A return to the Turtles' alcohol consumption?
 

Just a thought, would that be a good idea? I always thought the Pizza obsession was meant to be a subsitute for it (something people crave but is obviously bad for you) since the depiction of inibriation is kind of a no-no in kids' cartoons. I was just thinking that it might be time to drop the childish substitute. Obviously they can't drink beer in the cartoons, but probably could in comics, movies and games.
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Pizza is not bad for your body if made with healthy ingredients, unless you eat it everyday of your life, but the same can be said of every kind of food.

I don’t remember them drinking a ton of beer in Mirage. Just seeing them holding a can every once in awhile. I always read Casey as the drunk especially in later Mirage issues.

They are teenagers and under the law it is illegal for anyone under 21 to consume alcohol. Even if legal after 21 it is still morally questionable and the TMNT are ones to follow morals. If they must act they must not be intoxicated so they should not imbibe if they could be dealing with effects of drinking if one a mission that comes up at any time. Some heroes especially those popular with adolescence do not partake in such things (Batman, Spider-Man, Superman)and it has become a part of their character while others it is expected of and some times used to teach against it like with Iron Man. They are also beloved heroes for all ages and like you said we don't want to have the wrong message sent even if they are turtles. I would rather the Turtles abstain from drinking alcohol. It may have been something they did when they were a parody of 80s' comics aimed at adults, but Ninja Turtles is a franchise now and it is best left to the very early days. Other characters can be depicted as periodic drinkers like Casey Jones on an emotional roller coaster if he is of age or a villain however.

Atleast pizza would help them build muscle and explain their physiques while alcohol can't.

It's also illegal to murder people and vigilante, and steal electricity from the city... but they do all of those things. Let them drink their damn beer. Lose the pizza.

It was never that, as both Peter and Kevin confirmed on separate occasions.

I wouldn't care if it was in more mature material, though shoehorned in and too much just for the sake of it would be kinda lame. At least let the frequency, amount, and drink of choice make sense for each of them.

Nothing wrong with a little pizza, pizza is delicious and an inexpensive meal for a family of income-lacking mutants, but it doesn't always need to be a constant presence either.

D= Sad to say, but I just can't imagine the turtles without them sharing a slice together sometime

When it comes to vices, Iunno, I could see where you could get swapping pizza for beer as a way to be more child friendly, but there's something very universal I get to the pizza love, not to mention just the idea it's something that they can all share together

Yeah, it's played a lot for laughs - Power Rangers/Turtles takes the cake for most outlandish Mikey pizza toppings, lol - and VGCats and plenty other places point out just what would happen on a pizza rich diet, but, I can stretch my disbelief there maybe

Heck, who knows how many calories a giant mutant turtle can burn through in a day, especially one who head dives across buildings every night and undergoes some fairly strict martial arts training

Overall, I don't know if I'd shout from the rooftops if the turtles shared a six pack, but I know I'd be all the sadder if it was outright taking away their pizzas, lol

There's only a handful on times in Mirage Vol.1 that the turtles have been shown drinking alchohol and only a few other times in every other version that followed. I think it's somewhat overstated by fans that the comic turtles are way into beer.

I think it's reaching to think that the pizza obsession from the cartoon was meant to be a replacement for it. Clearly the Mirage turtles were never obsessed with beer.

Still I'd have no issue with say the IDW series being shown to drink beer or other alcoholic drinks. After all teenagers do sneak drink liquor so why not. The only time I've ever had an issue with it was in the Image series when Don makes a reference to drinking beer while flying the air car. The idea of the turtles drinking and driving is bad enough but Don doing that? I just don't see it but other than that have at it.

No.

This reminds ALF had to stop drinking beer for basically the same reason. A family friendly character that appealed to kids couldn’t be drinking alcohol even though he was an adult. I think he only has one in the first episode if I remember correctly.

Anyway it just doesn’t make sense for the turtles. They’re teenagers (and I know they drink in real life) but the bigger thing is it goes against being able to fight and keep a clear head.

I don’t have a problem with characters drinking if it fits. Alcohol is a huge part of the Simpsons but it’s mostly done for comedy. Although you would have thought they would change it similar to Alf once the show became really popular.

I consider The Simpsons family friendly even though there’s adult subjects going on. It doesn’t go over the top. It keeps things in a lighthearted or silly tone.

