How many 80's movie homages did the original cartoon do?
 

I can think of a few but I wonder if I'm missing any:

1. The Pizza Monsters are based on the Alien franchise. Both the way they look and how their early forms start off small and tiny and then grow huge.

2. Rex-1 was based on Robocop, an obvious reference of a robot police cop.

3. "Rondo In New York" from Season 4 is based on Rambo/Sylvester Stallone. The movie actor who becomes real jumping out of the cinema.

4. There was a king kong parody in the episode with the giant ape and Donatello gets huge to fight him, the ape even carries April up a building.

5. Many of the mobsters in the original cartoon are based on popular gangster or mob movies.

6. In Season 6 the robot terminator who is sent to kill Kerma resembles the Terminator franchise.

7. Maac the robot from the future in Season 3 is also vaguely based on Terminator.

8. The Neutrinos starmobiles might be based on Back to the Future.

9. There was a lot of Star Wars influence in general with the Technodrome being similar to the Death Star, dimension x aliens, the laser guns, etc.

Any others?

King Kong and many of the big mobster movies aren't from the 80s though.

Well close enough. There are mobster movies made in every decade. King Kong has been also remade several times.

Also "Gorgonzilla" is based on Godzilla of course.

The Turtle Terminator is based off the Terminator.

Come to think of it the Season 2 plant monster was likely based on, "Little pet shop of horrors."

You don't scare us, we've seen every episode of Stars Trek!

I don't recall a 1980's King Kong remake though. There was the 2 King Kong films in 1933. Than he dukes it out with Godzilla and has a island escape movie in the 1960's. Than the 1970's remake. After that, we had to wait until 2005 for Peter Jackson to put his print on the film.

I think MACC was more based off of Johnny-5 from Short Circuit. Maybe he was a Johnny-5-Terminator hybrid.

Enter: the Fly was based on The Fly starring Jeff Goldblum, although the mutation made more sense in the movie.

The episode titles were often a play on a movie name: "Invasion of the Turtle Snatchers", "It Came From Beneath The Sewers", "Attack of the 50-foot Irma", "Four Turtles and a Baby", etc. Sometimes heavy-handed ("Son of Return of the Fly II" title enforcing the idea that it's a sequel of a sequel of a sequel).

The writers were definitely movie buffs.

Plan Six from Outer Space is a play on one of the worst films ever made.

Yeah the writers grew up with 50's B-movies so when creating episodes they took from old movies. I thought they did a good job there although the immediate difference between how sci-fi is presented between the FW show and Mirage is FW was based on classical sci-fi while Mirage was based on cyberpunk.

I know it's a stretch but...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Kong_Lives

Only 3 to my knowledge. The original from the 1930s, the 1976 one, and that one with Jack Black. At the time, only the first two would've been out.

The Fly with Jeff Goldblum was a remake, but I figured that was the case for the show as well.

That aside, seems like they enjoyed their 50s and 60s B-movies based on the titles of some eps.

Also in Season 2 when Shredder uploads that all intelligent computer that takes over all the electric systems in the city, that has to be based on some old movie too, right? I mean there are intelligent AI computers in a lot of sci-fi movies, but I wonder if he's based on one in particular.

The Mean Machines? That computer always reminded me of Andross form SNES Star Fox. Although the episode pre-dates the game. I wonder if both drew inspiration from the same source?

Possibly, I've never seen the movie. Also, "Leonardo cuts loose" the episode with the body builders who get super strong which is also a Casey Jones episode are based on Arnold Schwarzeneggar and other 80's body builders.

King Kong did have a sequel called the Son of Kong. It came out 9 months after the 1933 classic.

Well it was a bad sequel to the 70's remake. Does not count.

I will confirm the Macc as Johnny-5 one. He even had a similar design and pacifist outlook. Even his original "purpose" as a weapon is obviously based on him.

The starmobiles being based on Back to the Future is a stretch. They were just souped up hotrods for alien teens; probably had more in common with the cars in Grease.

