Icon #36: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mt. Rushmore

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I survived nine months in captivity and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the survivor files. Every week I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. Abducted, stalked, controlled and nearly silenced.

1:00These are stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with Elizabeth Smart on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there everybody, Amy Robock and TJ Holmes here from the Amy and TJ podcast. We're going to cover everything you need to know during this heated political season. Yes, we just saw Lindsey Graham, the death of a long time senator. Also, we've got a couple of missing members of Congress. Also, we got a lot of members of Congress behaving badly. We got accusations, allegations flying all day long on Capitol Hill. Listen to Amy and TJ on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Hi, I'm Michael and Perry Oli. I want to tell you about my new podcast Underground Zero. We're looking at the opportunity of a lifetime for us and the other families. It's about the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. What's in the tunnels? Go wash over English. It'll be worth half a billion. Starring Steve Sharipa, Ray Abruzzo and me, Michael and Perry Oli.

2:02How far you prepared to go? Depends how far you are. Listen to Underground Zero on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So what like, buy Asia Revan or sell at least 70% have a phone. I'm Dr. Joy and this is The Arfi for Black Girls. We spin our surviving middle school run, getting into what's happening inside your kids brain, the group chat and their friendships and what you can do about it. Your child is not doing this on purpose. That's the kind of perspective we've been pulling from the psychologists and psychiatrists who study this for a living. Listen to The Arfi for Black Girls on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the internet and welcome to this spin-off episode of Dernally's I Guys, which we call the iconogra. Cowbunga. Instead of looking into the zeitgeist or current event on Monday mornings, we are looking at the zeitgeist through the powerful pop cultural deities that are our icons. I'm Jack O'Brien, one of the founders of Cracked and this week we're talking about

3:05one of the youngest icons we've covered, both canonically, they're canonically teenagers. To this day, even though they've usually scanned as like maybe 20 something. Yeah. Alcoholics. Yeah, if they said you were teenagers, they were teenagers, you'd be like, oh, okay, something's wrong. Something's wrong. But also in terms of when they were invented, they were technically invented three years before Bart Simpson, who we've covered, and a few years before the Mr. Bean TV show debuted, although Mr. Bean, he was workshop and Mr. Bean throughout the 80s. But yeah, invented basically around the same time as Bart Simpson, with whom they share the predilection for skateboards and the catchphrase, Kawabonga. They hail from the world of comics where they are the rare hero that pulled a reverse spider-man, starting as normal animal mutating into human form. Ah. Like if a normal wolverine was bitten by a radioactive huge act, man.

4:09But while Bart is younger by a few years, they didn't really take the modern form. We know them for until 87, the same year that Bart Simpson was born, when the cartoon added color-coded masks, pizza, loving sort of party animal vibes, a bebop and rock steady, crang, none of that was in the original comics. And when it finally arrived, it was over for all of us hos. There's a rumor that Axel Rose delayed a Guns and Roses show at the height of his fame and power on the Usure Illusion tour because he was watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the secret of the use and wouldn't come out until it was over. It's just like, I gotta see where they're going with this, man. That's right. This week we're talking Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

5:11Oh shit. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I'm throwing in our show. Turtle power. Turtle power. I'm thrilled to be joined, as always, by my co-host. He removed his tail in the late 80s because from certain angles, it looked like he was hanging a huge dick. It's Miles Gray. Turtle power. Turtle power. Turtle power. Great to be here. Turtle power. Turtle power. Turtle fucking power. Turtle fucking power. I can't wait. Turtle power. Brother. You think there was, there hadn't been like a hillbilly problematic turtle power. Sure. It's like what we can hope. And we know what that means, my man. Yeah. Homebrew Simpson shirts. We're like turtle power. Homebars and bars. White supremacy. Yeah. Um, Miles. Yeah. We're through. We're through. We're through. We're through. We're through. We're through. We're through. We're through. We're through. We're through.

6:12Um, one of the hosts of the podcast George Center, uh, he pranked Ted Cruz into retweeting Ted Cruz's tiny dick. Um, um, when he, when he asks you if you party, he just means pizza party. It's America's stepdad. Christy Yamaguchi main aka. Whipple. Whale. Whale. Daily's I, guys, I can, uh, graph, daily's I, guys, I can, uh, graph, daily's I, guys, I can, uh, graph, Jack and Mauser hosting, daily's I guys, there we go. One of the most, one of the most enduring theme songs of all time. Yeah. Like, for parody, it's the most, one of the most ripe for throwing whatever phrase you want into. Still to this day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. It's pulling from many of Mozart's sonatas. I was written by Chuck Loury, um, who is the creator of two and a half men and, uh, big

7:20bang theory, big bang theory. Yeah. Chuck Loury wrote the theme song to the theme song at the time. Like he was trying to be, right. Yeah. He had, I think they were like, you have two hours. Here's $2,000. Come back with a theme song. All spent on cocaine. Exactly. All spent on cocaine. Yeah. That's what I'll be going for. You need this in two hours. Yeah. Yeah. There might be 2200 actually. She does all that when you listen to the theme song in their leg. What a radical rat. You know, like the little adlibs. That's also Chuck Loury. Like he's on the track. There's one of the back of the two screaming. So wow. God. Down to tello does machines. I like just does machines. Yeah. Just. Oh. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck it. Man. That's good enough, man. Yeah. And he's rude but cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he's a fucking party dude, man. Fuck it. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

8:21I'm a party dude. He's a party dude. This is good. Yeah. It was party dude. I will say like anybody else who talks about how much they like to party this much has a drug problem. Yeah. There's only people who talk about how much they love to party and don't have a drug problem. They are the part of Hollywood that the right is warning us about, you know, like they know, there's nothing good going on there at all. But I was surprised to learn in the research that they are technically a part of this trend that was happening in the late 80s, early 90s, where adult franchises would get children, like children's media adaptations. Like they are when you find out what the original comic was like, they are basically is inappropriate for children's cartoons as like Rambo and Robo cop, which also had children's cartoons. Yeah. And issue number one of the black and white comic that invented them, they kill 15 people

9:21in the first scene. And in the last scene, they offer shredder the dignity to commit ritual suicide. On top of a building and then when he demures, they throw him off the roof into a dumpster while he's holding an active grenade. So he explodes on impact. That's awesome. That's so cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's so cool. These comics were like a send up of like the comics at the time. Like they were like a Eastman and layered, right? I believe they're the great. Yeah. We'll get into that. They were mainly a parody of a lot of the trends and comics at the time, but also like there was something in the zeitgeist about I feel like in the mid 80s with turtles and like New York, like with Mario as popular as Mario. Oh yeah. I didn't like to make that connection, but that's a really good point. It's like like with Cooper and the turtles, anthropomorphic turtles and just like

10:26what turned into like with the movies, especially like the like I feel like just Japanese like like white white guys versions of like what the hell is called. Japanese culture is giant anthropomorphic turtles. The ooze like just the like textural, weird on screen depiction of goo. Like it like those movies are super gooey. Oh yeah. And like and then when the Super Mario Brothers movie got made, remember like the fungus, like the we all got all the gooeyness from that too. So I feel like there's like some kind of like kinship or spiritual connection between those two franchises for some reason. Oh for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Like we're traveling through pipes and shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're basically just the answer to the question from Americans. I wonder what turtles are like in Japan.

11:29Yeah. And if they got a bunch of toxic waste dumped on them. Yeah. What happens? I'd also put them in the category of adolescent children with confusing sexual tension with like like weird science. Goonies had the thing where like Mikey kisses the older girl like big era like young boys who have like nascent sexual feelings toward older girls or women that they don't really understand because they're their relationship with April is is fraught. Yeah. You know, um, it's definitely the era of Hollywood screenwriter like nerds who are we're not good with women. That getting to depict their fantasies on screen. Yeah. The version of sexuality would make the most sense for me to write as a grown man. Ah yes. 11 year old boy. That's my level of development. And this bucsum journalist just kind of like happens upon me.

12:29Yeah. And she's like asking me to be into me. But yeah, I'm not going to do anything. So I'm also kind of taking care of me because I got I'm still like a teenage. I'm still baby. Yeah. It's totally the crush they had on their babysitter coming through in the first year. The story for sure. Yeah. Was she in the original she was in the original comic book? She was. She was not a reporter. And she was a baby. Lared in Eastman. Yeah. Lared in Eastward. Like, uh, she was mommy. Yeah. And they were like, they, you know, they they fucked up our vision by making her reporter who then turtles always have to like rescue. Like she should have been. I think she was a little bit more self-possessed in the in the original. Uh, I will also say that this was an important time for me because, uh, with the very progressive in the, um, cross species thing. This is a time that, um, Paul Abduel was kind of coming out with MCSKAT Cat.

13:30Yeah. Like the first, the first she was Paul Abduel was my first big crush. And when MCSKAT Cat was like the character with whom she showed the most romantic chemistry. I was like, I kind of fucked up over it. But I feel like the turtles in April kind of made it. Okay. You know, there's just like, yeah, this is fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. This is the first time that we've done a icon. I think that it's a group instead of an individual character or a person. Um, and I want to talk about that because I think that's important. Um, I think that like groups of four are a constant across pop culture. And there's something about groups of four that lend themselves to like being sort of represented it like those like which girls character are you? Which, uh, sex in the city character or you, uh, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly.

14:31The sorting, which sex in the city character you sorted in by the sorting hat. And, uh, yeah, soren, buoy once wrote an episode of after hours about how these groups of four usually like can be broken down into like the four basic humors as defined by Hippocrates. There's like blood yellow, bile, black bile, flim, um, which you may recognize as medically wrong. Um, but, you know, ancient Greece, their, their gods were probably like theologically and scientifically wrong. But I think that attendance to like aim for science and accidentally nail something inherent about human nature. Um, so I, first I want to ask you got, did you guys have a particular allegiance to any of the four turtles? Uh, yeah. I, I think most kids started off as Michelangelo lovers because that's like the, he's like the most immature one and you're like, yeah, do fucking cowl Bunga forever.

