This episode was awesome. I love the long interview episodes. The only real TMNT memory I have was when I went to see the first live action film. I remember feeling like I was a little too old for the cartoon when it was out, but like everyone else in 1991 I was super big into comics. I was all about anything I could find that was based on a comic, even if I’d never heard of or seen the comic. I think I knew that the source comics were totally more mature than the cartoon, but I hadn’t ever read one. So I dragged the family out to see TMNT, and I remember secreting every folding knife and ninja star I owned on my person to feel more like a ninja. I realize that sounds like I was armed to the teeth, but really we’re talking like a couple of those nail clipper/dull blade/bottle opener keychain deals and like two flea market stamped metal throwing stars with bent tips from throwing them at our outside fence. I got progressively more nervous about having all that hardware as we got closer to the theater, so I was trying super hard to surreptitiously stash them all around the car without anybody seeing it. My parents of course knew I had that stuff, but not that I’d decided to bring it with me. I ended up getting away with it, but felt really dumb afterwards. I loved that movie though, I still think it holds up.

I was as big of a Turtles fanboy as you could be growing up. I loved the cartoon, the video games, the comics, the toys, the movies, even the bad ones, all of it. I’m 27 now, and while I see all of those with a more critical eye, I have to say, I still very much enjoy all of it.

I’ll tackle some of this stuff now, if I had to write up all the ways in which these mutants affected my life I’d be writing for days.

I grew up poor, my parents were separated and I lived with my mom. I saw my dad once every couple weeks, and I had no siblings back then. I wouldn’t until I was 14, but that’s another story. Money being tight meant I couldn’t have all the toys and games that I wanted, but my mom was great enough to recognize that turtle stuff kept me happy, so I had the movies, the first NES game, and a handful of action figures. I don’t remember all of who I had, but I do remember owning the turtle van. I abused that poor thing, bringing it outside and running over all sorts of toys in the parking lot, rolling it as fast as I could down the road, and laughing with the neighbors’ kids. We’d play pretend often, with the stipulation of you can be anyone you have an action figure of. I don’t remember much about those games we played, except for one time I was Mikey and my friend from a few apartment buildings over was Iceman from the X-men. I had the fake TMNT nunchaku and he was throwing ice cubes at me while I tried to hit them back at him. His mom came out and was ripshit that he took all the ice in the house, just in time to see me hit the perfect cube real hard and right back into my friend’s eye. He immediately started crying and I got in trouble that day. I haven’t see that kid in years.

The toys also remind me of the closest thing I had to a brother growing up, my cousin Brandon. It is bittersweet, he passed away a little more than a year ago now, and I hadn’t seen him in a few years before that. He was in the Air Force, finished his duty, got a purple heart for taking a bullet and saving dozens of lives, and was settling in to civilian life with a pregnant girlfriend when he got in a motorcycle accident and died almost instantly. Every new year all the cousins on that side would go to his house, and we’d play TMNT the fighting game for SNES. There were 4 of us boys, all within a year of age, all living in the same town, and I would bet that my other 2 cousins feel the same way about the turtles and my lost cousin that I do.

All of this happened in Dover, NH, which for people that didn’t know, is where those first turtles were drawn. It was pretty cool growing up and being able to go to the UNH museum, they had all first prints of the books, and if you asked nicely you could read them. I still live around there, a town over, and Eastman and Laird appear at the local Free Comic Book Day event we have in Rochester, NH. I’ve only met Eastman, but he seemed like a cool enough dude. He stayed and signed for a LONG time, not charging or anything, he’d sign whatever you wanted, would take pictures, it didn’t matter, he was all smiles. I mean, I probably would be to if I got that much money for doing something I was passionate about, at least for a time anyway.

I tried to run a TMNT and other strangeness RPG with some friends, but it never took off, which is kinda upsetting. I really love the world building they had in those books. After the Bomb and Transdimensional TMNT had some really neat ideas, things that I wish somebody would use to make a cool new comic or something. It wouldn’t even have to feature the turtles, just imply that they are in the same world. I’ve started to ramble here.

some other quick thoughts:
The first NES game was way better than the arcade game, I still stand by that.
I haven’t seen anything new fiction wise since the 3rd movie. I tried watching the CGI one and cringed real hard, I didn’t even finish it.
I never read much TMNT adventures, but that was probably because I was fortunate enough to be able to get into the mirage comics.
I wonder if the turtle craze was bigger here than everywhere else, or if every city in the early 90s was as whipped up into a mutant frenzy.

My god, so it has come to this. THOSE MANIACS, DAMN THEM, DAMN THEM ALL TO HELL!!!

This has been a dramatization of this fans displeasure of hearing of this news. Thanks you all, and good day