This email will rock your world!
 

Cam Clarke (original Leonardo voice actor) straightens out the facts:

hey,
no, i didnt sing the turtles theme song. but coincidentally, i recently
met the guy who did! almost 20 years later! so i asked him about the
lyrics and he said he honestly cant remember! sorry to give you a dead end
on that one....
cheers
cam clarke

[This email was regarding if he sang the theme song, and if so, what did Raphael say "crude" or "rude".]

Hey, that's really cool. He's someone I'd really like to meet one day.

Oh, and I'm sure it's "rude" and not "crude". If people look up the definition of the word "crude", they'd see that the original series Raph had nothing to do with the word.
Now, "rude" fits Raph because he was quite the smartass.

I think it's rude too, but just to keep it fair here's a dictionary definition of crude that might apply to Raphael:
Lacking tact or taste; blunt or offensive

In fact that fits better than any of the rude definitions, one of which uses crude in it though. I'm using the online dictionary.com so maybe it's just them.

Still I don't think we can really play it by definitions, I just hear rude everytime, and I want to find out the truth lol

Well, I don't know the 100% gospel truth on this matter, either, but I'm inclined to agree that it's "rude". Try singing that little snippet of the theme song as, "Raphael is cool but crude" versus "Raphael is cool but rude", and I think you'll agree that it's easier to pronounce the second way.

This in no way is a definitive answer, but from my own limited experience in high school musicals, song lyrics try to avoid difficult-to-pronounce word sequences. That can lead to confusion of meaning and, worse, "muddying" pronunciation and making the song difficult for the audience to understand.

~Alouicious

Wow. That helps a lot... so, what's the singer's name then?

Therefore, I can still state it might have been "prude" as well. Or "nude". Both would fit Raphael quite perfectly.

If you hear prude you need your ears checked, if you hear nude... well you have issues.

I feel verbally smashed. :lol:

I should have asked who actually sang the song, but I figured he already did enough for me by just asking the guy the question lol. I didn't want to become a bother. I really want to know who sings it now, and if they've done anything else.

Cam Clarke Rocks!

Life's cruel - they performed one of the most popular TV themes, the song still remembered and recognized by the millions... and they did not receive any credt at all - nothing in the ending credits of an episode, nothing mentioned on the main site. Barely anyone knows anything after 20 years.

I think I'll e-mail Dan Berger himself to ask who performed this song and solve one of the greatest TMNT mysteries.

Please post here when you find out. I agree that they didn't get enough credit.

Speaking of themesongs, who sings the one for the new toon?

I can't solve the mystery of the singer of the original theme song, but I CAN clear up the mystery of "crude" vs. "rude".

I can't believe none of us thought of paying, say, www.ninjaturtles.com a visit... :lol: :lol: :lol:

According to the official site, the lyrics are "Raphael is cool but crude". Here's the link, if you don't believe me:

http://www.ninjaturtles.com/cartoon/theme.htm

So, one mystery solved, one to go. Come on gang, let's split up and look for clues! Shaggy, you and Scooby head up to the attic, while Daphne, Velma, and I search down here on the first floor. Scream if you find anything. :D

~Alouicious

Duke has already done that.
In this thread.

... I think you've been working too hard with your rocks lately, "Fred".:P

BTW - yesterday I sent an e-mail to ninjaturtles.com, asking for more details about old TMNT theme song. We shall see what I'm going to get from them.

According to the official site...it was crude.

We know, but people still refuse to believe it.

You're wrong. It's actually "Gimme a brake!"

How could that be? Raph wasn't a gearhead in the old toon. :P

Point taken.

*reflects for a while*

Maybe he was the one with green fingers?

Yeah.

<sadly, that was the best riposte I could come up with now>

You lied! That failed to rock my world.

Indeed....which voice actor did do the voice over stuff...it sounds like all the TMNT voices: "He's a radical rat!" "That's a fact, Jack!" "Gimme a break!" and "Party!" sound like Barry Gorden and Townsen Coleman.

I still think it sounds like rude. It's the official site but they don't own the original cartoon so I still don't necessarily think it has to be correct. One thing that shows is that they say the European vacation episodes are part of the 1993 season yet all of them clearly say "copyright 1992" at the end of the episodes.

Well... the mystery is not entirely solved yet, I'm afraid. Here's what I received from Dan today:

Howdy Robert,

> Was that one of the voice actors or an independent singer/band who
> performed it?

I'm afraid that I don't know, Mirage doesn't have a credit list for
the theme song. Typically studio musicians are hired to perform theme
songs, so it's rare that credit is ever listed. Typically studio
musicians remain anonymous as they do work-for-hire, which means they
get paid once and hold no claim to the song in question.

> The same thing we have with the new show theme. Could you provide
> us with some basic info regarding both theme songs (like singer/
> composer/writer etc.)

I'll e-mail 4Kids to see if I can get the lowdown on the new theme,
but we have no contact with Fred Wolf films, so there's no way for me
to get info on the original theme. 4Kids hasn't been sending me
answers lately, so it seems unlikely that I'll get the info, but I'll
try.

Thanks for writing!

Cheers!
Dan Berger
Mirage Studios' Official Web Dude
http://www.ninjaturtles.com

Isn´t that Michelangelo? It sounds like it by the way he talk and he is the only one of the four that talks like a skater/surfer. (I don´t see the conetion with the way of spetch and drugattics that some have ben debated on in another thread, that´s just a seriotype.)

Ever sens I startet to learn english as a second language I´ve argued with myself regarding the "rude" part in the theme. I could hear both Rude, Crude and Prude depending how close I lisened. Several years later, I found the lerics and there it said crude, but I still hear the other words.

And I think it´s wrong to compleatly trust everything that says on the ninjaturtles.com. I´ve discovered, very few but still there, errors. But hey. It´s humane to make errors8)

Seeing that ninjaturtles.com (Dan) has no real connection to the old show like he said in the email, I wouldn't be surprised if that was just copied off a lyrics search back when Dan was just trying to beef up pages back when the site was relatively new.

Really cool of him to try and track down the new turtle theme artists, lets hope he gets some leads. Thanks for posting ROBERT (haha I know your name).