Share your esoteric knowledge

[ToTheNines]

What are some things you know, either behind the scenes or deep lore, that you don’t think the average fan knows? Not your typical trivia that casuals are unaware of, but stuff that even most Dromers might not know, or maybe forgot after all these years.

Here’s some off the top of my head:

Mirage:

- I seem to remember Murphy writing in his blog that he had major friction with a Mirage staffer that was very rightwing and harassed him over his lefty politics. He made it sound like everyone else brushed it off as harmless ball breaking, but he took it personally. I’m sure it wasn’t Kevin, Peter, Jim or Steve. Maybe Talbot or Brown? Gary Richardson? Any guesses?

- Peter Laird’s daughter had job at Playmates at some point. She was basically laid off when her manager got fired.


1987:

- When Fred Wolf read the first draft of Turtle Tracks, he thought “homeboy” was slang for “homosexual” (was this in the Turtledoc?)

- Fred Wolf sued Mirage for more royalties money. The case wasn’t dismissed until 2005! https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/2t...studios-et-al/

1990:

- Robin Williams urged Judith Hoag to take the role of April because he was a fan of the comics.

The Next Mutation:

The original concept art has Venus in a pink mask and Leo in yellow.

4kids:

- Hun’s name was Drako in preproduction. Ultimate Ninja’s name is Ue-sama.

- Michael Sinterniklaas recorded the audio anytime Michelangelo burped.

- 4kids Hamato Yoshi appears in a newly printed children’s book called “I Am Leonardo “ which is based on the 1987 cartoon. I assume the commissioned artist just did a Google image search and went with their first hit lol

2007:

- John DiMaggio was the voice of Winters before they brought in bigger stars. Casey, April and “narrator” were also voiced by different VAs but I don’t know who.

2012:

- Ciro almost got the Beastie Boys to do the theme song.

- Shredder is visually based on Sho Kosugi from the Ninja trilogy. Yoshi is based on Sonny Chiba. Xever is based on Jim Kelly. I feel like Bradford and Hun are too obvious.

- Both Kraang Prime voice actors got “cancelled” for popping off online.

Other:

- Kendrick Lamar has a song called “Sherane (Master Splinters daughter)”. It’s not actually a TMNT reference, he’s just calling the girl in the song a hoodrat lol.

- Walking Dead had an episode starring a character named Eastman that was one huge TMNT reference titled “Here’s Not Here”:





- Metalcore band August Burns Red used to sell a shirt with Shredder on it:

Spoiler:

[neatoman]

There are some things about the first season of FW that must be known.

Alright, the known vetoes that Peter and Kevin made for the FW show are:

• Krang and Shredder would be fused into one character (presumably similar to what happened in the Archie series)
• The Turtles would have stolen the Technodrome and replaced the Sewer Den as their base of operations.
• Baxter Stockman would have become an ally to the turtles instead of remaining a villain, which guess is why he's presented like such a mild mannered character there. (Incidentally, I just realise that's probably why his maid mistook Don for him, the script likely just intended it to be Baxter in that scene).

It should also be noted that several scripts by David Wise were recycled from other cartoons he worked on, I know of at least seven confirmed cases but I think there might be more. Interestingly enough, the first season alone has three confirmed cases and I suspect the whole thing might be heavily modified from the three-parter finale of Transformers, differences mostly accounting for details lifted from the Mirage comics series and fitting in the world of TMNT. These are the similarities that are confirmed in season 1 alone:

1. "Hot Rodding Teenagers from Dimension X" has a nearly identical thing about a weather machine to "Trans-Europe Express" in Transformers
2. "Shredder & Splintered" has a sequence inside Krang's robot body that is nearly identical to the sequences inside Megatron's body in "Microbots", which is itself closely based on a sequence in "Day of the Machines" in He-Man (and that He-Man episode getting recycled is a rabbit hole on its own...)
3. "Shredder & Splintered" also ends in a nearly identical way to "The Rebirth, Part 3" from Transformers, where the two villains bicker about who is in charge

