#203. TMNT Through the Years
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This is a short bonus episode, taped as a companion to the crew's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem review, in which Mike, JVL, and Sonny skip the usual banter and dive straight into a history of the TMNT franchise itself. JVL traces the comic's 1984 origin as an indie parody of Marvel mutant books, Daredevil-era ninja tropes, and the Teen Titans, published on cheap newsprint in a run of 3,000 copies that sold out almost instantly; Sonny corrects him that it's the franchise's 40th anniversary rather than the 50th JVL first claims. They walk through the 1987 animated series (whose theme song, they agree, is what really made the property a cultural sensation by letting every kid pick a favorite turtle the way people pick a favorite Beatle) and the 1990 Jim Henson live-action film, which Sonny notes grossed $135 million and finished as the fifth highest-grossing movie of that year, behind only Home Alone, Ghost, Dances with Wolves, and Pretty Woman. Mike shares a personal core memory of a live-action Turtles show at Disney's MGM Studios as a kid, and the trio also detours into the Michael Bay-produced reboot, Megan Fox's April O'Neil casting controversy, and JVL's closing exit question about what a high-grade copy of TMNT #1 would cost collectors today (Sonny and JVL peg it around $12,000–$14,000 for a mid-grade copy, with a signed 9.6 listed at $140,000 that JVL doubts would actually fetch that), which spins into Sonny's rueful memory of passing on a cover-less X-Men #1 for $100 as a teenager.
From the show notes
Apologies this is a day late, but: bonus turtles chatter!
Full transcript
Mike00:00:00Welcome back to the Sub-Beacon bonus episode. We just talked about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Mutant Mayhem. Let's talk about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the franchise. What a weird, bizarre, as you said, JVL, IP to just have these legs. And as far as I understand, started off, this thing started off as a joke. It's 50 years old.
JVL00:00:33Think about that. We are 50 years into what was absolutely a joke and was not even a novel joke because this is a thing that has always really been in comics since the Marvel Renaissance. Which is that comic creators will riff in ridiculous ways on existing strictures. And characters. So, for instance, Peter Porker, the Spectacular Spider Ham, right? Or Ambush Bug. These are characters which were invented in the 70s and 80s to goof on existing serious comics. There was in the indie comics world of my youth right around this time that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There was Miami Mice, a indie created series, which was drawn. As if it was Miami Vice with two mice doing...
Mike00:01:29Anyway. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
JVL00:01:31And that's what Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was. And it began with the goof just being about a name. Like, it was a title. And to be honest, the entire IP is just the title, right? If it's anything else... Anything else. So, it's like the greatest four-word title in history and a title so strong that it has supported 50 years worth of... Intellectual property revenues. And I find that astonishing. And it was just, you know, hey, Marvel's doing all this crazy X-Men mutant shit. And there's a lot... Look at the Teen Titans books, which are so, you know... What if... And ninjas are so big. Look at the Daredevil, because this is the time when Daredevil was leaning into all the Elektra ninja stuff.
Mike00:02:19Well, what if we did... Teenage...
JVL00:02:21They're teenagers, but they're mutants. And they're ninjas. They're ninjas. And they're turtles. And they're turtles. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
Sonny00:02:27I just... For the record, I just want... 40 years, not 50 years. This was... 1984 was when this...
JVL00:02:32Okay.
Sonny00:02:3340 years. But yeah, no. We're getting there. Yeah.
JVL00:02:35We're getting there, right? And they eventually wrote a book, which was published as an oversized magazine with... It's not colored, right? It's just pencils, no color. It's printed on newsprint, essentially. So it's like the cheapest, ugliest... Worst stuff you can imagine. And the cover is... It's a pretty good cover, but not like a great cover. It has a little bit of color. I think they printed it using like a four-color process. All you get is black, white, red... And green. And gray. No, I don't believe there's any green in it. So again, this is how cheap they're doing. And they print 3,000 copies of it, and it sells out almost immediately.
Mike00:03:26And so these guys... Is it ironic? Are people buying this for the irony, or is it... Are they...
