April Could've Been Black
 

From Ciro's Instagram:

"my earliest #nicktmnt animation development notebook when April was still a black girl and Mikey's cat was named Fellini. Sept2009! I'll share more pages from this book eventually. I would love to draw a one shot comic story someday with all my pure unused TMNT ideas"

https://scontent-iad3-1.cdninstagram...63892185_n.jpg

They have later designs of it too. In the step before the final design, she was straight-up blonde.

"Family = All doin' sh*t" :lol:

Ciro should have used that idea. It would have been a groundbreaking step in kid's animation. ( There are very few cartoons that have main characters who happen to be black women/girls.) In addition, it would have added to the show's diversity.

Shame it was never used.

Black April has a 'fro and the big round earings. Talk about stereotypes.

Why would the cat be named Pellini and not Klunk?

April is longitude and latitude, but not the circumference.
April is the elastic that holds up our socks.
April is both 12 and 8 slices of a large pizza.

Oh god, that was so obscure I could have missed the reference XD .

Thank you, ;)

Looks like Misty Knight.

I'd love to read a Ciro original comic using the early ideas.

Could also make Shaq the father

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6ynPgHHI7oo/hqdefault.jpg

Wouldn't Kirby's lines come across as really weird if they were delivered in Shaq's monotone voice?

Shaq's a brilliant actor; he can just about pronounce all the letters in the alphabet, and he seems to knows what year it is every three out of the four times you ask.

He's perfect.

I can't wait for more of these notes, not just because I'm interested in a version of April that's more than just a plot device, but also because they hint at a Mike that isn't mentally 5.

Neat. I still like what we got.

I don't think making her black would have changed her from being a plot device. She still woulda been a half Kraang with telekinesis and ninja skills that just so happens to be the key ingredient in the kraangs whole plan. And don and Casey would still be fighting over her.

Yeah, black April wouldn't be that much different than Nick's April now, other than her father also being black.

Her dialogue would probably be slightly different like saying, "I'm hollering that the Foot bots are coming this way" and after winning fights she'd say, "You ain't got no thang!" and she'd probably call Casey, "Dawg" instead of friend.

Hey, if they have Nick's Bebop saying stuff like, "Son, homie, yo, etc" I would expect the same here. Fred Wolf Bebop never said that stuff.

You're an idiot.

Have you listened to Nick Bebop's dialogue? He's constantly saying things like, "Oh snap" "Homie," "Son" etc.

I just watched one of his episodes the other day and he says all of this in the ep.

Oh sure, because all black people talk exactly like Nick Bebop, right? :roll:

Again, you're an idiot.

Well if Black Nerd and black twitter are anything to go by