Johnny Crash's School

Johnny Crash's School is the children's Canadian-American live-action/animated television show that aired on various channels in the United States and Canada, with it's ultimate home on The Greeny Channel on Saturday mornings starting in 1993, ending on July 7th, 2000 on the same block, starring Nate Stainton as Johnny Crash and featuring animation based on the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The live-action segments were produced by Sanford Productions and Lyrick Studios, produced, written, and directed by Jake Sanford, and the animation was made by Murakami-Wolf-Swenson (which also does the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series). Johnny Crash's School is essentially a hybrid between a sketch comedy series and most of the educational shows, much like Sesame Street. Reruns currently air on The Greeny Channel Retro in the United States since January 2013. Most of the 1987 TMNT characters appear in the show.
== Synopsis ==
The title character, Johnny Crash (Nate Stainton), is a teacher who tries to teach kids a value of lessons. He is the owner of the Ninja Turtle Elementary School (who's exterior shots used  in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States (which had it's sign digitally altered to say "Ninja Turtle Elementary School"), and who's interior shots were filmed at ), a fictional children's school in New York, New York, where the Ninja Turtles live. He and his fellow students starred on a public-access TV show in which lessons such as healthy eating are given.
== Main characters ==
=== Live-Action ===
* Johnny Crash (played by Nate Stainton), a teacher who tries to teach kids a value of lessons. He is the owner of the Ninja Turtle Elementary School, a fictional children's school in New York, New York, where the Ninja Turtles live. He is a main protagonist.
* Thomas McGuard (played by Bill Bixby in the first few episodes and by Peter Boyle in the later episodes), a former security guard at the Ninja Turtle Elementary School.
* Donny Crash (played by Cam Clarke), Johnny's 18-year old son. He specialized in Ninja Turtles merchandises.
* Marie Crash (played by Constance Shulman), Johnny's 35-year old fiance who hates Ninja Turtles. She was occasionally seen as a villain to thwart the Turtles. She even wears the Foot Soldier attire, making her look like Karai. She was a main villain of the show, replacing the Shredder. She was "Put on a Bus" in the fifth season, with her leaving being said as "being sent to the Home For Infinite Meanies". According to Jake Sanford, they could not pay her salaries due to the show having issues with IATSE Canada and Shulman's agent in the United States, which ended up in Marie leaving.
=== Animated ===
* Leonardo (voiced by Cam Clarke), the courageous leader and devoted student of martial arts, Leonardo wears a blue mask and wields two katana. He is the oldest of the four.
* Michelangelo (voiced by Townsend Coleman), easy-going and free-spirited, Michelangelo wears an orange mask and wields a pair of nunchaku. Michelangelo provides much of the comic relief, most of the time. He is the youngest of the four Turtles. While he loves to relax and eat pizza, this Turtle also has an adventurous and creative side. He is something of the "surfer" boy, speaking usually in a Southern California accent.
* Donatello (voiced by Barry Gordon), the scientist, inventor, engineer, and technological genius, Donatello wears a purple mask and wields the bō. Donatello prefers to use his knowledge to solve conflicts.
* Raphael (voiced by Rob Paulsen), the team's bad boy, Raphael wears a red mask and wields a pair of sai. He has an aggressive nature and seldom hesitates to throw the first punch. He is often depicted with a Brooklyn accent. His personality can be alternately sarcastic, and oftentimes delivers deadpan humor. Still, he is intensely loyal to his brothers and sensei.
* Venus de Milo (voiced by Lalainia Lindbjerg), a fifth Turtle. She was in the jar the others were in, and doused with ooze. However, she ended up in Chinatown, where Chung found her. She was raised as a shinobi, a mystical version of a ninja. She often gets sayings mixed up, no matter how much her new family attempts to help. She was shoehorned into the series when Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation came about.
* Splinter (voiced by Peter Renaday), the Turtles' sensei and adoptive father, Splinter is a Japanese mutant rat who learned the ways of ninjutsu. He was Hamato Yoshi mutated into a humanoid rat.
* April O'Neil (voiced by Renae Jacobs), April is the plucky human companion of the Turtles. April first met Johnny when Baxter's Mouser robots started attacking him. April was a television news reporter.
* Irma Langinstein (voiced by Jennifer Darling), Irma is one of the few humans who accept the Turtles instead of seeing them as evil just because they are different from the humans. She is klutzy, tending to stop on a person's feet whenever she gets upset. Irma is boy-crazy most of the time.
