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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of My Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 1: that brings you the secret histories and little known fascinating

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Speaker 1: facts and figures behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music,

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Speaker 1: and more. We are your two no longer teenage but

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Speaker 1: still mutant Trivia Turtles. I'm Alex Heigel and I'm Jordan

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Speaker 1: run Talk and Jordan. Today we're gonna be talking about

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Speaker 1: a franchise that occupied a and still does a massive

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Speaker 1: space in my heart, as I'm sure it does for

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Speaker 1: any number of people of our age group. We are

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Speaker 1: talking about the teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. We're talking about

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Speaker 1: the comic. We're talking about the TV show. We're talking

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Speaker 1: about the movie, the first one. We may touch on

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Speaker 1: the action figures. I think the comic was the only

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Speaker 1: one of these that I didn't have my hands on

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Speaker 1: as a kid, because, as it's as well well as

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about, they were both scarce and very violent. Um.

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Speaker 1: I had a boatload of the action figures. I played

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Speaker 1: the arcade games, Shouts to Turtles and Time, and I

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Speaker 1: rewatched that first movie endlessly and the second one too,

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Speaker 1: with Vanilla Ice wrapping Go Ninja Go Ninja Go. You

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Speaker 1: know you didn't see that one. That's great, it's great,

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Speaker 1: but we're not going to talk about that movie though.

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Speaker 1: Um what about you, Bud, You're gonna get a lot

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Speaker 1: of blank stairs. Yeah. You don't strike me as a

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Speaker 1: Turtle kind of guy, no, you know, I was more

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Speaker 1: of a Thomas the Tank Engine kind of guy around

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Speaker 1: this time of my life. Yeah, I completely and utterly

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Speaker 1: missed this. Um. It felt vaguely offensive to my Italian relatives.

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Speaker 1: It's my one and only takeaway from the teenage Ninja

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Speaker 1: Turtles as a kid. Yeah, I wish I could add

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Speaker 1: anything to this at all. Until speaking with you, I

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Speaker 1: had no idea if this was primarily a movie property,

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Speaker 1: a TV show property, a video game property, or comic

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Speaker 1: property or what. Um. Yeah, for all my collecting habits,

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Speaker 1: I was never a comics guy and not really an

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Speaker 1: action figure kid either, And I don't know everything about it.

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Speaker 1: Just seemed to like Goofy to me. It's the show

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Speaker 1: is Goofy. The first movie is actually, I think a

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Speaker 1: little bit deeper than most people give it credit for.

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Speaker 1: There's like actual character beats. The fight scenes are a

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Speaker 1: little more like not violent, but they do have a

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Speaker 1: little bit more teeth in them because they cost corrected

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Speaker 1: it on the second movie, and it just becomes like

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Speaker 1: three Stooges fight scenes. I mean, that was what my

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Speaker 1: understanding is. That started off with a very violent adult comic,

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Speaker 1: then went to a very kid friendly TV show so

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Speaker 1: that they could make action figures to tie in for

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Speaker 1: this this very kid friendly TV show, and then they

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Speaker 1: made a movie based on the TV show that then

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Speaker 1: kind of reverted back to being super dark and scary,

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Speaker 1: and some people, as we'll talk about, or kind of

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Speaker 1: upset about this. Yeah. So, now that you've basically given

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Speaker 1: away the entire narrative arc of this episode, thanks folks

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Speaker 1: for listening. Um So, from the Marvel Comics connection to

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Speaker 1: the Turtles, to the strange, roundabout role of l a

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Speaker 1: stand up comedy in getting the film made, to the

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Speaker 1: mind boggling live music or that the Turtles undertook in

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Speaker 1: their prime years, will say, here's everything you didn't know

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Speaker 1: about the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles. Sorry. Two artists, Kevin

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Speaker 1: Eastman and Peter Laird, were struggling New England comic book

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Speaker 1: writers when Eastman one night happened to sketch a turtle

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Speaker 1: wearing a mask and armed with a set of nun

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Speaker 1: chucks in November of night. Here's a question, how many

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Speaker 1: joints do you think we required to lead up to

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Speaker 1: the point where he's sketching a turtle wearing a mask,

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Speaker 1: armed with numbchucks? No comment. In May of two thousand twelve,

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Speaker 1: that original drawing of the turtles sold at auction for

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Speaker 1: seventy one thousand nearly seventy two thousand dollars. You know

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Speaker 1: what I have to say about that, right? Sure do

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Speaker 1: belongs in the museum there it is. Pete drew a

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Speaker 1: cooler one, Eastman told The Eastern Told the Week In Then,

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Speaker 1: of course I had to top his sketch, so I

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Speaker 1: drew four of them standing in dramatic post that was

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Speaker 1: in pencil, but Pete inked it and added teenage mutant

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Speaker 1: to the ninja turtle part. We were just pissing our

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Speaker 1: pants that night, to be honest, saying this is the

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Speaker 1: dumbest thing ever. It's just like small Boy mad libs. Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: The pair's comics imprint, Mirage Studios, was founded with money

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Speaker 1: from a tax refund that they got and alone from

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Speaker 1: Eastman's uncle and Laird was so moved by this gesture

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Speaker 1: that he would later found the Zeric Foundation, which for

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Speaker 1: twenty years awarded self publishing grants to comic book creators

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Speaker 1: as well as qualified charitable and nonprofit organizations. He gave back.

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Speaker 1: In other words, they called it mirage because, in Eastman's word,

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Speaker 1: there wasn't an actual studio, only kitchen tables and couches

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Speaker 1: with lapboards. In May of four, Laird and Kevin Eastman

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Speaker 1: self published the first black and white issue of Teenage

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Speaker 1: Muting Ninja Turtles at an initial print run of three thousand,

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Speaker 1: and they flushed out the concept based on a number

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Speaker 1: of other titles and influences from around this time, Marvel's

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Speaker 1: The New Mutants, which you say as a spiritual descendant

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Speaker 1: of X Men, which featured teenage mutants, Uh They're Serebus,

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Speaker 1: which starred an anthropomorphic art vark that occasionally cosplayed as

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Speaker 1: Cone of the Barbarian, and Frank Miller's Ronan and Daredevil,

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Speaker 1: which melded nightmarish, taxi driver esque visions of New York

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Speaker 1: with Ninja's and samurai's. Yeah, Frank Miller might be one

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Speaker 1: of the most um New York hating comic book artists.

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Speaker 1: He apparently was mugged here like twice when he first

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Speaker 1: moved here to work on comics, never got over it,

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Speaker 1: and so like since City, the Dark Knight returns like

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Speaker 1: all of his big pioneering comic book works, portray the

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Speaker 1: Big City as like a dystopian hellhole, can be directly

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Speaker 1: traced back to the time that he was mugged. In fact,

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Speaker 1: speaking of Daredevil, the Turtle's origin story is an explicit

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Speaker 1: nod to that hero Marvel Hero, which is the story

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Speaker 1: of a young boy who gains superpowered senses except for sight,

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Speaker 1: after being blinded by a bunch of toxic goo that

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Speaker 1: falls off a truck bottom. Like Alex Back, we should

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Speaker 1: totally do Alex mac it would be good. Eastman laired

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Speaker 1: reason that at least some of that goo must have

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Speaker 1: filtered down into the sewer and had an effect on

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Speaker 1: some of his denizens. I mean to quote Dr Evil.

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Speaker 1: I don't know animals, but do turtles live in the sewer?

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Speaker 1: It's it's it's possible a few of them, maybe the

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Speaker 1: turtle's mentor the mutated rats Splinter who yes, rats live

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Speaker 1: in sewers. Maybe the rat was going to eat the

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Speaker 1: turtles and then when they got all cute, he was like,

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Speaker 1: I can't eat you. Now you're my adopted offspring. We're riffing,

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Speaker 1: we're reaching for stuff here. Cute or dangerous. Yeah, there's

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Speaker 1: another number of Daredevil references. So Splinter the rat Mentor

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Speaker 1: is a riff on the guy who trains Daredevil to

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Speaker 1: master his powers, who is known simply as Stick and

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Speaker 1: the Turtles foes the Ninja Clan the foot as a

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Speaker 1: logical counterpoint to the hand, which is the Ninja clan

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Speaker 1: the Daredevil battles in Miller's run on the title. I

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Speaker 1: find it funny that Big Bad the Shredder, meanwhile, has

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Speaker 1: no such marvel analog. Eastman literally just looked at a

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Speaker 1: cheese grater and thought that it could be weaponized again,

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Speaker 1: how many joints here? Exactly? We're gonna make our villain

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Speaker 1: this big cheese grater. It's just gonna be a cheese graters.

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Speaker 1: Have you ever really looked at a cheese grater? Man,

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Speaker 1: like you can? Really you really hurt someone with one

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Speaker 1: of these? Who's the mutated rat Mentor in your life?

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Speaker 1: Robert Plant, It's got to be somebody scrappier than that, Oh,

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Speaker 1: Tim Armstrong from Rancid Yeah thats um. The pair initially

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Speaker 1: wanted to give their creation some authentically Japanese names, but

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Speaker 1: Laird said they simply couldn't think of any not big

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Speaker 1: to sal with Fu and A fans, and I probably

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Speaker 1: hadn't seen any number of Kurosawa Samurai samurai movies, and uh,

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Speaker 1: simply one with the four Renaissance artists they were most

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Speaker 1: familiar with. Aided by one of the Laird's art history books,

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Speaker 1: The color coding of the characters Raphael red, Leonardo blue,

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Speaker 1: Donna tell A purple, Michelangelo orange came via the animated series,

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Speaker 1: as the original comic book was in black and white,

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Speaker 1: so they were differentiated in the comic only by their weapons.

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Speaker 1: Raphael has size, Leonardo has swords, Donna Tella has a

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Speaker 1: bow staff, Michelangelo has nun chucks. They also initially misspelled

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Speaker 1: Michelangelo's name, using the Anglo spelling of Michael rather than

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Speaker 1: the Italian spelling without the A. Wasn't Donna Tello originally

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Speaker 1: supposed to be Jean Lorenzo Bernini an tony one. I

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Speaker 1: think they're supposed to be a A fifth one too named.

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Speaker 1: I swear it was something like Kirby. Oh maybe because

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Speaker 1: they were big Jack Kirby nerds. Who is a Marvel

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Speaker 1: And I think it's the River DC but one of

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Speaker 1: the towering figures of you know, mid century American comics. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: we do not have the time or the space to

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Speaker 1: get into the cast of characters that sprawled from the

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Speaker 1: comics to the show to the toys. But there's one

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Speaker 1: hilarious one that I really want to highlight. Shredder created

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Speaker 1: an answer to the Turtles, a team called the punk Frogs,

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Speaker 1: and they are named after Shredder's personal heroes, at Til

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Speaker 1: of a Hun, Genghis Khan, Napoleon Bonaparte, and rest mutant Uh.

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Speaker 1: Two of them in the cartoon are voiced by Maurice

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Speaker 1: la Marsh a k A. The Brain from Pinking, the

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Speaker 1: Brain beloved by this podcast for his Orson Welles impression.