15:32And then as I got older, I kind of began to like identify more with Raphael, uh, and just kind of like rooting a little bit. Yeah, it's kind of dark. There was a darkness. I'm like, yeah, my friends are kind of doing their thing. I'm like doing drugs in the sewers and shit trying to work through some shit. Like, I'm literal. There's trouble at home. Your parents aren't like getting along. Yeah, yeah. I know I went through that, you know, yeah. And I was like, I'm, I'm a little bit more of a wrath type guy. Now I don't, that was the last time I really thought about it. But that was my sort of A to B. I will say, uh, I always like, I kind of, it's, it's kind of a goody too. I was always, I always identify with Leonardo. Oh, yeah. That's so interesting. I had a theory coming into this that nobody was Raphael or Leonardo. Like everybody when they were a kid was like, I mean, they're Michelangelo because he's like fun and likes fun, which I like, uh, or Donatelle. Like you guys immediately are the other two. I'll show you what like, like when I was, when I was a kid, I remember like my friends

16:38parents always, I always seem to be the one that they trusted their kids to hang out with. Right. But I was always like, you know, because I would talk to my friends parents, I would, you know, it was real good conversationally at a young age. And so I felt like I had responsibility, you know, to like, keep us out of the way. I'm kind of troubled and kind of like, stear us from doing the stupidest shit we could, you know, like stupid shit was okay. But like, what's not do the dumbest possible thing, right? So like, I, I kind of gravitated towards Leonardo and I really, I, I liked the swords. I like, I just dug the, the crisscross swords on the back. I thought that was a cool shit. It's funny that you say that will, will because I was like the exact same kid for like my parent, the other parents are like, what is Miles doing? Is he? He's a smart one. He was not going to say that. But I did not have the self awareness to know I was Leonardo or one of the, I was in denial because I was a responsible Leonardo as kid, right?

17:40But I wanted to, but I so deeply was like, no, there's the, it can't be. I'm a pretty dude. I'm a pretty dude inside you. There are four turtles. Yeah. Yeah. It's just way Western man. Yeah. Yeah. You're just a very self aware. I was definitely a Leonardo who wanted to be Michelangelo. But I asked my kids and they were like Michelangelo, Donatello. And I was like, actually, you're right. You guys are Michelangelo and Donatello. So I'm glad I named you those exact names. But I do want to just in paying tribute to this being the first, you know, multiple and the first group of four that we've done. I want to just like run through kind of construct a Mount Rushmore of Mount Rushmore's a top four of top like the most iconic groups of four because I do think they're like for whatever reason, groups of four are super interesting to talk about.

18:43Like the, you know, which, which Harry Potterhouse are you, you know, fuck turfs, but like that is an interesting conversation that is like a great getting to know you thing. And it was most of the internet there for close to a decade, taking the quiz to find out which, which character you are from, from a specific, you know, show or movie. Right. Yeah. Victor is adding which element from Avatar are you? Oh, is that a good one? The airbender. So are you like an airbender, waterbender, earthbender, fire? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't even have that on my list. That's Captain Bennett. There were five in Captain America, right? Captain, but I didn't plan it. I watched it. Yeah, Captain. That's why that show sucks. It's because they threw heart in there like exactly. Yep. Um, I'm just going to run through some of the iconic groups of four. And then we can put together our Mount Rushmore of groups of four. Um, the Beatles, I think is a interesting one because if you're a fan of the Beatles,

19:47like you go through multiple, like, I'm kind of like a John or like thing. You have your like George phase and personality wise personality wise. Well, it's interesting because it's kind of the opposite of Ninja Turtles and that like the Michelangelo of the Beatles is the last one that anyone's ever going to want to identify with. Um, but sex in the city, I think are pretty powerful. Um, slash, uh, golden girls, you know, they're kind of, uh, like, similar, um, yeah, Blanche and Samantha, uh, on Farage is the younger, is the young man's version of sex in the city. Um, the Ghostbusters. Um, that's a good one. Yeah. Seinfeld, uh, Scooby Doo humans has been mentioned in here a lot. The South Park characters, Matthew Mark John Luke, of course, uh, the girls from girls. All right. I already know my number one is in the four seasons.

20:49All right. It's the gospels. Who you got? Matthew Mark Luke and John obviously. Yeah. Obviously. Obviously. Don't, don't even sell you this whole process by name John is Michelangelo. Obviously a bit of a wild card, little apocalypse. Everybody knows Luke was the party, dude. You know what I mean? Um, God of those. And I guess Jesus is master splinter. Yeah. Yeah. No, don't rush guys have already. Right. Evangelists have Jesus. Um, right, right. Turtles have master splinter. Uh, I feel like sex in the city could have used a master splinter, you know? Yes. Well, someone known like necessarily. Yeah. I don't know what relationship was. I don't have a relation to all board. I've seen, I feel like I've seen that show through like TikTok clips and, and that's pretty much. Yeah. So yeah. Well, wait for that. I can't. I'm Christopher. Um, Christopher Robin. I'm not sure if you're gonna see the poo crew, not some weird scat porn that I'm only familiar.

21:51Sounds like I know the poo crew. I know the poo crew. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, people always talk about the Beatles, but for me, I think I like, um, fantastic four is also. No, it's not them either. Yeah. I feel like I don't even know. I'm like, yeah, I think that's, that's one that in terms of like which was their most fun to discuss. I feel like entourage because you like learn so much from someone being like, I'm actually the Vince of like God. That's like such a weird red flag if someone ever used that show. There's a guy named Turtle in that, right? Yeah. I mean, cut obviously a reference and turtle is the Michael and the low. Mm hmm. Yeah. It fits, it fits for sure. Oh, the king of the Hill characters Victor just mentioned. Yeah. That's in there. Yeah. I guess I can. Yeah. I just go Beatles, Sex in the City Ninja Turtles and then, um, yeah, it's got to be the

22:55evangelist or the four seasons. I feel like four seasons, the actual weather seasons. Oh, well, we're doing matter like that. Okay. Yeah, you can go matter if you want because that, I mean, I do feel like people are like, which are you a winter? What's your favorite season? That's the idea. That's a good point. Actually, yeah. The older I get the more, I understand why like older people move south, I cannot handle handle the winter anymore. Like I'm slowly evolving similar to the way that like people identify, you know, with one character and then move to the other. So I'm doing that with the seasons for sure. Yeah. Oh, man. I'd love to know about seasons. I think that's a good, I think that's a good Mount Rushmore of Mount Rushmore. As long as, as long as you mark Luke and John are up there. Yeah. For my own soul, make room for the Lord. You know, what about the Masters that the turtles are named after like the artists like who are they named after? Wait, what are you talking about? Well, so I was imagining before Miles just did that imagining a dude that finds out

24:01after the fact that like these were these were real Renaissance artists, which is doing what? What the fuck are you talking about? I thought Leonardo Caprio was named after fucking Leonardo from the ninja purpose. Fuck. Yeah, the pussy positive probably. I'm sure you could get a top four from that group. Definitely, definitely. Yeah. I mean, that did also, that was like a passive secondary educational lesson you got from this because I remember my parents being like, why are they named after like the Renaissance like artists and I was like, they're not like you idiot. Yeah. And I remember knowing like what the Vitruvian man sort of sketch was. But then my mom was like, no, this stuff. I'm like, no fucking way. Like how did they come up with this shit? Yeah. And that's another connection to the Mario brothers thing. These Italian, like the Italian aspect of giving them that name. There are those names with with Mario and Luigi. They

25:07really dodged a bullet because when they first created them, they were like, and we'll name them after Japanese words and concepts. And they were like, oh, wait, we're a couple stoned white guys from Massachusetts. Never mind. Let's go with something else. Hey, can kill him with a grenade after he throws him off the roof. That body count was so much higher than I expected. 15 in the first scene is. Just body part because like that. So to make it into a cartoon, like one of the big innovations was like, okay, that will make all the bad guys robots. That way, like they can be dismembering enemies, but like those enemies instead of be like standing in a pile of body parts afterwards, they'll be standing in a pile of, you know, sparking robot parts. Or the plan was also just, you know, faceless enemies that stormtroopers basically. Yeah, yeah. And they occasion those bodies piled up too, but they would just be like, pow, knock

26:08down rather than like, I decapitated you with my fucking patana. Yeah. That opening scene from the second movie where all the bodies are piled up, yeah, ones like hanging from the roof spinning. Yeah. Yeah. It's a classic. So we're going to get into the origin of the movies. All that we're going to take a quick break. We'll be right. Oh. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and health captive for nine months. I survived. And I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart. And these are the survivor files. I just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying shut up. Don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who lived through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up, without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the

27:09end of my bed. And I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. Their stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with Elizabeth Smart on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us, not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies

28:12you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're bookshelf and you're for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Pro's Society, the weekly podcast that's Part Book Club, Part Group Chat for Thought Daughters, Pop Culture Obsessives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm gonna have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. So like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters and that is of Trojan horse,

29:15whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro Society on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages. College football will hijack your weekend, ruin your sleep, and break your heart. And that's why we make the Sullivan-verbal College football show. I'm Ty Hildenbrand. He's Dan Rubenstein. How's it gone? Every week we preview the games that matter, sort through the biggest storylines, and tell you what to watch before kick off. There's a lot to keep track of. Who's for real? Which upset is hiding in plain sight, and which storyline is about to take over your group chat? And when the games are over, join us in the aftermath too. We're going to react to what happened, talk about the biggest results. Of course, we'll cover the playoff picture, and all the little details you might have missed while flipping between like 12 games at once. Whether you know every coach and coordinator

30:18or just want to understand why everybody is yelling, we're here to help make sense of the madness. Listen to the Solid Verbal College football show on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The NFL never stops and neither does its newest podcast. The NFL report hosted by me, Andrew Sassimliano. It is your home for everything football. Williams, drifting, sprinting for space, in all kinds of trouble for the uppercase. The end of the day, they got it! For the touchdown, they've done it again! We're tapping the biggest news stories, giving you expert analysis, fantasy previews, game picks, and more. We fly around every single play! We dominate every single play! Want to hear from the league's top stars? Add to the biggest matchups? We've got you covered. That's a really good football team. We got to have all hands on deck. Join me at an all-star cast of analysts for everything you need to know from around the league.

