1 00:00:10,078 --> 00:00:13,614 PETER LAIRD: We got into talking about these bus-kicking turtles. 2 00:00:13,647 --> 00:00:16,084 You know, the bus would be going along Route 108, I think it was, 3 00:00:16,117 --> 00:00:18,018 between Durham and Dover. 4 00:00:18,052 --> 00:00:20,288 Suddenly this turtle would jump out from the side of the road, 5 00:00:20,321 --> 00:00:21,855 kick the bus really hard 6 00:00:21,889 --> 00:00:23,991 and spin it around on its axis, 7 00:00:24,024 --> 00:00:26,360 and you'd be heading back the other way. 8 00:00:26,394 --> 00:00:29,963 We just got a real kick out of talking about these bus-kicking turtles. 9 00:00:29,997 --> 00:00:32,666 We would laugh uproariously. 10 00:00:32,700 --> 00:00:35,669 And I think that is where the Turtles came from. 11 00:00:40,308 --> 00:00:43,744 We had no idea how big big could be. 12 00:00:43,777 --> 00:00:47,181 I felt obligated to resist making it a total commercial. 13 00:00:47,215 --> 00:00:49,117 Every morning, 7:00 on the dot, 14 00:00:49,150 --> 00:00:51,152 I watched every single episode. 15 00:00:51,185 --> 00:00:52,853 They're kind of like the cartoon Beatles. 16 00:00:52,886 --> 00:00:56,624 It's a story that really tells you that anybody can be successful. 17 00:00:56,657 --> 00:00:58,492 Should it have happened? 18 00:00:58,526 --> 00:01:02,363 The odds are infinitesimally low, but it did. 19 00:02:24,978 --> 00:02:29,049 LAIRD: Nothing about it was planned beyond how do we do a 40-page comic 20 00:02:29,082 --> 00:02:30,884 and make it at least halfway decent? 21 00:02:32,853 --> 00:02:36,724 KEVIN EASTMAN: (ECHOING) There's too many happy accidents. 22 00:02:40,994 --> 00:02:45,599 MARK ASKWITH: In 1977, you have this really vital energy 23 00:02:45,633 --> 00:02:47,134 happening in popular culture. 24 00:02:47,167 --> 00:02:48,402 If you want, you can call it punk, 25 00:02:48,436 --> 00:02:49,970 you can call it new wave. 26 00:02:50,003 --> 00:02:53,507 A lot of stuff was happening. 27 00:02:53,541 --> 00:02:56,410 I mean, we were almost at the very end of the Cold War, 28 00:02:56,444 --> 00:02:59,347 there's a lot of multiculturalism coming out, 29 00:03:01,349 --> 00:03:04,418 and a lot of kids who felt out of place. 30 00:03:04,452 --> 00:03:06,687 They didn't know how to describe themselves 31 00:03:06,720 --> 00:03:09,122 and they didn't have the kind of community 32 00:03:09,156 --> 00:03:12,025 that previous generations have had. 33 00:03:12,059 --> 00:03:14,228 Stores like the Silver Snail, 34 00:03:14,262 --> 00:03:17,431 a lot of comic book stores in Berkeley and throughout North America 35 00:03:17,465 --> 00:03:19,967 really picked up on that energy. 36 00:03:21,569 --> 00:03:23,671 Two years before I met Kevin, 37 00:03:23,704 --> 00:03:26,940 I had started this free comic book newspaper sort of thing. 38 00:03:26,974 --> 00:03:29,677 It was actually more like a booklet, called Scat. 39 00:03:29,710 --> 00:03:32,145 I got together with a bunch of local cartoonists 40 00:03:32,179 --> 00:03:34,047 and we decided to do this thing. 41 00:03:34,081 --> 00:03:36,350 ASKWITH: It felt like Mad Magazine in the '60s. 42 00:03:36,384 --> 00:03:38,952 It had this really interesting satirical, 43 00:03:38,986 --> 00:03:41,789 black and white, kind of edgy feel. 44 00:03:41,822 --> 00:03:45,359 LAIRD: I used to love comic books as a kid, and loved reading them. 45 00:03:45,393 --> 00:03:48,161 Sometime around my first or second year of high school, I think it was, 46 00:03:48,195 --> 00:03:50,464 I became aware of Jack Kirby. 47 00:03:57,405 --> 00:04:00,374 EASTMAN: One day, riding the bus to the job I had at the local pizza parlor, 48 00:04:00,408 --> 00:04:02,376 I found this magazine called Scat 49 00:04:02,410 --> 00:04:04,011 put out by a bunch of these artists in Northampton. 50 00:04:05,779 --> 00:04:07,515 With the address in hand, I grabbed my portfolio 51 00:04:07,548 --> 00:04:09,116 and went over to their offices 52 00:04:09,149 --> 00:04:10,684 to sell some of my short stories, 53 00:04:10,718 --> 00:04:11,819 some of my ideas, 54 00:04:11,852 --> 00:04:13,387 because it was kind of like-minded, 55 00:04:13,421 --> 00:04:14,755 underground artist inspired. 56 00:04:14,788 --> 00:04:17,391 One of the guys at Scat gave him my address 57 00:04:17,425 --> 00:04:19,092 and he wrote me a letter, a very nice letter, 58 00:04:19,126 --> 00:04:21,128 and I wrote him back 59 00:04:21,161 --> 00:04:24,398 and said, "Yeah, come on over and we'll get together and talk 60 00:04:24,432 --> 00:04:26,534 "and show each other our artwork and whatnot." 61 00:04:28,135 --> 00:04:30,037 EASTMAN: I walked into his house in Northampton, 62 00:04:30,070 --> 00:04:32,005 and the first thing I saw was a Jack Kirby drawing. 63 00:04:32,039 --> 00:04:36,544 LAIRD: I had a framed Jack Kirby pencil page 64 00:04:36,577 --> 00:04:38,846 from The Losers, the DC comic, 65 00:04:38,879 --> 00:04:41,014 hanging on the wall and he just flipped out. 66 00:04:41,048 --> 00:04:43,884 Oh, my God! I had never seen an actual Jack Kirby original, 67 00:04:43,917 --> 00:04:45,553 having been such a big inspiration to me. 68 00:04:45,586 --> 00:04:47,388 And that was pretty much it. 69 00:04:47,421 --> 00:04:48,789 We hit it off from the word go. 70 00:04:51,792 --> 00:04:54,528 LAIRD: We sat in the pizza parlor in Wells, Maine 71 00:04:54,562 --> 00:04:56,764 trying to think up good names for our business. 72 00:04:58,098 --> 00:05:00,968 I remember we wrote on the back of a napkin or a placemat 73 00:05:01,001 --> 00:05:03,003 a list of about a dozen names, 74 00:05:03,036 --> 00:05:05,005 and Mirage seemed 75 00:05:05,038 --> 00:05:07,575 the coolest sounding and also the most appropriate 76 00:05:07,608 --> 00:05:09,977 because it wasn't really a studio, 77 00:05:10,010 --> 00:05:12,245 it was the two of us sitting in our tiny living room 78 00:05:12,279 --> 00:05:15,683 with our lap boards and our old stuffed chairs 79 00:05:15,716 --> 00:05:18,352 watching TV, goofing around and drawing together. 80 00:05:18,386 --> 00:05:19,587 LAIRD: Genius at work. 81 00:05:20,688 --> 00:05:21,522 (LAIRD LAUGHS) 82 00:05:30,364 --> 00:05:32,065 EASTMAN: Late one night in the studio, 83 00:05:32,099 --> 00:05:34,835 I liked to bug Pete as much as I could, 84 00:05:34,868 --> 00:05:37,137 especially when he's watching his favorite TV shows. 85 00:05:37,170 --> 00:05:40,073 LAIRD: One night, we're sitting around watching bad TV 86 00:05:42,042 --> 00:05:42,943 and that's when it happened. 87 00:05:53,854 --> 00:05:56,557 Kevin drew a turtle standing on its hind legs 88 00:05:56,590 --> 00:05:58,626 with nunchaku strapped to its forearms 89 00:05:58,659 --> 00:06:00,694 and with a bandana-style mask. 90 00:06:00,728 --> 00:06:01,795 And he showed it to me and he says, 91 00:06:01,829 --> 00:06:03,130 "Hey, this is a ninja turtle." 92 00:06:03,163 --> 00:06:04,732 And I was like, "Yeah, great." 93 00:06:04,765 --> 00:06:06,767 So I had to do my own version 94 00:06:06,800 --> 00:06:08,469 and I changed just a couple things. 95 00:06:09,470 --> 00:06:10,738 And of course I had to top him, 96 00:06:10,771 --> 00:06:13,441 so I did a sketch of four in pencil, 97 00:06:13,474 --> 00:06:16,944 and each one had different weapons and this dramatic pose, 98 00:06:16,977 --> 00:06:19,847 and I had to put the comic title above, "Ninja Turtle." 99 00:06:19,880 --> 00:06:21,815 LAIRD: He handed that to me and I inked that. 100 00:06:21,849 --> 00:06:23,917 Sometime around that point I suggested, 101 00:06:23,951 --> 00:06:26,286 "Why not add 'Teenage Mutant' to the name?" 102 00:06:26,319 --> 00:06:27,621 It had a kind of rhythm to it. 103 00:06:32,560 --> 00:06:34,294 "Dude, we have to come up with a story 104 00:06:34,327 --> 00:06:35,529 "that tells how these characters became 105 00:06:35,563 --> 00:06:36,597 "the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." 106 00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:10,731 We were both huge fans of the underground publishing movement. 107 00:07:10,764 --> 00:07:13,333 You go back to Zap Comix, Robert Crumb, Kitchen Sink, 108 00:07:13,366 --> 00:07:15,636 Rip Off Press, Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. 109 00:07:15,669 --> 00:07:17,838 A lot of that stuff we had both seen and enjoyed in the head shops 110 00:07:17,871 --> 00:07:19,640 and that kind of stuff you could find. 111 00:07:20,808 --> 00:07:22,943 We realized pretty early on in our friendship 112 00:07:22,976 --> 00:07:26,213 that we each had strengths that complement the other. 113 00:07:26,246 --> 00:07:29,950 EASTMAN: I brought the layout and the dynamic Jack Kirby-isms 114 00:07:29,983 --> 00:07:32,452 that paced out the story this way. 115 00:07:32,486 --> 00:07:35,022 He brought a lot of great subtle nuances to the story, 116 00:07:35,055 --> 00:07:37,591 certainly in the script, I think more than anything else. 117 00:07:37,625 --> 00:07:41,662 And his artwork style was much more refined, much more detailed. 118 00:07:44,798 --> 00:07:47,635 LAIRD: Kevin was really good at color, 119 00:07:47,668 --> 00:07:49,269 and he had a really powerful color sense 120 00:07:49,302 --> 00:07:51,872 and I was terrible at it. 121 00:07:51,905 --> 00:07:53,173 EASTMAN: Peter didn't do much painting. 122 00:07:53,206 --> 00:07:54,708 He did mostly 123 00:07:54,742 --> 00:07:56,343 the most amazing line work 124 00:07:56,376 --> 00:07:58,278 and detail work you could imagine. 125 00:07:58,311 --> 00:08:00,681 So, I did up a couple of roughs 126 00:08:00,714 --> 00:08:02,215 and this is probably the one I finally selected 127 00:08:02,950 --> 00:08:06,086 before we did this piece here. 128 00:08:06,119 --> 00:08:10,290 This was the first color painting of the Turtles done 129 00:08:10,323 --> 00:08:12,059 back in 1984. 