Would they even be able to function as ninjas with a high-level of alcohol consumption? (high-level pizza consumption is an easier suspension of disbelief)

I can tell you from experience that my karate abilities sky-rocket after like, a liter of rum.

In all seriousness, how would this serve a story? Cartoon Fan brings up a good point in that the abilities would suffer under inebriation. Other than being edgy, is there a reason for them to pound a few? I could see if they were hanging out at the farm house or something . . .

The "family friendly" bit would only apply to the stuff explicitly marketed to children though... And what if the beer was non-alcoholic in those?

They are monsters living in the sewer, I don't mind if they drink or if they kill people in the streets. They are no heroes, just beasts.

Doesn't ET get blitzed? It was a different era, that's for sure!

Oh yeah... And the kid gets drunk too because of the psychic link.

When the Turtles bunk at April's apartment in Volume 1, issue 3, April offers them some beer... only to discover they are already asleep. :tlol:

But people drink to get buzzed or drunk. Plus they’d have to specify the beer is non-alcoholic in every episode or comic issue. It’s pointless.

I love the people who are like, "They wouldn't do that! They're TEENAGERS!" :lol:

Your average teenager drinks, and to excess, FAR more often than the "average" adult does (although the adults who DO binge kinda wreck the curve). Specifically because teenagers have poor impulse control and get off on doing stuff they're not supposed to do. Speaking for myself, I got blackout-drunk way more often before I was 18 than I ever have since.

Like no, I don't know if it would serve any real purpose, but c'mon. "They're teenagers! They have hearty moral fiber!" :lol: That's you, the viewer, projecting traits onto the characters.

I do kinda think FW TMNT would eschew alcohol for those reasons, but... well, let's be honest, those guys were pussies. :lol: :trazz:

:tlol: :tlol: :tlol: :tlol:

I have this picture in my head of FW Donnie wilting like a flower upon seeing one of the others with a can of Budweiser or something. :lol: "Is that a... is that a BEER?" ((faints)) And then Mikey's all like "Whoa, WAY uncool, April!" because he was in that Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue gimmick. :lol:

I barely even noticed it when I read the Mirage books for the first time and saw them talking about beer. Fact is, most "normal" people drink sometimes. It's the much smaller number of complete and total assholes - of which I've known plenty - who give "drinking" its whole stigma. Most people have one or two beers with dinner and are perfectly fine, but that's not the stuff you read about. But that is, indeed, how "drinking" works for 99% of people who do it.

You can always tell the ones who've never had a drop because they immediately assume that anyone who does is a fratboy lunatic or something, which is quite comical. I generally assume those people had problematic family members who scared them away from it. Which is fine, I've been there, but the pearl-clutching does come from a perspective of ignorance.

Like no, nobody "needs" to drink, but drinking doesn't display any sort of lack of morals or character, and it doesn't make you a bad person. Being a bad person makes you a bad person, and lots of bad people are stone sober. Just sayin'.

For the record, my wife wishes I'd drink a lot more than I do because I'm a lot goofier and more friendly. :lol: I keep telling her I might if we could afford it, but I'm a responsible adult with bills to pay. :trazz:

I seem to remember Michelangelo in that DARE cartoon as well. Intimidating some kid who fell down a sewer and DUDE, LIKE, DRUGS ARE BAD, DUDE.

Am I remembering that more or less correctly?

Yes you are. :lol: I rented that tape more often than I'm comfortable admitting to.

Ironically enough, I've always been sort of a hardliner about substances and I hold no sympathy for "addicts", and my personal views on the subject can seemingly make no sense to an outside observer, but it's all been shaped and informed by my life and the people I've been around extensively, and thus they make perfect sense to me and the people who've been close to me for a very long time.

Like, for example I do feel that things like cocaine and heroin go hand-in-hand with being a bad person, either as a direct cause or merely a side effect, but I don't think it's possible to be a decent human being while also consuming those substances, I think they're antithetical entirely to being a "good person". Alcohol, not so much. Although if someone's already a bad person, they definitely shouldn't drink, but you can drink and still in theory be a good person.

I'unno, it all makes sense if you know me or my family really well. :trazz:

All 4 are clearly stoners. Don I could see as sort of an Owsley type, making LSD on the side. Also I liked Next Mutation's depiction of Mike as a rave-hosting pirate radio guy. In my opinion the turtles can't truly be the turtles without at least the subtext of drug culture

:lol: How is Leo "clearly" a stoner? If anything he's the one I could easily see being "straight edge", or at least the closest to it.