31:18Get new episodes of the NFL report Monday through Friday, all season long. Listen to the NFL report podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And I will say, like, we're going to get into the two guys who invented them. I will say, like, across the history of the evolution of the Ninja Turtles from invention through, like, when I think I heard about them, and most people heard about them in the late 80s, early 90s, they got very lucky. They kept running into, like, just breaks of good luck. Like, there's this one point where the... So this guy's just like, I'm going to take this adult comic, the Ninja Turtles. That's just, like, bloody and violent as hell. I'm going to turn it into a toy.

32:18And then the idea after that is, well, all these toys, like, the Transformers and He-Man and stuff, the way that they really pushed sales was by making a cartoon. So we're going to do that. That's the order it went in was like, toy, and then we'll make a cartoon. So they're like, real half-assed, like, we're going to, you know, just shit out five to ten episodes of this cartoon. And at that time, like, the yen is at its absolute lowest that it's ever been, I think. It's like a crash in the value of the yen. And they're able to hire this Japanese studio, animation studio called Toye, I believe, who is the studio behind, like, Dragon Ball Z, would be like if Pixar was suddenly available to work on your web series. And the yen drops and then bounces back almost immediately. But for

33:19this brief window, they're able to hire this amazing animation studio to create the first five episodes of this series, which is what gets it off the ground. It gives them their character design. And they also get lucky to work with these individual people. There's got Peter Chung, who's like a legend in the industry. He goes under creating direct, Ian Flux, which is like this really acclaimed adult cartoon, dust off with anime tricks, is the designer of all of the characters and rugrats. And he does, like, you know, of course they got Chuck Laurie. You can't be Chuck Laurie for writing the song, but he designs and like storyboards that intro, like the visuals for the intro, which is like amazing. And like that one of the first things and most iconic things that and like they just get him because he hasn't done all that other stuff quite yet. And then the guy who designs the action figures is like this visionary person who's like in retrospect, everyone's

34:23like, oh, he's like one of the greatest toy designers of all time. He's the guy who like created he man essentially. And so they just like keep running into these really great breaks of finding amazing talent. Right. And those those action figures, I don't know if you've seen the like how some of these figure there is a, we talked about it on an episode of George Center recently. There's a civil war soldier Rafael. There is some bizarre. I don't know where, like what the the lore is to some of these action figures. Why they went so hard with these things. But the first one, the military, the first batch of military ones came out around desert storm. Had that's how I knew what side I was on. I had all of them. I had the I had the pilot Donatello. There was like lieutenant Leo. Michael Angel was a fucking sailor. Yeah.

35:30Spelenter. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. Shredder who's saying it was all really cool. But yeah, like I remember like that's when they really started being like, bro, we're just trying to fucking make really make money. And I think that's what kind of Eastman and Laird they had like a weird relationship with it because obviously like it started off as like gritty comic book. And then they were kind of smart enough to be like, let playmates do whatever they're going to do. I gotta do your thing. I mean, they push back to like to animation studio when they're like, yeah, this is how I think it should look for this animated thing because we're the goat animation studio at that time. Yeah. Because they went on it. They also did one piece. You know, it's just like yeah, like legendary shit. Yeah. Yeah. Just yeah, happened to work on this toy commercial. Yeah. And Eastman and Laird are great because they're kind of part of this creator empowerment thing in that when they create this comic book, they don't like go and immediately sell it to Marvel

36:33and stuff like that. And they retain the rights for a long time and then sell it for $60 million, which ends up being like way too cheap. But he has generated like $15 billion. Yeah, something like that. But like at least they didn't sell it at the like right after they invented it for right. And basically they would just like license it off, collect the checks and then talk shit about the stuff those being made. They just said all these quotes of them being like, well, the cartoon is dumb as fuck as we all know. But yeah. So Eastman's background, he has like a part of his origin story where he like spent summer's edge grandma's house near a pond where he like would encounter a lot of turtles. And he said, I loved going up there. I'd go down to the runoff for just a slow moving waterway and you just see different kinds of painted turtles or a couple of snapping turtles, which to me was the coolest because they were like smaller

37:36present day dinosaurs, which is the thing that I recently sat on the show. I think that my love of turtles definitely came from that experience as a child. But like, yeah, if you just view turtles through the eyes of a child, like they're they and you just like haven't seen one before, like what's so cool about a unicorn? This fuckers got like a house on his back. It's made of his ribs. And you like can't get me. Yeah, exactly. Did he also talk about his love? Was he pouring chemicals on them? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So we're pouring such experimenting with various glowing forms of my friends to beat up my bullies. He was into violent comic books, Daredevil, Captain America Batman. He loved Jack Kirby. And this is a time when people were like, he like submitted to RISD and like all these design schools and art schools. And they were like, why are you drawing

38:37cartoons in your submission? Get this shit out of here. Like, you know, you're fine art is the only thing that we're after. So very much setting himself up for one day having a biopic. Uh, he, you know, everyone be like, this stuff is too radical. Get out of our design school. And then Peter Laird, similar story, comic book artists, uh, when he and Eastman first met, he's working as an illustrator, drawing like campus maps of his college and like drawing things like some dungeons and dragons, graphics and just like whatever his local newspaper will hire him to draw. He's just like, I don't know, drawing is my thing. Right. So he doesn't really have time career other than just like draw, you know, but basically what AI is now used for was what they're using him for. And they just start getting the implicate like you watch the documentary and it's like the implication is they were just like getting high and like making each other laugh,

39:40drunk shit while watching TV. And one night they doodled the turtles and like, he's always like, we're just pissing our pants to be honest. Eastman loves to talk about a fucking piss in our pants, bro. Literally literally do I was shit faced. I was freaking mashed. Yeah. Eastman wrote Ninja Turtle at the top of the page, layered left and drew his own Ninja Turtle, Pete, Dural, cooler one, then of course I had to top his sketch. So I drew four of them standing in a dramatic pose. Pete anchored it and added teenage mutant to the Ninja Turtle part. And like they're just like doing a silly like how dumb would this be type thing. And then they're like, maybe we should make a comic out of that. I love those origin stories where the thing that ends up defining like, you, you, here's someone is like pursuing something like serious, like they're going to college or whatever. And then the thing they do for shits and giggles is what ends up striking right at the

40:45the right time. Yeah. Yeah. That's that very much the case here. They're also real into like violent TV shows that I think they were saying they were watching like the A team or something like that as they were drawing this which ends up having a legacy in the show which like people are like, this is you guys remember like what a like how freaked out everyone was by like the violence and teenage mutant Ninja Turtles when we're good. Were they? Oh man. Yeah. Teachers were fucking losing their minds. Yeah. I vaguely remember I think I've watched like on YouTube TV reports about you know the phenomenon of the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles and their kids are like hitting each other with with stuff and in classrooms. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, ER injuries are up you know for young children right now. I know in like the in England they changed the the idea that the concept of a ninja was like a thing that like to English. They changed it

41:48to teenage mutant hero turtles. Teenage mutant hero turtles. Yeah. The you pay Austria, Germany, Norway and Belgium. That's so funny man. Like I don't know. Just the point things that that they used to try to like protect us from is just yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I'm just saying 1991 this is this is from the research 1991 a national survey of 73 US teachers found 69 of them. So 95% of them expressed concerns about the negative side effects of the turtles on children. 95% especially about the levels of violence and aggression they were seeing. I mean, I guess that's true because like when I think about playing Ninja Turtles like me and my friend who just like terrorized his like little sister. Yeah. With like wrapping paper tubes. Yeah. Like. I don't know. We made it safe enough and I think it's funny because that's true. That was happening in 1991 10 years later 9-11. You know. I mean, I was like I was so when the first movie

42:58came out I was five then the sequel came out I was six but so I got really into a X-Men around like like when the cartoon hit and I was like taking anything that I could find sticking in between my my fingers to be Wolverine at all times. Hell yeah. Yeah. That was like maybe the turtles the turtles crawled so the X-Men and Power Rangers and all the other stuff that I you know, reenacted in my backyard with giant PVC tubes and anything else I could find rakes and whatever. I remember I could hit somebody with I remember my friend's dad having real nunchucks like you know, like sort of like you know, like weird aggro 80s dad displaying nunchucks and I remember fucking hitting myself in the head so fucking hard. What year was this trans am? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the fucking teetop still wearing that Arhyl speed wagon cut off the with the

43:59dangle hearing. Hell yeah. What's up guys? You fucking my nunchucks. Leave some mercy for the rest of this dude. But I remember having this like confidence of like watching I was like dude, I fuck with Michelangelo the character enough. Let me see that shit one spin and I wait to listen and I can come across myself and like suddenly being like really bummed out how actually like that it was an actual art that I was like, yeah, this I really chose the better like as I at least you weren't using one of the bladed weapons. Sure. Like sure. I mean, he did have it. You know, that guy also had a katana collection. Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah. Absolutely for sure. I have a pair of legit nunchucks in my bedroom right now that I have more than once practice with and try to get smooth with it. So what is it about nunchucks man? I don't know man. I don't like

