You know, for the time it was revolutionary. 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.
Speaker 2:I think it's because they're sort of like the first of their sort of kind. They're still very robotic. 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. It's just, it's just it's just unnatural.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually found myself watching the faces of these turtles move, uh, during scenes. So I watched the way their lips move, I watched what their eyebrows did, their eyes widen, and you know what? I agree with you, they're extremely unsettling at times. I think it works for the movie and I think they're done really, really well. Uh, but they actually took a collaboration between multiple performers to do so. 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. 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. 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. So three different performers per turtle, so 12 people in total, were what we hear in the movie. So three different performers per turtle, so 12 people in total, and we're actually responsible for bringing those turtles to us. Did you know as well?
Speaker 1:Master Splinter took three puppeteers to maneuver, and one of them is very famous. Do you know who he is? I did see that it was Kevin Clash, who you might recognize as the puppeteer who controls Elmo. Yes, so yeah, he was as the puppeteer who controls Elmo. Yes, so yeah, he was the primary puppeteer for Splinter. And then, when we're talking about the stunt performers, the guys inside the suit, we had David Foreman as Leonardo, michelin, sisti for Michelangelo, leif Tilden and Josh Pius, as we said, for Raphael, who also did the voices. Now, do you know what all of them had in common? Brash, in terms of their experience with this role, these stuntmen, these amazing heroes, didn't they all hate it? Yes, they absolutely hated it.
Speaker 2:Like who was it? Because one of the Foot Clan stuntmen had to take over for Raphael's stuntman in the suit, because when he got hit into the trash can by Casey it actually caved in the animatronics and broke his nose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So in the movie you can just see it when he gets up out of the trash, can he's holding onto the front of his face because it broke his nose?
Speaker 1:Yep, that was probably the 1990s version of Aragorn kicking the helmet and breaking his toe in real life. I think that's a. That's a history that everybody found really fun. And uh, yeah, you're correct, josh Pius actually broke his nose during that time and they all found those suits extremely claustrophobic. However, josh Pius himself was, in fact, a little bit claustrophobic and they had to do short stints at the takes that they were doing so he could take the helmet off and get some air and breathe and actually, you know, regulate himself in that time Because, as we said, the suits were made out of rubber and latex, not a very breathable costume material.
Speaker 1:But they were also shooting in North Carolina and at the time it was extremely hot conditions, the suits were restrictive, was so humid, and I remember watching an interview with Leif Tilden, who was the stuntman in Donatello, and he said between takes you'd hear like a muffle of things which I'll get into in a little bit, but when you'd hear cut, they'd come in with like an air hose and they'd pump it straight into the mouth of the turtle and it would literally just blow them away with all this cool pressurized air that sort of came into the suit at the time, so it was very uncomfortable and very restricting is what all of them said.
Speaker 2:Yeah, restricting is what all of them said. Yeah, well, um, the guy who took over for raf's character said he had to drink a gallon of water a day just to stay hydrated because it was so hot in those suits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you'd have your own climate in there. You'd be sweating profusely. One of the big things that was a was a problem as well was they had no sense of. They had no sense of actually space around them because the animatronics were inside the head, which contained a lot of servo motors and robotics and also transmitters that they were constantly moving and rushing so they could hear the clatter and the whirring of those, and then they'd have an earpiece that had everybody's dialogue coming into them and then they'd have the outside sounds of everybody, the sensory overload?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly right, and that's what one of them said. The sensory overload yeah, yeah, exactly right, and that's what one of them said. They said that it was like being at Grand Central Station and then also trying to act. So I think the unsung heroes of this movie is, in fact, these four stuntmen.
Speaker 2:Inside the suits. Inside the suits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, two of them continued on to do the sequel and the third movie, two of them didn't, two of them did not. So the two that continued was Leonardo and Michelangelo. They continued. So there was a big challenge as well in the behind the scenes with the turtles, and they had a lot of trouble with the turtle heads functioning properly, because where they were filming in North Carolina there was a lot of planes and radio signals going over, so at times they had to make them all tweak they actually would. They would be doing unsuspecting things and the turtle heads would have incredibly open mouths or their eyebrows would do weird things, just mid-take. Apparently it sent people into hysterics, but it was also very annoying because they'd have to then redo the take and the people were feeling uncomfortable in the suits as well. Uh, it actually caused one of the most famously memed easter eggs of nightmare fuel that people see today on the internet. Uh, do you know what? That one is right? Is that the?