Mikey, though, absolutely. That guy's baked outta his gourd. Reminds me way too much of my old tag team partner :lol: (who incidentally named his son Donatello... poor kid :lol:).

Because it's just kind of a day-to-day thing. Leo would absolutely use some sweet kiseru pipe while out meditatating, if not mushrooms/peyote/ayahuasca/etc.

You sound like you've given this a whole lot of thought. :lol:

Splinter dosed Leo with some "Infini-tea" once that had the boy trippin' turtle balls.

So... relevant to current topic? Maybe. Who cares. Never forget: Splinter roofied his own damn son! :tlol:

Let alone teenagers growing up in a sewer, getting beaten into shape by a ninja master, training to one day kill a man. I don't think they're going to care about the laws of man. They aren't part of our society.

It keeps needing to be repeated, even though it's never gonna fully sink in for some people.

I mean, I understand a reader/viewer projecting a bit of themselves into their recreational material, and I also understand that in any version the Turtles themselves would be shaped to some degree by what they've managed to observe of human beings and their norms/customs, but that's not to say they'd be "just like people" just because they watched a lotta TV. It was 15 years or so before they'd even had a conversation with anyone besides themselves.

I'unno. Whole thing is weirdwith regard to how "humanlike" they are/are not and completely falls apart if you over-think it. :lol:


Ahhhhh yeeeeeaaaaah, I 'member that. :lol: I kinda don't like Mirage. :trazz: Although it made some sense in context, still kinda "WTF".

Yeah, it never ceases to amuse and annoy me.

"WHY CAN'T THE TURTLES ACT MORE LIKE NORMAL HUMAN TEENAGERS??! I DON'T UNDERSTAND!!"

Because they're not! They shouldn't be anything like normal human teenagers and how could they be?

Do you even TMNT?

I can see the turtles trying alcohol and probably 1 or all 4 of them liking it.

Teenagers aside. I don’t think it makes sense because like I mentioned it goes against being physically and mentally fit to fight and deal with things. It’s what Spinter has taught them since the beginning.

I know you can drink a bit and not loose all control but it still dulls your senses to a point and they’re always needing to be prepared for something.

Living underground and seeing human behavior through tv or hidden in the shadows can go either way. They know about alcohol and don’t care, don’t completely understand it or are curious to taste it.

After that I don’t really see them drinking on a regular basis.

I'm pretty sure Bruce Wayne has had a few shots in his life yet it hasn't affected his physique in fighting crime.:lol:

With Splinter it was probably like... "Train HARD... and one day a week you can drink the thing you call 'beer'!"

Does Batman drink? I briefly googled it and it looks like no.

Anyway sure the turtles could possibly drink at some time but it just seems pointless. Both from a character standpoint and writing standpoint.

I'm sure he does socially, to keep up appearances as Bruce Wayne. But like when he's in focused Batman mode, or mulling over a case in the Batcave? No, certainly not. Nor would he ever be like, "Damn, I could use a drink." But that's a dumb comparison as the Turtles are nothing like Batman on any level beyond a vague revenge level in their origins.

Also dumb. It's like saying, "Why do the Turtles need to adopt a cat? It's pointless. Why would they do that?" From the perspective of "they're in isolation, they have to dwell in the shadows only observing a society they have no part of or in, while wanting to" it's endearing.

Should anyone really care on a morality level if four 15 year-old mutated turtles stuck in a sewer drink a few beers once in a while? Shaddup. They're not, like, supposed to be in school or anything. Their school is learning how to kill people better, everyday.

Well in that case every leisure activity they do is pointless. Games, comics, skateboarding etc.

I’m not saying people who drink are slobs or drunks who can’t control themselves but it’s just something that comes off different.

Adopting a cat might be just as pointless but caring for an animal makes sense because they understand being on their own and they live in mostly isolation.

Killing people? I’ve never read the comics but they fight villains.

You're disproving your own case.

How so?

I'm only speaking to the comics. The source material, where they were raised by Splinter for the sole purpose of revenge-killing a man (Saki). And yes, they encounter villains now and again (but they're NOT vigilantes... they are not going out there fighting mankind's crime for the sake of humanity, they don't care about that and why would they?) but their training from 0-15 would consist solely of being better and quicker on the draw than Oroku Saki when it comes time to fight him and murder him. That's it.