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Speaker 1: But for some reason, Atil of the Frogs speaks like

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Speaker 1: Marlon Brando in The Godfather and mocklybse Now. So, I

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Speaker 1: don't know why I threw that in there, just thought

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Speaker 1: it was funny. The comics were a big hit right

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Speaker 1: off the bat, and while it might seem counterintuitive, the

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Speaker 1: alternative comics scene of the time was rather bullish on

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Speaker 1: black and white. You know you think of comics is

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Speaker 1: brightly colored things. Not so at the time. Gilbert and

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Speaker 1: Jamie hernandez is Love and Rockets, the aforementioned Cerebus and

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Speaker 1: Yusagi yo Jimbo featuring an anthropomorphic samurai rabbit. We're all

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Speaker 1: black and white. They were all hits. Incredibly, Usaga yu

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Speaker 1: Jimbo had nothing to do with their turtles, despite both

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Speaker 1: of them being martial artists anthropomorphic animals, but they would

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Speaker 1: have crossover issues. I think I had his action figure

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Speaker 1: um because tmnts initial run was so limited and the

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Speaker 1: market was so hot. Within months, the issues were selling

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Speaker 1: it up to fifty times their initial value, and obviously

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Speaker 1: the success of the title inspired a rush of copycats

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Speaker 1: like and I swear I'm not making these up, adolescent

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Speaker 1: radioactive black belt Hamsters, preteen Dirty Jean kung Fu Kangaroos,

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Speaker 1: and adult thermonuclear Samurai Elephants, although that last title eventually

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Speaker 1: morphed into the much cleaner title of power packaderms um

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Speaker 1: that Kangaroo one is funny because actually written by a

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Speaker 1: woman named Lee Mars, who was a true, really pioneering

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Speaker 1: feminist underground artists. I think that one was written as

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Speaker 1: a parody capitalism is a disease. But did you know

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Speaker 1: that in the UK the local sensors are I guess,

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Speaker 1: super sensitive to the inherent violence of teenage mutan ninja turtles,

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Speaker 1: so they changed their name to teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.

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Speaker 1: And I guess since nunchucks and other change sticks were

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Speaker 1: banned in the UK, every scene from the first season

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Speaker 1: of the show that showed nunchucks were either cut or

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Speaker 1: they did the Batman thing where they replaced the shots

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Speaker 1: with stills containing words like a biff and she's great.

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Speaker 1: So that's why by season four of the show, Michelangelo

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Speaker 1: started using a turtle shell grappling hook, and by season

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Speaker 1: five he stopped carrying nunchucks entirely. And while we're on

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Speaker 1: the topic of teenage mut ninja turtles in the UK,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about how they caused an environmental crisis, shall

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Speaker 1: we please? So fans across the Pond began buying red

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Speaker 1: eared sliders, which are a type of turtle in droves,

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Speaker 1: only to realize that turtles in real life are not

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Speaker 1: as dynamic and active as the ones in the show.

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Speaker 1: So as a result, dissatisfied customers released turtles into the wild,

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Speaker 1: which caused the serious theological problem that continues to this day.

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Speaker 1: It's an invasive species. Baby yeah, I think it's like

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Speaker 1: one of the most um But getting back to happier times.

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Speaker 1: In six the success of the comic books puts Teenage

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Speaker 1: Mutant Ninja Turtles on the radar of a New York

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Speaker 1: licensing agent named Mark Freedman. And Freedman was in the

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Speaker 1: process of founding his own licensing company, Surge Licensing, and

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Speaker 1: it previously handled the licensing of Hanna Barbara's Library of Characters.

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Speaker 1: And he said, I was at a low point in

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Speaker 1: my licensing careers, as him talking to The New York

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Speaker 1: Times in then someone told me about a teenage mutant turtle.

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Speaker 1: I was looking for a property, but I thought it

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Speaker 1: was a joke. I just want to read that in

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Speaker 1: Clintoneyes Food Voice. I was at a low point. Someone

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Speaker 1: told me at a teenage mutant ninja turtle. Stairs manfully

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Speaker 1: off into the distance. So this Freeman guy pitched the

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Speaker 1: idea of licensing the turtles to Eastman and Layard, the

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Speaker 1: creators of Teenage munt Ninja Turtles as a toy line initially,

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Speaker 1: and they ainked a hundred and fifty thou dollar deal

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Speaker 1: with Playmates Toys to start a line after being rejected

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Speaker 1: by a number of toy companies. Sort of a theme

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Speaker 1: for this The teenage Shockingly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was

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Speaker 1: a tough sell for toymakers, television networks, and film studios

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Speaker 1: um But however, Playmates, as we touched on the top

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Speaker 1: of the episode, insisted that a cartoon series for teenage

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Speaker 1: muting Na Turtles be produced so that they could make

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Speaker 1: the toys as sort of a tie in brand. And

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Speaker 1: this tracks with trends of the time. This was the

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Speaker 1: era in which very kind of adult film properties were

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Speaker 1: being marketed with toy lines and animated series. You have

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Speaker 1: g I. Joe and Transformers, but you also have the

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Speaker 1: animated series based on Rambo and Robo Cop And you

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Speaker 1: say there are toy lines around this time based on

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Speaker 1: the alien and Predator characters, along with Swamp Thing, which,

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Speaker 1: despite the cheesy live action movies in the eighties, is

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Speaker 1: a comic in which the main love interest has hallucinogenic

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Speaker 1: sex with the titular sentient mass of plant life. Un familiar,

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Speaker 1: I'll take your word for it. In the same run

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Speaker 1: of comics, that same character is later raped by her

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Speaker 1: dead uncle who's possessing her husband at the time. Point

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Speaker 1: is swamp things should have been marketed to children, and

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Speaker 1: I had a lot of those action figures and watched

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Speaker 1: that cartoon. They also made a cartoon series and action

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Speaker 1: figure line about the Toxic Avenger. Toxic Avenger is a

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Speaker 1: movie made by Trauma, who are famously like one of

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Speaker 1: the goryoust film studios of all time. It's just this

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Speaker 1: whole Wild West era, Like you know, I remember those

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Speaker 1: alien and predator action figures. I had a bunch of

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Speaker 1: of them. I should not have been watching those movies

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Speaker 1: at that age anyway. Playmates partners with the animation studio

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Speaker 1: Mirracami Wolf Swenson, who made this Toxic Avenger cartoon, and

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Speaker 1: they begin developing the series. Many of the Turtle signatures

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Speaker 1: like heroes and a half shell and turtle power came

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Speaker 1: from these initial brainstorming sessions. And it is important to

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Speaker 1: note here that the original comics were super super violent,

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Speaker 1: and they moved away from this tone for the show

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Speaker 1: because there it's a toy tie in. Even the movie

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Speaker 1: was too violent for the Playmates people and they refused

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Speaker 1: to make tie in toys for the first movie. I

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Speaker 1: guess I mean like even in the original cut of

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Speaker 1: the first Teenage mut Ninja Turtles Movies, they had a

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Speaker 1: kid get beaten to death by Tatsu. Yeah, before the

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Speaker 1: m p a A insisted they add sounds that the

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Speaker 1: kid breathing a voice off screens saying oh, he's gonna

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Speaker 1: be alright. The A d r that in It's so weird. Uh,

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Speaker 1: here we go. Teenage Mutant Ninja talent grab bag of

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Speaker 1: voice actors involved in the show, Cam Clark voice Leonardo.

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Speaker 1: He also voiced the lead character Kannada in the English

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Speaker 1: dub of the groundbreaking Japanese anime Akira, and the bad

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Speaker 1: guy in the similarly groundbreaking video game Metal Gear Solid.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that for somebody was not into like that

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Speaker 1: many violent games and stuff as a kid. I remember

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Speaker 1: Metal Del Solid Varia, probably because it was the only

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Speaker 1: PlayStation game that was sort of like gold nye. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I don't want a golden eye. Barry Gordon, the voice

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Speaker 1: of Donna Tello, was in The Girl Can't Help It

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Speaker 1: in ninety six. What's like, that's like the ground zero

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Speaker 1: of rock movies, with like Jane Mansfield and Little Richard,

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Speaker 1: and I think like Clive mcfadder for a guy doing

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Speaker 1: the voice of an animated turtle. This man had a

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Speaker 1: career in almost every classic television show ever, Dick Van

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Speaker 1: Dyke Show, Jack Benny, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Leave It to Beaver,

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Speaker 1: Dennis the Menace, The Don Rickles Show, and The Bob

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Speaker 1: Crane Show. Before he became a prolific voice actor and

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Speaker 1: the longest serving head of the screen Actors. Get Wow,

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Speaker 1: We'll tie me up and beat me with a tripod, Folks.

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Speaker 1: If you want to google Bob Crane, do that, but

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Speaker 1: not in your work computer. Robert Paulson voiced Raphael, but

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Speaker 1: he would switch to Donna Tello for the two thousand

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Speaker 1: twelve cartoon. That guy was Pinky and Pinky in the Brain,

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Speaker 1: and he was Yao the Animaniac, and Carl and Jimmy Neutron,

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Speaker 1: and he played the Jim Carey roll. In the short

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Speaker 1: lived Mask Animated series, he was Hoggie and Johnny Quest.

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Speaker 1: He played Arthur in the Tick. He was also in

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Speaker 1: Biker Mice from Mars, and he was in Chippendale and

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Speaker 1: Dark Wink Duck and Fraggle Rock. I just love the

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Speaker 1: fact that there were like two dozen voice actors who

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Speaker 1: did every single show for like two decades. Who was um,

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Speaker 1: what the hell is his name? Billy West? Billy West.

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Speaker 1: Everybody didn't Doug he did Ren and Stimpy did Philip K.

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Speaker 1: Fry and Futurama, The Red Eminem Townsend Coleman, who played Michelangelo,

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Speaker 1: was the voice of the Tick a Car Tune series.

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Speaker 1: I also watched Spoon. He was also in Fraggle Rock,

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Speaker 1: and he was in the teen Wolf animated series, which

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Speaker 1: I did not know was that. And he was in

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Speaker 1: Fern golly oh, yeah, I don't remember, but he's in Fernal. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I looked it up and I wasn't familiar with the character,

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Speaker 1: so I lost interest. James Avery, uncle Phil from Fresh

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Speaker 1: Prince played Shredder, and then the guy who took over

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Speaker 1: that role from him, Jim Cummings, was Winnie the Frigging

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Speaker 1: Pooh and Tigger and dark Wing Duck, and he took

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Speaker 1: over Scars song be prepared in The Lion King when

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Speaker 1: Jeremy Irons developed voice problems trying to sing it. Wow,

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Speaker 1: these are champions, all insane. All of the voice actors

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Speaker 1: performed their roles together in the same room to preserve chemistry.

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Speaker 1: And that was the thing I was really rare, right,

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Speaker 1: like one of the few exceptions where the Simpsons and

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Speaker 1: I think we talked about on Beauty and the Beast too,

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Speaker 1: because they did the same thing with Bell and the Beast.

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Speaker 1: It's something that Fred Wolfe took so seriously. He told

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Speaker 1: voice actors that if someone couldn't make it to a

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Speaker 1: recording session and they would be replaced. And that's why

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Speaker 1: some of the characters have alternative voice actors listed in

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Speaker 1: their credits, because if they had a time conflict, they

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Speaker 1: were just cast the voice of someone else. Um. Despite

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Speaker 1: that bit of production related callousness, the voice of April O'Neill,

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Speaker 1: Rene Jacobs, said it did create the intended atmosphere of camaraderie.

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Speaker 1: She said, we played off each other. There was a

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Speaker 1: lot of ad libbing as you meditate on that. We'll

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Speaker 1: be right back with more too much information after these messages,

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Speaker 1: and now, folks, we must get into the little segment

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Speaker 1: I like to call teenage mutant ninja slang um because

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Speaker 1: while we're at it, where the hell does Cowabunga come from?

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Speaker 1: I'm so glad you asked Jordan's Well, it actually comes

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Speaker 1: from the nineteen fifties children's show classic Howdy Dooty, and

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Speaker 1: it's said by the um problematic problematic character Chief thunder

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Speaker 1: Thud as a sign of frustration. His friend was Chief Featherman.