130 00:08:14,662 --> 00:08:18,799 We decided early on that we'd have some of us on each page, 131 00:08:18,832 --> 00:08:20,868 whether we're penciling or inking or whatever, 132 00:08:20,901 --> 00:08:23,370 there was a bit of each of us on each page, 133 00:08:23,403 --> 00:08:26,540 and it got to be where we couldn't see where I left off 134 00:08:26,574 --> 00:08:28,709 and where he started and vice versa. 135 00:08:29,610 --> 00:08:32,045 It took us about two and a half months 136 00:08:32,079 --> 00:08:35,215 to actually complete the entire thing. 137 00:08:35,248 --> 00:08:37,785 Borrowed some money from Kevin's uncle 138 00:08:37,818 --> 00:08:39,687 and took whatever money we had ourselves, 139 00:08:39,720 --> 00:08:41,154 which wasn't a whole lot, 140 00:08:41,188 --> 00:08:44,892 and managed to scrape that all together and print 3,000 copies. 141 00:08:48,195 --> 00:08:51,364 ROSENBAUM: 1984, this comic comes out 142 00:08:51,398 --> 00:08:53,867 created by these two guys 143 00:08:53,901 --> 00:08:55,936 who love all the same stuff 144 00:08:55,969 --> 00:08:59,539 but have very different perspectives. 145 00:08:59,573 --> 00:09:04,077 One of them is more outgoing, 146 00:09:04,111 --> 00:09:06,747 interested in the violent side, 147 00:09:06,780 --> 00:09:09,149 the more emotional side of things. 148 00:09:09,182 --> 00:09:12,953 The other one is a lot more introverted, calmer, 149 00:09:12,986 --> 00:09:18,058 more intellectual in terms of storytelling, in terms of art style, 150 00:09:18,091 --> 00:09:21,394 but they're both fans of the same kinds of comics. 151 00:09:21,428 --> 00:09:23,931 One of the strange things about that first issue of the Turtles 152 00:09:23,964 --> 00:09:28,168 is it sent a very strong and different message. 153 00:09:28,201 --> 00:09:31,538 It didn't feel like a mainstream comic, 154 00:09:31,571 --> 00:09:33,040 there was something about it. 155 00:09:33,073 --> 00:09:36,143 And the fact that it was a slightly wrong size 156 00:09:36,176 --> 00:09:39,780 also gave a slight sense of edginess. 157 00:09:39,813 --> 00:09:44,217 It didn't feel like it was coming from a factory. 158 00:09:44,251 --> 00:09:47,587 ROSENBAUM: What that first issue does is comment on 159 00:09:47,621 --> 00:09:49,056 everything that's going on 160 00:09:49,089 --> 00:09:52,192 in superhero comics at the time. 161 00:09:52,225 --> 00:09:54,161 What's interesting, when the first issue came out, 162 00:09:54,194 --> 00:09:56,496 it was dubbed as a parody and it was, in a big way. 163 00:09:56,529 --> 00:09:59,867 It was like Dave Sim when he started with Cerebus. 164 00:09:59,900 --> 00:10:02,235 He drew this funny little barbarian aardvark 165 00:10:02,269 --> 00:10:04,738 that was this barbarian drawn in the style 166 00:10:04,772 --> 00:10:06,874 of Barry Windsor-Smith when he did Conan. 167 00:10:06,907 --> 00:10:09,409 What worked with Cerebus, and we tried to capture, too, 168 00:10:09,442 --> 00:10:11,578 is that Cerebus just had a lot of depth and character. 169 00:10:11,611 --> 00:10:14,081 Dave progressed the story along and made it interesting, 170 00:10:14,114 --> 00:10:15,949 and that's why he kept so many readers for 300 issues. 171 00:10:15,983 --> 00:10:18,585 And with us, we really aped a lot of 172 00:10:18,618 --> 00:10:20,688 Frank Miller-isms and Daredevil-isms. 173 00:10:20,721 --> 00:10:22,656 I mean, you look at the origin. 174 00:10:22,690 --> 00:10:24,892 The Hand in Daredevil, we have the Foot. 175 00:10:24,925 --> 00:10:27,394 Splinter is based on Stick. 176 00:10:27,427 --> 00:10:29,429 We really pulled some of our favorite bits 177 00:10:29,462 --> 00:10:31,298 from some of our favorite comics 178 00:10:31,331 --> 00:10:34,968 in, what do you call it, homage or whatever. 179 00:10:37,504 --> 00:10:40,373 ASKWITH: So, yes, they were making fun of the ninja trend, 180 00:10:40,407 --> 00:10:44,011 they were making fun of the overblown Frank Miller dialogue. 181 00:10:44,044 --> 00:10:47,514 They were making fun of the dynamic poses of Jack Kirby. 182 00:10:47,547 --> 00:10:51,518 But it was all with great love, great heart, great affection, 183 00:10:51,551 --> 00:10:54,387 and that's one of the reasons why the comic worked. 184 00:10:54,421 --> 00:10:56,656 It was real, it was passionate 185 00:10:56,690 --> 00:10:58,091 and that, you know, come on. 186 00:10:58,125 --> 00:10:59,860 That just shoots out of the pages. 187 00:11:02,295 --> 00:11:04,197 I am often asked, 188 00:11:04,231 --> 00:11:06,599 "Why did you kill your main villain off in the first issue? 189 00:11:06,633 --> 00:11:08,468 "That doesn't make a whole lot of sense." 190 00:11:08,501 --> 00:11:12,039 And the reason is that we never really thought we'd be doing a second one. 191 00:11:15,008 --> 00:11:17,377 This was done completely for fun 192 00:11:17,410 --> 00:11:20,013 and for the passion of wanting to do comics. 193 00:11:20,047 --> 00:11:23,450 And nothing about it was planned beyond 194 00:11:23,483 --> 00:11:25,218 how do we do a 40-page comic 195 00:11:25,252 --> 00:11:27,254 and make it at least halfway decent? 196 00:11:27,287 --> 00:11:29,289 After the first 3,000 were gone, 197 00:11:29,322 --> 00:11:30,457 there were more orders 198 00:11:30,490 --> 00:11:31,324 and so we printed more. 199 00:11:32,392 --> 00:11:34,694 Then we sort of figured out, well... 200 00:11:34,728 --> 00:11:36,864 Again, because we don't have a lot of other distracting paying work, 201 00:11:36,897 --> 00:11:38,698 it's like, "Let's do an issue two. 202 00:11:38,732 --> 00:11:42,002 "Let's continue to tell stories of these characters we created 203 00:11:42,035 --> 00:11:43,871 "and try to make a living at something 204 00:11:43,904 --> 00:11:45,505 "we've both dreamed about our entire life 205 00:11:45,538 --> 00:11:48,441 "which is to write, draw and tell our own comic stories." 206 00:11:52,412 --> 00:11:53,914 ASKWITH: The second issue came out, 207 00:11:53,947 --> 00:11:56,950 it felt like it was aimed at people like me. 208 00:11:56,984 --> 00:11:59,853 However, in ordering the comic 209 00:11:59,887 --> 00:12:02,022 and putting the comic on the stands, 210 00:12:02,055 --> 00:12:05,425 you began noticing that all kinds of people 211 00:12:05,458 --> 00:12:08,195 you wouldn't quite expect to pick up the comic were picking it up. 212 00:12:08,228 --> 00:12:09,662 By the time we started work on issue two, 213 00:12:09,696 --> 00:12:10,864 I was living in Portland, Maine 214 00:12:10,898 --> 00:12:13,166 and Pete was living in Sharon, Connecticut, 215 00:12:13,200 --> 00:12:16,436 and we'd done the pre-orders through the distribution system 216 00:12:16,469 --> 00:12:19,039 for how many copies that they'd want to buy for issue two, 217 00:12:19,072 --> 00:12:21,008 and the orders came in at 15,000. 218 00:12:21,041 --> 00:12:25,078 ASKWITH: And very quickly, by the third or fourth issue of the Turtles, 219 00:12:25,112 --> 00:12:28,015 it was selling more than The Avengers in the store. 220 00:12:28,048 --> 00:12:30,450 So, there was something going on. 221 00:12:30,483 --> 00:12:33,386 In many ways, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 222 00:12:33,420 --> 00:12:36,489 started what became then known as the black-and-white boom. 223 00:12:36,523 --> 00:12:40,928 And by '85, '86, it was mind-boggling how many we were selling. 224 00:12:42,896 --> 00:12:46,166 LAIRD: Doing the numbers on the second issue, the first printing of that, 225 00:12:46,199 --> 00:12:49,102 back in, I think it was, late '84 226 00:12:49,136 --> 00:12:53,841 and realizing that Kevin and I would each make $2,000 profit. 227 00:12:53,874 --> 00:12:55,375 Pete faxed me this note 228 00:12:55,408 --> 00:12:58,879 and at 15,000 copies, total cost involved, 229 00:12:58,912 --> 00:13:01,714 we'd end up with roughly $4,000 profit. 230 00:13:01,748 --> 00:13:05,285 And it was a great feeling to get to that point in life when 231 00:13:08,488 --> 00:13:11,091 what you really want to do 232 00:13:11,124 --> 00:13:13,426 turns out to be what you need to do. 233 00:13:13,460 --> 00:13:16,263 "2,000 for you, 2,000 for me, we do this every two months, 234 00:13:16,296 --> 00:13:18,098 "we could make a living drawing comics." 235 00:13:18,131 --> 00:13:20,067 I literally packed up my bags 236 00:13:20,100 --> 00:13:22,035 and moved out of Portland and moved down to Connecticut. 237 00:13:22,069 --> 00:13:25,005 We then went ahead and finished issue two. 238 00:13:47,861 --> 00:13:50,597 You know what was cool, when we did the first issue of the Turtles 239 00:13:50,630 --> 00:13:53,233 and we kind of knew who the characters were, 240 00:13:53,266 --> 00:13:55,835 we knew their personalities. 241 00:13:55,869 --> 00:14:00,273 Raphael was loosely based on me 242 00:14:00,307 --> 00:14:02,842 and Donatello was loosely based on Pete. 243 00:14:02,876 --> 00:14:05,678 But it was 40 pages, 244 00:14:05,712 --> 00:14:08,048 you really didn't get to know the characters well enough. 245 00:14:08,081 --> 00:14:10,317 They were sort of introduced. 246 00:14:10,350 --> 00:14:13,120 When we started working on the second, third and fourth issue, 247 00:14:13,153 --> 00:14:16,023 the cool part was that we really had to develop these characters. 248 00:14:16,056 --> 00:14:18,458 We had to know them better than anybody, so we could write them. 249 00:14:18,491 --> 00:14:21,428 So, like any writer, 250 00:14:21,461 --> 00:14:24,731 you kind of pull from all these influences around you. 251 00:14:24,764 --> 00:14:28,868 Your crazy Uncle Burt, your sisters, an ex-girlfriend. 252 00:14:28,902 --> 00:14:31,304 For example, April was designed and written 253 00:14:31,338 --> 00:14:34,207 after a girl that I had dated in high school, 254 00:14:34,241 --> 00:14:37,644 then we got married later and stuff. 255 00:14:37,677 --> 00:14:41,148 She was a big inspiration for that character, at least in name, 256 00:14:41,181 --> 00:14:42,382 she didn't look exactly like her. 257 00:14:42,415 --> 00:14:44,217 She did in later issues. 