Turns Out David Wise Created the TMNT

[Candy Kappa]

B&R and fly (Baxter) mutant was iirc designed by Eastman & Laird early on for playmates.

[Werecat]

Originally Posted by trikuza

David wise...If you were the creator of facebook. You would have created facebook...

Nice comeback lol

[Werecat]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

I don't see why it matters. He did essentially create the most popular incarnations of them.

The comic book was popular too, it out sold all the other comics. The cartoon was popular the first season but steadily declined to the point were the toy line was the only thing that kept it alive. The 1987 cartoon was good, I enjoyed it lots, but the rest of the seasons were just rehashed story lines.

Originally Posted by Sanjuro

That's fairly accurate. To that point, visually and verbally the turtles did not have wildly different and vivid personalities.

What are you talking aboot!?

The turtle bros did have distinct personalities in the original comic. Their personalities were described in the first issue through words and actions. Raphael was a bruiser who had the tendency to go berserk. Raphael's impulsive aggressiveness was contrasted by Donatello's peacefulness. Leonardo was spiritual, obedient, and the leader of the group. Michelangelo was the clown of the group. All of them trained intensively, not just Leonardo. Michelangelo and Raphael were noted as peeps who sparred endlessly. There is tons of personality in the original comic. You're just deluding yourself to make sense of the cray cray guy in the article.

Edit: I dunno how to make this into one post. Can someone else do it. Purdy please!

[joe-eyeball]

He may have created new character elements of the turtles but thats it. If Kevin and Pete dont create the entire frickin foundation of turtles then Mr. Wise would never have his so called claim to fame. What a douche!!!

[Candy Kappa]

Let's do Donnie, since Wise says he made him the tech guy at random.

In the second issue we can see on the first splash page he is tinkering with something that looks like a circuit board. And he is the one with April working on the computer stopping the Mourser.

[Wentos]

Originally Posted by Candy Kappa

Let's do Donnie, since Wise says he made him the tech guy at random.

In the second issue we can see on the first splash page he is tinkering with something that looks like a circuit board. And he is the one with April working on the computer stopping the Mourser.

Yeah, that's probably the most blatant example of him just making things up.

You can definitely argue that Wise took the characterization that was in the Mirage comics and amplified it to make each turtle more unique, but to say that he created their personalities wholesale is flat-out lying.

I also really resent the idea that the Mirage comics were terrible and Wise somehow "rescued" the concept. The guy has an ego the size of Pluto.

[shuriken]

Originally Posted by Candy Kappa

Let's do Donnie, since Wise says he made him the tech guy at random.

In the second issue we can see on the first splash page he is tinkering with something that looks like a circuit board. And he is the one with April working on the computer stopping the Mourser.

And this was 3 years before the toon right?
Leo was was always clearly the leader, and Donnie was clearly the techie.
Mikey and Raph were the most different from their cartoon counterparts.
Raph although sarcastic, was more of a hothead and bruiser than he ever was in the OT. He also had some decent mechanic skills.
Mikey was always the most mellow of the bunch, but he did have some impulsive traits that caused some trouble(like when they were captured by the triceratons HE was the one that fought them first). In the toon he was pretty much Spicoli that could fight and loved pizza.

[ssjup81]

It seems that Wise skimmed the first few issues if the comic to make such statements, like how he chose Leo as the leader and Donny as the science guy.

Originally Posted by Discogod

This is my favourite part:



Yeah, totally different - Mirage April was a strong, intelligent, character, not some bimbo damsel in distress...

She wasn't a bimbo. Bimbos tend to be portrayed as airheads and dumb. OT April got in trouble because she was doing her job. The later red sky seasons she calmed down a lot. I also don't consider her a damsel in distress because she was the type to try and fight back and take no mess, but she wasn't a trained fighter. That was the turtles' specialty.

[Sanjuro]

Originally Posted by ssjup81

It seems that Wise skimmed the first few issues if the comic to make such statements, like how he chose Leo as the leader and Donny as the science guy.

He did. He admitted to having read the source material prior to the job. The Turtle Power documentary and various interviews confirm this.

[ssjup81]

Originally Posted by Sanjuro

He did. He admitted to having read the source material prior to the job. The Turtle Power documentary and various interviews confirm this.

I know, I saw it, but I question that. Skimming isn't reading. It's just glimpsing over a few things. To make those statements, I wonder if he actually did thoroughly read them.

[Desslok]

I've always appreciated David Wise's contributions to the TMNT, but in this interview he comes off kind of... ungrateful. This doesn't change my feelings towards his work but it does make it seem that Mr. Wise doesn't truly appreciate the turtles at large. He kind of describes them as some sort of headache he had to sort out at work.

[Bry]

Listen. Nobody's trying to claim that David Wise didn't have a big part in the impact and development of the franchise. He did, and I acknowledge and respect that. And he isn't denied his due credit. But he is making claims here that are objectively, provably untrue. The Turtles' personalities and roles did pre-date his work on the cartoon. He took those qualities and made them more broad/one-dimensional and cartoon-appropriate, sure, but he was absolutely working from the characters as Kevin and Peter wrote them as their basis. To claim he created them all by himself, and that he based them on aspects of himself, is ludicrous. It's just not true.

And how about this part?

Taking inspiration from Lois Lane, he created the character of plucky reporter April O’Neil to act as a “conduit of information,” the character who could tell the Turtles everything they needed to know about their latest adventure. When it came time to name her, Wise borrowed a name of a completely different character from the comic. And her signature hair and jumpsuit? Wise borrowed that from the character of Fujiko Mine, a thief who occasionally posed as a news reporter on the anime ‘Lupine III.’