JVL00:03:33Unclear. But pretty quickly, it was everywhere. I would say by 1986, 1985 certainly, but definitely by 1986, my local comic shop in southern New Jersey had the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles books up on the wall. These sort of expensive books in sleeves that you would buy for hundreds of dollars. And it just sort of never stopped. And it picked up steam, and then they sold the toy license, Laird and Eastman, John Eastman, who would later go on to attempt to overturn American democracy after his failed... Or sorry, successful career as a comic book... I'm kidding. This is... No release. No relation.
Sonny00:04:23Had me going there for a second. I was like, wait. Well, look, I mean...
Mike00:04:27Before he went to law school. Steve Bannon got his... Right, the Seinfeld, right? Got his start with the Seinfeld, so... Yeah. Crazier things have happened. But the... I mean, to me, again, I'm younger than you guys. My introduction to it was the animated series. Yes. Which was like foundational. And that really seems to have like jump-started it as something more than just a comic, right? I mean, in terms of like... All the toys come out of this. Even the films are kind of tied to... The films are absolutely, yes. Tied to the success of the animated movie. And again, it's...
JVL00:05:05Why does the animated series succeed? Let me throw this at you. Sure. Because of the fucking theme song.
Mike00:05:11Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Turtles and Heroes in a Half Shell.
JVL00:05:14Just repeating the name. Yeah. Because they understand those four words. Just repeating those four words over and over and over and over and over with the kicker of Heroes in a Half Shell. Like that...
Mike00:05:26Turtle power. Yeah. And it's... I mean, it's like an earworm, right?
JVL00:05:31Yes. Especially to a six or seven-year-old. And it's... To you, it seems crazy, right? Look at this crazy bit of whimsy. It's not G.I. Joe. It's not Transformers. These are Teenage Mutant Ninjas and they're turtles.
Mike00:05:44Yeah, but they also do things like they say cowabunga, which is really fun to say. And they eat pizza. And they each... I mean, the distinctiveness, right? Of each turtle with their different colors. The colors and the weapons. The colors, the weapons.
JVL00:06:01It allows you... Like the Beatles, right? It allows everybody to have their favorite member of the band.
Mike00:06:05That's right.
JVL00:06:05It's like perfectly conceived to become a cultural sensation. You can see why it became a cultural sensation. But you can also see how things break like 2% differently. This thing is never... Nobody ever looks at this again, right? Right. You know, these guys print 3,000 copies of this and nobody ever speaks about it again. Yeah, it becomes Miami Mike. Nice. Yeah.
Sonny00:06:26I mean, it is wild just to look at the actual success of the show. The book, the cartoon, the movies and everything else. Like, the movie comes out... So, the first movie comes out in 1990, which is around the same time, you know, the cartoon comes out, I think, a year or two before that. It's all right around the same time, right? Of this like... It's guys in suits, right?
Mike00:06:49The cartoon is 87.
Sonny00:06:51So, the cartoon is 87. All right. So, the cartoon is 87. It's extremely successful. They sell a billion. They sell a billion toys. The live action movie comes out in 1990. It's guys in suits. And like, actually, really well done suits is the thing. Like, it doesn't... Like, it's actually a really interesting...
Mike00:07:07Well, it was Jim Henson, right? This was a Jim Henson project. Yeah, that sounds right.
Sonny00:07:11But... And it's an enormous hit. This movie is an enormous... Like, it's, you know, it's easy to kind of forget. This movie comes out in 1990. It grossed $135 million in 1990 dollars. Wow. It's the fifth... Highest grossing movie of the year. Behind... Here are the four movies ahead of it. Home Alone was number one on the year. Enorm... I mean, that is like, you know, an all-time hit. But after that is Ghost. Huge hit. Dances with Wolves. Of course, goes on to win Best Picture. Pretty Woman. Again, huge, enormous, unexpected hit. Then Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You know what number six is?
Mike00:07:51Total Recall.
Sonny00:07:52The Hunt for Red October. Total Recall is right out. And after that, I mean, like, this is like, it's a crazy, it's, it's, it's, it's, it is a very interesting movie in the context of everything else that was hugely popular that year, um, uh, just in and of itself. But like the film is, the film is an enormous hit and you can understand why studios keep coming back to it. You know why? Because there's money there. There's money in those Turtle Hills. There's cartoons. There's, you know, home video rights. There's everything else. And like, I...
