'90s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Memories and a Playmates Toys Technodrome Bonus!
Updated: Dec 29, 2022
In the early '90s, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise was riding the sewage wave of popularity: Live-action films; a syndicated cartoon; video games; comic books and an established toyline from Playmates all contributed to shell-shocked childhoods. Welcome to Retro Injection's fifth anniversary special! As Michelangelo would say, "It's gonna be mondo epic."
I was once all about the Ninja Turtles, and I still appreciate TMNT for its anything-goes creativity and martial arts action. I've currently having a blast, revisiting the complete original cartoon series on DVD! There are tons of jokes that I didn't get back in the day. Dumb kids!
The above photo was taken at my eleventh birthday party in 1991. I've just opened Krang's Android Body! This action figure was purchased from our local Hills discount store. My friend Luke and I urban explored what was left of the building (later an Ames) in 2021. You can watch our logic-defying trespassing here. I almost fell through a second-story floor.
Getting the Android Body was a big deal, and I wrote about it in my diary for a future audience. That's you!
That Terminator 2 mask appears in my Robocop review!
The following pictures were taken at my tenth birthday party, held at a Friendly's restaurant in 1990. I'm the one wearing "The Heartbeat of America" shirt. Kids in my school would mock the annoying jingle as "The Fartbeat of America." I stopped wearing the shirt after that, because I was already a prime target for bullying! (Some would argue for good cause.)
My dad sips coffee while I open my presents, the Turtlecycle being among them. In the background are Grandma Clarisa and Uncle Frank. I inherited grandma's house, and built an arcade in it. She would have been proud.
I made the mistake of asking my dad where he got the TMNT tablecloth. As only a father can, he humiliated me in front of my friends when he answered in a sinister tone, "From Shredder!" The story has become the stuff of legend in the family. That Friendly's? It was remodeled into an insurance office, and now sits vacant. Totally bogus!
At that party, my parents gave me the original TMNT film, which I still own. The VHS tape proudly resides in my physical media collection, alongside the fairly solid Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze, and the lesser third installment, Turtles in Time. The trilogy was produced by Golden Harvest, the studio behind four of Bruce Lee's five films. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles introduced kung-fu movies to a generation. It's aged like a fine pizza cheese, especially next to Michael Bay's CGI atrocities.
The Making of the Coming Out of Their Shells Tour was another gift from that party. This "rockumentary" plays it straight as concert crew members and the Ninja Turtles themselves talk about being rising musical talent. It's almost This is Spinal Tap with guys in bad turtle costumes! I forced my wife to watch it as a pre-marriage test of her patience.
Speaking of tapes, my parents bought me three of the four $3.49 Burger King TMNT videos, containing one episode each! Adjusted for inflation, that's $23.79 for just over an hour of entertainment. Ah, the days before YouTube.
With its "sunglasses on the couch" motif, Burger King's commercial is an unofficial nod to the Maxell cassette ad. If you say "BK TMNT" really fast, you'll find it was pointless.
Didn't get the Maxell cassette tape reference? I got you.
Here's my mom and I toasting to the new year of 1992. I've got my Leonardo color-changing bandana mug, which came shrinkwrapped to Cookie Crisp cereal. A set of bowls was also available, but I could never find any: Shoppers would steal the tableware right off the boxes! Contending with these scumbags, I was lucky to get the cup. These were epic freebies to attach to boxes; even back in '86, you had to mail away for a bowl from Nerds Cereal.