A Reboot: TMNT
/**Trigger warning: This blog may induce flashbacks of childhood Ninja Turtle viewing.**
“Mom, when I get home from school, I want to watch the ninja turtles that I was watchin’ yesterday.”
Believe it or not, that request was from Lou.
Not Nate. Not Sam. But Lou.
And honestly, if it means we’re finished with Paw Patrol and PJ Masks and Blaze and Blippi and the other crappy toddler shows, I’m all for it. Though I do have to admit that the design of those shows usually aims at education—some interactive watching, with questions that prompt counting, verbal recall, color identification and more. But it’s all so irritating.
So I’ll take a little Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, even though it’s my third time through it. The first time was my own childhood, the second time was Nate’s and Sam’s toddler and preschool years, and this... this will be my third.
Though admittedly, there are at least two different animated series and, off the top of my head, five different movies. Maybe more?
And of course, each one is just different enough that it all feels new to me. I’ve seen April as an up and coming TV news reporter and April as the teenage daughter of a brilliant scientist. I’ve seen Shredder as a ruthless, cunning criminal mastermind. And I’ve seen Shredder as a bumbling, lower level gangster who gets reprimanded by a despotic, evil Kraang, who’s essentially a rogue brain tucked inside the torso of a WWE-wrestler-looking robot. And who could forget Beebop and Rocksteady?
My brothers and I watched the first series when we were kids, where every episode had nearly the exact same plot, the same music at the same minute marks, and the only distinction between each episode would be the rotating cast of bad guys. We loved it.
And naturally, we watched all the movies. The one where the turtles have to hide out in April’s apartment. Where they have to rescue Danny, the petty crime-dabbling teenage son of April’s boss. Where they have to retreat to an upstate farm to nurse somebody—was it Raph? Leo? Splinter?— back to health. Where Raph travels back in time to Imperial Japan.
Were those all different movies? Or the same?
The first series was a lot of saving the city, then celebrating with a pizza party and one of Mikey’s cheesy jokes. The newer series involved space travel, I think. And more diverse groups of aliens and mutants. And for some reason, April is a teenager..
And then the newer movies—were there two or three? I don’t remember a single thing except that Meghan Fox played April. And Sam was obsessed with the Shell Shocked music video. Wiz Khalifa, I think? We had to watch it again and again and again. And again. And Sam would just stare at the TV, in a trance, headbanging his little toddler head to the beat of the bass.
And now, nearly six years later, they still occasionally request the song for their morning wake-up call on their Google Home tablet.
Nate was Raph for Halloween three consecutive years. And Sam was Leo for two. But they wore the oversized costumes regularly, the stretchy cloth feet dragging on the ground. One round of costumes featured cloth headbands with eyeholes cut into them and the newer ones had hard plastic masks—neither option was small enough for Sam’s tiny toddler head, but he sure looked ferocious when he wore them. Though he couldn’t see and often ran into walls.
I crafted some ninja throwing stars out of duct tape and cardboard while Tighe used toilet paper rolls and excess string from a weed-whacker in the garage to make nunchucks.
At one point, Nate had a talking sai that said things “rude but cool,” just like Raph. And red glasses that he wore when he watched the show and whenever he was feeling particularly “teenage,” “mutant,” “ninja,” or “turtle-y.” When donning said glasses, he assumed full Raph character, speaking in a gravelly voice, super-serious, and rude voice.
And if I reprimanded him for his insulting, bad-mannered replies, he’d remind me, “No, Mom! It’s okay, I’m just bein Raph!”
Nate had a bright orange, long-sleeved TMNT t-shirt with a black hood that featured all four turtles and some written onomatopoeia words like “wham” or “cowabunga.” He had other ninja turtle shirts, mostly green, and so did Sam, but this shirt was a particular favorite. One day at school, he got a tear in it. I think it got caught on a screw on the playground, resulting in a perfect L-shaped rip.
“I told him you could sew it,” his teacher reported to me cheerfully when I picked him up that afternoon.
Oh, great, I thought. Sewing is not one of my skills, but because Nate nagged me about repairing the shirt for many weeks, I eventually dug out a sewing kit and wove a shoddy little needle with thin black thread in and out of the orange fabric, pricking my finger repeatedly and pulling and bunching the shirt so that the tear is actually more noticeable now.
But Nate was happy. And he wore that shirt at least once a week until his little buddha belly pushed out of it and we passed it down to Sam’s scrawny little body. Who also wore it until it was too small.
Do we still have it? Will Lou be able to wear it if he becomes obsessed?
Honestly, I have no idea. I went through a Kondo-inspired purging period, after my second miscarriage and before I got pregnant with Lou, when I unceremoniously took loads and loads of toys and clothing to goodwill. I’m not a sentimental person, so I wasn’t sad to say goodbye to so many of their favorite shirts.
At the moment, Lou’s really into a black Puma hoodie. He loves the hood and he loves pockets. So the shirt would be perfect for him.
Will the obsession stick? Will it be as addicting for Lou as it was for Nate and Sam? Will he start checking sewers for signs of mutant turtles? Will he ask for pizza every single day? Will he adopt one of the turtle personalities? Will he start parkour ninja training on the sofa and coffee table? Will he become consumed with fighting bad guys and pepper some Japanese samurai language into his everyday vocabulary? Will he also end up in a karate class, hoping to somehow mutate into a turtle?
Only time—and a little TV—will tell. But for now, Tighe and I will love sitting on the couch with him when he gets home from school, catching up on all the turtles’ adventures and dreaming of a teenage metabolism that allows one to consume nothing but greasy pizza.