Mike00:08:24There's always money in the Super Bowl. It's a river of IP.
Sonny00:08:28It just, it kind of, it, it, the other, the other thing about it, and you see it in this movie, and this is another reason why I like this a little more than Barbie is because it is, it is 100% a toy commercial, but it's an, at least it's an honest toy commercial in that it's like, look at all these, look at all these characters. We got a gecko who's on a skateboard. That would be cool to play with, right kids? And it's like, that's just, it just, it exists in, on a very, on a very granular level. This movie exists. It exists to sell toys in the same way that like the Paw Patrol movie exists to sell toys or, uh, you know, anything else. And like, whatever, it's fine. Um, but it is, you can understand why it exists to sell toys when you watch it. And, uh, and you, and you then go to the target the next day with your son and he's like, Oh, from the movie.
JVL00:09:17It's like, yes, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle sneakers with Raphael on them. No, I want the ones with Donatello. I just, it's a. Piece of intellectual property though, the way in which this is both sui generis and has supported itself completely on its own, right? It's not unlike GI Joe, which is an enormous universe of stuff, right? Or the Marvel, which Marvel has everything and Disney has their own theme parks. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is, it's like a two dozen characters existing in the space of just New York city with no larger corporate support behind. No larger connected unit. It's incredibly impressive how durable it's been. Just again, as IP, I can't think of anything that's really in the same ballpark. I mean, would you have guessed in 1984, the GI Joe, the GI Joe would be a less successful piece of intellectual property than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Mike00:10:18No, you, I would not at all. You wouldn't have even probably heard of it right in 1984. Right? That's that's just, that's.
Sonny00:10:25I don't know. I, I kind of wonder, I kind of wonder what the actual, I wonder if you broke, see, here's, here's the problem is that we don't actually have any idea of what the toy sales figures look like, uh, off the top of our head. Um, I, I would imagine that GI Joe was probably made more money than Ninja Turtles on that.
Mike00:10:42It's got at least 20 years.
JVL00:10:43Well, I don't think so because it only, the car cartoon only really had one incarnation. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is as many, many incarnations as a cartoon. It's had a number of successful film versions. Uh, yeah, maybe. I would, I would bet anything that team future and as a Michael Bay movie, which by the way, I only directed by Michael Bay, not was not directed by Michael Bay because it feels like it's directed by Michael Bay.
Mike00:11:06Is that the one? Is that TMNT? Yeah.
JVL00:11:09Is that? Okay.
Sonny00:11:11No, no. TMNT is, is, oh, is that the animated one? That's the other animated one.
JVL00:11:14Yes. Yeah. This is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles starring both, uh, will, will from God blue. Help me. Oh, Will Arnett. Will Arnett. Will Arnett.
Sonny00:11:26Well, the, uh, the, um, I re the thing I remember about the April O'Neil, the, the thing I remember about the Michael Bay produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is that, uh, of course, Megan Fox was hired as April O'Neil and had to kind of do an apology tour because she said mean things about Michael Bay, uh, after leaving the transformers franchise and how, you know, so she, she had said some things about, you know, oh, I, I, I didn't like, I didn't like being made to wash his Ferrari in my bikini. That wasn't appropriate. I shouldn't have to do that. And then later she was like, nah, it's fine.
JVL00:11:58That was totally normal. That's a thing that should be allowed to happen in Hollywood. Your casting is to put on a bikini and wash my Ferrari. I think that's, I think that she, she, she came around, she came around to, to, but no,
Sonny00:12:12it was, but it was, but it was very funny just to see like how actual, how power manifests itself in Hollywood.
