Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)

Hey! You better hit that play button! Because if you do, you'll get to hear us wax eloquent about Taylor Dayne, Tig Notaro, sexual weightlifting, muscular puppets, buxom representations of April O'Neil, Fraggle Rock, Phil Collins, NFL Films, cult leaders, and a talking rat. Plus, Robert gets mad about how his home state of Texas is always represented by real scum bags, and Joe posits that TMNT is a stoner's fever dream. Grab some nunchucks and pizza, dudes and dudettes! Let's talk turtles! Cowabunga! Roundhouse kick! Tubular! Righteous! Yeah! 

Touch base here to suggest a show or tell a story about your life in the 90s.

Booyah is a Synopsish show. Here’s the thing I say about that: Hi, I’m Rob. With my friends and family, I celebrate pop culture, creativity, and possibility in podcasts and blog posts at synopsish.com. We have things about movies, sports, TV, trivia, music, and so on. Hope you’ll take a look. 

Thanks for listening. Take care.

Rundown

(:30) puppet talk, but don’t even talk to me about Fragile Rock; (1:45) the many, many incarnations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, some of which are not so good; (3:25) Rob takes his kid to see that first Michael Bay-produced dud at a cool little small town theater; (5:45) Rob’s history with Ninja Turtles, including action figures, with a quick discussion of how Raph is the best; (7:30) March 1990 pop culture after some talk of how TMNT seems like some real stoner stuff and how Eastman and Laird were trying to satirize comics; (10:10) Rob thinks Opportunity Knocks is Carrier Opportunities and (11:03) thinks Courtney Thorne-Smith was the one in that Harley Jane Kozak scene from Side Out; (12:08) the Billboard number 1 makes Rob sing, unfortunately; (12:50) these guys don’t know what a ballad is, but (13:22) Genuwine’s “Pony” sure is a sexy ballad for pumping iron; (14:40) dang, the number 2 song made him sing, too, and then (14:50) they talk about how Tig Nataro is funny; (16:42) some Phil Collins talk involving more NFL players than you might expect; (17:45) thank goodness it’s Friday TV, as always; (18:25) old Johnny Apple dissects the state of government funding and people hating taxes; (21:07) Texas is all up in a governor's race where one candidate says terrible stuff & the other candidate is Ann Richards; (25:42) Rob gets a little worked up about how his old home state embarrasses itself with its moronic politics, and the boys get up on their high horses about immigration and mock certain folks; (27:52) Sunday afternoons were for roundhouse kicks and feeling good before going back to the elementary school grind because (29:40) having constraints sure helps you thrive; (32:29) GAME TIME! this movie has a distinct look and some 1990 action movie music & the factually inaccurate closing credits Ninja Turtles rap; (34:27) April O’Neil is poppin!; (36:12) more puppet talk; (37:15) Judith Hoag’s feelings about the movie; (37:51) shadows everywhere!; (38:45) that first fight scene; (39:10) the Turtles revealed in the sewer; (39:46) an overview of the movie’s pros and cons; (41:40) some talk about the sequel, including those sausage nunchucks; (41:28) Joe might be saying “numchucks,” wonderfully, and Rob attempted a home invasion with Trader’s Village foam-covered plastic nunchucks; (44:33) Rob was a tempermental little fella and his Dad wasn’t tryin to deal with too much of that; (45:42) parents are legends; (46:23) Felix just has to make fun of his old man’s fondness for meditation, which is treated here in the Ninja Turtles movie like some kind of magic; (48:26) shortest halftime ever; (48:39) the opening scene of teenagers stealin stuff; (51:30) Shredder’s a cult leader, just like a certain Baptist pastor; (52:54) Shredder’s cool except not entirely; (54:38) the claymation-lookin origin story flashback weirdness; (56:30) the voice cast, which includes Corey Feldman and former Brady Bunch cutie Robbie Rist and whatever Josh Pais is up to with Raph; (58:44) why Donatello was — brace yourself — Joe’s favorite; (1:00:28) the farmhouse comes out of nowhere to slow things way down while Casey Jones badgers April into somehow liking him for no reason, then everybody gets geared up and pumped and ready to...snooze; (1:03:47) so how is it that April’s drawing tips Shredder off?; (1:04:36) time to climax with yet another confused memory; (1:06:16) you know, them turtles probably stink, like even for turtles; (1:07:23) pizza is the greatest; (1:07:54) the pizza delivery scene & Dominos vs. Pizza Hut for TMNT tie-in supremacy; odds & ends like (1:09:00) Raph’s Cagney, (1:09:45) classic 90s crappy jokes, and (1:10:23) weird British anti-ninja shenanigans; (1:11:30) some thoughts on the franchise and, finally, (1:14:47) we get grumpy about CGI. Cowabungus, Everyone!