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Speaker 1: But what do you expect? This was the show that

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Speaker 1: popularized the term peanut gallery. That's where all the kids

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Speaker 1: sat off screen. But how do you do? He was

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Speaker 1: like the kids show of the fifties. It's like a

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Speaker 1: huge deal, has an absolutely horrifying character. Please, if you've

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Speaker 1: never if you're not familiar, if you don't know what

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Speaker 1: a Howdy duty is, you don't need to find out,

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Speaker 1: and especially if you're afraid of clowns or rentral accustomies.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. Somehow it got adopted by surfers in

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Speaker 1: the following decade, and in Paul Mike Federi's book Weird

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Speaker 1: Word Origins Uh, he points to the sixties TV show

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Speaker 1: Gidget as an influence. I guess one of the characters

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Speaker 1: we yell Cowabunga as he ran his surfboard into the water,

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Speaker 1: uh teenagering Ninta. Turtles writer David Wise has claimed that

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Speaker 1: he came up with making the word Cowabungo Michael Angelo's

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Speaker 1: catchphrase as of the first episode, when Michael Angelo surfs

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Speaker 1: over an object because he had a memory of a

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Speaker 1: similar scene Charles M. Schultz drew in Peanuts with Snoopy,

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Speaker 1: and animator Fred Wolfe has claimed that it was actually

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Speaker 1: his suggestion to make it a catchphrase, and Michelangelo voice

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Speaker 1: actor Townsend Coleman has apparently claimed that he was the

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Speaker 1: one who invented this. He said he just improvised it.

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Speaker 1: Uh So. The jury is still out on why Cowabunga

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Speaker 1: entered the teenage muting into Turtle universe. But the coda

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Speaker 1: to all this is that Teenage Mutina Turtle creators Eastman

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Speaker 1: and Layard were sued for five million dollars by Buffalo

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Speaker 1: Bob Smith, the host of Howdy Duty, because he claimed

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Speaker 1: that they stole his line Cowabunga. And I guess they

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Speaker 1: settled for fifty thou dollars, so not not the five million, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: not Buffalo Bob wanted. So I guess Buffalo Bub made

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Speaker 1: this word up wholesale man, that's what you're saying. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think he was trying to do some kind of racist,

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Speaker 1: like Native American like sounding word. So writer David Wise

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Speaker 1: had just finished working on Transformers and he was actually

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Speaker 1: hoping for some downtime when he got the call to

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Speaker 1: do T M N T. As a self professed comics freak,

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Speaker 1: he owned the first seven issues of the comic, and

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Speaker 1: he took the job on the spot. But that said,

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Speaker 1: he was not the animation studio's first choice. That would

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Speaker 1: be Chuck Lori, who went on to create two of

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Speaker 1: the most profitable sitcoms of all time, Two and a

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Speaker 1: Half Men and The Big Bang. Theory Lori, who at

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Speaker 1: the time was a bit of a tune smith, a

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Speaker 1: bit of a song and dance kind of Broadway Danny

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Speaker 1: Rose sort of character. Uh. He wrote Debbie Harry's track

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Speaker 1: French Kissing in the USA. What Chuck Lorie wrote the

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Speaker 1: teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Teenage Mute. He wrote that partner

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Speaker 1: Dennis Brown, not the reggae singer Dennis Brown, sadly enough,

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Speaker 1: and hold onto your hats because this is one of

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Speaker 1: those truth is Stranger than Fiction moments. The show runners

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Speaker 1: original choice for the theme song were the actual Turtles,

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Speaker 1: as in the Happy Together sixties pop band The Turtles.

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Speaker 1: Um and Lori said in two thousand twelve in an interview.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to do the theme song for the Turtles

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Speaker 1: the show the minute I heard about it, but the

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Speaker 1: original Turtles were given the job. If I recall correctly,

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Speaker 1: they were a legit group. They were deep in the

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Speaker 1: whole Laurel Canyon scene, and when the Turtles split in

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Speaker 1: the late sixties, the two man guys, Mark Bollman and

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Speaker 1: Howard Kalin joined Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention and they

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Speaker 1: also made some great stuff under the name Flow and Eddie.

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Speaker 1: I think they were tight with Keith Moon too, so

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Speaker 1: these guys were like deep in the same and warn

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Speaker 1: Zevon some songs for him for them, and they helped

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Speaker 1: him out get his start. However, the band bailed on

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Speaker 1: the job, and the show's producer went back to Lorie saying,

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Speaker 1: you have forty eight hours ago. He and Brown banged

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Speaker 1: it out in afternoon and booked an l A studio

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Speaker 1: from twelve am to eight am one night because it

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Speaker 1: was the cheapest time block available and their budget for

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Speaker 1: the demo is two thousand dollars. He also said they

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Speaker 1: submitted the demo with all of these ad libs that

420
00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:09,399
Speaker 1: like Heroes and a Half show Turtle Power. Those were

421
00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:12,439
Speaker 1: ad libs that they put on the demo. That demo

422
00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: ended up being taken as the master version that the

423
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 1: production used, So that's why all that stuff is in there. Oh,

424
00:24:19,520 --> 00:24:23,240
Speaker 1: I love it. Writer Wise found the task of characterizing

425
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:26,800
Speaker 1: the grim indistinct turtles from the comics challenging, so he

426
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:30,680
Speaker 1: took a very literal approach, with each one embodying one

427
00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:33,919
Speaker 1: word from the title, inspired by other classic forsomes like

428
00:24:33,960 --> 00:24:36,399
Speaker 1: the Marx Brothers and the Beatles. I I want to

429
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,160
Speaker 1: I have to say, Okay, teenage, Sure I get that one.

430
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:41,160
Speaker 1: Being the kind of goofy dumb one mutant. I don't

431
00:24:41,160 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 1: know how you illustrate that, but maybe kind of being

432
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:49,120
Speaker 1: weirdo Ninja. Okay, being a really good fighter turtle. Well,

433
00:24:49,160 --> 00:24:51,000
Speaker 1: how much would it suck to be the turtle who's

434
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:54,639
Speaker 1: defining characteristic? I cut this, But now that you're forcing

435
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:58,560
Speaker 1: my hand, I'll explain. Teenage was Michaelangelo because he was

436
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:01,720
Speaker 1: the un serious goofy one mutant. He simply took the

437
00:25:01,760 --> 00:25:05,360
Speaker 1: idea of being a sci fi sort of influenced term

438
00:25:05,520 --> 00:25:08,399
Speaker 1: and made Dona Tello the mutant because he was the

439
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:15,000
Speaker 1: tech guy, constantly inventing new science fiction fantastical Ninja was

440
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:18,119
Speaker 1: Um Leonardo because he had the two swords and he

441
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 1: was the best fighter, and he was the leader. And

442
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:24,080
Speaker 1: Turtles was Raphael. And this is a bit of a stretch,

443
00:25:24,280 --> 00:25:26,639
Speaker 1: because he said we needed a character who was in

444
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:29,240
Speaker 1: on the joke, who found all of this to be

445
00:25:29,359 --> 00:25:31,920
Speaker 1: as absurd as the audience would, and so it was

446
00:25:31,960 --> 00:25:35,440
Speaker 1: constantly cracking wise at it. So all of Raphael's meta

447
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:39,400
Speaker 1: winks at the camera and sort of sarcastic remarks about

448
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 1: how absurd the whole show is. That was where that

449
00:25:41,640 --> 00:25:44,240
Speaker 1: came from. Um, now that I've read all that high

450
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:48,360
Speaker 1: falutine garbage, I have more high falutine comparisons to make.

451
00:25:48,840 --> 00:25:51,600
Speaker 1: Um in his mind and why is his mind? Each

452
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 1: one embodied one word from the title, and then they

453
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:57,639
Speaker 1: were also inspired by classic pop culture foursomes like the

454
00:25:57,680 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: Marx Brothers and the Beatles. Raphael was grout show marks

455
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 1: the wise acre, Leonardo is Zeppo Marks, the serious one,

456
00:26:04,480 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 1: Donna Tello is the Chico of the group, the schemer

457
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:08,919
Speaker 1: who's not as smart as he thinks he is, and

458
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:12,600
Speaker 1: Michael Angelo is Harpo. Now for the Beatles, he had

459
00:26:12,680 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: Raphael's John Donna Tello is George, Leonardo is Paul, and

460
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:21,680
Speaker 1: Michael Angelo's Ringo. So I'd like you to to debate that. Okay, yeah,

461
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 1: I mean, as the resident Beatles guy, I have to

462
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 1: say it's my duty to inform you that the Marks

463
00:26:26,520 --> 00:26:31,840
Speaker 1: Beatles comparisons they don't really correlate. Leonardo Zeppo the serious one,

464
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 1: but he's also Paul. Paul is not the serious one.

465
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 1: George is the serious one, so they don't they don't correlate.

466
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,159
Speaker 1: I think. I mean it's a flawed premise because the

467
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:45,240
Speaker 1: Beatles and the Marx Brothers don't have How do you

468
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:49,120
Speaker 1: feel about Michael Angelo is ringo? Um? I I don't

469
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 1: know the Turtles well enough. Well, Harpo was the silent one.

470
00:26:53,280 --> 00:26:55,240
Speaker 1: Harpo was as the Marks brother was, the was the

471
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 1: silent one, right. He walked around with a bicycle horn.

472
00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:01,280
Speaker 1: I don't know, dude, you're making me that you're going

473
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:03,359
Speaker 1: we get way too far into stuff. I don't remember

474
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 1: what was the one with the with the crazy curly hair.

475
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:08,040
Speaker 1: I assume wig And never spoke and the would walk

476
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: around with a horn, and he was in the Isle

477
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:12,439
Speaker 1: of Lucy episode when Lucy thinks that she's looking at

478
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 1: a mirror and they're like mimicking each other's movements. So

479
00:27:15,119 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: he was a very gifted physical comedian. Always in the

480
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: trench coat like Ringo in a Hard Day's Night. That

481
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: one works fine, Uh, Raphael John Wise Acre like Rouchow,

482
00:27:27,480 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 1: that works. Yeah, it's the Leonardo Paul George connection that

483
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:34,840
Speaker 1: throws me. I'm sorry, I just went into a fugue

484
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: state where you're doing that. Um Apparently his inspirations for

485
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 1: Michael Angelo. He said Michael Angelo was the Sid Vicious

486
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,639
Speaker 1: of the Turtles. Said Vicious was a violent, garbage human.

487
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:47,400
Speaker 1: So I don't know that that tracks. But he said

488
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 1: Sid Vicious couldn't play or sing, but he epitomized punk.

489
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:54,800
Speaker 1: Michael Angelo epitomizes what the Turtles are about. Another model,

490
00:27:54,800 --> 00:27:58,640
Speaker 1: which I believe much more, was Jesspica Golie from Fast

491
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 1: Times at Ridgemont High. Sean Penn's stoner character doesn't the

492
00:28:03,920 --> 00:28:06,439
Speaker 1: kid in the Teenagement Ninja Turtles movie. I think his

493
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:08,520
Speaker 1: name is Danny always wear a syneditious T shirt. Sure

494
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 1: it does. So that's a good connection. Um Wise really

495
00:28:11,800 --> 00:28:14,200
Speaker 1: was crucial in shaping the show. He created the big

496
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:17,359
Speaker 1: bad character Kran for the show because Krang was an

497
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:20,360
Speaker 1: alien that meant that the Turtles could then beat up

498
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 1: robots instead of viciously decapitating human ninjas like they did

499
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:27,680
Speaker 1: in the comics. Um he created the character of April

500
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:31,159
Speaker 1: O'Neill as sort of a lowest lane information conduit for

501
00:28:31,200 --> 00:28:33,280
Speaker 1: the Turtles to get their news, because she's a reporter

502
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:37,200
Speaker 1: and her look was inspired by Fujiko Mine, a thief

503
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 1: who occasionally posed as a news reporter on the anime

504
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:44,600
Speaker 1: Loopine the Third. These people stole a lot from Japan,

505
00:28:46,080 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 1: but not names because they couldn't think of anything. So

506
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 1: this wise guy, the writer, he's not thrilled about his

507
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:56,360
Speaker 1: experience on the teenage Meeting Ninja Turtle show, and it

508
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:58,400
Speaker 1: does seem like he kind of got a bad deal

509
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 1: because after the show moved syndication to CBS, he basically

510
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:05,400
Speaker 1: became a show runner and was writing everything himself without help.