258 00:14:44,251 --> 00:14:47,020 Raphael, who was kind of the crazy, the hothead. 259 00:14:47,054 --> 00:14:48,922 The rest of the group think he's crazy. 260 00:14:48,956 --> 00:14:51,724 To have Raphael meet somebody crazier... 261 00:14:51,758 --> 00:14:54,794 So I started coming up with some ideas 262 00:14:54,827 --> 00:14:58,932 for a vigilante character that was not like... 263 00:14:58,966 --> 00:15:01,168 Most vigilante characters were their whole family was killed, 264 00:15:01,201 --> 00:15:03,736 there was some huge, tragic event in their life 265 00:15:03,770 --> 00:15:06,039 that got them to either put on a suit or whatever 266 00:15:06,073 --> 00:15:08,308 and strike out on their own 267 00:15:08,341 --> 00:15:10,743 to take justice on the bad guys. 268 00:15:10,777 --> 00:15:12,179 So, I came up with this guy. 269 00:15:12,212 --> 00:15:14,547 I like this name, Casey Jones. 270 00:15:14,581 --> 00:15:15,915 He didn't have this huge tragedy 271 00:15:15,949 --> 00:15:18,018 that affected his will to fight bad guys, 272 00:15:18,051 --> 00:15:19,686 it was because he watched too much bad TV. 273 00:15:19,719 --> 00:15:21,888 Pete said, "You know what would be really funny 274 00:15:21,921 --> 00:15:23,456 "is if he had a golf bag, 275 00:15:23,490 --> 00:15:25,458 "and in the golf bag he not only had bats, 276 00:15:25,492 --> 00:15:27,094 "he had a golf club, a hockey stick." 277 00:15:27,127 --> 00:15:29,696 So, he was like an all-sports nut 278 00:15:29,729 --> 00:15:32,432 and that really made the whole character perfect. 279 00:15:32,465 --> 00:15:34,234 One of my favorite movies around this time 280 00:15:34,267 --> 00:15:36,036 was a movie called Big Trouble in Little China, 281 00:15:36,069 --> 00:15:38,038 and I thought Kurt Russell as Jack Burton, 282 00:15:38,071 --> 00:15:39,439 that's Casey. 283 00:15:39,472 --> 00:15:41,008 That was really a huge inspiration. 284 00:15:47,080 --> 00:15:50,383 ROSENBAUM: It was only those first few issues that Kevin and Peter 285 00:15:50,417 --> 00:15:52,385 wrote and drew together, the two of them. 286 00:15:53,286 --> 00:15:55,455 As Ninja Turtles, the comic book, 287 00:15:55,488 --> 00:15:56,956 started getting more popular, 288 00:15:56,990 --> 00:16:00,260 they started building a studio. 289 00:16:06,933 --> 00:16:10,237 LAIRD: We actually needed to be a real business, 290 00:16:10,270 --> 00:16:12,472 so we, in fact, rented an office space. 291 00:16:12,505 --> 00:16:14,907 The comic was doing well enough that we could afford that. 292 00:16:14,941 --> 00:16:16,209 Funny story, Michelangelo was actually, 293 00:16:16,243 --> 00:16:18,011 a lot of him, was based on Steve Lavigne, 294 00:16:18,045 --> 00:16:19,612 who still works with the studio. 295 00:16:19,646 --> 00:16:21,481 I went to high school with Steve, and he was 296 00:16:21,514 --> 00:16:23,883 the Robin Williams of our high school. 297 00:16:23,916 --> 00:16:26,253 He always had the wrong joke at the right time. 298 00:16:26,286 --> 00:16:28,621 Pretty soon after school, 299 00:16:28,655 --> 00:16:30,690 he got the first book out and came back to... 300 00:16:30,723 --> 00:16:33,426 He was living out in Western Mass here with Pete 301 00:16:33,460 --> 00:16:34,927 and came back and asked if I was 302 00:16:34,961 --> 00:16:36,629 interested in maybe coming on board 303 00:16:36,663 --> 00:16:38,131 and doing the lettering, because he really hated 304 00:16:38,165 --> 00:16:39,866 the lettering aspect of the book. 305 00:16:39,899 --> 00:16:42,602 I was like, "Eh, I'll give it a shot," and he taught me to letter 306 00:16:42,635 --> 00:16:44,871 and pretty soon took that over 307 00:16:44,904 --> 00:16:46,973 and just kind of moved my way through. 308 00:16:47,006 --> 00:16:48,108 (INDISTINCT CONVERSATION) 309 00:16:48,141 --> 00:16:50,277 Totally... 310 00:16:51,844 --> 00:16:52,712 (LAUGHING) 311 00:16:53,980 --> 00:16:55,748 (IN FUNNY VOICE) Who is that boy? 312 00:16:57,150 --> 00:16:58,185 It was so weird, I went in there 313 00:16:58,218 --> 00:16:59,452 and there were these three guys 314 00:16:59,486 --> 00:17:01,788 kind of just acting wacky 315 00:17:03,690 --> 00:17:06,659 and having great success at this comic book they were publishing. 316 00:17:06,693 --> 00:17:09,028 So, I showed them my stuff, 317 00:17:09,062 --> 00:17:11,831 and I think maybe right on the spot at that time, 318 00:17:11,864 --> 00:17:13,433 they offered me an inking job. 319 00:17:13,466 --> 00:17:14,734 EASTMAN: You drew that on there? 320 00:17:16,736 --> 00:17:18,971 LAIRD: Ryan became a real important part of the studio, 321 00:17:19,005 --> 00:17:21,141 he was inking Tales of the Turtles, 322 00:17:21,174 --> 00:17:24,644 the first volume of that. 323 00:17:24,677 --> 00:17:28,381 He got heavily into the licensing art world 324 00:17:28,415 --> 00:17:30,417 along with Steve Lavigne. 325 00:17:31,384 --> 00:17:33,286 It was one of those fortuitous things, 326 00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:35,788 Ryan just came up to us at a show and introduced himself. 327 00:17:35,822 --> 00:17:37,457 The early days of Mirage, 328 00:17:37,490 --> 00:17:39,726 we really had full rein on the Turtles. 329 00:17:39,759 --> 00:17:42,295 We could think of ideas and take it to Pete and Kevin. 330 00:17:42,329 --> 00:17:46,466 We all worked together on it and it was really 331 00:17:46,499 --> 00:17:48,868 the best time of my life creatively. 332 00:17:48,901 --> 00:17:51,070 This is my first lesson in using high technology. 333 00:17:52,105 --> 00:17:54,274 LAIRD: And what do you think of it, Mike? 334 00:17:54,307 --> 00:17:57,577 I think that I'm basically a cave dweller. 335 00:17:57,610 --> 00:18:00,280 We all clicked immediately, it was amazing. 336 00:18:00,313 --> 00:18:02,515 Every one of us, 337 00:18:02,549 --> 00:18:05,852 we were just absorbed into the clique right away. 338 00:18:05,885 --> 00:18:09,021 BROWN: It was just insane. It was a circus every day. 339 00:18:09,055 --> 00:18:12,225 Work a little bit, play airsoft rifles, 340 00:18:12,259 --> 00:18:14,594 shoot each other, play basketball. 341 00:18:14,627 --> 00:18:18,565 Then we'd go to lunch at noon, come back at 2:00. 342 00:18:18,598 --> 00:18:20,733 We'd usually go shop in the model shops. 343 00:18:23,270 --> 00:18:25,071 One of the guys used to refer to it as, 344 00:18:25,104 --> 00:18:27,073 "We have to take an occasional work break." 345 00:18:27,106 --> 00:18:31,178 Meaning that in between whatever we used to do, 346 00:18:31,211 --> 00:18:34,781 throw things at each other, airsoft gun battles in the studio, 347 00:18:35,482 --> 00:18:37,417 we'd have to remember that, 348 00:18:37,450 --> 00:18:41,053 "Oh, yeah, we have to get that T-shirt design done." 349 00:18:41,087 --> 00:18:43,923 Or whatever it is that people were working on at the time. 350 00:18:43,956 --> 00:18:46,626 LAWSON: When you think about the guys that have assembled here 351 00:18:46,659 --> 00:18:48,795 for this purpose of drawing the Turtles, 352 00:18:49,762 --> 00:18:52,265 it's amazing to me. 353 00:18:52,299 --> 00:18:56,736 They're Dooney and Berger, Steve and me, Eric. 354 00:18:57,570 --> 00:18:58,871 LAVIGNE: Ryan. 355 00:18:58,905 --> 00:19:02,141 LAWSON: Yeah, we've been like a family, really. 356 00:19:02,175 --> 00:19:05,378 We've worked together, we've played together, it's stunning to me. 357 00:19:05,412 --> 00:19:06,779 It really, I think, is a rare 358 00:19:06,813 --> 00:19:08,548 and kind of cool thing that Mirage did there. 359 00:19:15,188 --> 00:19:17,590 The Turtles have always been very malleable. 360 00:19:18,791 --> 00:19:21,661 Different artists have different takes on them, 361 00:19:21,694 --> 00:19:23,596 some more cartoony than others, 362 00:19:24,797 --> 00:19:26,799 some more realistic than others. 363 00:19:28,801 --> 00:19:32,439 BROWN: Mike Dooney, he's a great all-around artist, 364 00:19:32,472 --> 00:19:33,373 especially his paintings. 365 00:19:36,809 --> 00:19:40,413 And Jim's dynamic with his layouts 366 00:19:40,447 --> 00:19:42,482 and his poses that his characters strike. 367 00:19:46,953 --> 00:19:51,258 Eric's a fan favorite, everyone loves his stuff, because his is real gritty, 368 00:19:51,291 --> 00:19:54,327 kind of, in a way of, like, Kevin gritty. 369 00:19:54,361 --> 00:19:56,296 And I've always really admired Pete's work, 370 00:19:56,329 --> 00:19:57,997 because I think it's so polished. 371 00:19:58,030 --> 00:20:00,066 Kevin and I were incredibly happy 372 00:20:00,099 --> 00:20:01,401 with what was going on with the comic 373 00:20:01,434 --> 00:20:04,404 because it was selling really well, 374 00:20:04,437 --> 00:20:06,606 I think issue eight was our high point, 375 00:20:06,639 --> 00:20:08,941 135,000 copies of a black-and-white comic. 376 00:20:10,209 --> 00:20:12,178 It was really a dream come true, 377 00:20:12,211 --> 00:20:14,281 we were doing exactly what we wanted to do, 378 00:20:14,314 --> 00:20:16,349 drawing what we wanted to draw 379 00:20:16,383 --> 00:20:17,950 and making good money at it. 380 00:20:17,984 --> 00:20:19,218 Pete! 381 00:20:19,252 --> 00:20:20,387 LAIRD: What's that, Kev? 382 00:20:21,588 --> 00:20:23,590 See, we had a design idea here. 383 00:20:23,623 --> 00:20:25,692 See up here where it's all white, 384 00:20:25,725 --> 00:20:29,195 and this is a solid black building wall. 385 00:20:29,228 --> 00:20:31,598 I kind of got the idea that I thought it should go all the way to the top. 386 00:20:38,137 --> 00:20:42,509 The fact that it was selling more than The Avengers was kind of wacky, 387 00:20:42,542 --> 00:20:44,544 but to me it still wasn't mainstream, 388 00:20:44,577 --> 00:20:46,979 and it wasn't mainstream until Surge Licensing hit 389 00:20:47,013 --> 00:20:48,315 and the Turtles really changed 390 00:20:48,348 --> 00:20:51,451 and became more of a mainstream product. 