44:59they're so cool and they also are like feel so impractical. I don't know. I don't know what the legit history with nunchucks are as far as like how practical they ever were. But damn if they aren't the coolest thing. Yeah. You know, I never asked questions about the legit history of nunchucks like Langello. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's taught me like people who don't like to party. Exactly. He was too busy for that. Yeah. I mean, I think the mutant thing like the when they created the comic in the first place like teenage was a reference to like DC's new teen titans, which was popular right then mutant was a reference to like uncanny X-Men and Ninja was daredevil was where they're in for that. But yeah, they were like pulling things from the zeitgeist. I'm pretty sure I learned from a cracked article that essentially there is there's a scene in like the first issue or the original comics where the Eastman and layered re-drew the accident

46:07that created daredevil because he had this like toxic stuff spilled on him. Yeah. And the ooze from that car accident, you know, like, like, down into the sewer and then creates the turtle. So it's part of like a shared universe in their, yeah. Which they weren't hard like. Yeah. Yeah. They weren't officially part of it. They were just like re re-created the origin story of daredevil and then had the ooze create the turtles and then had like a bunch of in jokes to daredevil. Like, was daredevil the biggest con they treat it like it was like the biggest comic in the world. Like the whole thing is like an in joke for people who've read the origin story of daredevil. It was to them for sure. Yeah. Exactly. Like, it just happened, whatever happened to be in front of them when they were high, like drawing the first issue. But yeah, splinter is a reference to it because daredevil's sense is stick. And the hand is like the bad ninja. Oh, yeah. The foot clan is. Yeah. Oh,

47:14shit. Okay. But yeah, they're just like this is just a small, very niche thing for daredevil fans. Right. It's like this massive fucking thing way bigger than daredevil. Yeah. It's slightly slightly bigger than daredevil. Lared is like kind of circumspect about why it was successful, which I think the Zachary, he says the name of the book itself, which had even more of an effect. It's hard to say at this point, but I know that the crazy name we gave this book always seemed to generate a second look for the uninitiated, which I think that's got it. Like, it's such a crazy name that everybody's just like fuck that that's interesting. It sounds like a joke and then you read it. And it's like, what no, we're taking this very seriously. Right. It gives you really fun. It gives you everything in the title to such a degree like daredevil. Like there's nothing. There's nothing in that that explains that the guy's blind and sees with his sense of hearing and stuff. But they just give you all the information you need to be like, what the fuck?

48:16What? How is this a mutant? What now? Yeah. Middle age mutant blind guy, vision see, here an accident with heightened senses to compensate. Oh, shut. Hey, Chuck, we need you to cook. Come here, man. Come here. We need to, we need a theme song for this guy. I got an ounce of cocaine, dude. Don't worry. I wouldn't ask you unless I didn't have your party or your songwriting fuel or whatever you call it seriously. But they were basically, the comics sold really well. They were making a good living for up until like, I think they started, they peaked in like 87, I think. Yeah, they peaked at 135,000 copies sold with issue number eight. There was like an indie pipeline that you could go through. And then they did stuff. It's one of those origin stories where it's like, man, things used to be, things used to be really, like they bought one ad that like held them to the top. They borrowed a thousand dollars from like his uncle or

49:20something. Yeah, they really borrowed a couple thousand dollars and we're like, oh, we're we're able to pay it back. And we even made a $200 profit on the first on the first issue. It's interesting to see like the uptake of the comic book is so similar to like the toy where they're like, I don't know, man, we might take a bath on this first one. And they sold every single copy out and then like, they doubled the printing and then they did that. And then like quadrupled the printing for the second issue. And it sold out immediately. And truly, I think because people at the time are just like, fuck yeah, dude, teenage mutant ninja turtles. Fuck yes, dude. Yes. And then yeah, the rest then the kids have this exact same brain. We're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, teenage beauty. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it's like, it's so kid brained. And then when it like comes time to make the movie, like the degree to which Hollywood, like one of the first ideas that they had for making a movie version of it was eight. So Roger Corman's new world pictures approached them about a comedy

50:23starring stand up comics like Gallagher, Sam Kinnison, Bobcat, Gullthwaite and Billy Crystal, Dressed in Turtle shells and wearing green makeup. I'm sorry. What was the original thing? That was the first pitch to take the teenage mutant ninja turtles into the realm of movies was Billy Crystal and fucking Gallagher in green face makeup and like, shitting. I just going to be thinking about which one is which, who is Sam Kinnison? Which of the turtles? Raffi L right? Gallagher is grumpy as shit man. Like, I think Gallagher is one of them stuff as the main character though. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thinking of himself as Leonardo, Bobcat would probably Michelangelo. I love my kid. Yeah, definitely. I mean, Bobcat as a kid. There's another pitch for an R-rated one that involved the turtles battling roller skating semi-naked

51:27nuns with oozees. Like adults are just like so weird man. I'm not mad at that. I'm not mad at it. There's like, well, we'll do it with like comics with green face. Like, looking like they're in bad Halloween costumes. Wait, who are those? Who are those? Yeah. No, that's not what people are. I wonder which writer pitch that that sounds like the toxic avenger movie from the 80s. You know, I've been thinking about toxic avengers this whole time because of, I mean, just the connection with the ooze and stuff. But like, another, another famously like gooey franchise as far as like on-screen, moist movies. Oh, yeah. The moisture's off the charts here. Oh, yeah. It really is. The screen's sweating right now. Yeah. So, yeah, it hit like, it kind of takes off as an indie comic and then this licensing agent. It's so funny because it's like this great thing that we all identify with. But like, the way it moves is like a licensing agent named

52:30Mark Friedman comes in as like, I'm going to take this thing mainstream. And they're just like, all right, we'll sell you the like, you will give it to you for $150,000 and see what you do with it. And he's able to sell it. And then yeah, they're able to make this show that is just a toy commercial. And they're like, all right, we're going to take, they're not going to, I guess they're think, their pizza before was beer like in the comics. And they're like, uh, we're going to change that over to pizza. We're going to add catch phrases like Al Bunga. Um, we're going to add skateboard and surf culture. We're going to give them like the different colors before that. They all had red bandanas, which is fucking crazy that they didn't like the, that's like based on the guardian angels or something. Yeah, they're all kind of like the guardian angels. And then there's that fifth turtle Curtis. Sleeewire. Oh my god. Honestly, like imagine it, like Curtis still is basically an

53:34ninja turtle. Like, yeah, now that I think about, doesn't he does command an army of cats, right? Like, isn't he a cat? Like, I think so. Yeah. Wild numbers of cats. Um, holy shit. Uh, this is when they have to remove the tail. The turtle's prior to this time had tails. Uh, but, uh, on a turtle standing up in 3D, a tail hanging down looked too phallic looking from the front. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. Why's that turtle got a big old dick? Cause he, cause he's fucking hard, bro. He's down to fight, man. April just walked by, bro. Yeah. What do you expect? Uh, this is from Laird talking about their initial response to or what, what he, he said had I been making the key creative decisions for that first animated series. It would have been very different. Among other things, there would likely have been no moronic henchmen, like bebop and rocksteady, uh, the two perfectly named henchmen of all time. Yeah. The shredder would have been seriously malevolent. April would

54:39not have been a reporter. Lincoln's is only need to be rescued by the turtles. So feminist icon. Uh, the turtles would not have been so ridiculously obsessed with pizza and the show would not have had a joke. So he's, he's just basically the iconic stuff. Well, nah, I think it's out of here. I would want to make it so that it wouldn't be massively successful as a children's show and make me wealthy. I was fine. Hang my uncles loan back. Yeah. Truly an artist, uh, an example of an artist in his own way. Like, like, and just exactly. And they also got in their own way by immediately, like hating each other. Like once, once they made this thing, those successful, they immediately were just like, fuck this guy. And they start like the early comics are that everybody likes are them working together. And then they like have to start like trading off because they can't work together anymore. Um, but when the toys blow up, they don't mind spending the money. They start receiving checks for over $1 million. They are some of my favorite examples of what people

55:42spent money on. Uh, Eastman's large purchases involved a M 15 a Stewart light tank, which they used during paintball wars, layered own 32 motorcycles at one point. Plus one of the first hummers made available to the public. Is it having Schwarzenegger? Like, you know, like, it's either going to get Arnold or you're going to get one of the Ninja Turtles creators driving down Hollywood Boulevard. Yeah. Can you imagine there's a pissing contest over that? He's like, let's son of a bitch. If you look at what layered looks like, he looks like an accountant for IBM from like in the mid 80s. Like, you'd be like, yeah, you got 32 motorcycles at home. Sure, asshole. Yeah. All right. It looked like Hans Mollman in real life. Honestly, like the, the thought of to know that your artistic vision of your create you, I wanted the turtles to be drunk all the time.