511
00:29:05,600 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: It was a job, he said. I saw no benefits

512
00:29:08,360 --> 00:29:11,160
Speaker 1: from it. I had no licensing money. The more successful

513
00:29:11,200 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 1: it was, the more scripts I had the right for

514
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:15,840
Speaker 1: years that covered my bills. It was nice to see

515
00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: it gets successful, but there was a discomfort of knowing

516
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 1: that you're the one guy who's not getting Rich. I

517
00:29:20,720 --> 00:29:25,480
Speaker 1: should have created my own thing. Yeah, I mean, I

518
00:29:25,520 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 1: feel bad from Eastman because of what here here. Eastman

519
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:31,360
Speaker 1: and Laird created them, but me and Playmates and Fred

520
00:29:31,360 --> 00:29:33,520
Speaker 1: Wolfe made them popular. As what he said, I put

521
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: a lot of myself into that show. Again, he takes

522
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:39,240
Speaker 1: credit for Calabunga, the pizzas that was me. He also

523
00:29:39,840 --> 00:29:42,520
Speaker 1: takes credit for that all the stuff that everyone loves

524
00:29:42,560 --> 00:29:48,479
Speaker 1: about them, that was me. But everyone else got rich pizza, pizza,

525
00:29:48,520 --> 00:29:53,640
Speaker 1: that was was me. That's really funny. Um. Incidentally, neither

526
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 1: Eastman or Layered were happy about the direction the TV

527
00:29:56,400 --> 00:30:00,480
Speaker 1: show took. Eastman said in interview for The Comic Journal,

528
00:30:00,720 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: there's some stuff we really don't like, and there's some

529
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: stuff that we wish we hadn't said yes to stuff

530
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:07,800
Speaker 1: that they wanted to do, but we said, we'll always

531
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:09,600
Speaker 1: have our black and white comics that tell the kind

532
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,200
Speaker 1: of stories we want to tell. And Laird wrote on

533
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:16,040
Speaker 1: his blog in March, had I, again speaking solely for

534
00:30:16,120 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: myself and not for Kevin, been making the key creative

535
00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:21,800
Speaker 1: decisions for that first animated series, it would have been

536
00:30:21,920 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 1: very different. Among other things, that would likely have been

537
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: no moronic henchmen like Bebob and rock Steady, the Shredder

538
00:30:28,640 --> 00:30:31,479
Speaker 1: would have been seriously malevolent. April would not have been

539
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,320
Speaker 1: a reporter and constantly need to be rescued by the Turtles.

540
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,480
Speaker 1: The Turtles would not have been so ridiculously obsessed with pizza,

541
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,400
Speaker 1: and the Shredder would not have had as one of

542
00:30:40,440 --> 00:30:43,479
Speaker 1: this business as a restaurant called Ninja Pizza. And the

543
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,960
Speaker 1: show would have not had a joke or a gag

544
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,479
Speaker 1: every five seconds. Um. I also think it's interesting that

545
00:30:49,600 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 1: Laird and East been sort of drifted apart. They really

546
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:56,240
Speaker 1: hadn't spent much time together since ninete so like right

547
00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: when the movies start, you know, that's probably what around

548
00:30:59,920 --> 00:31:04,560
Speaker 1: the third movie when quality starts taking a dive. Um. Yeah,

549
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 1: so it sounds like they had a split, which may

550
00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 1: or may not have been acrimonious, but anyway, the toys

551
00:31:11,720 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: hit the market in the summer of after the show

552
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: debuted in December of eight seven, right around my birthday.

553
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:21,720
Speaker 1: For the next nine years, Playmates produced around four hundred

554
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle figures, as well as dozens of

555
00:31:24,880 --> 00:31:27,840
Speaker 1: vehicles and play sets, and for the first four years

556
00:31:27,840 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: of that stretch, about one point one billion dollars worth

557
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 1: of toys were sold, good Lord, making teenage Muting Ninja

558
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:38,160
Speaker 1: Turtles the number three top selling toy figures ever at

559
00:31:38,160 --> 00:31:41,240
Speaker 1: the time, behind only G I Joe and Star Wars.

560
00:31:42,080 --> 00:31:45,240
Speaker 1: I absolutely don't have much to say about the toys,

561
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 1: and apparently neither do you, but they are an interesting

562
00:31:48,680 --> 00:31:52,120
Speaker 1: bit of synergy. Wise, the writer said that while playmates

563
00:31:52,160 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: were mostly hands off regarding the show, they would occasionally

564
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,480
Speaker 1: come to him with some new gadget or vehicle or

565
00:31:58,600 --> 00:32:00,960
Speaker 1: villain to work into the show to correspond with a

566
00:32:01,000 --> 00:32:04,000
Speaker 1: toy launch, which is funny. Yeah, it is like the

567
00:32:04,040 --> 00:32:07,520
Speaker 1: next episode has to be about the garbage swat van

568
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:09,760
Speaker 1: that we're creating for you can you said he was

569
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:11,480
Speaker 1: mostly fine with all of these because it did take

570
00:32:11,520 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 1: some of the weight off of him to try and

571
00:32:13,200 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: you know, come up with new stuff. But except for one.

572
00:32:16,280 --> 00:32:20,200
Speaker 1: Playmates asked him to include a garbage launching toilet catapult

573
00:32:20,320 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: in an episode, which he called the dumbest thing I

574
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:26,160
Speaker 1: had ever seen. So he resolved that when it did

575
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:29,160
Speaker 1: appear in the show, it never worked correctly. It would

576
00:32:29,160 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 1: always go wrong and blow up in their faces. I

577
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,520
Speaker 1: heard that garbage launching toilet Catapult was the prototype name

578
00:32:35,560 --> 00:32:40,640
Speaker 1: for Twitter. That was a good one. It's not on

579
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:46,280
Speaker 1: the off top of your head. Yeah. Nice um teenage

580
00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:49,400
Speaker 1: mutant ninja movie at Long last Week. Come to the

581
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:53,000
Speaker 1: meat of the story in the show is a success,

582
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:56,400
Speaker 1: But superhero movies were considered box office poison following the

583
00:32:56,560 --> 00:33:00,120
Speaker 1: massive flop of Howard the Duck, interest shocking the me.

584
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:03,600
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that superhero movies were ever considered box

585
00:33:03,640 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: office poison given the time. Well, because this is in

586
00:33:06,800 --> 00:33:11,000
Speaker 1: the extremely specific window when Howard the Duck flopped hugely,

587
00:33:11,200 --> 00:33:13,680
Speaker 1: and I think Masters of the Universe was also kind

588
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:18,680
Speaker 1: of a flop around this time, and then um uh,

589
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: Tim Burton's Batman comes out of eighty nine, and that's

590
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 1: kind of what bings because you also we'd had like

591
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:30,520
Speaker 1: the three Superman sequels which all got here. Um So anyway,

592
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 1: the most serious interest that Eastman and Laird had received

593
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 1: was from b movie king Roger Corman, who pitched This

594
00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:45,880
Speaker 1: is Wild, pitched Sam Kinison Gallagher, Billy Crystal, and bobcat

595
00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 1: gold Thwait wearing green paint and shells. Eastman told the

596
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 1: Ring and he Eastman called it a very hilarious treatment

597
00:33:55,080 --> 00:34:00,560
Speaker 1: and concept he is wrong drunk Dawn Draper voice. It's

598
00:34:00,600 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 1: three amigas, but it's four and there we want to

599
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: get the guy who does the voices and the guy

600
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:10,359
Speaker 1: who hits stuff with the watermelon, and it will be

601
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 1: turtles and the guy who does Muhamad Ali in a

602
00:34:14,719 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: questionable but nonetheless not inaccurate impression. But and Sam Kennison, Yeah,

603
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:23,359
Speaker 1: I mean Roger Corman is still alive. Too late? Well,

604
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:25,839
Speaker 1: I guess Sam Kennison is not so not too late.

605
00:34:27,160 --> 00:34:31,799
Speaker 1: But Gary Proper, a surfer and Gallagher's road manager at

606
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,720
Speaker 1: the time, thought the Turtles had potential, and he teamed

607
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: up with Kim Dawson, who was producing Gallagher's comedy specials

608
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,279
Speaker 1: at Showtime. So yes, the genesis of this movie has

609
00:34:41,360 --> 00:34:44,920
Speaker 1: its roots in the people directly connected to watermelon smashing

610
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: comic Gallagher. Proper literally found a copy of Ninja Turtles

611
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 1: on a Gallagher tour stop in Detroit. So they bring

612
00:34:53,719 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: in a stand up comic turn screenwriter named Bobby Herbeck,

613
00:34:57,120 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 1: who was then writing a film for Golden Harvest. The

614
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:04,319
Speaker 1: act Honeck Hong Kong Kung Fu Flick Studio. We uh

615
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:07,359
Speaker 1: ran a bit on in the Bruce Lee episode last time.

616
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:11,760
Speaker 1: Tom Gray, Golden Harvests, then head of production, told Bobby

617
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,680
Speaker 1: to kick Rocks, but Herbeck persisted for three or four months.

618
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 1: Gray told the Hollywood Reporter for the oral history of

619
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:22,359
Speaker 1: the film her back to the ringer. He just kept

620
00:35:22,400 --> 00:35:25,480
Speaker 1: turning down on the picture. He said, finish the movie

621
00:35:25,480 --> 00:35:28,480
Speaker 1: I'm paying you for. He wouldn't stop calling the project

622
00:35:28,520 --> 00:35:32,279
Speaker 1: the ninja pinin Turtles. He said, don't bring me this.

623
00:35:32,480 --> 00:35:35,720
Speaker 1: Don't I have to switch into the cigar chomping producer voice.

624
00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: He said, don't bug me with this Ninja pinin turtle.

625
00:35:39,040 --> 00:35:46,400
Speaker 1: Herbs eventually engine pision. Yeah. Eventually he realized that they

626
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 1: could make this movie for Peanuts in Hong Kong, and

627
00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:52,960
Speaker 1: Raymond Chow, head of Golden Harvest, Green lit it with

628
00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:57,320
Speaker 1: a budget of three milk, not not much. The continual

629
00:35:57,360 --> 00:35:58,920
Speaker 1: through line for the making of this film is that

630
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,840
Speaker 1: most of the adults just thought they were bad for trying,

631
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 1: and then they would like consult with their kids or

632
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,719
Speaker 1: their friends who had kids, and the children would begin

633
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,839
Speaker 1: levitating off the ground with their eyes glowing and um

634
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 1: that convinced them. Talks to have Fox distribute the picture

635
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:17,800
Speaker 1: broke down weeks before shooting and New Line Cinema stepped

636
00:36:17,800 --> 00:36:20,160
Speaker 1: in at the actual eleventh hour. They were headed into

637
00:36:20,160 --> 00:36:23,680
Speaker 1: pre production without a U S distributor. UM New Line

638
00:36:23,680 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 1: was still kind of the proverbial new kids on the block.