And the reason to believe FW season 1 was based on the three-parter finale of Transformers is more than just the ending scene, they also have the following similarities:

1. The villains hide underground in a high tech base and use spy cameras to know what is happening on the surface (Hive City and the Technodrome)
2. A villain is physically weak and demands that another villain gives them a robot body (Zarak/Hive demanding this of Cyclonus and Krang demanding this of Shredder)
3. A band of underlings initially not wanting to go through with enhancement their enemies went through but ultimately being compelled to do so (the Decepticons becoming headmasters and the gang becoming mutants)
4. Upon gaining his robotic body, the villain boasts about how powerful he is and bursts out of the ground as a giant that dwarfs everyone (Scorponok and Krang)
5. One of the good guys are away constructing a new thing that can fight the villain in his new body (Spike creating Fortress Maximus and Donatello making the Blimp)
6. The villains are defeated and banished elsewhere where they bicker about who is in charge (Zarak with Galvatron in space and Shredder with Krang in Dimension X)

Not exactly confirmed that everything is recycled because of how modified the scripts would have to be and the origin, gang attack, MOUSER attack and a few other scenes are clearly lifted from the early Mirage comics instead, which would force alterations anyway. But considering that these are a lot of similarities and parts are indeed confirmed to be recycled, does lead me to believe this may in fact be the case.

[CyberCubed]

The funniest one for me is the reason Murphy killed off all the Mutanimals in the Archie series comic is simply because the TV deal they thought they had going through with a spinoff of the original cartoon with the Mutanimals fell through and was canceled. Ryan Brown did a lot of character art sheets for the pitch for the spinoff cartoon.

Murphy was so mad/disappointed he spite killed off all the Mutanimals in cold blood in a children's comic.

[IndigoErth]

I doubt there's much of anything I know that any dedicated fan posting or lurking this forum doesn't also know.

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

he thought “homeboy” was slang for “homosexual”

That is the most legit Boomer thing I've heard in a while, even if retroactively. lol

4kids Hamato Yoshi appears in a newly printed children’s book called “I Am Leonardo “ which is based on the 1987 cartoon.

I gotta be honest, I own this book and I guess I'm so used to all of these versions that I did not even notice when I flipped through it. Just checked. Omg. lol Unexpected crossover.

[Coola Yagami]

Any screenshots of that book? Now I'm legit curious.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

The funniest one for me is the reason Murphy killed off all the Mutanimals in the Archie series comic is simply because the TV deal they thought they had going through with a spinoff of the original cartoon with the Mutanimals fell through and was canceled. Ryan Brown did a lot of character art sheets for the pitch for the spinoff cartoon.

Murphy was so mad/disappointed he spite killed off all the Mutanimals in cold blood in a children's comic.

Wow, I don’t think I ever knew that. Crazy.

At least Andrew gave them their revenge in Odyssey.

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

Any screenshots of that book? Now I'm legit curious.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

https://i.imgur.com/xIwqXfE.jpeg

He looks like the 4Kids Yoshi by the way of Hanna Barbera with those eyes.

[Stu_Padasso]

As it turns out, the martial arts styles that I study is based in Wilmington, North Carolina where the 1990 movie was filmed.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

Seeing your name reminds me I never quite got why Shadow calls Mikey 'Rooish'. Or was it Raph?

Coola, I found this unanswered question from years ago in another thread while looking for more info about Murphy’s blog and figured I’d answer you here since it’s relevant to the thread.

In the early 90’s Peter Laird’s family got a new cat, which they named Michelangelo. His daughter quickly shortened it to “Mike”, which eventually became “Mikeroo”, then just “Roo”, and finally “Rooish”.

[CyberCubed]

April's middle name is apparently, "Harriet," although I'm not sure if that's true for all the older series.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

April's middle name is apparently, "Harriet," although I'm not sure if that's true for all the older series.

That was from “Invasion of the Krangezoids”. I don’t think it’s been confirmed in any other version.

