Originally Posted by RossMay
That's a very good question, neatoman, and one I think nobody is ever going to definitively unravel. Your question is also timely just because it's similar to a more famous discussion on what exactly Stan Lee did at Marvel (I'll be reading the book True Believer by Abe Riesman, and while well-researched that book will ALSO not be definitive).
Yeah, Bebop and Rocksteady began as two of many nameless toy proposals from Kevin and Peter. David Wise did name them. Hey! Something not a lot of people know: Bebop's animated design was also lifted somewhat from a character by Dave Gibbons for 2000AD, from 1983 or earlier.
April being a reporter was from Wise, and definitely inspired by Lois Lane. It was also matter of expedience because she could then always tell the turtles new information, and also get into trouble. The cartoon April was also very much inspired by David Wise's love of Lupin III. See the movie Castle of Cagliostro and some of the final Miyazaki-directed Lupin episodes. David Wise was able to tell the animators to make April look like Fujiko.
Hey! David Wise loved Castle of Cagliostro so much, if you watch one of his Batman Animated Series episodes, "The Clock King," he told animators to copy the climax on the hands of a clock.
A lot of this you just kind of need to learn in an interview, and be able to discern when someone's telling of events is accurate. The main reason for David Wise making the claims he did is this: the Fred Wolf animation offices and Mirage Studios had a souring of relationship very early on. That's too bad to think about, especially considering they still worked together (in some minimal capacity) for close to a decade! But Fred Wolf was rude to Peter Laird early on, and then Peter would say comments like, "I could write or oversee a better cartoon than what they're doing." These comments got back to David Wise, who might have been a combination of offended at the comments and also had some loyalty to the Fred Wolf production. So David Wise would snipe his own comments to the effect of, "Well I made Ninja Turtles popular." It's especially unfortunate, because in another world David Wise and Peter Laird could have bonded over a love for the same things, especially Star Trek.
A few final bits:
-I'm not entirely sure about the technodrome comments. I think Wise was trying to express the fact that Playmates wanted the playset, but didn't really care how it was used. They actually sent him a note saying that the turtles should defeat the villains and then live in it. Say what you will about him later putting down the comics, Wise understood that kids like the idea of the turtles living in the sewers.
-Yeah, I had heard David Wise say he came up with "cowabunga" after he had written Michelangelo surfing in the first episode. I think it is fairly certain that Fred Wolf liked that moment a lot, and asked for it to be worked into many more episodes. Of course "cowabunga" came from surfer lingo, and THAT came from the Howdy Doody show.
-On those Krang comments you mention, yes he is WRONG. If you do watch the show, however, you can tell Wise had a love for old sci-fi movies and shows. He saw a connection between the long name, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," and the utroms and many other things to old sci-fi that Kevin and Peter were not really considering. That's why the turtles are always watching monster flicks. Also, David Wise would be one of the few people to be aware that there was a "Dimension X" sci-fi radio program shortly before he was born. I also wonder about that sorta-Ghidorah painting in their lair. David Wise had friends at Toho, and once got to visit a Godzilla set!
-Patti Howeth and David Wise were married at the time. Something that I just didn't know for years, but they intended to work on the stories together and then she did not. David Wise's account of that is probably accurate.
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