56:46Okay. And that's what I'm unhappy with. Like, I'm like, for that to be the artistic hill that you, you died on and didn't make all of this money would be one of the funniest footnotes to someone's career of all time. We just never would have heard of the Ninja Turtles. Yeah. I mean, I guess they did have the good senses just be like, yeah, I don't know, man, fine. Yeah. I guess I got a lot of a fucking guess, guys. I'm sure because the guys at playmates are like, dude, look, we know what the fuck we're doing. Right. Like, do you want fucking money? Or do you want to be, you want to fuck this all up? And I'm sure to do the turtles need to be drunk all the time. Yeah. Okay. You fuck. So all right, guys, bring back the original ideas. We want the big, weird, dick drunk turtles. Then I'm sure the kids are going to fucking love. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do that. Let's make a couple prototypes of these fucking toys. Yeah. All right. Let's take one more break. We'll come back. We got to talk movies. We got to talk about Ninja rap. So many different things. We'll be right back. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and health captive for nine

57:56months. I survived. And I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them. I'm Elizabeth Smart. And these are the survivor files. I just remember this low taunting voice next to my ear saying, shut up. Don't say anything. Every week, I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable. I knew if he woke up without a doubt, he was going to hurt me. I started feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed. And I just started screaming. They are abducted, stalked, controlled, and nearly silenced. But these aren't stories about what's taken from them. Their stories about what it takes to make it out alive. Listen to the survivor files with Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. On the new podcast, Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. I can wait

58:57four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering me a ride on his motorcycle. I choose option B. I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first. I'm on a mission to reclaim the word solita, trading the pity for possibility. Every time I tried to be alone, I kept meeting people and they were like, you smiled at us, not a lot of people smile around here. It's when you're alone that you're most receptive to the world as it is and not the lies you're sold about it. It can be a time where you push your limits, change your mind, or wake up to a new version of yourself. So whether you're a solo travel veteran or you're too nervous to book your first trip, I hope you listen to Solita. On the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you're a bookshelf and you're for you page are equally important to your personality, welcome home. This is Pro's Society,

59:59the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks pride and prejudice and love island deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo and every week we're connecting the dots between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to look up this story. I'm obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book talk creators to the latest pop culture moments, nothing is off the table. It's like if you can hide some real messages inside compelling characters and that is the Trojan horse, whether you're looking for literary deep dives, smart pop culture conversations, or a community of readers who love to think a little too much, you're in the right place. Listen to Pro's Society on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. See you between the pages.

1:01:12We're tapping the biggest news stories, giving you expert analysis, fantasy previews, game picks, and more. We fly around every single play. We dominate every single play. Want to hear from the league's top stars, out of the biggest matchups? We've got you covered. That's a really good football team. We got to have all hands on deck. Join me at an all-star cast of analysts for everything you need to know from around the league. Get new episodes of the NFL report Monday through Friday, all season long. Listen to the NFL report podcast on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. College football will hijack your weekend, ruin your sleep and break your heart. And that's why we make the Sullivan-verbal college football show. I'm Ty Hildenbrand. He's Dan Rubenstein. How's it going? Every week we preview the games that matter, sort through the biggest storylines and tell you what to watch before kickoff. There's a lot to keep track of. Who's for real? Which upset is hiding in plain sight,

1:02:13and which storyline is about to take over your group chat? And when the games are over, join us in the aftermath too. We're going to react to what happened, talk about the biggest results, of course, we'll cover the playoff picture, and all the little details you might have missed while flipping between like 12 games at once. Whether you know every coach and coordinator or just want to understand why everybody is yelling, we're here to help make sense of the madness. Listen to the Solid Verbal College football show on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to be be. So what's the cartoon takes off? And it takes off. It's like, has some of the highest ratings in some of the most cynical sound and shit where they're like, this thing's fucking killing in the 2 to 11 demographic. It's really like, oh god damn it.

1:03:13And the shit for brains down. Oh yeah, my mouth is watering the way these fucking two-year-olds are just tuning into this thing. Sesame Street ain't got shit on this. Yeah, like they were literally so hungry for the 2 to 11 demographic. So they decided to make a movie. They managed to hold off a gallery. I think I'm pretty sure that came from Gallagher's team. Like the Gary Proper is the road manager for Gallagher at the time and he's the one who first pitches the idea. So it was like, what is the first Gallagher vehicle that is going to take this guy to the next level? Which never came. But so the movie, it's made by, it's directed, they get Steve Baron to direct it. The movies, the early music videos that he directed are Michael Jackson's Billy Jean, Ahas take on me and die or straight money for nothing. Like three, three, like most iconic music

1:04:21videos of the early 80s. I had no idea they were all directed by the same person because they don't they're not all, they don't have like a signature look. He's just fucking killing. No, they fit those artists perfectly. Exactly. I wonder what was the suit of being like, man, the ninja turtles are like Michael Jackson, man. We need somebody like me to be like, be like, Jean Essence in this film. And then they get the fucking Henson group to work on the movie, which makes it just an instant classic. Like the, and Jim Henson is like, I don't like the violence. I think it's going to one day cause 9-11. No, he's like, I don't like how violent the cartoons are. And it makes you want to take pilot lessons for some reason. And box cutter on a plane. I don't know what, I don't know what it is about this thing. That was one of the original turtle weapons. And pilot lessons. What do you do, Raf? Okay, Michael Angelos on Nunchucks and about you. I know how to fly a

1:05:26jumbo jet. The hijackers were heard screaming Kawabonga for some reason. We're not. I feel like one of the first two movies really emphasis that like is one of the most you see the twin towers of it. Like they are all over the place. Yeah. But first two movies, I think those exposition shots are great New York footage from the 80s and early 90s. Yeah. But so he's hired to direct. He is able to get the Henson's on. He's like, we're going to do it. It's not going to be mean spirited in any way. And yeah, again, the turtles just can't stop bumping into the best talent possible. Because I think they are like people recognize these are like iconic characters in the making. And for the film, so the costumes are famously problematic. They had two. Because of the huge penises. Because of the massive. And they had to haunt the screen and handsome group. Putting on the. Yeah. But there was an action turtles costume with no electronics. And then the hero turtles were the ones for like

1:06:29the hero shots and you know, straight on. And they had radio controlled motors to move the eyes, mouths and eyebrows. It sounds just like so complicated. They created a thing called puppet tectronics. Like the name even sounds like it's like a late 80s piece of bullshit technology. But they managed to make it work. The process of shooting these is a nightmare though. It's mainly shot in Wilmington, North Carolina. Like many, many movies at turn that we keep bumping into this in these icon episodes and will you reach out to me to a point out. Yeah. A lot of Stephen King, a lot of David Lynch. And your dad was in the Carolina film industry, right? Yeah. Yeah. He started out working under a guy named Earl Owens B in the western part of the state. And he was, they were like sometimes they were shooting a movie a week. Like these little B movie grindhouse

1:07:29kind of slasher films. And he was coming down here so often to Wilmington to shoot movies, own location down here that eventually him and my mom moved down here. And that's where I was born and still live to this day. So he did four Stephen King movies. He worked on a little bit of the first. Max Moverdrive. Max Moverdrive. Which is so short. Stephen King episode. Yeah. Curse it production. Yes. Yes. Running around flying on cocaine and dangering everyone's lives around. Yes. Yeah. With a fire starter, cats eyes over bullet. And then he, as a six year old, I got to visit the set of Ninja Turtles 2 Secret of the Oos. And I got to go Leonardo. And I got to hold his swords. I've got, you know, I sent miles of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As a five, I guess

1:08:30I would have been five because the crazy thing is the first and second turtles movie, they came out back to back years. Yeah. Like right in the room. Things so fast. When they saw that the first one was a hit. The first one was by the way, like weirdly, I never thought of it as an indie movie, but because no studio wanted to fuck with it, they were like, this is stupid teenage mutant integers. They had to like, new line made it. And it was the most successful indie movie of all time until the Blair Witch project. Which is wild. Absolutely. Well, but they had no idea it was going to be that successful. And when it was, they were like, okay, we need, we need this in production, like three weeks ago. And like, turn the second one around in days. So I got to visit, I got to visit the junk yard scene where the, the foot clan meet up in the second movie. And I got to visit the, the lab, what was it? TGRI, I think is the name of the company that creates the ooze that ends up bringing the turtles. And I got to meet Leonardo. And I'll never forget,

1:09:34there's like, like a formative memory of mine is, I'm in the back of my mom's like late 80s olds movie bill and we're driving, you know, station wagon. We're driving away from the studio and we pass like one of the sound stages. And there's two guys outside with a grinder, like an angle grinder, making, federally fabricating shredders helmet with the, the like, a sharp edge is, you know, how he comes back and he refashions his helmet in the second when he shows up. I like, I saw that. And like, my little kid, like, I don't know what I'm looking at exactly. I don't know what this port ends for the next movie. I've been worn out the tape of the first one, you know, when it came out. So, uh, it was like, you're looking at, you're looking at cinema history. You see that. That's true. Yeah. It was such a cool moment for me. Um, but yeah, he was, uh, he did, they mainly, he was on the unit that mainly did all the stunts, uh, all the stunt works, you know, and stuff. So like, not the, not the hero shots, not the hero masks. Um, right. But, uh, yeah, man, it was, uh, it was a cool, cool thing to get to know that your dad got to

1:10:40work with an individual. Yeah. With an individual. My dad's like, he's great best friends with an individual. That's like the shit that, that the amount of social cash, A that comes that photo, you showed me, yeah, with fucking Leantless, you said Leonardo, he's got his fucking, got his arms around. It was, it was, it's like such a, uh, miles is holding up a, a black and white photo. Like, uh, it's, it's like, it's like the kind of shit. Like, that's bigger than if Michael Jordan took a picture with you like, like, hold on, bro, a fucking ninja, like you can fathom Michael Jordan. Yeah. Hold this as well. And my shoes also, yeah. Also, Michael Jordan from Wilmington, uh, North Carolina. So, uh, another revolved around Wilmington, North Carolina in the Louisville, I went to Costa Rica one time and we stayed at an Airbnb with this family and, uh, they had a son who was, uh, like learning English and he was asking me about where me and my