On the subject of middle names Casey’s legal name in Mirage is Arnold Bernid Jones and Casey is just a nickname. In 4kids his name is Arnold Casey Jones Jr.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

Coola, I found this unanswered question from years ago in another thread while looking for more info about Murphy’s blog and figured I’d answer you here since it’s relevant to the thread.

In the early 90’s Peter Laird’s family got a new cat, which they named Michelangelo. His daughter quickly shortened it to “Mike”, which eventually became “Mikeroo”, then just “Roo”, and finally “Rooish”.

Lol oh wow.

[ToTheNines]

The street address to the farmhouse in Mirage is: 42 Burr Hill Road, Northampton MA

[Original TMNT Cartoon Fan]

Posessiong knowledge was so much funnier in pre-digital and even early digital days.

By the early 21st century, a lot of fans in the early 20's (who'd just rediscovered their interests) weren't even aware of the origins of the franchise.

[ToTheNines]

Got another one, and this is good Pokemon trivia too.

Originally, Pokemon was going to have way more than 151 mons, but they cut a bunch because of data constraints on the Gameboy. Originally Wartortle was going to evolve into Kamex, which looked exactly like Wartortle but bigger with exaggerated tail and other features. What we know as Blastoise was part of a different line, with one pre-vo, and his name "Caravaggio".

Not a direct reference, but a big turtle named after an Italian Rennaissance painter...

[CyberCubed]

Kamex is actually Blastoise's Japanese name:


There are always pokemon designs that get cut or moved to later games. Obviously some Johto pokemon like Ho-oh and Togepi were already designed around the time the series first came out. Shellos/Gastrodon were also originally intended to be Hoenn pokemon but got moved to DP.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Kamex is actually Blastoise's Japanese name:


There are always pokemon designs that get cut or moved to later games. Obviously some Johto pokemon like Ho-oh and Togepi were already designed around the time the series first came out. Shellos/Gastrodon were also originally intended to be Hoenn pokemon but got moved to DP.

Kamex is his name now. Originally Kamex was this guy:



And the Blastoise we know was called Karabajio.

[ToTheNines]

Originally Posted by IndigoErth

I gotta be honest, I own this book and I guess I'm so used to all of these versions that I did not even notice when I flipped through it. Just checked. Omg. lol Unexpected crossover.

They also just came out with “I am Michelangelo”, we just picked it up yesterday. It has a hilarious page of a lone 2012 Kraang (out of his exosuit) taking on all 4 turtles head on lmao.

Spoiler:

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by ToTheNines

They also just came out with “I am Michelangelo”, we just picked it up yesterday. It has a hilarious page of a lone 2012 Kraang (out of his exosuit) taking on all 4 turtles head on lmao.

Spoiler:

https://i.imgur.com/0wv4WVa.jpeg

These new children's books seem totally fucked, at least as far as the artwork goes.

The FW cartoon shouldn't have this much influence at this point, in my opinion it would make more sense to just a be a bit more original if you're just gonna make kids' book slop. As blasphemous as this may sound, the best idea if you have use old stories as a basis for these types of things, you might as well take good stories from Mirage/IDW and simplify them, instead of taking the slop that is FW and putting it through the slop machine. Hell, the reason I suggest being original first and foremost here is that you might as well be. I mean, how much harder can it be to write a really short story by yourself than it is to remake some crap David Wise recycled from some other crap he pulled out his ass?

But if, and if you really have to, base these things on the FW cartoon, why trace promotional art from other iterations of the franchise? The Hamato Yoshi one does at least have some minor differences from the 4Kids show and the actual FW design for him appeared scarcely enough for me to excuse the artist for not knowing what he looked like. But this Kraang crap? Not only is that clearly a different design from the Krang that constantly showed up in FW, but I'm pretty damn sure it's literally just a promo image from the 2012 show traced over. What the actual hell?

[ToTheNines]

Yes, these are definitely the pinnacle of McTMNT slop lol. It seems like both the author and illustrator just use Google and Wikipedia. Wouldn’t be surprised if the script is GPT generated.