* Dr. Baxter Stockman (voiced by Pat Fraley), an scientist who is depicted as the creator of the Mousers, machines meant to seek out and destroy sewer rats (not mice, in spite of their name). He was already mutated into an anthropomorphic housefly, and a good guy in the show.
* Rat King (voiced by Townsend Coleman), an homeless man living in a dilapidated portion of the New York City sewer system near the Turtles and Splinter. He would often enact some sort of plot to establish his own rat-controlled government and bring human rule to an end, believing that rats (which he counted himself as) were superior to all other species, whom he described as "inferior non-rodents." He is a good guy in the show.
* Krang (voiced by Townsend Coleman), an brain-like creature from Dimension X. He was already in that state and a good guy in the show.
The Shredder, Screwloose, Tokka, Rahzar, and the Foot Soldiers were only mentioned in some episodes and not appeared in the show at all. The reason why Shredder and the Foot Soldiers were not in the show because writers does not put violent and bad stuff in educational shows. Karai was also mentioned once by Leo when watching a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon in the episode "Ice Cream Mania!".
== Segments ==
The basic concept was that of a school, taped in part on a hand-held camera by Donatello (who was his voice actor Barry Gordon wearing a leftover Donatello suit from the Coming Out of Their Shells tour while wearing a headset inside the head of costume). The show's structure evolved over time and included several regular segments, both live-action and animated, that appeared in almost every episode. These segments were interspersed with each episode's three main plot segments. The most frequent segments were "Under the Shell!", "Professor Laird's Lab" (which had Peter Laird as himself), "Turtle Tips" and "The Ultimate Adventures of Captain Bell". Some recurring segments include:
The Ultimate Adventures of Captain Bell - 
The segment follows the adventures of Captain Bell (Patrick Stewart), a space captian who fights aliens in the help of math problems.
Danny - 
A sepia-toned segment in which features a teenager (later an adult) named Danny (Vince Martin) who deals with bullies and struggles his own problems. Later in the series, other characters were featured, sometimes without Danny. In fact, between seasons 6-10, Vince left the show and his role was replaced by Tommy Miller.
Rhyme Wizard - 
A wizard (Robert Stainton) stands at the base of the stairs in a (almost always) extreme close-up, giving making his own word that rhymes with a word (i.e cat with bat). Although the wizard was almost always replaced by a new wizard (Susan Roman) in later seasons.
Sing-A-Long with Jonny Crash! -
In early seasons, Jonny sings humorous songs for educational purpose in the form of Screen Songs (with a famous "bouncing ball", a sort of precursor to modern karaoke videos).
Final Announcement - The show usually concluded with Crash giving out an announcement to Splinter (who looked a combination of the third movie Splinter puppet and the Coming Out of Their Shells Splinter costume). Splinter would then make a joke, followed by him laughing and saying "I made a funny!" or "I made another funny!" or "I made yet another funny!" This was followed by the kids going out from school while the credits scrolled, which began with the ritual stating of the Ninja Turtle's motto: "Heroes in the Half Shell: Turtle Power!". From season six onward, this was often followed by the The Change: "I Am Not Being So Grouchy!" In the series finale, the Change was changed to: "Thanks for watching!" In one episode, a girl (played by a uncredited Andrea Libman) humorously took over the reciting the Change's motto in one of the series' few Big Lipped Alligator Moments: "I am a girl, so hear me meow!"
== Animated Shorts ==
Animated shorts would appear before and after commercial breaks. Leonardo would introduce and host animated short blocks in the show. Recurring animated segments included:
*Leonardo's Cartoon Action Show (1993-2002; featured an animated version of Johnny Crash as either in the mutant, human or an animal form)
*Turtle Tips (1995-2003)
*Under the Shell! (1995-2003; later used on DVDs of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
*No! Not Mutant Wasps! (1995-2003)
*Two Brothers (1996-2002; characters later used on Phineas and Ferb)
*Felix the Cat shorts (1993-2002)
*Popeye shorts (1993-2002)
*Let's Rocket! (1993-2002)
*If You Can Read... (2000-2002; from The Ninja Turtles' Journey, due to its use in Between the Lions)
*Let's Go!: The Ninja Turtles' Journey (1993-2002; featured an animated version of Johnny Crash as a stick figure; one character is later used on the "If You Can Read" segment on Between the Lions)
All shorts are intact on VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray releases of the program.
== Production ==
The show had a slightly higher budget then some of Jake Sanford's other works.
Category:TV Shows