Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Sometimes referred to a *Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles* in European regions , *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* is an entertainment franchise that follows the adventures of four mutant turtle siblings that are trained in ninjitsu and keep New York City save from evil.

## **Summary**

The story of the Ninja Turtles began in the 1980's when creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had a casual evening where they brainstormed a drawing of a short, squat turtle wearing a mask with nunchaku strapped to its arms. The idea was humorous enough for Laird to suggest that they should draw three more with their own style of weapon. Using money from a tax refund together with a loan from Eastman's uncle, plus the work of Frank Miller and Jack Kirby as a major influence, both him and Laird formed Mirage Studios and self-published a single-issue comic book that ould pastiche four ppular comics of the early 1980's: Marvel Comics' *The New Mutants*, *Cerebus*, *Ronin*, and *Daredevil*. The origin for their comic protagonists were that a truck carrying radioactive ooze crashes and spills into the sewage system of New York City and mutate the four tutrtles and a rat that live underneath it; causing them to become the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" with the rat becoming their master. The radioactive ooze is a direct reference to Daredevil's backstory, the name Splinter parodied his mentor known as "Sick," and the Foot, a clan of evil ninjas that became the Turtles' arch-enemies, satirized the Hand; another deadly ninja clan that Daredevil fought in several issues. When Splinter was conceived, Eastman and Laird thought of giving the Turtles Japanese names as their mentor came from Japan. Though because they couldn't find any authentic-sounding names, they settled with Renaissance artists and after browsing Laird's copy of *Janson's History of Art*, they picked the four they were most familiar with: Leonardo, the blue-masked turtle who leads the team and wields two Ninjatos (often confused for Katanas); the purple-masked turtle who uses a bo staff and is techno-savvy; Raphel; the red-masked turtle who wields twin sais and is the hot-headed one of the group; and Michelangelo, the orange-masked turtle who uses nunchucks and is the more tubluar one.

## **Action Figures**

The first issue of *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* came out in May 1984 and was originally intended as a one-shot parody of superhero comics at the time. Though ironically, it became an even bigger success than those two as several consumers demanded more issues and kicked off a trend of black-and-white comics that feature anthropomorphic animal characters who are trained in martial arts. In 1987, Eastman and Laird licensed Turtles to Playmates Toys who in their first two years, produced 400 figures and dozens of vehicles & playsets. And just four years in, about $1.1 billion USD of TMNT toys were sold; making them the third-best selling toy figures ever at the time; behind *GI Joe* and *Star Wars*. When toyetic cartoons like *Transformers* and *He-Man* proved successful in the 1980's, Playmates ordered an animated series to help promote their toys and the first *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* cartoon was made; premiering in 1987 and running for almost a whole decade. Three live-action films were released in the 1990s; the first film became the highest-grossing independent film up to that point. In 2009, the Turtles franchise was purchased by Nickelodeon, a subsidiary of Viacom. Viacom commissioned a new comic series, two new live-action films, and new animated series. Both Eastman and Laird have since distanced themselves from TMNT to work on other things

As I've already mentioned, Playmates' *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* became one of the best-selling toylines of all times, and eventually, other companies like LEGO and MEGA BLOKS would step into the ooze-filled ring.  Though there have been a few products of theirs that never made it out of their shells and these are their tales down below:

* NECA

## **References**

1. ↑ In European countries, the word "ninja" is often associated with violent connotations.
2. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage\_Mutant\_Ninja\_Turtles\_(Mirage\_Studios)
3. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage\_Mutant\_Ninja\_Turtles
4. ↑ https://youtu.be/Hpo6aIuBxew?t=228