Sure. And in no way did you just take her outfit from her first appearance in the comic and give it a palette-swap to make it distinct from the other characters' signature colours:



Actually, the colour versions were first published at the end of 1986, so it's possible there'd been some early work done on the show at that point. In that case, it's possible he had no colour version to go on and just assigned her yellow, with the overall "look" firmly based on that original character design from Eastman and Laird.

[Galactus]

I don't doubt that David Wise believes what he's saying and that he remembers it the way he's describing but it's pretty much baloney and easily dis proven.

The first issue or Mirage's TMNT does have the turtles as dark avenger types with no distinguishing personalities save perhaps stating that Raphael didn't like living underground as much as his brothers. However the second issue did give them the turtles the individual personalities that have become synonymous with the characters from the very first pages.



And displayed throughout the story when Donatello uses knowledge of things technical and Leonardo leads the the others.



Did Wise not pick up on this? Is anyone seriously suggesting he came up with the very same personality types for each specific turtle by pure coincidence?

In fact it seems that Wise picked up on a very specific personality trait. It seems that in addition to being the fun loving turtle Michelangelo was initially characterized as being almost as easy to lose his temper as Raphael. Now this would not be the case as the comic developed but think back to the animated series second episode "Enter the Shredder" were in training Michelangelo gets angry while practicing and is told by the others that he needs to learn to stay cool. It's a strange scene given the overall laid back characterization of the character but doesn't its inclusion make more sense now?

In fact quite a lot is culled from those early Mirage issues. A scene from the third episode of the show "A Thing About Rats" had Michelangelo using a manriki gusari and proclaiming himself the master of it. It's strange in the show to see the turtles weapons other than their signature ones until you see in #9 of the comic series a pre-teen Mike is shown practicing with that same weapon.



Doesn't the portal to another dimension in Donatello Micro Series #1 look like a smaller version of the Technodrome portal? Both inspired by Kirby.



Militaristic alien baddlies using flying cars? Who whould thunk it?



One thing that does strike me as very odd is the idea that the turtles anatomy was such a problem for the animators with their oversized limbs and such. You'd think working in the industry would have been aware that comic artists often defied realistic anatomy. Look at Jack Kirby when he took off at Marvel.

However Eastman and Laird continued to develop their art and the designs developed naturally with more "realistic" proportions and that's the kicker as the Fred Wolf turtles are the closest thing to those Eastman and Laird designs in animation we've ever had just with belt buckles and a color swap. Even the dark style of the environments was present, you can really see it in the visuals of the theme song.



We can give him pizza and surfer slang though.

[Sanjuro]

Wise credited Jack Kirby directly for elements of the show you just mentioned.

[Galactus]

Originally Posted by Sanjuro

Wise credited Jack Kirby directly for elements of the show you just mentioned.

Certainly not all of them because Kirby was just one of the influences on the comic and the idea that Wise leapfrogged over the Eastman and Laird material and got eerily similar results is ridiculous.

This is only a fraction of the similarities between the comics and the show are way to much for him so casually dismiss it.

[Leo656]

Just to be fair, I'm reasonably certain the guys who did the "Superman" radio show in the 40s never tried to proclaim "creation" or "ownership" of the character just because they gave him a literal voice, and added Kryptonite and "Up, Up, and Away" into the mythology. By Wise's logic, they could've. Far as I know, they never did. But it's the exact same thing; some of the most recognizable pieces of a pre-existing pop culture mythology came from a secondary source. Alright. That's expansion, though, not exactly "creation" or "ownership".

Maybe he could have gotten a few extra bucks for it along the way, but, again, I'unno if the Superman radio guys ever did, either. Fair? I'unno, there's lawyers for that. Wise does come off more than a little bitter, though, and his claims are a stretch.

[Wentos]

Originally Posted by Bry

Listen. Nobody's trying to claim that David Wise didn't have a big part in the impact and development of the franchise. He did, and I acknowledge and respect that. And he isn't denied his due credit. But he is making claims here that are objectively, provably untrue. The Turtles' personalities and roles did pre-date his work on the cartoon. He took those qualities and made them more broad/one-dimensional and cartoon-appropriate, sure, but he was absolutely working from the characters as Kevin and Peter wrote them as their basis. To claim he created them all by himself, and that he based them on aspects of himself, is ludicrous. It's just not true.

Couldn't have said it better. Wise obviously deserves a lot of credit for taking a very dark/violent comic and successfully marketing it towards kids. He's a huge reason why TMNT became and continues to be a household name. But he's exaggerating his role in the creation of TMNT lore in this article to the point of outright lying.

(I laughed when I read the part about Fujiko, when April was literally wearing a jumpsuit in her first appearance in the comics.)

[Cryomancer]

To me this comes off less as a "I AM THE CREATOR" and more like "I did the groundwork and gruntwork for the popular adaptation for hire and am annoyed that I am not super rich". Sure he did a lot of stuff for the first show, and sure the first show is most likely the incarnation of TMNT with the most cultural and financial impact, but I'm sure he got a paycheck for it back then. Presumably Playmates hired him to do this job and he did it and got paid and now decades later he's annoyed that he isn't famous/rich for it.

[hitmonkey]

Originally Posted by Sanjuro

I guess I'm not understanding the hatred here. He isn't off base here or anything, and he is one of the primary reasons the franchise is where it's at to this point in time.

He's completely off base. This would be like Christopher Nolan claiming to have created Batman.

[Bry]

Originally Posted by hitmonkey

He's completely off base. This would be like Christopher Nolan claiming to have created Batman.

Ehh, he'd have almost as much claim as Bob Kane.