391 00:20:51,484 --> 00:20:53,686 That was what really surprised me. 392 00:20:53,720 --> 00:20:55,722 When the boys decided, "You know what, 393 00:20:55,755 --> 00:20:59,326 "we're gonna not control this so much, 394 00:20:59,359 --> 00:21:00,827 "we're gonna open it up 395 00:21:00,860 --> 00:21:03,630 "and we're gonna let it be something for kids." 396 00:21:03,663 --> 00:21:06,399 That was a really interesting decision. 397 00:21:07,266 --> 00:21:09,336 Then the Turtles went mainstream 398 00:21:09,369 --> 00:21:11,304 in a way that nobody could have expected. 399 00:21:29,722 --> 00:21:33,693 The fact that Mark Freedman showed up as a fan 400 00:21:33,726 --> 00:21:36,663 and convinced Kevin and Peter 401 00:21:36,696 --> 00:21:39,432 to let him take this chance with the toys 402 00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:42,402 was another one of these moments 403 00:21:42,435 --> 00:21:45,638 where without this one thing, 404 00:21:45,672 --> 00:21:49,041 the whole franchise would never have existed. 405 00:21:53,413 --> 00:21:56,516 We started getting a couple calls from licensing agents, people that said... 406 00:21:56,549 --> 00:21:57,784 We'd get this call and be like, 407 00:21:57,817 --> 00:21:59,719 "I'm so-and-so, I'm from New York, 408 00:21:59,752 --> 00:22:01,287 "I represent blah, blah, blah... 409 00:22:01,320 --> 00:22:03,756 "I think that your characters would make 410 00:22:03,790 --> 00:22:06,393 "great cartoon characters or toy characters." 411 00:22:07,226 --> 00:22:09,295 When I first heard the words 412 00:22:09,328 --> 00:22:11,931 "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," 413 00:22:11,964 --> 00:22:14,300 I jumped out of my skin. 414 00:22:14,333 --> 00:22:16,636 There was something about that name. 415 00:22:16,669 --> 00:22:18,337 We had a meeting with a couple of these guys 416 00:22:18,371 --> 00:22:20,139 that we really weren't that impressed with 417 00:22:20,172 --> 00:22:23,410 and until I think 418 00:22:23,443 --> 00:22:26,979 agent number five or six that called was a guy named Mark Freedman, 419 00:22:27,013 --> 00:22:28,548 and he wanted to come up and meet with us. 420 00:22:28,581 --> 00:22:30,149 He showed up at our office door, 421 00:22:30,182 --> 00:22:32,018 both Peter and I were in shorts 422 00:22:32,051 --> 00:22:34,721 and short-sleeved shirts, and we had been re-painting the office. 423 00:22:34,754 --> 00:22:38,290 So, it was one of these worlds in collision kind of things. 424 00:22:38,324 --> 00:22:40,693 My suit was rented, my tie was rented, my car was rented. 425 00:22:41,894 --> 00:22:44,564 I am absolutely camera shy. I absolutely hate it. 426 00:22:44,597 --> 00:22:46,365 LAIRD: Too late, Mark. 427 00:22:46,399 --> 00:22:49,035 He starts on a spiel where, "I want five years 428 00:22:49,068 --> 00:22:51,771 "and I want this and I want to do blah, blah, blah..." 429 00:22:51,804 --> 00:22:53,806 And we said, "Mark, we've been down this road before, 430 00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:55,341 "we understand trademark and copyright, 431 00:22:55,374 --> 00:22:56,609 "and we've protected our characters 432 00:22:56,643 --> 00:23:01,614 "and we're very happy with the business we have now." 433 00:23:01,648 --> 00:23:05,017 I know I've gotta represent the Turtles, this is gonna be it, 434 00:23:05,952 --> 00:23:08,955 and I would have done any deal with them. 435 00:23:08,988 --> 00:23:12,224 "We'll give you 30 days, 45 days, and you go out 436 00:23:12,258 --> 00:23:14,561 "and if you can bring back something interesting offer-wise, 437 00:23:14,594 --> 00:23:15,795 "then we'll continue talking with you, 438 00:23:15,828 --> 00:23:17,163 "and you'll progress from there." 439 00:23:17,196 --> 00:23:20,166 FREEDMAN: They gave me two things as a going away present. 440 00:23:20,199 --> 00:23:24,537 One was an original first printing of the comic 441 00:23:24,571 --> 00:23:28,340 where they wrote, "Go out and make me $1 million or else." 442 00:23:28,374 --> 00:23:33,446 And they also gave me a 4-foot foam rubber replica of a Turtle, 443 00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:35,948 which I knew would really help me 444 00:23:36,883 --> 00:23:39,719 in presenting this to various toy companies 445 00:23:39,752 --> 00:23:41,420 and broadcasters and so on and so forth. 446 00:23:41,454 --> 00:23:44,023 I'm leaving Northampton in my rented car 447 00:23:44,056 --> 00:23:46,493 and I've got this 4-foot turtle next to me. 448 00:23:46,526 --> 00:23:50,229 I had in my hands what I hoped would be, 449 00:23:50,262 --> 00:23:53,265 of course, no one knew, what I hoped would be a terrific hit. 450 00:23:53,299 --> 00:23:55,201 Now the real work begins. 451 00:24:03,442 --> 00:24:06,078 I was laughed at by a lot of people. 452 00:24:06,112 --> 00:24:08,748 I even heard secondhand that even Disney looked at it at one point 453 00:24:08,781 --> 00:24:11,518 and thought it was ridiculous. 454 00:24:11,551 --> 00:24:15,454 So, again, it's the classic story of people always reject 455 00:24:15,488 --> 00:24:17,590 what they don't understand. 456 00:24:19,892 --> 00:24:24,030 Ultimately, I contacted a guy by the name of Richard Sallis, 457 00:24:24,063 --> 00:24:26,899 who was the marketing director at Playmates Toys. 458 00:24:26,933 --> 00:24:29,569 And I tell him, "I have a really interesting property. 459 00:24:29,602 --> 00:24:31,403 "I've got to send you something first." 460 00:24:31,437 --> 00:24:32,605 I call up my friend Richard, 461 00:24:32,639 --> 00:24:33,840 I said, "Richard, you get the box?" 462 00:24:33,873 --> 00:24:36,909 He said, "Yeah. What is it?" 463 00:24:36,943 --> 00:24:39,979 JOHN HANDY: And Playmates manufactured action figures 464 00:24:40,012 --> 00:24:42,615 for all kinds of companies, including Mattel. 465 00:24:42,649 --> 00:24:45,051 But they weren't marketed under their own name. 466 00:24:45,084 --> 00:24:46,686 So, we were interested 467 00:24:46,719 --> 00:24:48,788 in possibly getting into the action figure business, 468 00:24:48,821 --> 00:24:50,489 but I only wanted to do it if we could do something 469 00:24:50,523 --> 00:24:52,291 that was completely different. 470 00:24:52,324 --> 00:24:55,762 And one particular day, these black-and-white comic books came in 471 00:24:55,795 --> 00:24:58,030 about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 472 00:24:58,064 --> 00:25:00,900 And Karl Aaronian, who was the marketing guy, and myself 473 00:25:00,933 --> 00:25:03,002 were asked to evaluate these 474 00:25:03,035 --> 00:25:04,971 and see what we thought, if there was anything there. 475 00:25:05,004 --> 00:25:07,707 Richard Sallis, who eventually became my boss, 476 00:25:07,740 --> 00:25:11,410 and really the key to Turtles in many ways, 477 00:25:11,443 --> 00:25:13,613 threw me a couple of the comic books across the table 478 00:25:13,646 --> 00:25:16,683 and said, "What do you think about this?" 479 00:25:16,716 --> 00:25:19,986 And I guess I gave the right answer, because I got hired. 480 00:25:20,019 --> 00:25:22,855 And we both independently fell in love with them 481 00:25:22,889 --> 00:25:24,423 and thought in their current form, 482 00:25:24,456 --> 00:25:26,258 they're a little too adult for kids, 483 00:25:26,292 --> 00:25:29,796 but in a different form, the essence of what they were all about 484 00:25:29,829 --> 00:25:31,698 would be perfect for an action figure line. 485 00:25:31,731 --> 00:25:33,099 The more we worked with it, 486 00:25:33,132 --> 00:25:35,367 the more we had tangible things in our hands, 487 00:25:35,401 --> 00:25:38,137 the more we decided this was gonna be really big. 488 00:25:38,170 --> 00:25:40,506 And being the over-promoter that I am, 489 00:25:40,539 --> 00:25:41,641 I told everyone in the company, 490 00:25:41,674 --> 00:25:43,042 "On Friday, you're gonna see 491 00:25:43,075 --> 00:25:45,177 "the best product line you've ever seen in your life, 492 00:25:45,211 --> 00:25:47,413 "it's gonna change the face of Playmates Toys." 493 00:25:47,446 --> 00:25:49,381 So everyone came. 494 00:25:49,415 --> 00:25:50,817 We sat around this big table, 495 00:25:50,850 --> 00:25:52,484 and Karl and I proceeded 496 00:25:52,518 --> 00:25:55,054 to tell the story of the Turtles and show these products, 497 00:25:55,087 --> 00:25:57,156 and we were so into it, we weren't even really 498 00:25:57,189 --> 00:25:59,592 watching the reaction of the crowd, 499 00:25:59,626 --> 00:26:02,261 which wasn't particularly good. 500 00:26:02,294 --> 00:26:05,031 (INDISTINCT TALKING) 501 00:26:05,064 --> 00:26:07,667 I remember sitting in my office with Karl, 502 00:26:07,700 --> 00:26:09,702 and we were polishing up our resumes. 503 00:26:09,736 --> 00:26:11,938 Just basically we gotta get out of here, because we just had... 504 00:26:11,971 --> 00:26:13,572 We just wasted three months 505 00:26:13,606 --> 00:26:15,407 and the company's not that happy with us. 506 00:26:15,441 --> 00:26:17,509 And in comes Richard Sallis, 507 00:26:17,543 --> 00:26:19,011 who was the head of marketing, 508 00:26:19,045 --> 00:26:22,715 and he said, "Hey, guys, I really loved the Turtles on Friday. 509 00:26:22,749 --> 00:26:24,250 "That was great. Great product line." 510 00:26:26,152 --> 00:26:28,988 And we were just silent, and I said, "Mr. Sallis, 511 00:26:29,021 --> 00:26:30,657 "it would be awfully great of you 512 00:26:30,690 --> 00:26:32,524 "if you had said something in the meeting, 513 00:26:32,558 --> 00:26:34,426 "we needed a little bit of support there." 514 00:26:34,460 --> 00:26:35,728 And he goes, "No, you lost the crowd, 515 00:26:35,762 --> 00:26:37,864 "the crowd was against you, 516 00:26:37,897 --> 00:26:40,099 "but it's not the end. It's never quite the end." 517 00:26:45,037 --> 00:26:47,106 The comic wasn't reaching a broad enough audience. 