The Toys that Made Us Season 3: TMNT

[evan]

After months of waiting I woke up like a kid on Christmas morning, threw on my newest TMNT tshirt, brewed a cup of coffee, and settled in for 45 minutes of TMNT Toy Collecting bliss.

Walking away from it my feelings are mixed and that's not what I expected at all. On one hand it's great to see new footage and new people commenting on the franchise, but on the other I'm left wanting a heck of a lot more.

After Season 1 and 2 I was ready for thorough insight to the decisions that were made for the toy line, but I'm utterly disappointed that the episode ended up regurgitating the same story that's already been told for the past 35 years.

I expected so much more about character designs, figure scale/direction, foreign licensing/variants, sales figures and success/failure, rebranding inspiration success and challenges, insights to new story lines... ANYTHING new.

Worst of all the figures weren't hyped up! After speaking with a friend who is not a toy collector or TMNT fan, but someone who has watched the other seasons.... previous episodes inspired him to get out his old legos and transformers. I don't think there was anything in this that would make a former fan want to necessarily go grab their figures or start collecting them.

I do appreciate the focus on Eastman and Laird and the reunion at the end was borderline emotional. That was easily the highlight of the episode for me.

I look forward to hearing everyone else's takeaways..

PS. Congratulations to all of our fellow collectors in here who were featured in the episode as well as those whose collections were featured at the end. All impressive collections and very well deserved.

[wpugh2424]

I felt this was a great episode. I have watched his twice already. Once with my kid and once while working out.
I really enjoyed the ending suggesting Peter and Kevin may work in the future together on more TMNT.

[funatic]

Oof that ending. I'm not crying, you're crying! Had no idea they filmed a reunion at Mirage Studios, which is literally 10 min from my house. I was probably scratching my ass down the street. That ending left a lot of hope for a comics reunion (though I'm still not counting on it). Peter seems to be transitioning into his little old man phase which is bittersweet, but so is life at best.

[AquaParade]

Wow! What a nice surprise that was. I nearly teared up at the end. Really fascinating getting yet another step closer to understanding the story of Mirage studios. Best of all, it gave me hope that we may see Kevin and Peter reunite someday for a comic.

Loved it.

[CyberCubed]

Is this on youtube anywhere?

[Redrumh2o]

Just watched it......I thought it was awesome. Very sad but a great story of the history.

[Roseangelo]

I liked it. It was a good telling of the story.

The only thing that made me go "Ehh..." was at the end when they were trying to pump Rise as being the next Big Thing. I think most of this was filmed last year, and now Rise is barely still in stores. Oops.

The ending with Kevin and Peter is definitely the best part.

[funatic]

I loved how honest Kevin and Pete were in this. Particularly when Kevin is relating how he was just 23 when Turtles blew up and the age difference between them (8 years) put them in such different stages of life which helped widen their divide. Having now myself lived both those ages, in retrospect 23 is sooo much younger than 31 in a lot of ways, and it makes a lot more sense.

Um, also liked the remnants of Kevin’s dyed hair and that Pete did his interview in shorts. These guys made millions but it clearly never changed their sense of style. You keep doing you boys.

[TommyT]

They kind of made Freedman the hero, and he was no hero. Also, no the first issue didn't sell out immediately. It took some time for the book to catch on.

[Powder]

I'm with you on that, Evan.

While I was entertained, had a few laughs, & saw a piece of concept art or two that was new to me, I have more bad than good to say of it. They did very surface level stuff, re-hashed old stories, & gave a lot of credit to people who didn't necessarily deserve it. To that end, so many key figures were entirely ignored. How about dedicating a chunk of it to the people who actually developed the toyline? Hello? Mirage was, in addition to pumping out comics & children's books for countless publishers, handling licensing art duties & more, constantly designed new characters, variants, vehicles, & so on, for Playmates. Some of the most iconic stuff was done by guys whose names weren't even mentioned. Christ, at least give Ryan Brown & Michael Dooney a shout out. Not to mention the Playmates in-house talent like David Arshawsky who came up with Pizzaface, Muckman, & many other of the more gross & wacky characters whose themes & aesthetics are to this day synonymous with the brand. Errol Mccarthy was doing SO much of the concept art & re-designs from the very beginning, how about him? Sure, Varner got to throw in his 2 cents, but a whole segment should've been given to his sculpt work alone. The guy's been making their figures come to life for 30 years. Dude.

Once again, as with virtually all these kinda things, they more or less play it off as if the original comics couldn't find an audience, that they'd have gone nowhere without Surge, that David Wise is entirely responsible for the turtles' personalities/group dynamic, & that Playmates created Bebop & Rocksteady (their guy finalized the look, but Peter conceptualized them). I can't stand this kind of thing in what is supposed to be an informative piece that gives new insights to casual fans & the general public. It just furthers the idea that the TMNT as they were intended, holds no merit. Cowabunga.

