| Wentos |
08-07-2014 10:17 AM |
Turns Out David Wise Created the TMNT
http://screencrush.com/teenage-mutan...imated-series/
I just happened to come across this article today and... well, just see for yourself.
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Even though he won the gig with his comic book geekdom, Wise admits that he wasn’t much of a fan of the source material. “I had the comics, but I didn’t think they were very good,” he says. “I liked the idea and the title and the fact that they were named after Renaissance artists. And the Japanese angle. But I knew this was going to take a lot of development.”
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Wise had landed the job. But he knew it was going to be a tough road ahead. “I knew it was going to be a lot of work because there’s very little story in the first seven comics,” he says. “There is even less characterization. And their origin makes no sense as far as I’m concerned!”
It also turned out that Eastman and Laird’s highly stylized art was going to prove difficult to translate to the realm of animation. “This led to the designers of the cartoon version of the characters tearing their hair out,” Wise says. “These guys won’t animate! There’s no accurate anatomy anywhere in these comic books! It was going to be a headache all around.”
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As the show moved through development, Wise sat down to transform the black and white parodies from the original comic book into characters who could sustain an entire cartoon series. His conclusion was simple: each member of the team had to represent a part of the title. Teenage. Mutant. Ninja. Turtle.
“We needed the ninja guy,” Wise recalls. “We needed the martial arts master. That should be the guy with the Katana, the Japanese sword. That was Leonardo. That’s why Leonardo leads.”
As for the mutant part of the title, Wise was drawn to science fiction. “They needed a gadget guy,” he says. “A kind of nerdy guy who was not the best fighter in the world, but great with a soldering gun. I just randomly picked Donatello.”
“Then we had the weird fact that they’re turtles,” Wise says. “You can’t do a show with this title and not have humor. The title is too goofy. Their names are just too out there.” Raphael became the audience conduit, the sarcastic wisecracker who knows who sees how silly all of this really is. “We needed somebody who sees the absurdity that these are four turtles who have been turned into humans running around the sewers and fighting evil.”
And finally, it was time to create the teenager. “These characters are young and still in a carefree state of life,’ Wise explains. “[Michelangelo] was the Sid Vicious of the Turtles. Sid Vicious couldn’t play or sing but he epitomized punk. Michelangelo epitomizes what the turtles are about.” The other big inspiration for the character? Spicoli from ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High.’
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Wise explains that he followed the “rule of four” when developing the characters, comparing his quartet to various other famous groups. Raphael is Groucho, the wiseacre. Leonardo is Zeppo, the serious one. Donatello is the Chico of the group, the schemer who’s not as smart as he thinks he is. Michelangelo is Harpo, the creature of pure spirit.
Most importantly, Wise emphasizes that each turtle represents a distinctive part of his personality. “I split [my personality] into four sections,” Wise says. “I took my geeky side, my sarcastic side, my fun-loving side and my serious side and put them into these four guys.”
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“The stories needed to be serious, for-real action adventure stories with real consequences and real problems and just enough grounding in reality,” he explains. “And the Turtles themselves, by the nature of their personalities, would make it funny.” When asked if he drew any inspiration from the comic, which was intended to be a parody, Wise deadpans “The thing about a parody is that it’s supposed to be funny.”
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Although Wise will never deny Eastman and Laird their success, he has complicated feelings toward the Turtles legacy. “[Eastman and laird] created them, but me and Playmates and Fred Wolf made them popular,” he says. “I put a lot of myself into that show. Cowabunga? That was me. The pizzas? That was me. All of the stuff that everyone loves about them? That was me. But everyone else got rich.”
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So to sum up: The Mirage comics were terrible and Wise came up with all of the ideas that people love in regards to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
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