1:11:41wife were from. And I said, I said Wilmington, North Carolina and he was asking me things about it. And I said, uh, I was like, you know, Michael Jordan, he's like, yeah, yeah. And I was like, Michael Jordan's from there. He's like, whoa, like he, like couldn't, couldn't believe that. And I was like, black bearded the pirate you ever heard of him. And I was like, he, like, would hang around like Ninja Turtles and like, like by the end of the conversation, I had like named it like the Venus fly trap is also native to Wilmington, North Carolina, like a 60 mile radius. He was like, what? Like his mind was fucking blown. I was just naming these like pop culture items that he couldn't wrap it. Like he was like, he thought it was like the center of the, the world, you know, I mean, maybe it was. Maybe Wilmington, North Carolina needs to be on, get a ton icon episode. That's pretty crazy. Possibly. Um, well, in addition to being making it self an ideal a climate for Venus fly traps, uh, Wilmington, North Carolina did not make itself an ideal climate for shooting a movie with giant foam and latex suits on, uh, the costumes were 50 pounds dry,

1:12:46but we reach 60 to 70 pounds after soaking up performer sweat, uh, during the course of shooting. God. That's a hockey pad like hockey lockers. That shit level. Yeah. So bad. Um, Josh pace, uh, who was the Raphael performer said it was an intense relationship between me and the suit. Uh, we would suit up for from toe up to neck, uh, then the head would go on, then they would glue the head onto the body, um, so that it was seamless. From morning to lunch, we would each lose at least five pounds. Uh, you'd hear all of a sudden one of us freak out and go like take the head off, take the head off. I need the head off because they like only had like these very narrow plate areas debris through. Um, and he said, and the crew didn't want to do it because it would slow things down because they had like, uh, yeah. Um, Donatello's per, uh, stump performer said we monitor my body temperature throughout the filming. And I'd reach 102 to 103 degrees every single day.

1:13:49Oh my god. I had to drink of gallon, a gallon of water just to keep hydrated. Um, so Jesus. Yeah. So Luke, thank you. Thank you for your sacrifice. Thank you for your sacrifice. I will say there's always like the performers and the suits really like get screwed a lot throughout the history of the film. Like they would promise the actors that they were about to like break their career and then like not even allow like Jack Reacher was Rafael in the Michael Bay one. And they were like guys, you guys, you guys are, are these characters? You're gonna, this is gonna make you huge. And then they didn't even invite them to the premiere of the movie. What the? It's like a time on or tradition to fuck over the actual human actors. That actually, yeah. I know. My favorite example is of course Darth Vader with David Proust and he kept being like, George, I feel like my lines are being muffled in this Darth Vader suit. And George Lucas was like, Uh-huh. I wouldn't worry about it. He's like, oh, are we gonna re-record? He's like sure.

1:14:54Like that. Something like that. Somebody will. You can go find the original audio of his performance. He is like giving it his all, but he just like sounds like a fussy angry British guy. He's like, I found you find your lack of faith disturbing. No, I'm your father. That's good. It probably lines that, I mean, if you watch Darth Vader's like mannerisms in that movie, he is stage acting like he is a London school of like theatrical acting every line. Yeah. And they're like, I think we can go with it. So this is the voice of God. James Earl Jones. Yeah. He was still just like, gotta tell you, I think you're making a big mistake. Find them and destroy them. So funny. Yeah. It's like we need James. But yeah, the movie makes a shitload of money. So two things happen. They quickly turn around the coming out of their shell tour, which is a live stage show

1:15:55that starts touring America. That's like in the kind of world of ice capades and Sesame Street live shows where the Ninja Turtles just are like mainly they're like a music, like a band. And they have no shells. And they have no shells. Yeah, because the shells were too fucking heavy. I went to that tour at the Universal Amphitheater in like 1990 for my friend's birthday. And I remember getting like some of the merch you could buy with just like a shitty foam eye band. You could wear of your eyes and just vote vote in the back. I had the orange one for Michelangelo. And it's like the shittiest concert ever. But like as a kid, you're just like, fuck yeah, they're wearing denim. I don't like fuck it. Whatever. Yeah. And the whole plot of it is so stupid because shredder like creates a device to take all the music out of the world. And therefore, there's nothing to do. Like they're not a musical. No, like we just like make the

1:16:56it's like the episode of Say by the Bell where all the sudden Zach's like in a band. Yeah. And everyone has like their own number like Raphael does like a Janet Jackson type of song. Splinter does like a ballad like it's like I'm a skipping stone. And in it, like the music in it sounds like a sex scene from a Van Dam movie. Like it's like this weird sensual like kind of hard to like process. It's like shit. And like there's a whole part where like I just remember being weirded out as a kid when Splinter. He's like doing like a whole like Tai Chi kind of like number while this song's playing. And like as a kid, you're like this is really uncomfortable to watch. I don't know what the fuck this guy's doing. It kind of it kind of reminded me of the landlord dancing in La Bousque or just like like why? Yeah, like as a kid, you're like this old weird teddy bears up there pretending to be Splinter and doing the oddest dance to 80s sexy music. Yeah. There is a weird like in the cartoon though, there's a weird

1:18:01musical connection with it like bebop rock steady. Yeah, the shredder as far as like a guitar shred. Like shredding on a guitar. Yeah. And there's like there and I feel like there's some other kind of like cast like vague cast of character. We have connections. I mean one of the most iconic scenes that happens in either of the first two movies is of course the vanilla ice. You know the journey that we watch vanilla ice go on because they are smart enough to allow the ice man to go on a journey where at first he's scared of the turtle. Right. He's doing great acting. He's like holding his like answers back. He's like, yo, where are these guys? Where are these guys? Guys, like they seem weird. But then they start beating people up and he manages to improvise a whole verse. Oh yeah. What he's seeing, including like character stuff, he probably would have had no way of knowing if I remember correctly. He's just like he's genius. He's an artist first and

1:19:03foremost and he keen insight into his situational surroundings and stuff. So I feel like they captured his essence perfectly in that movie. Yeah. My dad said he wasn't on the unit that filmed that. But he absolutely walked over there and watched them film it. The tape that vanilla ice was on set. Sure. Vanilla ice talk about it's funny. He's like, it was crazy. They like broke this thing up and then I go there and it's like exactly the way they wrote it. He's like, I mean, you know, script, you've, you've already supposedly made a film at this point. Yeah. Cool as ice. Yeah. Cool as ice. Yeah. How things worked on that was a fully improvised show. Yeah. I meant to look it up. There's a there's a wrap at the end of the first movie over the credits that sounds like like digital underground or something. I don't know. It's like a turtle power T you RTLE power. Oh yeah. Exactly. Remember that? Yeah. I do. I don't know who that is though.

1:20:07It was. Yeah. But I remember it was like because I remember in the soundtrack it was like spelled like T dot U dot R. Yeah. It goes hard. Like it's so catchy and like it's still I mean vanilla ice is still performing with Ninja Turtles on stage to this day. Yeah. Not too long ago. He performed it some. I don't know some right wing convention and rock. L was on stage with them. So Raff, like, unfortunately, he's leaning into the right wing. If I had to guess which one? Yeah. If I had to guess which one. It would have been Raff. Yeah. I agree. I agree. That's funny. He's even he knows the characters well enough to be like look. This is the guy. I could see like Michael Angelo at like a Maha R.F.K. event. Definitely Maha. He got so high. He ends up there. You know what I mean? Leonardo kind of a libertarian. I mean, I can see Donatello being a little anti-vax. Like he got so into science. He's like, yeah, yeah. He's into science too much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

1:21:08So him and Michael Angelo end up in Maha from the exact opposite end of the spectrum. Yeah. It's not that he doesn't believe in the vaccines. He's just working on his own vaccines. In the last three years. Yeah, that's true. That's true. That's right. That's what his like. I don't care. I came in the right way other should too. Maybe, like, one of my first or, like, earliest introductions into, like, probably I'm assuming, like, particularly with Splinter, problematic Japanese accents and, like, action movies. Yeah. Definitely, like, as I go, like, like, the Casey Jones character in the first movie, I remember, like, there's a joke in it, which I had forgotten about where he gets called claustrophobic, and he's like, hey, you want to, you want to punch you in the face? I've never, never so much looked at another guy. And it's like, wow. That's weird. That's weird. They were trying to keep some, like, edginess there that doesn't, doesn't play well today.

1:22:12Oh, yeah. Still. Yeah, they're, they're, like, I think, I think Jackie Chan and the latest Ninja Turtles is the first time that someone who's ancient has not been wildly problematic. Yeah. Like, the, the voice, the shredder. It's on it too, because, like, as a Japanese kid, I was like, shit, bro, okay. We're on our way. Like, this, it felt to me like, no, I'm a California shit. I'm like, this is a fucking surfer. Right. It's like, oh, Japanese rat is my grandma. This is fucking sick. This is my entire fucking life right there. And I remember, like, bossing up on kids because they weren't Japanese. Yeah. Like, you don't fucking know about ninjas and shit, bro. This is white. This is not your culture, bro. Yeah. My culture is not your costume. Do you realize? Now, let me, do you, do you know if your mom ever reviewed the Ninja Turtles movies? She did. I remember because she, like, I got, I remember getting like, like, free merch from the press junkage she went to. I had like this fucking t-shirt that was like, like, adult, like, large when I was in

1:23:16kindergarten that I just wear it a bed all the time. But she was just like, my mom was like, this shit is stupid. She's like, to get you that t-shirt, she gave it four stars. She was like that. Yeah. No, it's great. Yeah, yeah. She was like, yeah, yeah, oh my god. It's like, I teared up watching it as a Japanese person. People treated the movies and like everything about it, like, like kangaroo jack when it came out. Like, people were like, Jesus. Look at this dumb shit that's number one at the box office. We're fucked. Yeah. Yep. And like, would that generation grew up to be assholes? Yeah. Podcasters. Mm-hmm. I will say they have a complicated relationship to pizza on the one hand. Like pizza was obviously popular, but like, I still like think about the movie ET when they order pizza. And it's like such a novelty to order pizza that they don't even know how it works. And he's like, sends the kid out to the curb to buy a pizza.