Mike00:12:19Uh, can I say one more thing about, about, and then I have an exit question for you. So go ahead, Michael. Which is, uh, it is a legend in our family. When we went to Disney world, when I was a kid, um, when my little brother was too young to remember any of it, but I went, we went to what was then MGM studios and there was, it was like, you could not have timed it and done it better for me at that age. I must've been like, like six years old. Uh, there was a live action, teenage mutant, mutant Ninja Turtles. Like S like show in, on one of the lots and like they drove in April's news van. And like, there was really guys dressed up as the turtles and as April and, and like, and we had this moment where like walking through and the van like pulls out of nowhere. Cause remember how it like looks like, or it did at the time, it looks like a city, you know, Hollywood, whatever. And like, it just like, like appeared out of nowhere and we're like, it's the turtles. And, and followed it and then saw the show where they like danced and they, it was, you know, what they do. And it was core, core memory for, uh, for, for young Michael Warren. So, um, turtles, a huge part of my life. My kids like couldn't believe when me and my wife were like singing the song the night before we went to the movie, we were just singing it over and over again. And they were like, how do you know this crazy song? So exit question JVL.
JVL00:13:51So if you guys were interested in picking up. A copy of the very first printing of number one. So again, there are only 3000 of these who knows how many survived, actually, it's unclear. Uh, let's just say in a mid grade, so, you know, something between like an eight and a nine. What would you expect to be paying Sonny?
Sonny00:14:22I cheated. I looked this up before we didn't. JVL didn't say we were going to do that, but I looked it up because I was kind of curious. So I'm I won't answer this, Mike, you answer.
Mike00:14:32I literally have no idea. Like it could be $100,000 and it could be $20 million. I have no idea what it could be. So I'm just going to say a million dollars. All right. You could pick up a mid grade for about 12 grand. Oh, okay.
JVL00:14:45So you could get into nines like a 9.2 for about $14,000. I say this because that is a totally achievable. Grail. So if you are the world's, if you are a grown up and you are the, the, the rail, the biggest Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan in the history of the world, and you want to save up for, you know, five or 10 years, you could actually get yourself the one of only 3000 copies of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Number one. So there is something to aspire to.
Sonny00:15:21Well, there's, there's another, so as, as I said, I looked this up before. Before the show, because I was kind of curious, there's another much more expensive version of this comic. You could get JBL. Did you see this one? The, uh, it's a, it's number one CGC 9.6, but it's also signed and remarked by Eastman on the cover.
JVL00:15:43I did see that. Yeah.
Sonny00:15:45A hundred, $140,000. So that's what that's on. Yeah. But that's what they're asking for. Yeah.
JVL00:15:50That's, that's not what it's. I don't think, I don't think they would get it. I think that is probably closer to like 40 grand.
Sonny00:15:55Yeah. 40 something.
Mike00:15:57The, uh, no. And this would be an adult who would buy this.
Sonny00:16:00I mean, really like an actual child's not buying it. Child's not paying 40 grand for a comic book. Mike. That's, that's crazy. You're ridiculous. I, so my, can I, my, uh, my one, my one comic book regret from my childhood. Uh, I went to my local comic book store once. Uh, when I was like, when I was like 14 or 15, I didn't have a real job yet. Um, so I didn't really. I didn't really have money. I had like allowance. I didn't, I didn't have like money. And I went there and there was a, there was a copy of X-Men number one. They had a copy of X-Men number one, but the cover had come off. Like the cover had been, it was totally removed, right. Totally separated from the, uh, from, from the staples. So that's like, that's like a 0.0 that, that is like a, that is a not valuable comic. They were offering it for a hundred dollars. And I regret to this day that I did not buy it, frankly, I, for a hundred dollars, even, even at. You know what would be graded state, even in it's degraded state would be just kind
Mike00:16:59of an amazing thing to have, I mean, that's probably worth like 15 grand.
JVL00:17:09I mean, it's not, it's not worth as much as you would think you can get a mid grade. You can get a X-Men number one in like a six for probably like 20,000 bucks.
Sonny00:17:21I don't, I don't want, I don't want to spend $20,000 on that. I just want to spend.
Mike00:17:25A hundred dollars on the one where the cover came off, didn't didn't the comic book industry collapse and these things aren't supposed to be worth, well, the comic book industry
Sonny00:17:35for comics released between like 1978 and 2020 collapsed Michael.
JVL00:17:42One of my proudest achievements at the weekly standard was smuggling a 5,000 word piece about the comic book bubble of 1991 to 1993 into the magazine under the guise of being a piece. About real estate bubbles, business, business, I'm sure that's fine.
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