Comic book artists and writers Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird didn’t seem to know what they were getting into when they debuted their 40-page black-and-white oversized creation, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at a small convention in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was May 1984 and they had scrounged up $2,000, enough to print 3,000 copies and run an ad in Comics Buyer’s Guide Magazine.
The success of the one-off issue caught the attention of comic distributors all over America and since then. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael and Donatello have been sewn into America’s pop culture fabric. However. the pizza-eating, joke-cracking turtles and their crime-fighting methods – for better or worse — have morphed several times over the years.
Before the August 2 premiere of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, we here at Hollywood.com would like to take a look back at the history of the franchise, revisiting the early versions of Eastman and Laird’s interpretations, and its enduring popularity.
Softening Up and Toning Down
The mid-‘80s initial portrayal of the ninja-style fighting turtles was definitely not made with little kids in mind. They swore, they were violent, and they weren’t color-coded. In order to appease the Hong Kong-based Playmates Toys, Eastman and Laird would have to make some marketable changes to their burgeoning heroes for the four- to eight-year-old target audience.
It was a success.
A deep internet dive revealed a 1998 interview Eastman did with The Comics Journal where he shared his thoughts.
“… The toys finally shipped in like, June of 1988, and they’re f**king flying off the shelves, and it ends up being this huge hit. Then the TV becomes the #1 series in the fall, and the toys go crazy, people are fighting over them like Cabbage Patch dolls.”
He also later went on to say:
“The resolution at the end of the day, even when Pete and I both agreed that, well, there’s some stuff we really don’t like, and some stuff that we wish we hadn’t said yes to … But we said … we’ll always have our black-and-white comics to tell the kind of stories we want to tell.”
The 1987 TV series ran until November of 1996. It spawned action figures, plushies, sugary cereals with pizza-shaped marshmallows, hologram t-shirts, trading cards and coffee cups. In 1991, the Los Angeles Times claimed that in four years, the introduction and subsequent explosion of TMNT merchandise accounted for approximately $1.1B in retail sales, making it one of the three best-selling toy franchises of all time alongside G.I. Joe and Star Wars characters.
The softening up and toning down of the turtles had clearly paid off and at the same time but it would be wrong to dismiss this quote from a 2012 Blogspot post by Laird:
“ … Had I (again, speaking solely for myself and not for Kevin) been making the key creative decisions for that first animated series, it would have been VERY different. … There would likely have been no moronic henchmen like Bebop and Rocksteady. The Shredder would have been seriously malevolent. April would not have been a reporter … and the Turtles would not have been so ridiculously obsessed with pizza.”
Enduring Legacy
So clearly, if Laird had had it his way, things would have been different but we cannot deny the universal appeal of TMNT even if it strayed from the original interpretation. Their generally buoyant attitudes and anthropomorphic aesthetic transcended race and class and all the things that separate us now.
Then and now, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello are all about brotherhood, teamwork, and camaraderie. Splinter is a worthy mentor – wise, calm, protective, and encouraging. In real life and on the big screen, turtles are tough and resilient.
David Wise, the head writer for the 1987 animated series had this to say to The Guardian in 2016:
“ … what I really liked was that it was colour-blind: they’re male, but from an ethnic point of view, they’re just turtles. So to see Asian and African American kids running around in Leonardo or Raphael costumes was fantastic.”
Reviews: Incoming
Wednesday’s release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem will introduce the ninth film in the franchise and it’s already generating positive buzz among critics, garnering several three and four star reviews from notable outlets. After the weekend, Rotten Tomatoes had issued a preliminary 96% rating.
meet the amazing cast from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: #MutantMayhem – only in theatres August 2! #TMNTMovie pic.twitter.com/2RdNlMFOh8
— TMNT (@TMNTMovie) June 26, 2023
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