639
00:36:26,160 --> 00:36:29,879
Speaker 1: It was referred to in industry circles, perhaps derisively as

640
00:36:30,239 --> 00:36:33,440
Speaker 1: the house that Freddie built, because their first release was

641
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:36,080
Speaker 1: Nightmary Elm Street and and all of its sequels throughout

642
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 1: the eighties basically built that studio from the ground up.

643
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:42,560
Speaker 1: But still in some ways this was a shoe string production. UM.

644
00:36:42,640 --> 00:36:45,400
Speaker 1: Except for some establishing shots, none of it is filmed

645
00:36:45,400 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: in New York, and for example, Dominoes is in the

646
00:36:48,000 --> 00:36:51,760
Speaker 1: film because they needed free pizza. Even so, the director,

647
00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:53,680
Speaker 1: Steve Barren says they ran out of money with like

648
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 1: ten to twelve pages of script left to shoot and

649
00:36:57,120 --> 00:36:59,480
Speaker 1: had to make it work in the editing bay with

650
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:02,120
Speaker 1: the when who would go on to become Quentin Tarantino's

651
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:06,839
Speaker 1: longtime editor, Sally manky good for her man, working with

652
00:37:07,360 --> 00:37:11,520
Speaker 1: Quentin Tarantino must qualify you for the sainthood. Her back

653
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:15,400
Speaker 1: flies to Northampton, Massachusetts to meet with Eastman and Laird,

654
00:37:15,400 --> 00:37:18,560
Speaker 1: which did not go well. He said, I thought I'm

655
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,120
Speaker 1: there for a month, Max. This is the thhr I

656
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:24,879
Speaker 1: was wrong. It was six to eight weeks. Never saw

657
00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:27,760
Speaker 1: two guys who disagreed so much. Peter, from the beginning,

658
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:29,640
Speaker 1: he didn't think much of me as a writer. I

659
00:37:29,719 --> 00:37:33,920
Speaker 1: was a Hollywood type infringing on his artistic chops and characters.

660
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 1: But eventually they reach a rapper proche Mall and Herbeck

661
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:40,560
Speaker 1: flies to London to meet with director Steve Barron, who

662
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:42,799
Speaker 1: was then a hot shot music video director, coming off

663
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:46,320
Speaker 1: some technologically advanced clips for the time, like Michael Jackson's

664
00:37:46,440 --> 00:37:49,279
Speaker 1: Billy Jean with the sidewalks that light up has Take

665
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:53,239
Speaker 1: on Me, which combined you know, by hand animation with

666
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:56,400
Speaker 1: filmed elements, and dire Strait's Money for Nothing, which you

667
00:37:56,400 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 1: will remember has some embarrassing computer animation, but still very groundbreaking.

668
00:38:01,440 --> 00:38:05,120
Speaker 1: First time. Here's a question, and I've seen some comments

669
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:09,200
Speaker 1: of people talking about our Roger Rabbit episode. We know

670
00:38:09,239 --> 00:38:13,320
Speaker 1: a lot about animation, requesting that we have animation experts

671
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 1: on next time we do a show on that. Oh no,

672
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:17,799
Speaker 1: do we heard you? Oh no, no, no, just just

673
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:20,200
Speaker 1: they just thought we could get more into the weeds

674
00:38:20,200 --> 00:38:22,040
Speaker 1: with that. But so I want to ask you, now,

675
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:25,279
Speaker 1: do you think that this, uh, this Steve Barron guy

676
00:38:25,360 --> 00:38:28,799
Speaker 1: had any conversations with the who framed Rodger Rabbit people

677
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:31,520
Speaker 1: because of the ah take on the video that blended

678
00:38:31,719 --> 00:38:37,120
Speaker 1: live action and animation in a really you know, non

679
00:38:37,280 --> 00:38:42,120
Speaker 1: Mary Poppins. That question, that's a great question because he

680
00:38:42,120 --> 00:38:45,080
Speaker 1: he is, he's London based and they did and they

681
00:38:45,120 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 1: did Roger Rabbit in London. That is a great question.

682
00:38:48,760 --> 00:38:53,479
Speaker 1: Maybe it seems plausible to me. UM. But crucially, Jim

683
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: Henson's Muppet Shop would be handling the turtles because Baron

684
00:38:56,520 --> 00:38:59,600
Speaker 1: had worked with them for Henson's TV show The Storyteller,

685
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: and they wanted the turtles to be able to do

686
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:05,200
Speaker 1: backflips and fight. And so the budget for the Henson's

687
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:07,479
Speaker 1: alone was going to come in at three million, which

688
00:39:07,480 --> 00:39:11,120
Speaker 1: was originally what had been budgeted for the whole film. UM.

689
00:39:11,120 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 1: Eventually the film's total price tag balloon to thirteen million.

690
00:39:14,920 --> 00:39:19,400
Speaker 1: Henson Loves Steve producer Simon Felds told t R the

691
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 1: Creature Shop had never lent their name to an outside project,

692
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:25,759
Speaker 1: and I don't think they ever did again. Oh yeah,

693
00:39:25,920 --> 00:39:27,600
Speaker 1: we'll get more on that later. But I don't think

694
00:39:27,680 --> 00:39:30,280
Speaker 1: Jim Henson was happy with the result. Of the Teenage

695
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:34,439
Speaker 1: Muntina Total Movie. While working on storyteller, Henson had told

696
00:39:34,480 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: Baron on each show, I figured, we're going to have

697
00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:39,520
Speaker 1: to invent one new technology to make each show work.

698
00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:44,600
Speaker 1: On Turtles, I've got to invent nine. Because the actors

699
00:39:44,600 --> 00:39:46,239
Speaker 1: had to be able to fight in their costumes. They

700
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 1: weren't able to use exterior wires or cables to move

701
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:52,360
Speaker 1: the faces. Um, which is what the easiest solution probably

702
00:39:52,360 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 1: would have been. UM. So there were actually two sets

703
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 1: of Turtle costumes. One were dubbed the Action Turtles that

704
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 1: didn't have any electronics in them, and one for all

705
00:40:01,520 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 1: of the dialogue scenes that use a state of the

706
00:40:04,040 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: art control system called pupper Techtronics that involved a single

707
00:40:08,719 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 1: puppeteer manipulating a joystick for the character's eyes on electronic

708
00:40:13,239 --> 00:40:16,000
Speaker 1: glove to work the motion of the jaws, and a

709
00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 1: headset with infrared trackers tracking the puppeteers face to work

710
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 1: the lamps. Yeah, I heard these. I think just the

711
00:40:24,600 --> 00:40:27,719
Speaker 1: masks alone has something like fifteen separate pieces. I mean,

712
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 1: it makes it. We were talking about this in the

713
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 1: Never Ending Story episode with foul Core and the rock

714
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:36,759
Speaker 1: Biter puppets having to have like twenty people just to

715
00:40:37,080 --> 00:40:40,520
Speaker 1: operate the face, one person for an eyebrow. Even so,

716
00:40:40,600 --> 00:40:44,799
Speaker 1: it's yeah, it's all these partially animatronic, partially you know,

717
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:49,000
Speaker 1: puppeteer systems are incredibly difficult. I was gonna make a

718
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:52,759
Speaker 1: joke about these masks being reused for the Dinosaurs TV

719
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:54,440
Speaker 1: show in the early nineties, but then I did a

720
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:57,440
Speaker 1: little more research and apparently the teenage muting digiturtal masks

721
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:00,480
Speaker 1: in the first movie were reused for a TV show,

722
00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:04,560
Speaker 1: um and extremely obscure one. The turtle heads were reportedly

723
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 1: repurposed for an Irish children's TV show called The More

724
00:41:08,160 --> 00:41:13,880
Speaker 1: Begs which ran from which providing the heads for the

725
00:41:13,880 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 1: show's main characters, Molly and Rosa and the disguised with fur.

726
00:41:18,480 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 1: But it's pretty easy to tell that these were at

727
00:41:20,600 --> 00:41:24,759
Speaker 1: one point Leonardo and Dona Tella. Um so any any

728
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:30,680
Speaker 1: uh fans from Yeah, there you go. But yeah, these

729
00:41:30,680 --> 00:41:34,520
Speaker 1: whole costumes, they were so incredibly complex. The mechanics and

730
00:41:34,560 --> 00:41:38,320
Speaker 1: cooling systems for all this machinery was inside each turtle shell,

731
00:41:38,400 --> 00:41:40,960
Speaker 1: which is pretty ingenious, and the entire thing had to

732
00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:45,320
Speaker 1: be cast to each individual actor's body and the actor inside.

733
00:41:45,360 --> 00:41:48,080
Speaker 1: Raphael got a name of Josh Paius said that the

734
00:41:48,160 --> 00:41:51,279
Speaker 1: Jim Henson team told them after the casting process that

735
00:41:51,320 --> 00:41:53,560
Speaker 1: they kept us in that plaster longer than they needed

736
00:41:53,600 --> 00:41:56,040
Speaker 1: to to see if we would freak out, which was

737
00:41:56,080 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 1: basically a way to test them because being in these

738
00:41:59,080 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 1: costumes would be kind of claustrophobic. Um. Josh pay Us

739
00:42:03,640 --> 00:42:06,520
Speaker 1: later described the experience in the costume as quote like

740
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:09,759
Speaker 1: being in Grand Central Station at rush hour with a

741
00:42:09,840 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 1: tin can over your head. And aside from the martial

742
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:16,840
Speaker 1: arts training, you know, general and leapons specific, they also

743
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:20,919
Speaker 1: had to have extensive rehearsal work alongside the puppeteer responsible

744
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: for their individual turtles so they could learn their facial

745
00:42:23,640 --> 00:42:27,400
Speaker 1: movements and time it to the dialogue. I read it

746
00:42:27,440 --> 00:42:30,680
Speaker 1: took two people to operate the face, and pay Us

747
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:32,880
Speaker 1: is the only actor who both provided the voice and

748
00:42:33,080 --> 00:42:36,480
Speaker 1: was also in the suit. Brian Tocci of Revenge of

749
00:42:36,520 --> 00:42:41,080
Speaker 1: the Nerds and Police Academy Fame voice Leonardo Corey Feldman

750
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:45,360
Speaker 1: did Donna Tello and Robbie Reese. Best known to me

751
00:42:45,520 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 1: as cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch was Michelangelo That's

752
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: Insane and Kevin Clash, who puppeteered Elmo for decades was Splinter.

753
00:42:55,960 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 1: He was the guy who let go of out of

754
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:05,080
Speaker 1: sexual deuse allegations. Um, so these guys all got to

755
00:43:05,080 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 1: play bit parts outside of the costumes in the movie.

756
00:43:07,840 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: For example, Josh Paius doubled as a passenger in the

757
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:12,600
Speaker 1: back of a cab after f A l jumps in

758
00:43:12,640 --> 00:43:17,400
Speaker 1: the hood. Um. Leif Tilden, who played Donna Tello, explained

759
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:24,279
Speaker 1: of discover America's Leif Ericson reference in There for You

760
00:43:24,719 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 1: Pretty Folks leaf sing on Uh. He explained of his

761
00:43:29,760 --> 00:43:31,920
Speaker 1: loan run in with Feldman. I went up to him

762
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:34,200
Speaker 1: at the premiere and I said, Hey, I play the character.

763
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:36,759
Speaker 1: You did the voice too, and he just totally dissed me.