1:24:20And he's like, get me one with extra pepperonis and none of the little fishies on it. And it's like, that's not how you know, ask for the toppings at the curb when the car pulls up. You fucking idiot. Yeah, he does that. That's a toolbox of toppings. The like, pizza right there. Right. But like, it was like, that's how the new pizza was. And like, so I do wonder like how much Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles like, you know, they just constant like their version of pizza with the non-Newtonian fluid cheese like sliding off of the thing like looked so good to me to my like child brain. They nailed that shit in the first movie when they first sit down that that pizza that Michelangelo orders. Yeah. They got that it is so gooey and sliding. They nailed it. Second movie. They open with a montage of New Yorker's eating pizza. Yeah. And that's it looks gross. Yeah. The pizza that they're eating, they like, it's not and I remember noticing that because

1:25:21they nailed it so much in the first one. Right. It was like that cheese is not part of that. Cheese and you fucking gooey. Like what are they doing? I will also say the scratch and sniff Ninja Turtles pizza stickers. Do you guys remember that? Yeah. Do you remember what they smelled like? Like I remember I feel like the pizza one kind of just like a ragga know or something. It was. Yeah. Probably. I think it's all they hit. It's a shoe these guys for this one. Yeah. Basically he smells like shit. I mean, what was the what kind of national nightmare were were we living under where it would became a trope to be stressed about getting anchovies delivered on your pizza. Has it has a pizza chain ever offered to anchovies and a pizza in the first place? I remember the first time I saw it as an offering and it was like at a fancy place. Yeah. This is like the concept of getting fish on a pizza has I've never been nervous that

1:26:22somebody ordered an anchovy pizza before. That's so funny. Yeah. Because the turtles were constantly like no anchovies. Yeah. Yeah. Everything but anchovies. Yeah. But the idea that they would be like no anchovies any other fish with salmon any other fish that we could provide pizza for you. I feel like y'all could do an icons episode just on pizza delivery and the history of the concept and you know, I mean the the tie in with it was so crazy because pizza hut was like the main sponsor of that first tour. I remember like it was it was branded the like their whole thing was like bro these motherfuckers are eating pizza this tour brought to you by pizza hut. The commercial was them at pizza hut. So they fucking I mean at least pizza hut knew they're like we have to. You just stick with the turbo charge this whole brand. First movie it's a dominoes guy that brings the pizza to Michael. Yeah. That's right. So they they got caught lack in there for sure.

1:27:22Yeah. I feel like pizza hut was always better at like getting involved with shit like that. But the culture had like slightly better pizza than pizza hut for a long time. But pizza hut was everywhere. You think about like there was the reading program. It was this thing. It was the final four. There was always something like pizza like you know, I think all of us had like every final four basketball you would get from pizza hut in the 90s. Like those are all my outdoor basketballs were pizza hut final four basketballs. They're in favor of that and also nerd shit like reading books. You know, they had all their bases covered. I do just want to run through and then we'll get out of here. Some of the attempts to cash in on the Ninja Turtles because there's there's some wild shit that I had kind of missed. But there were comic books called cyber frog and salmon Stein, which is like salmon, mutant salmon characters. There's adolescent radio active black belt hamsters.

1:28:25That's what that's what they'll are these spin offs are just like people like people being like okay. Yeah, we're going to get in here. Preteen dirty gene kung fu kangaroos. It's like guys. Wait, hold on. No, that's preteen. That was an earnest attempt at a thing. I mean, maybe they were saying it was parody, but like it's fucking it's they were trying to get in there. Like and then on TV is like street sharks. Biker, my so Mars. Yeah, remember them. Gen Z big dick naked mole rats. Samurai pizza cats was one of the cats. String dinosaurs, battle toads who are just kicking ketamine. That was cool too. I mean, that was probably the closest like that. I feel like that somebody replicated this. Yeah, like amphibious. Yeah, I think we got more ficed fighter people.

1:29:26Yeah. That was it was the video game right? Yeah, because it was also bridging sort of this new era of cartoons. Like before that is you were watching like he man and like spider man, you know, and then you got this sort of thing that was not thinking about like really the beginning of that sort of anime vibe with Toei doing those first five episodes, like leading into what we had later in the 90s, which is the more, you know, anime informed stuff or big action shit. But they came a long way man, like to all the other, you know, franchises that had this level of dominance that like there's so many movies I didn't even realize that like came out they've had like seven reboots. They were they make a new Ninja Turtles every like three to four years. There's the Michael Bay one that was a fucking terrible idea when he was first like there can be aliens actually and it was just awful all around. I feel like there's more Ninja Turtles movies than there is Spider Man movies, which is weird.

1:30:26They really same amount. They really churned man. They like it was crazy. So I'm looking forward to I took my kids to see the mutant mayhem and like they loved it. It was probably the most I've enjoyed a Ninja Turtles movie since the first live action one that great. So the second one is coming out September 2027 mutant mayhem 2. With a shredder story I feel like that's going to be good. That's money in the bank. And then 2028 like the year after they're doing like the they're going to sonic a five the franchise. They've got like the guy who made the sonic movies, you know, so they'll have CG animation Ninja Turtles with like. It's got to be with people. You know, either Ben Schwartz or what's his name James. Not Gamel Colmil, but yeah, what's the guy who's always getting cheated on in movies. Marsden.

1:31:26Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's great. Like the same year that the year later they're like, all right, well, we're ready for a new one. There's some money making machine. I mean, like like dollar for dollar, it's bigger than toy store. Yeah, you know what I mean? Bigger than the event. Are you serious? Are you serious? Big more? The million is what toy stories generate teenagers you Ninja Turtles 17.4 billion. So many of the characters that they're competing with have been around for like decades and decades and decades and like had all this time to build up cash. A like that, you know, Spider-Man's the only one that I think like completely outranks them. But like, yes, Spider-Man has been around for a long time. Like the things that are above Ninja Turtles are like looney tunes, cars, not at all, it's former Spider-Man Batman, Hello Kitty, the just Barbie Star Wars. I feel like they aren't brought up in that same conversation when you list those other

1:32:26franchises. No, no, no. It's like just quietly just in the top 20, like just highest grossing franchises. And also he's the thing of like, you know, the cynical nature of the whole thing. So Mutant Mayhem came out and like that same year Ninja Turtles merchandise sales went over a billion dollars again. So it's still, they're still just selling toys, you know, they're still just like, oh yeah. So what if this time we tried making a good one? They're like, oh, that actually worked. Sold a billion dollars of toys. I mean, because they haven't, they haven't missed a year releasing toys from like beginning in like 1989 or 88. The only thing comparable is gotta be like transformers. Yeah, transformers is similarly created by a toy company. Right. Right. I think they outsell transformers. In that first movie, just gotta mention, like it has to be one of Sam Rockwell's first

1:33:28performances. Sam Rockwell is in the movie with Elias Cotez, Corey Feldman does Donatello's voice. Yeah. And then there's some like just back to like that being an independent movie and all the people that they got to like play these, these roles that would later go into having credible careers. And he's fully locked in as Sam Rockwell, like right away, like you're like, oh, this and that is his, that is still, he's still giving. He's even got that little thin mustache that he like has in like so many other, so many other roles. Yeah. Um, No shade to the thin mustache, Miles. No, no, that's fine. I didn't even know I had one. Uh, it's great though. Like I just think Elias Cotez, you're in trans or you're in Ninja Turtles and then also you're in one of the best sopranos episodes ever in the strong silent type. Trying to get you through the intervention for Christopher. And like it's funny that he was initially guy with flowing locks. That's how we first found out about him. And now he's like, right, basically a boss.

1:34:29He's a hot job in there. He like, he's kind of he, him and April hit it off. He's sweaty as fuck too. I remember my God, such a moist movie man and the man of course I never spring on people. Yeah. I had to like remove the squashed sounds like every time the turtles just like sat down just moved them, just moved if they just even brought their fists to their shoulder. Like, sorry, we got a mop that guys, the mics picking up all the water coming out of the boot. The boom mic operator is like, guys, we get, this is not working. It's too much squelch in this one. It sounds like a spark. Well, such a pleasure having you as always. Thank you so much. Where can people find you, follow you. Here you see all that good stuff. You can find me on Blue Sky or Twitter at Wappelhouse or Kristi Yamaguchi main or you can listen to Jjort Center on all your podcast platforms. Yeah, besides that, I'm just hanging out listening to Daily's Light Guys every day.

1:35:33Oh man. Whoa. Very lucky to have you. Great, great A.K. Writer. One of your lesser credits, but still, you know, you're like the Chuck Laurie, you know, you got some, you're known for other things, but you can write a pop. As a young child, I dreamt one day of becoming the Chuck Laurie of podcast. So to be here today, I want to thank my mom, my dad, we're working on Ninja Turtles and Stephen King. He also worked on the Super Mario Brothers movie. So if you're a Mario, then that was a perfect one. And Wilmington too. So I figured Mario's got to be an icon that comes up on the list at some point. The second Dennis Hopper as Cooper was in the blue velvet mask too. You want to talk about a movie fueled by cocaine and just bizarre decisions. Holy shit. Miles, where can people find you?