518 00:26:47,139 --> 00:26:50,309 So, we knew before we could sell a single toy, 519 00:26:50,342 --> 00:26:54,613 we had to produce the backstory in animation. 520 00:26:54,647 --> 00:26:56,816 We had to tell the story through television 521 00:26:56,849 --> 00:26:57,850 and bring it to the kids. 522 00:27:05,357 --> 00:27:08,728 It was 1985 or '86 523 00:27:08,761 --> 00:27:10,930 when an advertising agency 524 00:27:10,963 --> 00:27:14,967 named Sachs Finley came to me with a comic book 525 00:27:15,001 --> 00:27:17,403 and put it down on the table in front of me 526 00:27:17,436 --> 00:27:20,907 and said, "Fred, can you make a TV show out of this?" 527 00:27:20,940 --> 00:27:22,675 First I kept staring at the title, 528 00:27:22,709 --> 00:27:24,476 and I thought, "This is cool." 529 00:27:24,510 --> 00:27:26,512 And I said, "Well, I'll look at it, 530 00:27:26,545 --> 00:27:28,280 "but I think it's safe to say 531 00:27:28,314 --> 00:27:30,950 "I can make a TV program of just about anything." 532 00:27:30,983 --> 00:27:32,651 They went to a writer named Chuck Lorre. 533 00:27:34,053 --> 00:27:38,257 Chuck Lorre created Grace Under Fire, 534 00:27:38,290 --> 00:27:41,093 Big Bang Theory, Two and a Half Men. 535 00:27:41,127 --> 00:27:46,498 He's the most successful sitcom guy probably of all time. 536 00:27:46,532 --> 00:27:49,936 At that time, he was doing animation 537 00:27:49,969 --> 00:27:53,472 and he was already moving into sitcoms, 538 00:27:53,505 --> 00:27:55,607 and he just didn't have the time to do it. 539 00:27:55,641 --> 00:27:57,810 He said, "But I know this guy 540 00:27:57,844 --> 00:27:59,645 "who would be perfect for it." 541 00:27:59,678 --> 00:28:03,682 And working with the writer, David Wise, 542 00:28:03,716 --> 00:28:07,053 who was, in my opinion, what really set 543 00:28:08,587 --> 00:28:10,790 the keystone of the whole franchise. 544 00:28:10,823 --> 00:28:13,726 He said, "I'm calling because 545 00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:16,028 "we're going to be doing this new show." 546 00:28:17,329 --> 00:28:20,366 And with great embarrassment in his voice 547 00:28:20,399 --> 00:28:27,306 he said, "It's sort of about teenagers and mutants." 548 00:28:27,339 --> 00:28:30,042 And I said, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?" 549 00:28:30,076 --> 00:28:33,780 And you could hear him 550 00:28:33,813 --> 00:28:36,148 fall over backwards at the other end of the line. 551 00:28:36,182 --> 00:28:38,284 You could hear the back of his head hit the floor, 552 00:28:38,317 --> 00:28:40,186 when he picked himself up, he said, "You've heard of it?" 553 00:28:40,219 --> 00:28:42,321 I said, "I have the first five issues of the comic." 554 00:28:42,354 --> 00:28:46,592 So, very cleverly, while Playmates Toys was designing these toys 555 00:28:46,625 --> 00:28:49,361 to be made from the comic book, 556 00:28:49,395 --> 00:28:51,798 we were making the TV show. 557 00:28:51,831 --> 00:28:53,933 WISE: It's such a genius title, 558 00:28:53,966 --> 00:28:56,702 it's such a genius concept. 559 00:28:56,735 --> 00:28:59,471 If we do it right, it could be a hit. 560 00:28:59,505 --> 00:29:02,608 And so really, especially those first five episodes 561 00:29:02,641 --> 00:29:06,112 that set the table for everything else that followed 562 00:29:06,145 --> 00:29:08,881 was a collaborative effort between Playmates 563 00:29:08,915 --> 00:29:11,617 and Fred and everybody else. 564 00:29:11,650 --> 00:29:14,053 EASTMAN: Playmates Toys. 565 00:29:14,086 --> 00:29:16,789 Playmates Toys flew us out to California 566 00:29:16,823 --> 00:29:19,425 and started discussing the Turtles as toys. 567 00:29:20,492 --> 00:29:22,194 Added into the mix shortly thereafter 568 00:29:22,228 --> 00:29:23,595 was Turtles as an animated series, 569 00:29:23,629 --> 00:29:27,834 and even in those days, you're talking '86, '87, 570 00:29:27,867 --> 00:29:29,435 you still had to have this partnership between 571 00:29:29,468 --> 00:29:32,338 the animation and toy companies as commercial exploitation 572 00:29:32,371 --> 00:29:34,306 and get the thing out there so everybody makes money. 573 00:29:34,340 --> 00:29:36,108 This is very neat. 574 00:29:36,142 --> 00:29:38,377 LAIRD: It's pretty nutty. 575 00:29:38,410 --> 00:29:39,745 (IMITATING SCREAMING) 576 00:29:39,778 --> 00:29:41,948 Let's talk first about action figures. 577 00:29:42,614 --> 00:29:47,486 In December of 1986, 578 00:29:47,519 --> 00:29:52,224 we signed our first license with Playmates Toys. 579 00:29:54,193 --> 00:29:56,262 Kevin called and says, "Get over here, 580 00:29:56,295 --> 00:29:57,830 "we got big news." 581 00:29:57,864 --> 00:30:00,332 So, Jim and I hopped in the car and went over, 582 00:30:00,366 --> 00:30:03,335 and they said Playmates had accepted the Turtles and they were gonna do it. 583 00:30:03,870 --> 00:30:06,072 (ALL CHEERING) 584 00:30:06,105 --> 00:30:08,274 And it was just great, it was just amazing. 585 00:30:09,876 --> 00:30:11,677 (LAUGHING) 586 00:30:11,710 --> 00:30:13,846 Yeah! Yeah! 587 00:30:13,880 --> 00:30:17,283 Mom goes, "This is my dream come true." 588 00:30:17,316 --> 00:30:20,019 It was a surreal moment to think 589 00:30:21,653 --> 00:30:24,723 less than three years 590 00:30:24,756 --> 00:30:27,393 after we scraped together the money 591 00:30:27,426 --> 00:30:30,496 to publish this first issue of the Turtle comic, 592 00:30:30,529 --> 00:30:34,366 we were gonna have a TV show and a toy line. 593 00:30:34,400 --> 00:30:36,302 Ladies and gentlemen, 594 00:30:36,335 --> 00:30:39,005 this is for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 595 00:30:39,038 --> 00:30:40,806 Wait a minute, is it on? (GRUNTS) 596 00:30:40,839 --> 00:30:42,341 (CORK POPS) (ALL CHEERING) 597 00:30:47,846 --> 00:30:49,581 We should do a massive toast. 598 00:30:50,482 --> 00:30:52,985 (ALL CHEERING) 599 00:31:13,039 --> 00:31:16,008 In the early iterations of our product line, 600 00:31:16,042 --> 00:31:17,910 we had a lot of things that we were 601 00:31:17,944 --> 00:31:19,478 looking at and struggling with. 602 00:31:19,511 --> 00:31:22,648 We thought we would take everyone who would be 603 00:31:22,681 --> 00:31:25,151 a recognizable kind of character in New York City, 604 00:31:25,184 --> 00:31:27,186 a fireman, policeman, baker, 605 00:31:27,219 --> 00:31:29,155 most of them were bad guys, 606 00:31:29,188 --> 00:31:32,158 and they had weapons relating to their profession. 607 00:31:36,262 --> 00:31:38,564 Powerfully spring-loaded leg right here, 608 00:31:38,597 --> 00:31:40,466 you'd cock it back 609 00:31:40,499 --> 00:31:43,069 and then you got your trigger in the back, and you aim this thing. 610 00:31:43,102 --> 00:31:44,436 And Kevin and Peter had to look 611 00:31:44,470 --> 00:31:46,973 at all these things about these crazy bakers 612 00:31:47,006 --> 00:31:49,942 that had pizza throwing devices and all this stuff. 613 00:31:49,976 --> 00:31:54,513 LAIRD: There's an aspect of this character that disturbs me, 614 00:31:54,546 --> 00:31:57,783 and it's sort of related to what we were talking about earlier 615 00:31:57,816 --> 00:32:02,454 about drifting over into the really silly stupid realm. 616 00:32:02,488 --> 00:32:05,424 EASTMAN: Yeah, too beyond. Too much. 617 00:32:06,358 --> 00:32:08,660 We did some goofier things, 618 00:32:08,694 --> 00:32:11,964 and even the figures themselves, 619 00:32:11,998 --> 00:32:15,001 quite frankly, were probably too ambitious, 620 00:32:15,034 --> 00:32:17,903 because we had sculpted figures that were huge, 621 00:32:17,936 --> 00:32:20,572 and some of the bad guys were muscle-bound 622 00:32:20,606 --> 00:32:24,110 and probably would have been a $10 figure in 1988. 623 00:32:25,978 --> 00:32:27,946 You have to go as far as you can 624 00:32:27,980 --> 00:32:30,649 and iterate as much as you can 625 00:32:30,682 --> 00:32:32,051 and then pull it back in. 626 00:32:32,084 --> 00:32:34,153 If you start narrow focused, you'll stay there, 627 00:32:34,186 --> 00:32:36,155 so we blew it out as big as we could. 628 00:32:37,123 --> 00:32:39,558 The key for playsets in those days 629 00:32:39,591 --> 00:32:42,394 is let the playset be a character as well. 630 00:32:42,428 --> 00:32:46,098 So if you remember Snake Mountain and Castle Grayskull 631 00:32:46,132 --> 00:32:48,334 and all these things, they had characters to them. 632 00:32:48,367 --> 00:32:50,136 So, we were even struggling with what would the Turtle... 633 00:32:50,169 --> 00:32:52,404 Would there be something built into the walls 634 00:32:52,438 --> 00:32:55,141 of the Turtles' lair in the sewer 635 00:32:55,174 --> 00:32:59,145 that would be a character that could also talk and be part of it? 636 00:32:59,178 --> 00:33:01,447 But I think what happened 637 00:33:01,480 --> 00:33:03,849 is Bill Carlson felt like that looked like a deity. 638 00:33:03,882 --> 00:33:07,053 He said there'll be no deities in the Playmates line, 639 00:33:07,086 --> 00:33:09,288 so we had to cancel that out, 640 00:33:09,321 --> 00:33:11,323 and it didn't hurt anything to get rid of it 641 00:33:11,357 --> 00:33:12,924 because it really didn't need that. 642 00:33:12,958 --> 00:33:15,927 That was just a place for them to hang out 643 00:33:15,961 --> 00:33:18,264 and it made it less complicated 644 00:33:18,297 --> 00:33:20,399 to explain what that character was anyway. 645 00:33:20,432 --> 00:33:23,035 Like anything else, we retrenched and said, "Okay, 646 00:33:23,069 --> 00:33:25,704 "let's dial it back a couple of notches 647 00:33:25,737 --> 00:33:28,940 "and let's try to make this a little more realistic." 648 00:33:28,974 --> 00:33:33,179 So, it meant making the figures somewhat smaller. 