764
00:43:36,960 --> 00:43:39,160
Speaker 1: He didn't want to deal with me whatsoever. It was

765
00:43:39,200 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 1: around the time he got busted for cocaine in the

766
00:43:41,360 --> 00:43:44,360
Speaker 1: backseat of his convertible or something. All I remember was

767
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 1: walking by him, surrounded by cameras, professing his innocence to

768
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:51,120
Speaker 1: cocaine right out signed that Ninja Turtles premiere. Kids are

769
00:43:51,160 --> 00:43:56,840
Speaker 1: Walking by Corey. Feldman only got a reports for the

770
00:43:56,920 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 1: voiceover gig, so maybe that's why he was in a

771
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:02,880
Speaker 1: or the cocaine crash. But yeah, I guess producers basically

772
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:04,480
Speaker 1: gives them like, yeah, this is gonna be like a

773
00:44:04,600 --> 00:44:07,279
Speaker 1: random obscure art movie. Maybe it'll make some money on

774
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:13,440
Speaker 1: VHS sales, but that's not true. And then he didn't

775
00:44:13,440 --> 00:44:17,279
Speaker 1: come back for the second Teenage Ninja Turtles movie, but

776
00:44:17,320 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: I think they got him back for the third at

777
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:21,000
Speaker 1: a time when I think he could have used the

778
00:44:23,719 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 1: probably uh speaking of real life stars, and I guess

779
00:44:27,680 --> 00:44:30,160
Speaker 1: in this case, I used the term star loosely. Let's

780
00:44:30,200 --> 00:44:34,040
Speaker 1: do a little fantasy casting for the character of Casey Jones,

781
00:44:34,520 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 1: a non costume dude played by a guy I've never

782
00:44:37,200 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 1: heard of, Alias Cotis. First of all, how dare you?

783
00:44:40,520 --> 00:44:43,359
Speaker 1: Elias Cotas is one of my favorite character actors. He's

784
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:47,399
Speaker 1: the bad guy in Fallen Again, um or the first

785
00:44:47,400 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 1: bad guy in Fallen opposite Denzel Washington. He's been in

786
00:44:52,040 --> 00:44:54,560
Speaker 1: just a ton of stuff, and my favorite name is.

787
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:59,080
Speaker 1: I interviewed Chris Maloney once, and Chris Maloney and Elias

788
00:44:59,120 --> 00:45:02,480
Speaker 1: Koteis for a time, I'm looked very similar and they

789
00:45:02,480 --> 00:45:06,280
Speaker 1: would just get confused between each other. And Chris Maloney

790
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:08,799
Speaker 1: told me that one time he was filming for Law

791
00:45:08,800 --> 00:45:12,759
Speaker 1: and Order in Grand Central Station, and someone came up

792
00:45:12,760 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: to him with a copy of uh, The Thin Red Line,

793
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:18,680
Speaker 1: which is a movie that Elias Cotaius stars in, and

794
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:20,800
Speaker 1: asked him to sign it, and so he just signed

795
00:45:20,800 --> 00:45:26,200
Speaker 1: it Chris Maloney. But yeah, who else was supposed to

796
00:45:26,280 --> 00:45:30,160
Speaker 1: take the role of my beloved Elias Scotus. Johnny Depp

797
00:45:30,239 --> 00:45:34,240
Speaker 1: was considered, as was Keanu Reeves, Christian Slater, Lou Diamond

798
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:37,480
Speaker 1: Phillips famous for playing Richie Vallen's and my beloved La

799
00:45:37,560 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 1: Bamba Milia Estevez, Ki for Sutherland, Jason Patrick, who I

800
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:45,799
Speaker 1: think was Keiper Sutherland's best friend, and then when keep

801
00:45:45,840 --> 00:45:49,680
Speaker 1: for Sutherland cheated on Julia Roberts and their engagement broke up,

802
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:53,400
Speaker 1: she started dating Jason Patrick. Good for him. Uh yeah,

803
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 1: it's from Our Hook episode. Brian Austin Green, Alex Winter,

804
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 1: Gary Daniels, I don't know, and River Phoenix. Oh and

805
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:06,040
Speaker 1: while we're on random casting bits, Tosha shiro Obata, the

806
00:46:06,040 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: guy who plays Tatsu, the Shredders second in command, was

807
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:12,800
Speaker 1: actually literally the deadliest man on the set. He created

808
00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:16,680
Speaker 1: his own style of Japanese swordsmanship called shin kendo, which

809
00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:21,560
Speaker 1: is taught um in apparently dojo's worldwide, and he wrote

810
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:30,520
Speaker 1: a book about samurai swordsmanship called Crimson Steel, which in whips. Damn.

811
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:35,640
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be

812
00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:38,560
Speaker 1: right back with more too much information in just a moment.

813
00:46:50,480 --> 00:46:53,960
Speaker 1: But now we must arrive at the grueling conditions. This

814
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:56,959
Speaker 1: movie was shot under. Yes, they started shooting in North

815
00:46:56,960 --> 00:47:02,400
Speaker 1: Carolina in July and seventy pounds suits. Again, North Carolina

816
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:06,319
Speaker 1: in July, seventy pounds suits. Here's pay us on that

817
00:47:06,680 --> 00:47:11,120
Speaker 1: extremely uncomfortable process. Quote. We would suit up from toe

818
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:13,520
Speaker 1: up to the neck. Then the head would go on.

819
00:47:14,080 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 1: Then they would glue the head to the body so

820
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 1: that it was all seamless. Then you were in there

821
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:21,799
Speaker 1: from morning to lunch break. We would each lose at

822
00:47:21,840 --> 00:47:25,160
Speaker 1: least five pounds, just presumably through sweat. We would just

823
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:27,279
Speaker 1: freak out and you would hear one of us go

824
00:47:27,440 --> 00:47:29,359
Speaker 1: take the hat off, take the hat off, take off

825
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:37,200
Speaker 1: your blood Michael, Yeah, your blood was literally boiling. And

826
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:41,920
Speaker 1: then they would shoot compressed air in our faces. Eventually

827
00:47:41,920 --> 00:47:44,520
Speaker 1: they made a little air conditioned bubble that we would

828
00:47:44,719 --> 00:47:47,200
Speaker 1: go into, and one of the stunt men later said

829
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:49,560
Speaker 1: they needed to drink a gallon of water per day

830
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:52,800
Speaker 1: to keep hydrated inside the hot suit, which would probably

831
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:56,600
Speaker 1: have the unintended side effect of having to then removed

832
00:47:57,200 --> 00:47:59,520
Speaker 1: suit to go to the bachan imagine. Also, they were

833
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:04,279
Speaker 1: sculpted of latex, which is not famously water friendly substance.

834
00:48:04,440 --> 00:48:07,359
Speaker 1: And so since obviously a good number of scenes take

835
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:10,680
Speaker 1: place in a sewer, there was a fair amount of falling. Um.

836
00:48:10,680 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: The opening scene of them just walking through the sewer

837
00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:15,960
Speaker 1: took something like eight or nine hours and nearly forty

838
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:23,800
Speaker 1: takes because they just kept falling. Magic. And I guess

839
00:48:23,800 --> 00:48:26,319
Speaker 1: the sewers also caused a problem because the suits were

840
00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:29,360
Speaker 1: so huge that they couldn't fit in normal size man holes,

841
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:32,000
Speaker 1: so they had to make larger, custom sized ones. And

842
00:48:32,080 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 1: I guess they had this plan to make like an

843
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:37,239
Speaker 1: underground like for the sewer, to make like an underground

844
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:39,439
Speaker 1: room that was like eight Like they're just gonna dig

845
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:41,359
Speaker 1: eight feet into the ground. But then when they got

846
00:48:41,360 --> 00:48:43,640
Speaker 1: the five ft it all sort of flooding and like

847
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 1: collapsing it on itself. Man, they couldn't even relax all

848
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:49,480
Speaker 1: the way in these things. Um. Stephen Baron said, we

849
00:48:49,480 --> 00:48:52,279
Speaker 1: built them these little horses like sawhorses to sit on

850
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:55,200
Speaker 1: that was the only comfortable position in which they could rest.

851
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 1: Rather than take the head off and then spend half

852
00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:59,520
Speaker 1: an hour putting it back on, they would go into

853
00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:02,200
Speaker 1: these resting positions on these jury rigged seats, and he

854
00:49:02,239 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: said it was sort of like a Damien Hirst exhibition.

855
00:49:07,239 --> 00:49:09,920
Speaker 1: And these suits were so cumbersome that they obviously impeded

856
00:49:09,960 --> 00:49:13,439
Speaker 1: the actor's movements, so they actually had to shoot them

857
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:16,160
Speaker 1: moving at a slower frame rate and then speed it

858
00:49:16,280 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 1: up in post production to make it seem like they

859
00:49:18,160 --> 00:49:21,320
Speaker 1: were moving at a normal speed. Another fun thing to

860
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:24,040
Speaker 1: picture is that since they were filming close to the

861
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:27,480
Speaker 1: Wilmington's airport, the radio frequencies the technology used would get

862
00:49:27,520 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: crossed with the airport a la spinal tap, so they

863
00:49:30,680 --> 00:49:36,640
Speaker 1: would just start spouting airport jargon randomly, whereas Baron colorfully explains,

864
00:49:37,040 --> 00:49:40,880
Speaker 1: suddenly Michaelangelo's mouth would get crazy like spinning, and his

865
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:43,200
Speaker 1: eyes would just go dead, and his lids would just

866
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 1: shut random parts. You would just have them be too possessed. Essentially. Oh,

867
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:54,520
Speaker 1: I love that. Speaking of onset stuff, I guess the

868
00:49:54,560 --> 00:49:57,440
Speaker 1: farmhouse where the turtles hide out is actually located in

869
00:49:57,440 --> 00:50:01,040
Speaker 1: the city of Northampton. Massachusetts, where the Turtles creators, Kevin

870
00:50:01,080 --> 00:50:03,600
Speaker 1: Laird and Peter Eastman first Matt and I think where

871
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:05,759
Speaker 1: they were living when they created them, So that was cool.

872
00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 1: It's also cool for me as a Massachusetts Yeah, I

873
00:50:07,560 --> 00:50:09,840
Speaker 1: figured to go out there. Sometimes. It's cool. Time we

874
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:13,560
Speaker 1: have our obligatory Robin Williams is the best moment. Judith Hoge,

875
00:50:13,560 --> 00:50:16,160
Speaker 1: who plays April, was finishing a movie called Cadillac Man

876
00:50:16,280 --> 00:50:18,279
Speaker 1: with Robin Williams at the time and doing pre pro

877
00:50:18,480 --> 00:50:21,120
Speaker 1: on Turtles at the same time, so she'd fly out

878
00:50:21,160 --> 00:50:24,680
Speaker 1: from the Cadillac Man set on Friday to do pre

879
00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:27,000
Speaker 1: pro on Turtles, and at some point Robin was like, man,

880
00:50:27,040 --> 00:50:29,359
Speaker 1: you've been banging out of here, like about out of hell.

881
00:50:29,400 --> 00:50:31,160
Speaker 1: What are you? Where are you going? And she was

882
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:35,120
Speaker 1: a little embarrassed to actually tell him because it's I'm

883
00:50:35,120 --> 00:50:38,799
Speaker 1: doing a movie called Teenage Mute Ninja Turtles, right. But

884
00:50:39,160 --> 00:50:42,200
Speaker 1: it turns out Robin was a huge fan of the

885
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:45,120
Speaker 1: comics and owned all of them, which, as you remember,

886
00:50:45,120 --> 00:50:47,279
Speaker 1: it was an expensive proposition at the time, and she

887
00:50:47,360 --> 00:50:49,759
Speaker 1: said he lost his mind when she told him. It

888
00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:52,480
Speaker 1: was so excited for her to be in the movie.