Speaker 2:mickey one. Yeah, yeah, where it's like that.
Speaker 1:Actually there's two then, because that's one but then there's the other one. It's literally like an aggressive Mikey with bulging popping up to your eyes and his teethy mouth is just sort of vibrating in this space and just clicking and clacking. That's one of them. The second one is an extremely wide-mouthed Donatello, and you can see him standing next to April and inside Donatello's open mouth you can actually see the eyes and mouth and nose of the voice actor and it just looks so unsettling like a frog that swallowed a cat or something, I don't know. It just looks so weird.
Speaker 1:But those glitches were all caused by interference with radio waves, which made it very tricky for them to shoot in a very fluid manner. That being said, though, jim Henson, this was probably one of his last projects before he unfortunately passed away, and he was very proud of what the turtles looked like and how they actually motioned and what they looked like on film. He also, however, was not really fond of the violence and dark tone in the movie, saying that it wasn't really his style or anything that he'd done before.
Speaker 2:Well, that's also the reason. Towards the end of the actual production itself, steve Bannon was actually reportedly let go. Yes, because they were worried about how dark the movie was going to be how dark the movie was going to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that explains the subsequent two movies being obviously a little more lighthearted. Yeah, because Steve Barron, the director, was indeed let go because of the tone of the movie. Another thing, with the suits as well, because they were made of latex foam and rubber, he had to be very careful around water because otherwise those suits would swell, becoming extremely cumbersome and heavy, and then they would be unable to continue for the day because the suits were just overloaded with weight. All right, so with that, overall, for me I think the suits they are unsettling, but they're very impressive. I wouldn't want to see this done in any other way.
Speaker 2:Really, I really like the way that they're sort of portrayed Like going back in time, like, oh, if I could go back in time, and they're like, oh, if you go back in time and change it, would you? I?
Speaker 1:would say no, yeah, exactly, I think that they.
Speaker 2:I mean, if the stunt actors ever said, do you want to go back in time, would you change it?
Speaker 1:They'd probably be like yes. They'd probably say yes.
Speaker 2:But I'd be like no.
Speaker 1:But you know, I think if they did it now they'd be able to install cooling mechanisms and a lot of different animatronic sort of inventions in the head to make it a little bit more comfortable. I'd probably like to see one that they'd make these days with the technology that they have, because the new one which we're going to go into in that Devil's Avocado segment made by Michael Bay, obviously done through motion capture, which garnered some different results With the green suits and the green backpacks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, All right. So let's get into our Devil's Avocado segment right now. The Devil's Avocado segment is where we ask a series of questions designed to analyze alternate aspects of the film or media. This may be an alternate ending, a casting choice or a story beat altogether, and we analyze these elements to determine if they are better or worse than the originally filmed version. So filmed version.
Speaker 1:So in this part of the Devil's Avocado, we're actually going to be looking at how the 1990s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie compares with Michael Bay's version that was made in the 2010s, specifically 2014 and 2016. And we're talking not about the actual stories but the turtles themselves. So we talked a lot about the animatronics and the way that they look on film for the 1990s version, but with the Michael Bay version, the biggest thing for me is that the turtles' design is completely off in the Michael Bay version, so they're oversized, extremely muscular. I do like that. They have their unique little tidbits on their suits and I think that the turtles do look significantly different from each other. But I actually think the practical effects with Jim Henson's animatronic suits looks more expressive, realistic and lifelike as opposed to the the uncanny looking turtles of Michael Bay's film. What are your thoughts on Michael Bay's version?
Speaker 2:I think I've only watched both these or those Michael Bay movies like once each, but I do have to agree that they are oversized. They're more like Teenage Mutant Ninja Tortoises rather than Ninja Turtles, Like when in that scene, I think when they're in the elevator and they're all bunched in there it's like massive.
Speaker 1:You guys are huge. Yeah, they actually do some upward facing shots to show how huge they are, because they're kind of imposing onto humans at that point and trying to look scary.
Speaker 2:and you know, Raph's got his Batman voice on and yeah, and it's just weird Because even in all the cartoon versions and anime versions they're all well, because they're meant to be ninjas. How are they meant to jump and flip around with big-ass, heavy shells on and their muscles bulging out like they're bodybuilders?