649 00:33:35,047 --> 00:33:36,482 This to me is like the perfect size. 650 00:33:36,515 --> 00:33:37,783 EASTMAN: Is that the size you want? 651 00:33:37,816 --> 00:33:38,650 That's the size we're going for. 652 00:33:38,684 --> 00:33:40,119 I love it. 653 00:33:40,152 --> 00:33:42,221 Three and a half inches was the scale we picked, 654 00:33:42,254 --> 00:33:43,389 and that's small, 655 00:33:43,422 --> 00:33:45,524 that would be the size of a G.I. Joe, 656 00:33:45,557 --> 00:33:48,194 but with the bulk of the Turtles, they looked bigger. 657 00:33:48,227 --> 00:33:50,062 And then that scale worked with 658 00:33:50,096 --> 00:33:52,664 all kinds of vehicles that we could create. 659 00:33:52,698 --> 00:33:56,034 We put the essence of the Turtle into every product, 660 00:33:56,068 --> 00:33:59,371 so the van had the turtle shell top 661 00:33:59,405 --> 00:34:02,474 and the helicopter had that grimacing face, 662 00:34:02,508 --> 00:34:05,211 and we just had turtle essence in all of the stuff that they had. 663 00:34:05,244 --> 00:34:08,714 The Turtles' lair playset and the Technodrome 664 00:34:08,747 --> 00:34:11,183 were these golden opportunities 665 00:34:11,217 --> 00:34:14,420 to put everything in its correct context. 666 00:34:14,453 --> 00:34:17,256 They were almost legendary among my friends. 667 00:34:20,492 --> 00:34:23,095 WISE: I basically wanted a mobile villain's headquarters. 668 00:34:23,129 --> 00:34:25,364 So I had the idea of this big giant thing on wheels, 669 00:34:25,397 --> 00:34:28,767 and I said, "It's this huge globe, 670 00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:32,138 "it's like a world, it's like a Death Star on wheels." 671 00:34:32,904 --> 00:34:35,073 So, that's what the design did. 672 00:34:35,107 --> 00:34:36,275 What I didn't say was, 673 00:34:36,308 --> 00:34:38,277 "It had a big eyeball on top." 674 00:34:38,310 --> 00:34:40,446 That wasn't my idea, that was a design idea. 675 00:34:40,479 --> 00:34:43,482 My physical contribution just on the action figures alone, 676 00:34:43,515 --> 00:34:45,717 taking one that was already posed out 677 00:34:45,751 --> 00:34:48,987 and deciding to cut that up as a posed figure. 678 00:34:49,020 --> 00:34:52,391 Not with the arms straight down and the legs straight out, 679 00:34:52,424 --> 00:34:57,463 and cut the limbs and bias the forearms and put the ball sockets in, 680 00:34:57,496 --> 00:35:01,900 and actually realized that that makes a better figure than one that was 681 00:35:01,933 --> 00:35:03,569 traditionally before that. 682 00:35:03,602 --> 00:35:05,103 They were all straight up and down 683 00:35:05,137 --> 00:35:06,905 and you put the pose on them. 684 00:35:06,938 --> 00:35:11,009 Well, we started with the first size study that Steve Varner did 685 00:35:11,042 --> 00:35:13,745 and actually made the articulation based on that. 686 00:35:13,779 --> 00:35:16,648 VARNER: He just had the black-and-white comic book, that's all he had. 687 00:35:16,682 --> 00:35:19,285 He just showed me the comic book and it was really 688 00:35:19,318 --> 00:35:23,789 up to me to come up with my version of it. 689 00:35:23,822 --> 00:35:27,193 And to begin with, at least on these first ones, 690 00:35:27,226 --> 00:35:29,361 there were no drawings involved, 691 00:35:29,395 --> 00:35:31,230 I just did it in 3D. 692 00:35:31,263 --> 00:35:33,232 I just kind of went, 693 00:35:33,265 --> 00:35:36,968 "Okay, well, this is what I would do to make it the way I like it." (LAUGHS) 694 00:35:37,002 --> 00:35:39,405 The only differences, really, 695 00:35:39,438 --> 00:35:43,809 is that first one that we did had a tail, which we lost. 696 00:35:43,842 --> 00:35:47,012 But other than that, it just pretty much stayed the same. 697 00:35:47,045 --> 00:35:50,416 There was a lot of focus on the fact that they were in the sewer. 698 00:35:50,449 --> 00:35:52,150 And what's in the sewer, you know? 699 00:35:52,184 --> 00:35:55,687 Nasty, ugly, stinky stuff, 700 00:35:55,721 --> 00:35:59,558 and how can we play that up, but in a nice clean way 701 00:35:59,591 --> 00:36:02,561 for consumption? Not literally, hopefully. 702 00:36:02,594 --> 00:36:04,963 Most toy guys would realize from day one 703 00:36:04,996 --> 00:36:09,401 that you've gotta sell multiple characters, figures, 704 00:36:09,435 --> 00:36:12,438 and if they look identical or similar, 705 00:36:12,471 --> 00:36:13,839 that's gonna be tough to do. 706 00:36:13,872 --> 00:36:16,107 That's probably the only limitation of Turtles I can think of. 707 00:36:16,141 --> 00:36:17,309 It's perfect in every other respect, 708 00:36:17,343 --> 00:36:18,910 it's unique, it's exciting, 709 00:36:18,944 --> 00:36:20,679 is that a Turtle's a Turtle. 710 00:36:20,712 --> 00:36:22,414 So, from day one, I think he realized, 711 00:36:22,448 --> 00:36:23,649 even in the graphic novels 712 00:36:23,682 --> 00:36:25,751 where they all had red bandanas, 713 00:36:25,784 --> 00:36:29,120 that there had to be more differentiation of the Turtles. 714 00:36:29,154 --> 00:36:30,556 If you have four characters, 715 00:36:30,589 --> 00:36:32,591 especially four characters who look alike, 716 00:36:32,624 --> 00:36:34,693 you want to give them distinct personalities. 717 00:36:34,726 --> 00:36:37,062 In the comic, the only way you could tell them apart 718 00:36:37,095 --> 00:36:40,065 was by what weapon they were carrying. 719 00:36:40,098 --> 00:36:43,802 AARONIAN: Now, that ended up being done with color more than anything else. 720 00:36:43,835 --> 00:36:48,474 So, the bandana colors, the pad colors and the skin colors. 721 00:36:48,507 --> 00:36:51,443 And then the added initial on the belt buckle 722 00:36:51,477 --> 00:36:53,412 was just a way to reinforce that. 723 00:36:53,445 --> 00:36:55,180 The whole idea was that you could 724 00:36:55,213 --> 00:36:56,915 immediately tell the difference between the Turtles 725 00:36:56,948 --> 00:36:59,285 by looking at the figures, 726 00:36:59,318 --> 00:37:00,452 whether they were in the package or not. 727 00:37:03,722 --> 00:37:05,557 WISE: And when you have groups of four, 728 00:37:05,591 --> 00:37:08,260 there's sort of a classic archetype four. 729 00:37:08,294 --> 00:37:09,395 And there's a reason for that, 730 00:37:09,428 --> 00:37:10,862 because it's kind of like 731 00:37:10,896 --> 00:37:15,401 spirit, mind, body, left foot, I don't know. 732 00:37:15,434 --> 00:37:16,868 If you just looked at the comics, 733 00:37:16,902 --> 00:37:18,704 at our drawings of the Turtles, 734 00:37:18,737 --> 00:37:20,739 you couldn't tell one from the other, except for the weapon. 735 00:37:20,772 --> 00:37:23,041 You couldn't say one's the leader, right? 736 00:37:23,074 --> 00:37:25,877 But everyone who reads it, 737 00:37:25,911 --> 00:37:28,079 all these little kids, they know Leonardo's the leader, 738 00:37:28,113 --> 00:37:29,815 they know Raphael's the crazy one, 739 00:37:29,848 --> 00:37:31,750 they know Michelangelo is the goofy one, 740 00:37:31,783 --> 00:37:34,085 they know Donatello is the serious one. Right. 741 00:37:34,119 --> 00:37:37,055 And I think once the kids start getting into the stories, 742 00:37:37,088 --> 00:37:40,759 and especially if the animation is gonna be on TV, 743 00:37:40,792 --> 00:37:43,729 and they're gonna be absorbing these kinds of stories 744 00:37:43,762 --> 00:37:46,598 and the toys will feed into the TV and vice versa. 745 00:37:46,632 --> 00:37:48,367 And I really thought, "What will work for these guys 746 00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:51,202 "and what will work for making a TV series?" 747 00:37:51,236 --> 00:37:53,739 Well, you need a leader, he would be the most 748 00:37:53,772 --> 00:37:56,007 into the martial arts, and the lore of the martial arts 749 00:37:56,041 --> 00:37:58,444 and the tradition and the training. 750 00:37:58,477 --> 00:38:01,880 You need the science guy, the gadget guy, 751 00:38:01,913 --> 00:38:04,983 the MacGyver guy, and that obviously became Donatello. 752 00:38:05,016 --> 00:38:07,319 You need a sarcastic one, and that became Raphael. 753 00:38:07,353 --> 00:38:09,755 You need somebody 754 00:38:09,788 --> 00:38:13,759 who really embodies the teenageness 755 00:38:13,792 --> 00:38:16,728 of the fact that these are teenagers, 756 00:38:16,762 --> 00:38:18,864 and who embodies that spirit of fun 757 00:38:18,897 --> 00:38:21,867 and that is gonna be Michelangelo. 758 00:38:21,900 --> 00:38:25,070 And I will tell you that my original idea with Michelangelo 759 00:38:25,103 --> 00:38:28,707 was to make him kind of street. 760 00:38:28,740 --> 00:38:31,410 And, in fact, you will notice the very first line 761 00:38:31,443 --> 00:38:33,579 spoken by a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle 762 00:38:33,612 --> 00:38:36,348 in the first episode 763 00:38:36,382 --> 00:38:39,618 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is what? 764 00:38:39,651 --> 00:38:41,587 DONATELLO: Chill out, homeboy. 765 00:38:41,620 --> 00:38:44,255 It was a modest, focused toy line. 766 00:38:44,289 --> 00:38:46,392 A half-dozen assortments, 767 00:38:46,425 --> 00:38:49,227 10 figures, and that was about it. 768 00:38:49,260 --> 00:38:51,930 HANDY: Toys "R" Us loved it, thought it was super fresh 769 00:38:51,963 --> 00:38:54,600 and were very excited about it and said 770 00:38:54,633 --> 00:38:57,068 that they would take a major position on it, 771 00:38:57,102 --> 00:38:59,270 and we started moving forward. 772 00:38:59,304 --> 00:39:03,274 So, the TV show first aired late '87 773 00:39:03,308 --> 00:39:05,010 between Christmas and New Year's. 774 00:39:05,043 --> 00:39:06,678 And the ratings were great. 