889
00:50:52,560 --> 00:50:55,560
Speaker 1: I guess lenter some of the earlier Rarer comic books

890
00:50:55,560 --> 00:50:57,600
Speaker 1: that she used as research to get into the character.

891
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:00,600
Speaker 1: Of course he loved this. He did this saunters Zola

892
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:03,399
Speaker 1: after the after the video game, like this makes total sense.

893
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:07,280
Speaker 1: I love that. Also considered for the role of April

894
00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:11,240
Speaker 1: early on, at least with Jennifer Beale's Morrissa Tomay, Sandra Bullock,

895
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:16,759
Speaker 1: the Cole Kitman, Melanie Griffith, Sean young Larian broco Winona Ryder,

896
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:20,880
Speaker 1: and Brooks Shields. And this gets us into probably one

897
00:51:20,920 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 1: of my favorite anecdotes about the production of this movie. Apparently,

898
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:28,560
Speaker 1: the Henson family were super into bowling, and Jim Henson was.

899
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 1: He was a keggler. He was very good at bowling,

900
00:51:31,480 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 1: and there was a local bowling alley that I guess

901
00:51:34,360 --> 00:51:37,400
Speaker 1: flipped their operating hours to accommodate the shoot, so that

902
00:51:37,440 --> 00:51:39,520
Speaker 1: the cast and crew would wander in in the early

903
00:51:39,560 --> 00:51:43,120
Speaker 1: morning hours after shooting all night, and Jim Henson would

904
00:51:43,160 --> 00:51:46,000
Speaker 1: literally be the last person in this bowling alley and

905
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:47,920
Speaker 1: someone would have to remind him that he needed to

906
00:51:47,960 --> 00:51:50,680
Speaker 1: sleep before shooting resumed in the evening. Because he was

907
00:51:51,239 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 1: passionate about bowling and passionate about teenage muting Ninja Turtles,

908
00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:59,760
Speaker 1: I guess, But despite his apparent enthusiasm during the production,

909
00:52:00,160 --> 00:52:03,080
Speaker 1: Henson later said he was dissatisfied with the final film

910
00:52:03,200 --> 00:52:07,399
Speaker 1: due to the violent overtones, calling it quote excessive, pointless

911
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:10,640
Speaker 1: and not his style and making this even sadder, I'm

912
00:52:10,640 --> 00:52:13,400
Speaker 1: pretty sure this was Jim Henson's last major film project.

913
00:52:13,960 --> 00:52:16,640
Speaker 1: Teenage Mueting Ninja Turtle Movie was released just two months

914
00:52:16,719 --> 00:52:19,719
Speaker 1: before he died. I think things got weird when the

915
00:52:19,719 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 1: film's sequel included a tribute to Jim Henson, and Henson's

916
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:26,799
Speaker 1: kids were said to consider the credit inappropriate due to

917
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 1: his mixed feelings about working on the original anyway. On

918
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:32,680
Speaker 1: a related note, director Steve Baron was fired by the

919
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:35,320
Speaker 1: studio towards the end of the production because they thought

920
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:38,480
Speaker 1: his vision was too dark. I guess Sally Menki was

921
00:52:38,520 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 1: fired too. The final cut of the movie was not

922
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:43,880
Speaker 1: made by the director, and the tone of the theatrical

923
00:52:44,000 --> 00:52:46,920
Speaker 1: versions changed significantly from what he had in mind. Some

924
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:49,239
Speaker 1: jokes were added to please the kids who only knew

925
00:52:49,239 --> 00:52:51,640
Speaker 1: the turtles in the cartoon, and some of the more

926
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:55,319
Speaker 1: serious scenes were axed and a mostly deleted scenes. There

927
00:52:55,400 --> 00:53:00,520
Speaker 1: was Michaelangelo suffering from depression following Splinter's kidnapping, and also

928
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:04,680
Speaker 1: a sequence where Leonardo engages in intense Rocky style training

929
00:53:04,719 --> 00:53:07,360
Speaker 1: as he prepares to a Van Draffael's beating at the

930
00:53:07,400 --> 00:53:09,919
Speaker 1: hands of the foot Plan. And there's also a great

931
00:53:09,960 --> 00:53:12,239
Speaker 1: deleted scene at the very end of the movie which

932
00:53:12,239 --> 00:53:14,880
Speaker 1: you can see on YouTube, after the turtles have defeated

933
00:53:14,920 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 1: Shredder and are celebrating on the rooftop. April Danny had

934
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:21,800
Speaker 1: to a comic book publisher to pitch an idea about walking, talking,

935
00:53:21,960 --> 00:53:25,520
Speaker 1: fighting turtles, and the publisher rejects the idea, thinking that

936
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:28,840
Speaker 1: it's too outlandish, too farfetched, and then pan over to

937
00:53:28,880 --> 00:53:34,200
Speaker 1: see the turtles watching all this medium funny. Um. Nobody

938
00:53:34,200 --> 00:53:35,759
Speaker 1: thought this movie was going to be a hit. In

939
00:53:35,920 --> 00:53:38,919
Speaker 1: both of those oral histories, Baron talks about running into

940
00:53:38,920 --> 00:53:42,279
Speaker 1: Tony Scott, director of Top Gun, in New York and

941
00:53:42,320 --> 00:53:44,640
Speaker 1: telling him what he was working on, and Tony being

942
00:53:44,680 --> 00:53:49,000
Speaker 1: like oh and just walking away. Uh. In March, they

943
00:53:49,040 --> 00:53:52,080
Speaker 1: did some early screenings with executives from playmates, who Eastman

944
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:54,800
Speaker 1: said thought it was the worst movie they'd ever seen.

945
00:53:55,239 --> 00:53:56,719
Speaker 1: They felt like it was something that was going to

946
00:53:56,800 --> 00:53:59,279
Speaker 1: kill the toy line. But of course the second they

947
00:53:59,320 --> 00:54:01,959
Speaker 1: screened it for kids, the test scores went through the roof.

948
00:54:02,480 --> 00:54:04,319
Speaker 1: Baron said at the time they were of the mind

949
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:06,719
Speaker 1: that they'd have a good opening weekend at seven mill,

950
00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:10,120
Speaker 1: and then the film opened at twenty five mill, breaking

951
00:54:10,160 --> 00:54:13,400
Speaker 1: the all time non holiday, non summer record. Then the

952
00:54:13,480 --> 00:54:17,239
Speaker 1: second week it did another nineteen million. It subsequently picked

953
00:54:17,280 --> 00:54:20,120
Speaker 1: up the record as the highest grossing independent film of

954
00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:22,840
Speaker 1: all time, which it would hold until the Blair Witch Project.

955
00:54:23,960 --> 00:54:29,040
Speaker 1: Something like two million thirteen mill budget. Man, that's why wow.

956
00:54:29,680 --> 00:54:31,600
Speaker 1: So then they had the Turtles do stuff like Regis

957
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 1: and Kathie Lee and photo shoots for People magazine and costume.

958
00:54:34,680 --> 00:54:36,799
Speaker 1: But the best story about this time comes down to

959
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:39,920
Speaker 1: Barbara Walters. Barbara Walters at the time is famous for

960
00:54:39,960 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 1: doing these interviews. They got very tiary. She would probe

961
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:44,719
Speaker 1: people about all the sad and their lives, and they

962
00:54:44,760 --> 00:54:47,560
Speaker 1: know everyone would start crying on Barbou's show. So they

963
00:54:47,560 --> 00:54:51,399
Speaker 1: wanted to rig Donna Tello's head up to cry. And

964
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:55,200
Speaker 1: the Henson shop had a little squeeze pump that was

965
00:54:55,239 --> 00:54:57,080
Speaker 1: going to send water out of the eye holes in

966
00:54:57,120 --> 00:54:59,600
Speaker 1: the costume. But it mauth functioned and shot out a

967
00:55:00,000 --> 00:55:02,480
Speaker 1: out of water and so the guy in the suit

968
00:55:02,600 --> 00:55:04,640
Speaker 1: had to pretend that he was having like a full

969
00:55:04,719 --> 00:55:11,400
Speaker 1: on hysterical breakdown, subsequently spraying water all over Barbara Walters,

970
00:55:11,920 --> 00:55:15,080
Speaker 1: which I think it is. She was not happy about it.

971
00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:19,600
Speaker 1: Now we must talk about coming out of their shells

972
00:55:19,600 --> 00:55:23,280
Speaker 1: a k a. The live action musical tour heavily underwritten

973
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:27,160
Speaker 1: by Pizza Hut, in which the turtles play instruments, sing, fight,

974
00:55:27,280 --> 00:55:30,600
Speaker 1: and dance on stage. Also thread or Raps. This was

975
00:55:30,640 --> 00:55:33,360
Speaker 1: the work of theater nerds and musicians named Bob Bijean

976
00:55:33,600 --> 00:55:37,120
Speaker 1: and Godfrey Nelson, who actually came up with this idea

977
00:55:37,239 --> 00:55:40,840
Speaker 1: independently of the movie or show. Someone had given Beijan

978
00:55:41,160 --> 00:55:44,240
Speaker 1: a Beijean, I don't know, I'm sorry, Buddy, a copy

979
00:55:44,280 --> 00:55:46,120
Speaker 1: of one of the comics, and he and Nelson just

980
00:55:46,160 --> 00:55:49,960
Speaker 1: started writing songs around it of their own volition as

981
00:55:49,960 --> 00:55:53,160
Speaker 1: a sort of gritty Sesame on Ice kind of deal.

982
00:55:53,560 --> 00:55:55,840
Speaker 1: They wanted something that parents could take their kids to

983
00:55:56,040 --> 00:55:58,359
Speaker 1: and not feel completely put out as they would by

984
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:02,680
Speaker 1: seeing Sesame Street on Ice. Um. They literally cold called

985
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:06,040
Speaker 1: Eastman and Laird and went to Massachusetts to pitch them

986
00:56:06,080 --> 00:56:09,320
Speaker 1: two months before the movie opened in theaters, and the

987
00:56:09,320 --> 00:56:11,120
Speaker 1: creators gave they okay, they said, you want to do

988
00:56:11,160 --> 00:56:13,360
Speaker 1: a musical in Turtle, sure, we don't give it. But

989
00:56:14,040 --> 00:56:16,799
Speaker 1: they couldn't turn up the fifti k for licensing, so

990
00:56:16,840 --> 00:56:20,240
Speaker 1: they cold called another guy, a producer named Stephen Lieber,

991
00:56:20,440 --> 00:56:23,440
Speaker 1: who had been instrumental in bringing the Moscow Circus to

992
00:56:23,480 --> 00:56:26,520
Speaker 1: the US. Once he ponied up the fifty k, they

993
00:56:26,520 --> 00:56:30,760
Speaker 1: then cold called the marketing department for Pizza Hut, Little Caesars,

994
00:56:30,800 --> 00:56:33,360
Speaker 1: and Dominoes to try and get the money to underwrite

995
00:56:33,360 --> 00:56:36,040
Speaker 1: this thing. Now by this point the movie had come out,

996
00:56:36,280 --> 00:56:38,279
Speaker 1: so this wasn't quite as hard of a sale. So

997
00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:40,479
Speaker 1: Pizza Hut went in for it for a big way,

998
00:56:40,800 --> 00:56:43,160
Speaker 1: Maybe to offset the fact that Domino's got the product

999
00:56:43,160 --> 00:56:44,920
Speaker 1: placement in the movie. Maybe they were like playing a

1000
00:56:44,960 --> 00:56:47,239
Speaker 1: little catch up there. Yeah, that makes sense. What kind

1001
00:56:47,239 --> 00:56:50,520
Speaker 1: of pizza house for you as a kid? We Domino's did,

1002
00:56:50,520 --> 00:56:53,919
Speaker 1: Little Caesar did Little Caesars, and then Papa John's later

1003
00:56:53,920 --> 00:56:57,120
Speaker 1: because they had the garlic sauce. We were a Domino's household.

