We’ve got Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in this July’s TEAM UP Loot Crate and so we thought we’d take a look at a huge chunk of the films and such to dig up the pop culture surrounding our heroes in a half-shell! You trying to learn more than you may have already known? We bet! Let’s do this!
1. It was an interesting thing to see Pizza Hut had a $20 million dollar advertising campaign with the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film what with the fact it was Domino’s Pizza featured in the actual movie. Product placement, yo!
2. The original April O’Neal was played by Judith Hoag who was a bit concerned she didn’t know enough about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. She didn’t have to worry long, because her co-star on the film Cadillac Man was a huge fan of the Turtles and helped her catch up on everything. That co-star? Robin Williams.
3. The Foot Clan was inspired by the gang of ninjas from Marvel’s Daredevil comic book series who were called The Hand. (Likewise, Splinter bears an uncanny character resemblance to Daredevil’s mentor, Stick. You’ve got to wonder where that ooze came from…)
(New Line Cinema)
4. It was felt by one of the original producers who stayed with the TMNT franchise for years, that if they didn’t come out with a live-action film at some point there was concern kids would lose interest in the property. At this point, so many duplicate type shows were coming out that were branded to be similar enough to the Ninja Turtles where they combined urban landscapes with animals and crime fighting that it was thought they had to step their game up to keep people from forgetting why they were special.
5. Parents were intensely concerned with the amount of live-action fighting in the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film, so this is why you rarely see the Turtles use their weapons for most of the sequel.
6. Speaking of the sequel, there was a sub-plot in ‘The Secret of the Ooze’ that pointed out that an alien race had created the Mutagen ooze. However, it was thought it was too complex of a sub-plot that a lot of people would see as shoe-horned into the movie if they weren’t aware of its importance from the comics and cartoon series.
(New Line Cinema)
7. The first two TMNT films had their own theme songs written for them but the third did not as they were hoping to give the film a more mature tone for older kids who grew up with the series and didn’t want to cheapen it with branded pop song.
8. During the scene in the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie, where Casey Jones takes a swipe at Raphael and he ends up in the trash can, the person inside the suit landed so hard they crushed the inside of the mask and also broke their nose!
9. Ernie Reyes Jr. who was Donatello’s stunt actor in the first film of the original trilogy and was a featured actor in the sequel had reached out to Michael Bay during the reboot’s pre-production to see if he could serve as a stunt consultant. He even made a stunt reel to show his abilities!
(New Line Cinema)
10. When the pre-production for the reboot was taking place, it had a working title of ‘Foursquare’ and extreme lengths were taken to protect it from being outed from being found out before the time was right.