That said the kid's toy in Invasion of the Turtle Snatchers was an obvious nod to 2001's monolith.

Also the aliens in that episode, Klaatu, Barada and Nikto were named after The Day the Earth Stood Still. That episode was just chock full of references.

Damn, so many movie references. There's more than I realized.

Also I wonder if "Planet of the Turtles," (the Season 4 ep, not the Turtleoid planet), was based on Planet of the Apes. C'mon, an all-Turtle planet with that name? Seemed like a Planet of the Apes reference.

There was a parody of Freddy Krueger in one episode.

More non-80s references
Casey Jones' voice was based on Dirty Harry. I think he even used the famous "you feel lucky punk?" line at one point if memory serves right.
Baxter's computer buddy felt reminiscent of Hal from 2001: A space odyssey.

Also I'm sure the "Big Bug Blunder" is based on some kind of old 50's movie with giant bugs roaming a city.

"Them!" from 1954?

AI-computer inside spacecraft is a common sciece fiction theme in general.

I'd say the season 7 ep "Escape from Planet of the Turtleoids" was a parody of Escape from Planet of the Apes.

The Season 6 ep "Phantom of the Sewers" was a parody of Phantom of the Opera.

The season 3 ep "Invasion of the Turtle Snatchers" derived its title from Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Attack of the Killer Pizzas monster design is definitely a homage to the aliens from the Alien franchise...

Boy now that you mention it, he really does, doesn't he.

While not necessarily a "movie" reference, to this day whenever I hear "book em Danno" I think to myself IT'S "book em Donno"!!!

That was mimicking Johnny Five from the Short Circuit movies than it was Terminator.

As for others, can't think of any off hand. But I like how AVGN did his TMNT review where he discusses the original toon, and says how a lot of the titles were based off of old 50s/60s B sci-fis. Skip ahead to 8:06 -




EDIT: Now that I've rewatched this review, another 80s reference would be Freddy Kruger.

Wasn't that Last Action Hero with Arnold?

Rondo is based on Rambo though, hence the name. He also looks like Sylvester Stallone.

So its a double reference and/or it came out before LAH... cool.

It came out before Last Action Hero. I just remembered the "Creepy Eddie" one that others mentioned as a Freddy Krueger reference, as well. Incredible Shrinking Turtles was also one, I believe. Or Funny, They Shrunk Michelangelo. Both probably nods to Fantastic Journey or other movies from the 50's-70's with people getting shrunk down.

And Baxter's computer "pal" probably WAS based on HAL. What about the Starchild? I seem to remember thinking he was based on something else, but I can't pinpoint it.

I think April's aunt Agatha was based on Jessica Fletcher.

I'd say it's a combination between the character of Jessica Fletcher and Agatha Christie.

Agreed. Murder, She Wrote was popular around that time.

Was the episode, "Combat Land" a parody? An amusement park or area where all robots or attractions go out of control and try to kill people?

Combat Land was a parody alright. It was based on the film Westworld.

Never realised that there were so many movie references in the Fred Wolf toon until reading this thread.

Indeed. I also imagine "The Incredible Shrinking Turtles" is based on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids?

There were also a few time travel plots in the OT which I assume is based on any sci-fi time travel story.

TMNT has always been a pop culture collage, every version pays homage to various films, comics, etc. I love it. & ever since Turtlemania hit, hundreds (thousands?) of other new series' have referenced the TMNT themelves, so they've come full circle. :tgrin:

It's no wonder that big TMNT fans also tend to be big movie buffs.

Yeah that's why I don't understand why some people complain the Nick show has too many horror movie references or sci-fi references or whatever, because every previous TMNT series did the same thing. The Mirage comics were full of them, the whole space arc and Fugitoid are based on Star Wars respectively.

The 2k3 series had a lot of references to movies too like The Matrix, Rage against the Machines, all the mystic stuff was anime inspired, etc.