775 00:39:07,413 --> 00:39:10,148 * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 776 00:39:10,181 --> 00:39:12,518 * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 777 00:39:12,551 --> 00:39:15,220 * Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 778 00:39:15,253 --> 00:39:16,855 * Heroes in a half shell 779 00:39:16,888 --> 00:39:17,956 * Turtle power 780 00:39:19,658 --> 00:39:21,760 The very first Playmates 781 00:39:21,793 --> 00:39:24,029 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures 782 00:39:24,062 --> 00:39:26,865 hit the shelves and they sold out. 783 00:39:26,898 --> 00:39:29,367 Your kids are gonna be real familiar with these characters soon, 784 00:39:29,401 --> 00:39:31,770 the cartoon show debuted just last weekend 785 00:39:31,803 --> 00:39:34,806 on almost 200 stations nationwide. 786 00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:36,575 MALE REPORTER: For an adult, as you can imagine, 787 00:39:36,608 --> 00:39:39,177 the whole idea seems, well... 788 00:39:39,210 --> 00:39:41,046 Pretty radical. 789 00:39:41,079 --> 00:39:43,782 They keep on adding good guys and bad guys. 790 00:39:43,815 --> 00:39:46,017 MALE REPORTER: At such a frenzied pace 791 00:39:46,051 --> 00:39:48,420 that you wonder how the workers in this Chinese factory 792 00:39:48,454 --> 00:39:50,556 can keep up with the demand. 793 00:39:50,589 --> 00:39:52,724 Guess what, they can't. 794 00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:58,730 * Splinter taught them to be ninja teens * 795 00:39:58,764 --> 00:40:01,867 So as we laughingly said, the first night 796 00:40:01,900 --> 00:40:05,904 of the TV shows being on the air, 797 00:40:05,937 --> 00:40:08,306 we heard all those trucks rustling out 798 00:40:08,339 --> 00:40:10,976 and all of the toys going out to all the markets there. 799 00:40:11,009 --> 00:40:13,745 So, that's where it became the biggest hit ever. 800 00:40:13,779 --> 00:40:16,214 EASTMAN: And when it actually appeared in TV Guide, 801 00:40:16,247 --> 00:40:17,749 and the shows aired 802 00:40:17,783 --> 00:40:19,785 and the ratings were good, and we're sitting in our living rooms 803 00:40:19,818 --> 00:40:21,953 and watching these, it's like, "Oh, my God, 804 00:40:21,987 --> 00:40:23,822 "it's really happening. This is amazing!" 805 00:40:23,855 --> 00:40:27,425 I recall it being slightly surreal, because 806 00:40:28,460 --> 00:40:31,630 we had done this thing just for fun. 807 00:40:33,231 --> 00:40:37,035 And it really kind of took on a life of its own. 808 00:40:38,870 --> 00:40:40,539 Playmates was delighted about it, 809 00:40:40,572 --> 00:40:42,741 so I was delighted after. 810 00:40:42,774 --> 00:40:43,775 So, I waited a couple of weeks, 811 00:40:43,809 --> 00:40:45,644 then I contacted them again. 812 00:40:45,677 --> 00:40:48,046 I said, "When do we do more?" 813 00:40:48,079 --> 00:40:50,181 And they said, "That's it. There is no more." 814 00:40:51,683 --> 00:40:53,451 MALE ANNOUNCER: From Playmates. 815 00:40:55,386 --> 00:40:56,822 And I said, "What? 816 00:40:56,855 --> 00:40:58,490 "I mean, we got a big hit here." 817 00:40:58,524 --> 00:41:00,592 He says, "No, we're satisfied." 818 00:41:00,626 --> 00:41:03,394 Playmates, Richard Sallis, had indicated, 819 00:41:03,428 --> 00:41:06,197 "We did so well, we did so many million." 820 00:41:06,231 --> 00:41:09,200 I forget the number, but it was something like 25 million. 821 00:41:09,234 --> 00:41:12,804 All right! Now we can relax, catch some boob tube 822 00:41:12,838 --> 00:41:14,973 and forget about all that weirdness we just went through. 823 00:41:15,006 --> 00:41:16,775 And I said, "Well, who's got the rights?" 824 00:41:16,808 --> 00:41:18,710 He says, "Well, we had the rights to the five 825 00:41:18,744 --> 00:41:21,780 "to produce and distribute. 826 00:41:21,813 --> 00:41:25,150 "So, you'd have to speak to Mark Freedman of Surge." 827 00:41:25,183 --> 00:41:27,586 And I said, "Mark, what'll it take to get this?" 828 00:41:27,619 --> 00:41:28,887 And he said, "What did you want to do?" 829 00:41:28,920 --> 00:41:30,155 And I said, "Well, I want to do more of them." 830 00:41:30,188 --> 00:41:31,557 And he liked that idea, 831 00:41:31,590 --> 00:41:33,892 and so we came to some conclusion, 832 00:41:33,925 --> 00:41:36,227 some idea that I would get the rights. 833 00:41:36,762 --> 00:41:38,063 (THEME MUSIC PLAYING) 834 00:41:39,798 --> 00:41:44,736 And the first assignment we got from CBS involving the Turtles 835 00:41:44,770 --> 00:41:47,639 was an order for 26, which was extraordinary 836 00:41:47,673 --> 00:41:50,508 because they usually tested the waters. 837 00:41:50,542 --> 00:41:52,678 But the waters were already tested, 838 00:41:52,711 --> 00:41:55,046 the Turtles were out there, they were a raving success. 839 00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:58,116 The Turtles turned out to be the saviors of the city. 840 00:41:58,149 --> 00:42:00,952 They're, like, totally rad, man. 841 00:42:00,986 --> 00:42:04,255 Yeah, I want to be a turtle when I grow up. 842 00:42:04,289 --> 00:42:07,158 APRIL: But who are they? Where did they come from? 843 00:42:07,192 --> 00:42:09,928 It's a complete mystery. 844 00:42:09,961 --> 00:42:13,298 And with Turtles on five days a week on the CBS, came on Saturday, 845 00:42:13,331 --> 00:42:15,066 we're on six days a week, 846 00:42:15,100 --> 00:42:18,136 and for a couple of heartbeats or so 847 00:42:18,169 --> 00:42:21,306 there was something happening on Sunday. 848 00:42:21,339 --> 00:42:23,141 They were on seven days a week. 849 00:42:23,174 --> 00:42:27,245 We were turning out a show every seven weeks. 850 00:42:27,278 --> 00:42:28,546 Six to seven weeks. 851 00:42:28,580 --> 00:42:31,917 A show turning out to go overseas. 852 00:42:31,950 --> 00:42:35,286 And they would have an additional six weeks to do something. 853 00:42:35,320 --> 00:42:39,490 So, within a 13-week cycle, we'd have from beginning, 854 00:42:39,524 --> 00:42:43,228 from the recording, to a finished product, edited, delivered. 855 00:42:44,229 --> 00:42:47,165 It was fun to be associated with it. 856 00:42:47,198 --> 00:42:50,168 But there was no place to really go out and have bragging rights, 857 00:42:51,770 --> 00:42:54,640 to go out and sit in a bar and say, "Do you know that 858 00:42:54,673 --> 00:42:57,075 "I'm the guy that's putting this show together?" 859 00:42:57,108 --> 00:42:58,176 (INTERVIEWER LAUGHS) 860 00:42:58,209 --> 00:43:00,879 In the first episode, I contrived a scene 861 00:43:00,912 --> 00:43:03,181 where Michelangelo has to surf. 862 00:43:03,214 --> 00:43:05,116 They're in a building that's being flooded, 863 00:43:05,150 --> 00:43:08,386 and there's a file cabinet that goes over and he jumps on it, 864 00:43:08,419 --> 00:43:11,422 and I remembered from Peanuts 865 00:43:11,456 --> 00:43:13,659 in around '64 or '65, 866 00:43:13,692 --> 00:43:17,428 Schulz did a sequence where Snoopy is surfing 867 00:43:17,462 --> 00:43:19,898 and he goes, "Cowabunga!" 868 00:43:19,931 --> 00:43:21,566 That's where I got it from. 869 00:43:21,599 --> 00:43:23,568 MICHELANGELO: Cowabunga! 870 00:43:23,601 --> 00:43:27,172 When Fred heard the recording session, he said, "You know what, 871 00:43:27,205 --> 00:43:29,307 "that 'Cowabunga' really works as a catchphrase, 872 00:43:30,942 --> 00:43:33,578 "let's use it again." And I went, "Yeah." 873 00:43:33,611 --> 00:43:35,647 And so the next time, in the next episode he's going, "Cowabunga." 874 00:43:35,681 --> 00:43:37,683 And then they're going, "Cowabunga, dude." 875 00:43:37,716 --> 00:43:39,651 It's like "cowabunga" and "dude." 876 00:43:39,685 --> 00:43:41,219 Putting them together, that was my genius, folks. 877 00:43:44,155 --> 00:43:46,057 Cowabunga! 878 00:43:47,092 --> 00:43:49,627 The teenager needed to be in there, 879 00:43:49,661 --> 00:43:50,796 and I thought, "Well, what do teenagers do?" 880 00:43:50,829 --> 00:43:52,964 They eat pizza, they watch videos. 881 00:43:52,998 --> 00:43:56,902 Fred quickly had the idea they should put funny stuff on the pizzas. 882 00:43:56,935 --> 00:43:58,469 Who had the pepperoni and ice cream? 883 00:43:58,503 --> 00:44:00,571 DONATELLO: I want some of the jelly beans and mushrooms! 884 00:44:00,605 --> 00:44:03,742 WISE: I mean, it was a contest to figure out what kind of 885 00:44:05,476 --> 00:44:09,915 bubblegum, gefilte fish, caviar, matzo balls. 886 00:44:09,948 --> 00:44:13,518 These characters, Rocksteady and Bebop 887 00:44:13,551 --> 00:44:16,988 were designed initially by Playmates, 888 00:44:17,022 --> 00:44:19,424 so they were brought into the show immediately. 889 00:44:19,457 --> 00:44:21,126 We had no qualms about them. 890 00:44:21,159 --> 00:44:24,562 EASTMAN: These are some ideas we have for mutant characters, 891 00:44:24,595 --> 00:44:26,464 or I should say Pete has. 892 00:44:26,497 --> 00:44:28,233 Now, this is cool. 893 00:44:28,266 --> 00:44:30,869 This is very neat! 894 00:44:30,902 --> 00:44:35,440 This is a good one. This is a punk warthog 895 00:44:35,473 --> 00:44:37,208 with snot gun, I believe, 896 00:44:37,242 --> 00:44:39,177 or something similar. WOMAN: Mmm-hmm. 897 00:44:39,210 --> 00:44:41,646 But after a while, they started developing some other 898 00:44:41,679 --> 00:44:44,515 elements that became very complicated. 899 00:44:44,549 --> 00:44:45,851 Here's our famous Turtle Van. 900 00:44:46,885 --> 00:44:48,754 That's a little complicated to draw. 901 00:44:53,058 --> 00:44:55,393 These are some of the acetates. 902 00:44:55,426 --> 00:44:59,798 As I think by now, everybody knows that these acetates are 903 00:44:59,831 --> 00:45:03,468 tracings of the drawing and then painted on the back. 904 00:45:03,501 --> 00:45:05,937 WISE: And in animation, unlike live action scripts 905 00:45:05,971 --> 00:45:08,673 where you generally just write in master shots, 906 00:45:08,706 --> 00:45:11,777 and if there's a fight scene, basically you say, "They fight," 907 00:45:11,810 --> 00:45:14,746 unless there's plot stuff going on. 908 00:45:15,947 --> 00:45:17,916 In animation, you break it down into shots 909 00:45:17,949 --> 00:45:20,418 and they don't necessarily follow that, 910 00:45:20,451 --> 00:45:22,788 but it's to give them an idea of where you're going. 