Then you get this saccharin crap about Pete & Kevin's post-turtlemania relationship. It's true things fell apart between them due to business eating up all their time & energy, with Venus sorta being the nail in the coffin, that's worth noting, sure. But it otherwise felt like very sensationalized heart string tugging that should have no place in this kind of feature. The sappy music & implication that they, the creators of The Toys That Made Us, united them for the first time in 20 years, is low key insulting. You've got all these dopes on social media literally crying about how this program saved their heroes' friendship, having no idea that Pete & Kev have done a bunch of stuff together since the TMNT buyout, book signings, collaborative art pieces, even a bit of palling around for Turtle Power. Definitely cool to see them looking around Mirage, though, more of that would've been great.

Also, can the powers that be f*cking please stop electing Michelle Ivey & "Black Nerd" to be the ambassadors of this fandom?

On another note, cool to recognize some of the collections in the credits, including one which has my art in it. Ya boy is on netflix.

[TommyT]

Andre has a really good agent, maybe the same PR person as Kevin Smith. That guy is everywhere, and gives his two cents on everything, even when nobody’s asking.
For some reason, they brought in that He-man collector, James Eatock as well.
WTF?

Tokka, if anything, or almost anyone here. Black nerd is the shilling ist shill there is.

[AquaParade]

Powder, those are all great points. I came away pleasantly surprised that they even touched on Mirage studios, as I didn’t even know this show existed until yesterday and assumed it would just be an extremely surface level look at the toys.

But yeah, I rolled my eyes so hard seeing certain people pop up once again as reps of the fan base. I honestly think it’s detrimental to the franchise at this point. No offense to them, personally.

The Mark Freedman stuff was weird. He almost seemed bashful when trying to frame himself as “the fifth turtle”. He knew he was stretching it like Armstrong there, I’d guess. Are you saying Venus de Milo is your spirit animal, Mark? Or is yellow more your style?
To be fair, I don’t know his full involvement, I’ve just seen him pop up in “Turtle Power” a bit, but you could tell something was up when the camera cuts to Kevin replying to an unheard question in the form of “Mark was merely a...[toy agent or something]”. It just seemed like Kevin had to talk his involvement down a tad. Like maybe Mark had gotten to the documentary crew first and made his mark.

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Is this on youtube anywhere?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

I haven't been Rickrolled for many years.

[King Kahn]

Originally Posted by funatic

Oof that ending. I'm not crying, you're crying! Had no idea they filmed a reunion at Mirage Studios, which is literally 10 min from my house. I was probably scratching my ass down the street. That ending left a lot of hope for a comics reunion (though I'm still not counting on it). Peter seems to be transitioning into his little old man phase which is bittersweet, but so is life at best.

yeah, the ending with Kevin and Peter reuniting made the whole doc worth it. Sure we all know the history, there was another more indepth doc as well, but seeing them back together was great.

I was honestly surprised they touched on the rift between the two since the other doc really did not. Between the two docs I think we have a pretty well rounded bunch of info for people.

Would I have wanted the episode to be ALL about JUST the toys, sure, but that isn't what this series is about. It isn't JUST the toys but the property as a whole.

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by Original TMNT Cartoon Fan

I haven't been Rickrolled for many years.

It was a low blow. May someone strike revenge on me.

[Autbot_Benz]

Also they left NECA out of this. Which is a shame as they have been championing for the TMNT Adult Collector stuff

NECA
@NECA_TOYS
It’s true and definitely disappointed

[CyberCubed]

Watched it, I had no idea TMNT is what brought Playmates into the U.S. from Japan as a mainstream toy company. I guess this is why Playmates will never lose the TMNT license ever, they've pretty much survived on the brand for 3 decades.

Also surprised they straight up admitted Next mutation was a failure. You usually don't see them say that even if it was canceled after 1 season. And then of course the constant reboots with 2k3, then Nick, etc. let them continuing re-brand the toys for new kids and adults fans a like.

Some other interesting things is I didn't know Kevin didn't get any of the $60 million buy-out from Nick. I remember hearing he got some money from it? I guess not. No wonder why he works for IDW consistently since 2011. It also really is shocking that from like 1998-2011 Kevin had nothing to do with TMNT at all, that's more than a decade and it's all because of both Next Mutation and then Image ending.

The art at the end was interesting and I wonder if that will be used for anything. One last thought, did PL's voice sound really frail and old to anyone else? I mean I know he IS old now, but last time I heard him speak he didn't sound like that. He sounded really, "weak" if I could describe it, like frail sounding, I hope he's healthy.

[d_osborn]

I echo evan and powder's critiques-- not nearly enough about the toys. It's like an abridged, not-as-good version of the Turtle Power doc.

A little historical context is nice, but the series is about toys, not franchises.

[TommyT]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

It also really is shocking that from like 1998-2011 Kevin had nothing to do with TMNT at all, that's more than a decade and it's all because of both Next Mutation and then Image ending.

It all stems from Venus.