Speaker 1:Yeah, even Like their dexterity would be gone Exactly. And even Donatello, the meekest kind of turtle you might say, is really over-the muscly shredded. And how do they maintain that physique? On a diet of pizza and no anchovies and protein. Yeah, I think that I don't know what the creative direction was for Michael Bay in terms of designing these turtles. I think that the I think it was more cool for cool's sake?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like just try and make them look cool, but neither of them made look cool.
Speaker 1:They're really cool, yeah, and yeah, it popped up, popped to like early 2000s culture as well. And you know, I think that the comic accurate that we're looking at in the 1990s version is what hits better for me. And we're actually finding that shift happening now in the MCU. If we're looking at the Marvel movies and you're looking at all the costumes that are coming out and people looking at them and seeing how comic accurate they are, as opposed to the MCU taking liberties in character design, I think they're landing a little bit better than what they have been previously, in my opinion anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but then again some of those costumes are hard to translate from comic to the actual on screen because of just how, like in the comics and everything, they look cool as yeah, and they work. And they work. And then you look at it like, even like Hawkeyes, like I reckon they'd be cool as to see him in his Purple Purple.
Speaker 1:With the winged mask Mask. I reckon it'd be cool to see him in his purple purple with the winged mask.
Speaker 2:I reckon that'd be cool as, but then you see him in later adaptations of like animated movies and he's got this more black and black and purple sort of just like like no sleeved um, it looks more like the Ultimates version, yeah, with the blonde hair and the petal sunglasses, petal sunnies and everything like that yeah, yep, I can tell that was a good choice using that sort of version rather than the old school version, and I do like Wanda's version where it's like the long jacket and everything like that.
Speaker 1:They poke fun at that in WandaVision, don't they? Yeah, when they dress up in Halloween, they dress up in Halloween. And the one that first came to mind when you mentioned that sometimes they don't really hit right was the Vision, because if you think of the Vision where he's got his massive cave, pink face, green on yellow and red traffic light, look, and then you look at how he was actually portrayed by Paul Bettany in the MCU, I think it's a lot better that they took liberties on that one. Another one that comes to my Captain America suit is the one from the Winter Soldier where they've taken some modern kind of Liberty vibes in terms of militaristic uniform, as opposed to his Just spandex in the first Avenger movie, where he's literally in blue, white and red spandex. And, yeah, nobody seemed to like that one too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is comic accurate. But I do prefer him having the tactical belt and harness and everything like that. That has pouches. And one thing I did like about the first Avenger was the fact that he used a pistol. Yeah, Yep.
Speaker 1:He had a shielder.
Speaker 2:He used a pistol. Ah Nazis, yeah God in the Nazis, oh man.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Until later on when he's like oh, I'm just going to use a shield now.
Speaker 1:Purely defense. But yeah, the other thing with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the 1990s that I kind of looked at was, you know, they see the characters themselves seem to be portrayed as being more like teenagers. Yes, than Michael Bay's A hundred percent Adult turtles, seem to me at least. Yeah, adult turtles seem to me at least yeah. I think the turtles are best portrayed when they're portrayed by teenagers or actors that are younger yeah, which is what they did for the 1990s movie.
Speaker 1:A lot of the actors were in their teens, or at least early 20s, and they did it as well for the mutant mayhem movie. They actually got four of the kids that were voicing those turtles in the room together so they could riff off each other. They could develop a relationship, which was extremely important to get the authenticity of these turtles being brothers in the movie. So I think it works best there, whereas the turtles in the michael bay movie it has been largely spoken about, especially by alan richardson who plays rafael, that their treatment and conditions were not so good so their relationship wasn't there, but also they were being played by adult men in their late twenties, early thirties.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, let's do our sign off, okay. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, this episode has been brought to you by at Boreal Seth, who is one of our threads. Community members, we want to thank you for talking to us or for choosing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 for us to look at. If you want to be a part of our community, you can do so on threads and also Instagram. We also have a letterbox where you can actually add to our watch list and we use those watch lists to come up with what our portal is. Pick episodes are going to be at the end of the month. You can also contact us on our brand new website, which is wwwfandomportalspodcastcom.
Speaker 1:In our next episode, in part two, we're going to be looking at our popcorn perspective. Specifically, we're going to be looking at the character arcs of Raphael and Donatello and we're also going to be looking into our MVTs, our most valuable takeaways and our real deal segment for the 1990 hit Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So if you haven't already, make sure you go and check out part two in our playlist below. This is Aaron signing out. This is Brash signing out and we'll see you next time. Bye, bye.
