the fixer
04-13-2007, 08:50 AM
I guess we all have some cool, naive, heartwarming or sad childhood memory anecdotes about the Golden years of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fandom during the late eighties/early nineties...
I, for one, have many of them... Maybe you might be intersted in hearing them. Maybe you even have a bunch of your own to tell...
Here's one to begin with...
Mind you, this occured when the Turtles had only just embarked on European tv and absolutely no merchandise was out yet.
I remember being in this Belgian themepark where they had this 'duckcatching' game. I loved those as a kid. With the help of my mom, who placed back the lesser valued ducks (behind the back of the proprietor), I was a true duckcatchin' master.
After I finished the game, the propietor counted my points and showed me the rack from which I could choose my prize. My heart really skipped a beat. I hadn't noticed it before, but on the toyrack hung a Ninja Turtle action figure... the first one I'd seen in my life.
It usually took me forever to choose a prize in a game like that, but that time, the choice was made in a split-second.
I was going totally ballistic during the carride home, singing the Turtle themesong non-stop until we arrived.
It was only at home that I realized something odd about the figure... It said 'Turtles Fighters' on the card. At that time I didn't know the original name of the green warriors I loved so much, I only knew them as 'Les Tortues Ninja' since the show only aired on a French network. It didn't take me long though to realize that 'Turtles Fighters' probably wasn't the English translation of 'Tortues Ninja'.
Suspicion rose over the figure... I was too young to know about pirated goods, but old enough to suspect there was something fishy about the figure.
In the months after that, I stopped playing with it. I didn't feel comfortable playing with it at all...
Shortly after, the Playmates figures came out -clearly labelled Ninja Turtles-and I sort of forgot about my mysterious Turtle fighter. It was buried somewhere deep in my toychest.
Many months later, when the second movie was about to come out, French 'USA Magazine' devoted an entire issue on the Turtles. Is I started to read it, I was shocked to find a picture of my duckcatch prize ,crossed out in red, in an article titled 'Attention! Pirates'...
It said that Mirage spent $80 000 in an effort to stop the worldwide copyright theft that plagued their Ninja Turtles franchise. The article ended with " Do not encourage pirates! Do not buy their products!"
I was struck with disgust and guilt, as if the article was pointing at me with a blaming finger. I rushed up to my room and franticly started to dig in my toychest in search for the pirated abomination. Once I found it, I cut off its arms, legs and head. it might seem overreacted now, but I felt a lot better :)
After that, I customized the dismembered plastic shell as a toy Turtle communicator, later known as a Shell Cell.
So in the end, it turned out pretty well. The doubt surrounding my mysterious figure was lifted, my conscience cleaned, and I'd made myself a toy no other kid had ;)
I hope you enjoyed my first little (well... little...) anecdote at least a bit :)
Before i go, I just wanted to show you what my Turtle communicator looked like before my harsh costumization...
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s279/fixer79/TurtlesFighters.jpg
DUM DUM DUUUUUM!
Cliff
I, for one, have many of them... Maybe you might be intersted in hearing them. Maybe you even have a bunch of your own to tell...
Here's one to begin with...
Mind you, this occured when the Turtles had only just embarked on European tv and absolutely no merchandise was out yet.
I remember being in this Belgian themepark where they had this 'duckcatching' game. I loved those as a kid. With the help of my mom, who placed back the lesser valued ducks (behind the back of the proprietor), I was a true duckcatchin' master.
After I finished the game, the propietor counted my points and showed me the rack from which I could choose my prize. My heart really skipped a beat. I hadn't noticed it before, but on the toyrack hung a Ninja Turtle action figure... the first one I'd seen in my life.
It usually took me forever to choose a prize in a game like that, but that time, the choice was made in a split-second.
I was going totally ballistic during the carride home, singing the Turtle themesong non-stop until we arrived.
It was only at home that I realized something odd about the figure... It said 'Turtles Fighters' on the card. At that time I didn't know the original name of the green warriors I loved so much, I only knew them as 'Les Tortues Ninja' since the show only aired on a French network. It didn't take me long though to realize that 'Turtles Fighters' probably wasn't the English translation of 'Tortues Ninja'.
Suspicion rose over the figure... I was too young to know about pirated goods, but old enough to suspect there was something fishy about the figure.
In the months after that, I stopped playing with it. I didn't feel comfortable playing with it at all...
Shortly after, the Playmates figures came out -clearly labelled Ninja Turtles-and I sort of forgot about my mysterious Turtle fighter. It was buried somewhere deep in my toychest.
Many months later, when the second movie was about to come out, French 'USA Magazine' devoted an entire issue on the Turtles. Is I started to read it, I was shocked to find a picture of my duckcatch prize ,crossed out in red, in an article titled 'Attention! Pirates'...
It said that Mirage spent $80 000 in an effort to stop the worldwide copyright theft that plagued their Ninja Turtles franchise. The article ended with " Do not encourage pirates! Do not buy their products!"
I was struck with disgust and guilt, as if the article was pointing at me with a blaming finger. I rushed up to my room and franticly started to dig in my toychest in search for the pirated abomination. Once I found it, I cut off its arms, legs and head. it might seem overreacted now, but I felt a lot better :)
After that, I customized the dismembered plastic shell as a toy Turtle communicator, later known as a Shell Cell.
So in the end, it turned out pretty well. The doubt surrounding my mysterious figure was lifted, my conscience cleaned, and I'd made myself a toy no other kid had ;)
I hope you enjoyed my first little (well... little...) anecdote at least a bit :)
Before i go, I just wanted to show you what my Turtle communicator looked like before my harsh costumization...
http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s279/fixer79/TurtlesFighters.jpg
DUM DUM DUUUUUM!
Cliff