1004
00:56:57,719 --> 00:57:02,160
Speaker 1: Pizza Hut bought three million records up front, buying it

1005
00:57:02,200 --> 00:57:05,720
Speaker 1: before we'd even really done the master recordings. They bought

1006
00:57:05,760 --> 00:57:08,879
Speaker 1: them on the demos. They bought three million records at

1007
00:57:09,000 --> 00:57:13,040
Speaker 1: three dollars a piece, Badan told, Beijian told Game Spot

1008
00:57:13,120 --> 00:57:16,320
Speaker 1: last year. They also committed to at the time an

1009
00:57:16,320 --> 00:57:21,560
Speaker 1: astronomical twenty million dollar advertising campaign and a broadcast of

1010
00:57:21,600 --> 00:57:26,280
Speaker 1: a primetime television commercial. So they record this record in

1011
00:57:26,320 --> 00:57:29,560
Speaker 1: New York and Los Angeles with producer Keith Forcey, who

1012
00:57:30,080 --> 00:57:33,160
Speaker 1: recorded Billie Idol and co wrote Don't You Forget About

1013
00:57:33,200 --> 00:57:36,480
Speaker 1: Me with Simple Minds, and they ready a live pay

1014
00:57:36,520 --> 00:57:41,240
Speaker 1: per view broadcast from Radio City Music Hall just the

1015
00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:43,560
Speaker 1: notion that these guys of their own volition wrote a

1016
00:57:43,600 --> 00:57:47,440
Speaker 1: bunch of songs cold called every party involved, like this

1017
00:57:47,480 --> 00:57:50,800
Speaker 1: thing was like written in the stars. They also secure

1018
00:57:51,400 --> 00:57:54,160
Speaker 1: appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, during which it is

1019
00:57:54,200 --> 00:57:57,400
Speaker 1: heavily implied that April and the Turtles have had sex.

1020
00:57:57,440 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 1: It's a weird interview, you can see it. And they

1021
00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:04,560
Speaker 1: also to sing the national anthem at a Yankees game. Yeah,

1022
00:58:04,600 --> 00:58:06,920
Speaker 1: the whole April thing is kind of weird. There was

1023
00:58:06,920 --> 00:58:09,200
Speaker 1: an episode I think called April Fools where she shows

1024
00:58:09,280 --> 00:58:12,120
Speaker 1: up in a gown and not her trademark yellow Ranko

1025
00:58:12,280 --> 00:58:15,320
Speaker 1: and for some reason and they basically can't call her

1026
00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:19,040
Speaker 1: so yeah, this all scans. There's a lot of Turtles

1027
00:58:19,120 --> 00:58:22,480
Speaker 1: April themed pouring out there. I'm just telling you, is

1028
00:58:22,480 --> 00:58:25,160
Speaker 1: it worse there? Is it better or worse than hexas

1029
00:58:25,320 --> 00:58:28,320
Speaker 1: than the hexas fur Gully couldn't say. It depends on

1030
00:58:28,360 --> 00:58:33,880
Speaker 1: your personal preference definition a better or worse. One thing

1031
00:58:33,880 --> 00:58:35,720
Speaker 1: that the show is frequently remembered for is that the

1032
00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:39,560
Speaker 1: turtles are wearing denim vests with sweatshirts tied around their waists,

1033
00:58:39,560 --> 00:58:42,480
Speaker 1: and that they're conspicuously missing their shells. And this was

1034
00:58:42,520 --> 00:58:45,320
Speaker 1: because two of the turtle actors had passed out midway

1035
00:58:45,360 --> 00:58:48,320
Speaker 1: through the first in costume run of the two hour

1036
00:58:48,520 --> 00:58:51,200
Speaker 1: show due to the stress of dancing and fighting in

1037
00:58:51,200 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 1: these costumes. So they just act the shell part of

1038
00:58:54,040 --> 00:58:57,080
Speaker 1: it and gave them this grunge look. Um. They also

1039
00:58:57,120 --> 00:59:00,200
Speaker 1: nearly torched the Radio City curtain in front of the

1040
00:59:00,280 --> 00:59:03,200
Speaker 1: f d N Yuh Beijian said, we were doing it

1041
00:59:03,240 --> 00:59:05,760
Speaker 1: would run through and final dress rehearsal in front of

1042
00:59:05,760 --> 00:59:08,840
Speaker 1: the fire marshals with all the pyrotechnics and everything, which

1043
00:59:09,040 --> 00:59:12,320
Speaker 1: entailed sewer lids shooting off the stage and the turtles

1044
00:59:12,320 --> 00:59:15,120
Speaker 1: being raised up on elevators through them. There were too

1045
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:17,400
Speaker 1: many fireworks in one of them, and the sewer lid

1046
00:59:17,480 --> 00:59:20,320
Speaker 1: catches on fire and goes through the ceiling where the

1047
00:59:20,360 --> 00:59:23,160
Speaker 1: big red Radio City Music Hall curtain is and the

1048
00:59:23,200 --> 00:59:26,600
Speaker 1: fringe of it starts to catch fire. That was very

1049
00:59:26,640 --> 00:59:32,200
Speaker 1: auspicious right before opening anyway. This also launched with a

1050
00:59:32,280 --> 00:59:35,280
Speaker 1: two hour making of documentary which you can still see.

1051
00:59:35,440 --> 00:59:38,800
Speaker 1: The soundtrack album is still out there toward for forty dates,

1052
00:59:38,920 --> 00:59:42,000
Speaker 1: and while I cannot find the sales figures, it clearly

1053
00:59:42,000 --> 00:59:43,760
Speaker 1: lives on in the hearts and minds of the internet

1054
00:59:43,800 --> 00:59:46,040
Speaker 1: because one of the songs has been reissued as a

1055
00:59:46,040 --> 00:59:49,640
Speaker 1: limited press for record store Days, and uh A toy

1056
00:59:49,720 --> 00:59:52,920
Speaker 1: company produced a line of action figures based on how

1057
00:59:52,920 --> 00:59:55,120
Speaker 1: they are dressed in the stage show. There's even a

1058
00:59:55,120 --> 00:59:57,360
Speaker 1: group of fans that cause play as the band to

1059
00:59:57,480 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 1: perform all of the music at conventions, and they have

1060
01:00:00,960 --> 01:00:05,200
Speaker 1: solicited the original costumes in which to do so. Such

1061
01:00:05,280 --> 01:00:08,920
Speaker 1: is the power of the Turtles. We've reached the end, Cowabunga.

1062
01:00:10,160 --> 01:00:12,000
Speaker 1: But I want to go out on a Henson quote

1063
01:00:12,000 --> 01:00:16,240
Speaker 1: that Tilden remembers from shooting in North Carolina, and he

1064
01:00:16,280 --> 01:00:19,280
Speaker 1: says Henson told him, if you want to be fascinating,

1065
01:00:19,520 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 1: be fascinated. If you're fascinated, you are in a state

1066
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:26,800
Speaker 1: of fascination. You will then be fascinating. Your art will

1067
01:00:26,840 --> 01:00:31,160
Speaker 1: be fascinating, and that's great. I just think that there's

1068
01:00:31,200 --> 01:00:38,200
Speaker 1: a really nice spirit of wonder and yeah, fascination that

1069
01:00:38,200 --> 01:00:41,560
Speaker 1: that runs through this franchise. People were captivated by this

1070
01:00:41,680 --> 01:00:46,160
Speaker 1: in a way that it seems impossible on paper. They're

1071
01:00:46,200 --> 01:00:49,600
Speaker 1: teenage mutant ninja turtles. It seems ridiculous on paper, and

1072
01:00:49,680 --> 01:00:53,360
Speaker 1: yet it spawned this incredibly durable and resonant for a

1073
01:00:53,360 --> 01:00:56,280
Speaker 1: lot of people franchise because of the love that went

1074
01:00:56,320 --> 01:01:00,080
Speaker 1: into it at nearly every level, and it's outside of

1075
01:01:00,120 --> 01:01:04,080
Speaker 1: the graphic novel, the movies and cartoon show. It reminds

1076
01:01:04,120 --> 01:01:06,520
Speaker 1: me the Muppets man that the Turtles aren't really cruel

1077
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:09,080
Speaker 1: or edgy, at least not in anything more than like

1078
01:01:09,080 --> 01:01:11,200
Speaker 1: a sort of generous PG kind of way. I think

1079
01:01:11,240 --> 01:01:12,680
Speaker 1: the worst thing any one of them does in the

1080
01:01:12,720 --> 01:01:17,440
Speaker 1: movie is just yelled damn, really loud damn from a rooftop.

1081
01:01:17,760 --> 01:01:20,120
Speaker 1: There's just like it's such a sweet, goofy, little kid

1082
01:01:20,240 --> 01:01:24,360
Speaker 1: energy to them. And despite it's becoming this multi tentacle,

1083
01:01:24,440 --> 01:01:27,600
Speaker 1: many million of dollar media arm I just think that

1084
01:01:27,720 --> 01:01:31,400
Speaker 1: musical is just the most indicative way of how the

1085
01:01:31,440 --> 01:01:34,680
Speaker 1: spirit of this franchise takes hold of people. Two guys

1086
01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:38,000
Speaker 1: of their own volition decided to write a bunch of

1087
01:01:38,040 --> 01:01:42,920
Speaker 1: songs about the Ninja Turtles and cold called it and

1088
01:01:42,920 --> 01:01:45,080
Speaker 1: and got all these people, got all this money, got

1089
01:01:45,120 --> 01:01:50,320
Speaker 1: Pizza Hut on board, and launched a nationwide tour just

1090
01:01:50,400 --> 01:01:52,400
Speaker 1: because of how much they loved it. I mean, if

1091
01:01:52,480 --> 01:01:58,120
Speaker 1: that's not follow your bliss, I don't know what is. Folks.

1092
01:01:58,200 --> 01:02:00,640
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening, and I wanna say it with

1093
01:02:00,720 --> 01:02:05,919
Speaker 1: me now, cowabung. This has been too much information. I'm

1094
01:02:05,960 --> 01:02:08,640
Speaker 1: Alex Hegel and I have Jordan run Talk. We'll catch

1095
01:02:08,680 --> 01:02:16,120
Speaker 1: you next time. Too Much Information was a production of

1096
01:02:16,120 --> 01:02:19,360
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. The show's executive producers are Noel Brown

1097
01:02:19,440 --> 01:02:22,440
Speaker 1: and Jordan run Talk. The supervising producer is Mike John's.

1098
01:02:22,640 --> 01:02:25,440
Speaker 1: The show was researched, written and hosted by Jordan run

1099
01:02:25,520 --> 01:02:28,800
Speaker 1: Talk and Alex Hegel, with original music by Seth Applebaum

1100
01:02:28,800 --> 01:02:31,479
Speaker 1: and the Ghost Funk Orchestra. If you like what you heard,

1101
01:02:31,560 --> 01:02:34,280
Speaker 1: please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts

1102
01:02:34,280 --> 01:02:37,040
Speaker 1: on iHeart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple

1103
01:02:37,080 --> 01:02:39,600
Speaker 1: podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,