1:36:33Miles of Graveware and check out the new show Ainut Fuddy talking about English soccer, European Fuddy, but really with three very funny people. I do that with Jim El Johnson and Chris Mark. This is the third funny person. I got you. I'm not a fucking roasted admitted admit that I just roasted you. All right, we're gonna take a quick break. Come back with the. Come back with the book dump where we talk about stuff that I didn't have time to talk that in this conversation. He's his rap is coming out right now. All right. Thank you to Will pull aka Kristian McGutje main for gasting for bringing his first person experience and for bringing himself always great to hang with him. Thanks to Miles as always thanks to Meredith Danko for the research on this one and to

1:37:34Brian the editor for putting it all together. This is the notebook dump the notebook mutant ninja dump teenage notebook ninja dump bulls. First of all, really enjoyed thinking about most iconic groups of four and all the different groups of four that like map to various personality types. I want to hear your picks. I want to hear your top four your Mount Rushmore of Mount Rushmore's. I will say we have three groups of four on our list of potential icons that we send out to guests. Turtles which we've now done and the other obvious one is the Beatles which I feel like the Beatles is tough to compete with for iconic groups of four. If you fuck with Beatles music or pop music because you've got the public facing personalities of the four lads from Liverpool but then you have the added component of like the songs

1:38:38that they wrote into the you know global song book all have like distinct personalities. So you know you may identify with Ringo's personality but not necessarily fuck with his you know the songs written by Ringo like Octopus is a garden there just such an iconic group of four there in fact they're forthcoming biopic is going to be four different movies about each one of them dropping on the same day. I think it's called yet the Beatles a four film cinematic event which the two surviving Beatles are probably the least interesting of the four movies so I wonder if that will be a hard pill for Ringo on Paul to swallow if the Lenin and George biopics outperform them that's it'll be very interesting. Like four movies one day which one are most people going to see generally probably a bad idea to do all four movies that's a lot of movies to watch but I do I get why they're

1:39:41doing it it's a pretty it's a pretty rich text woven through with some of the most you know known and loved songs in existence I think that is going to be hard for e drama turtle and Vince to compete with when it comes to our list of the most iconic groups of four I will say going into this episode I probably would have had Beatles as our most iconic group of four but this episode made me think that the turtles definitely have an edge I think they execute the best on the everyone has a different favorite everyone you know has a different of the four personality types that they identify with the four humors thing that we were talking about I've been asking people ever since we recorded this episode who is your favorite turtle and way more varied than I thought way fewer Mikey and Donnies than I thought you know most groups of four I think do inevitably have an answer nobody's picking nobody's like me and my group of friends are just like entourage

1:40:47I'm drama you know the fucking idiot but like I have so many different people identify with just different of the you know it's it's a real mixed bag for which turtle people identify with ask my son's friend who his favorite ninja turtle was and he said well first he was like hey Mr. Brian why are you at our recess with a tape recorder and a card that says press stuck in the headband of your fedora but then he eventually answered me and he said Raphael because because specifically he's a rage monster which he's a very mild mannered kid too so I love to that answer I think it probably helps that there are just so many different interpretations of the teenage mutant ninja turtles out there so like I thought it was Michael Angelo and Donatello because I've because of the you know parts of the ninja turtle verse that I've seen but you know I pay attention to movies and there

1:41:49are turtle movies that did solid box office that I had no idea existed and then there are the ones that I remembered that I didn't know like I vaguely remember the Michael Bay one he had like such a strong grasp of what made the turtles interesting to people that at the Nickelodeon up front in 2012 he announced it would be called just ninja turtles the movie he was making because the turtles would not be mutants they would be aliens from another planet and they literally they had to delay the movie an extra year to make it not that idea because everyone was like boo not that but yeah a lot of people went to see that version and didn't like it and guess what no harm no foul they already had like three different versions of the teenage mutant ninja turtles in some stage of development at that moment Michael Angelo was the most distinct to me but I haven't seen 80% of the

1:42:54productions it's like it's like Shakespeare plays I didn't you know oh you didn't like this interpretation of Hamlet there's literally a new one going up three towns over next week and it doesn't doesn't hurt Shakespeare's brand another thing this episode got me thinking about adult culture that needs kid cartoon adaptations as mentioned one of the main reasons we got the ninja turtles was because it was a time when everyone was adapting adult shit like Robo Cop and Rambo into kid stuff but that wave went away and we've had years and years of adult culture that has not been a properly mind I guess some of it apparently has been I just wasn't paying attention like I was going to pitch a kids fast and the furious but there was a Netflix cartoon of that but the others that the early 90s probably would have jumped on I think the

1:43:54hangover probably like maybe a hangover baby like what some wacky version of the hangover where you have to solve mysteries of like messes made by maybe parents maybe it was made by their parents during nap time or something I don't know my main pitch that I do think is like a big messed opportunity is like modern NBA players you've got LeBron Steph Wembee I'm still deciding on my fourth either grumpy KD who is like the tech guy because he's so deeply online or you've got jaw as like the arms specialist but all of those guys have like such distinct actual superpowers it really feels like a missed opportunity and not have a Saturday morning cartoon where they basically play you know I mean they had this when I was a kid with like Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky and Bo Jackson but I feel like just the NBA could have really done something with those guys

1:44:56I do just want to give a quick shout out in the notebook dump to the naming of bebop and rock steady I don't know who came up with those names but I have to say two of the great fictional names of all time up there with tweedle D and tweedle dumb something about naming two stupid characters really really brings it out in people but yeah I mean just generally there was some great work being put in by the people adapting the you know adult comic into a kids cartoon mark one down for selling out I guess doesn't always work out but if you can if you can time your sell out to coincide with a momentary dip in the end that allows you to hire like a bunch of generational talents I recommend selling out I guess layered who is one of the two original creators he was the one who was like all right so here's what we wouldn't have done if we had it to do all over again like we wouldn't have let them turn the turtles into pizza obsessed joke machines

1:46:01crying would have never existed so he did get more involved in one of the kids cartoon so we did get to see what his version would have looked like there was a 2003 Fox owned four kids entertainment show that was kind of his baby and the show did indeed have a darker tone in fact one of the episodes got pulled by the network right before airing in season four is insane in the membrane the shredder progressively mutilates and dismember is backster stockman until he's just a brain and a single eyeball in a jar so backster then puts his brain into a clone that decomposes throughout the episode like the bad guy like Edgar in men in black his bones and muscles are exposed and his jaw falls off and the episode also reveals stockman's background with an abuse of mother via flashbacks so you

1:47:05know that maybe maybe it's a good thing that we toned it down a little bit for that initial run but yeah I keep talking about this franchise getting lucky I mean that's basically how history works like how I think all icons to a certain extent like one side gets incredibly lucky and that side is the one that remains and tells its own story and is iconic and we go back and say man those creators must have been geniuses and I feel like in some cases like this one it's like yeah they were very good at their job and then once their creation was out in the world it just went on a winning streak of running into dozens of other people who were also great at their job until they were a behemoth and that's why we kind of know them today one of my favorite random sequences I found in the research for this one that shows just how kind of random and unintentional all of this

1:48:07can be so in the 70s Star Wars goes to Mattel and is like we want you to make Star Wars toys for us please run our money printing factory for us and Mattel is like barbies are for girls not boys and the Star Wars people are like oh no these aren't these aren't barbies so this is Han Solo and Mattel is like boys don't play with dolls and then once they are proven catastrophically wrong they're like boys like doll how do we make doll for boy and so they go really outside of the box by creating a character called he man man boy man guy and one of that one of the designers of that toy is a genius named T Mark Taylor who designs the he man toys that I was raised on goes on to design the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toys but yeah I don't know it's just

1:49:13funny how much of my childhood was determined by bumbling corporate executives occasionally guessing right after getting it wrong like multiple multiple tons anyways that's gonna do it for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles we are back next week to complete our animated character cycle we had Garfield we had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and next week another group of animated characters we're going group again they're even younger than the turtles even newer though they don't just stop it for they are Legion next week it's the minions with the great Jamie Loftus and we'll be back tomorrow with new episodes of the Daily Zeke guys hope everyone's having a great long weekend fight the Daily Zeke guys is executive produced by Catherine Law co-produced by Victor Wright co-written by Jayya McNabb and edited and engineered by Brian Jeffries

1:50:17on the new podcast Solita we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman I can wait four hours for the next bus or this random dude is offering the ride on his motor cycle I choose option B I'm Julie Pinero and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita trading the pity for possibility listen to Solita on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts I survived nine months in captivity and I've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed them I'm Elizabeth Smart and these are the survivor files every week I'm with survivors who live through the unthinkable abducted, stalked, controlled, and merely silenced these are stories about what it takes to make it out alive listen to the survivor

1:51:18files with the Elizabeth Smart on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts hey there everybody Amy Robock and TJ Holmes here from the Amy and TJ podcast we're going to cover everything you need to know during this heated political season yes we just saw Lindsay Graham the death of a long time senator also we've got a couple of missing members of congress also we got a lot of members of congress behaving badly we got accusations allegations flying all day long on Capitol Hill listen to Amy and TJ on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts let's go the countdown is on to the most talked about music festival on the planet iHeartRadio music festival presented by Capitol one September 18th and 19th at T mobile arena Las Vegas 15 artists tonight's one stage listen on iHeartRadio stations across the country and stream it live on Disney plus and blue BTS

1:52:21Benson Boone Cardi B Sierra Gugudal Kenny Chesby Ariel Lene Wilson La Serra Fim Legion Laser Snoop Dogg The Smashing Pumpkins Weezer Sarah Larson a special performance by breakout star Stella Lefty and never seen before artist collaborations you'll never see again one wild weekend are you ready buy your tickets now at access.com hi i'm michael imperioly i want to tell you about my new podcast underground zero we're looking at the opportunity of a lifetime for us and the other families it's about the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks what's in the tunnels go boss of a engage it'd be worth half a billion starring Steve Sharipa Rayabruzzo and me Michael Imperioly how far you prepared to go depends how far you are listen to underground zero on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever

1:53:24you get your podcast this is an iHeart podcast guaranteed human