911 00:45:26,992 --> 00:45:28,860 And we look to you to start. 912 00:45:28,894 --> 00:45:30,862 You go first. Always. 913 00:45:30,896 --> 00:45:31,997 I'm like Senator Foghorn. 914 00:45:32,030 --> 00:45:33,799 Let's look to the guy with the biggest mouth. 915 00:45:33,832 --> 00:45:35,400 (ALL LAUGHING) 916 00:45:35,433 --> 00:45:36,835 Are you rolling? 917 00:45:36,868 --> 00:45:39,337 My first encounter with the Turtles 918 00:45:39,370 --> 00:45:41,139 was a call from my agent. 919 00:45:41,172 --> 00:45:42,640 I mean, it was really nothing, no big deal. 920 00:45:42,673 --> 00:45:45,376 I mean, it was great to get a show. 921 00:45:45,410 --> 00:45:49,014 My agent called me and said, "You have an audition for a show 922 00:45:49,047 --> 00:45:50,916 "called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." I said, "What?" 923 00:45:50,949 --> 00:45:53,184 Stu, the director, came in and he said, 924 00:45:53,218 --> 00:45:54,619 "You guys are not gonna believe this, 925 00:45:54,652 --> 00:45:56,487 "I'm gonna be directing this new show, 926 00:45:56,521 --> 00:45:58,990 "and I want to bring you guys in on it, 927 00:45:59,024 --> 00:46:01,092 "but look at this." And he opens his bag 928 00:46:01,126 --> 00:46:04,562 and he pulls out a copy of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 929 00:46:04,595 --> 00:46:05,897 One of the original comics. 930 00:46:05,931 --> 00:46:07,298 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? 931 00:46:07,332 --> 00:46:09,067 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? What? 932 00:46:09,100 --> 00:46:12,137 It was just the mix, it was the chemistry. 933 00:46:12,170 --> 00:46:13,905 Everyone had to have chemistry, 934 00:46:13,939 --> 00:46:15,807 but particularly the four of us 935 00:46:15,841 --> 00:46:18,243 had to really feel like roommates. 936 00:46:18,276 --> 00:46:21,412 Yeah, we don't get many humans down here. 937 00:46:21,446 --> 00:46:24,582 Tonight I dine on turtle soup. 938 00:46:24,615 --> 00:46:26,317 (MAN LAUGHING) 939 00:46:26,351 --> 00:46:28,453 AVERY: I remember the first session when I came in, 940 00:46:28,486 --> 00:46:29,988 and from the very first session that I met 941 00:46:30,021 --> 00:46:31,522 all these people, and it was just... 942 00:46:32,557 --> 00:46:35,726 It was a party, it was a joy. It was a joy. 943 00:46:35,760 --> 00:46:38,229 CLARKE: Originally, when we first started doing it, 944 00:46:38,263 --> 00:46:40,431 they didn't know whether Towney or I, 945 00:46:42,000 --> 00:46:44,002 who was gonna be Leonardo 946 00:46:44,035 --> 00:46:46,804 and who was gonna be Michelangelo. 947 00:46:46,838 --> 00:46:51,109 We were supposed to then switch back and they never did. 948 00:46:51,142 --> 00:46:54,145 COLEMAN: They sort of wanted the surfer dude, kind of valley guy stuff, 949 00:46:54,179 --> 00:46:58,083 and the only thing I could think about at the time was Sean Penn 950 00:46:58,116 --> 00:47:00,218 in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. 951 00:47:00,251 --> 00:47:03,188 And so I kind of drew upon that 952 00:47:03,221 --> 00:47:05,223 and did a bit of my version of that. 953 00:47:05,256 --> 00:47:07,893 Let's show them the Turtles know how to party! 954 00:47:07,926 --> 00:47:09,294 We've gotta practice! 955 00:47:10,695 --> 00:47:12,397 That was pretty much... 956 00:47:12,430 --> 00:47:14,966 I felt like the Professor in Gilligan's Island. 957 00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:16,834 Well, no matter how it happened, 958 00:47:16,868 --> 00:47:18,436 it's up to us to do something! 959 00:47:20,171 --> 00:47:23,808 And he said, "Just kind of be yourself with Donatello." 960 00:47:23,841 --> 00:47:25,476 So, I was. I mean, I just... 961 00:47:25,510 --> 00:47:26,811 This is my voice 962 00:47:26,844 --> 00:47:28,446 (IN HIGH VOICE) and I just kind of pitched it up here. 963 00:47:28,479 --> 00:47:30,548 Welcome aboard the Turtle Blimp! 964 00:47:30,581 --> 00:47:32,583 It's almost Shakespearean, 965 00:47:32,617 --> 00:47:33,985 it's almost over the top 966 00:47:34,019 --> 00:47:36,221 and Shakespearean, in that sense. 967 00:47:36,254 --> 00:47:38,089 (IN DEEP VOICE) The same way I would do this, I would go, 968 00:47:38,123 --> 00:47:40,725 "Mislike me not for my complexion 969 00:47:40,758 --> 00:47:42,327 "the shadow of the burnished sun, 970 00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:44,362 "to whom I am a neighbor and near born." 971 00:47:44,395 --> 00:47:48,166 (LAUGHING MANIACALLY) Killers! 972 00:47:48,199 --> 00:47:50,902 That's quite a brain you've got, Krang! 973 00:47:50,936 --> 00:47:55,873 Of course it is, it's all I've got. 974 00:47:55,907 --> 00:47:59,777 FRALEY: Underneath, secretly, I was playing a Jewish mother, with Krang. 975 00:47:59,810 --> 00:48:01,779 (NASALLY) This is what I get, 976 00:48:01,812 --> 00:48:04,715 I shouldn't expect anything else. 977 00:48:04,749 --> 00:48:07,752 (IN NORMAL VOICE) You know? They never knew, but it was funny. 978 00:48:07,785 --> 00:48:11,389 SPLINTER: I in turn named them after my favorite Renaissance painters. 979 00:48:11,422 --> 00:48:16,661 They wanted him to sound like a very learned man. 980 00:48:18,063 --> 00:48:19,897 The sensei, the teacher. 981 00:48:19,931 --> 00:48:21,432 It's news! 982 00:48:23,001 --> 00:48:26,037 Wait, come back with my hiding place! 983 00:48:26,071 --> 00:48:28,039 And when I had to do Vernon, 984 00:48:28,073 --> 00:48:30,208 I wanted to get as far away from that as possible, 985 00:48:30,241 --> 00:48:34,412 so I got into a little bit of a higher register. 986 00:48:34,445 --> 00:48:38,783 (IMITATING) April, come on, let me do something, let me get some credit. 987 00:48:38,816 --> 00:48:41,152 I came in one day and they said, "You're doing Bebop." 988 00:48:41,186 --> 00:48:43,388 I'm real good at video games. 989 00:48:43,421 --> 00:48:46,291 (IN LOW VOICE) I had to make it really low. 990 00:48:46,324 --> 00:48:47,993 (IN LOW VOICE) I did Rocksteady, 991 00:48:48,026 --> 00:48:50,595 and I just made him like a big, dumb kid. 992 00:48:50,628 --> 00:48:53,264 Third floor, lingerie. 993 00:48:53,298 --> 00:48:56,234 And that is how they became 994 00:48:56,267 --> 00:48:59,604 the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 995 00:48:59,637 --> 00:49:01,506 Cowabunga, dudes! 996 00:49:04,509 --> 00:49:06,244 Hiya! (GRUNTING) 997 00:49:06,277 --> 00:49:08,079 (IN HIGH VOICE) I am Donatello. 998 00:49:11,749 --> 00:49:13,718 (IN LOW VOICE) I'm Shredder. 999 00:49:13,751 --> 00:49:15,353 (LAUGHING MANIACALLY) 1000 00:49:15,386 --> 00:49:19,124 This is April O'Neil, Channel 6 News. 1001 00:49:19,157 --> 00:49:21,993 You should have seen some of the outtakes, these people are insane. 1002 00:49:22,027 --> 00:49:23,728 This man is crazy. 1003 00:49:23,761 --> 00:49:25,530 (IN NASAL VOICE) Rule the universe! 1004 00:49:25,563 --> 00:49:27,898 They're all crazy. Him, all of them together. 1005 00:49:27,932 --> 00:49:30,468 (IN LOW VOICE) It was a pleasure being Splinter. 1006 00:49:30,501 --> 00:49:33,371 (IMITATING) I've always been Donatello, even before I turned green. 1007 00:49:34,505 --> 00:49:37,008 Wait until the world gets an eyeful of this! 1008 00:49:37,042 --> 00:49:38,143 * Turtle power 1009 00:49:40,245 --> 00:49:43,648 The five-part miniseries airs 1010 00:49:43,681 --> 00:49:47,785 and all of a sudden it's like a little tremor before an earthquake. 1011 00:49:47,818 --> 00:49:50,055 We could just sense that 1012 00:49:50,088 --> 00:49:53,091 kids were watching it, and they liked it. 1013 00:49:53,124 --> 00:49:57,128 There was something going on, it was almost electric. 1014 00:49:57,162 --> 00:49:59,997 Today's hot new heroes 1015 00:50:00,031 --> 00:50:02,667 are the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 1016 00:50:02,700 --> 00:50:04,235 (AUDIENCE CHEERING) 1017 00:50:06,104 --> 00:50:08,373 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 1018 00:50:08,406 --> 00:50:10,308 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 1019 00:50:10,341 --> 00:50:11,976 The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 1020 00:50:12,009 --> 00:50:14,445 The crazy crime-fighting Ninja Turtles. 1021 00:50:14,479 --> 00:50:17,082 These heroes on the half shell are now in the top 20 1022 00:50:17,115 --> 00:50:19,150 best-selling toys in the country. 1023 00:50:19,184 --> 00:50:21,152 Your sons love those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 1024 00:50:21,186 --> 00:50:22,720 They do, it's an amazing story. 1025 00:50:22,753 --> 00:50:24,355 Even adults like them too! 1026 00:50:24,389 --> 00:50:26,091 FREEDMAN: Gentlemen, it's history in the making. 1027 00:50:26,124 --> 00:50:27,725 MAN: Where you at? Aim that way. 1028 00:50:27,758 --> 00:50:29,026 Okay, you're gonna narrate. 1029 00:50:29,060 --> 00:50:30,461 I'm gonna narrate. History in the making. 1030 00:50:33,098 --> 00:50:34,599 (INDISTINCT TALKING) 1031 00:50:36,467 --> 00:50:39,003 And almost any parent of young children can tell you 1032 00:50:39,036 --> 00:50:42,073 this is an idea whose time has come to the silver screen. 1033 00:51:03,794 --> 00:51:07,665 It starts with a gentleman by the name of Gary Propper, 1034 00:51:07,698 --> 00:51:11,169 who was the road manager for the comedian, Gallagher. 1035 00:51:11,202 --> 00:51:13,638 And he found the first graphic comic book, 1036 00:51:15,106 --> 00:51:18,776 and Gary Propper's manager and Kim Dawson 1037 00:51:18,809 --> 00:51:21,679 used to direct Gallagher's Showtime specials. 1038 00:51:21,712 --> 00:51:26,384 Kim was a pretty experienced director of those shows 1039 00:51:26,417 --> 00:51:28,986 and knew a lot about television, 1040 00:51:29,019 --> 00:51:31,856 but didn't really have a lot of 1041 00:51:31,889 --> 00:51:34,058 influence or friends directly 1042 00:51:34,091 --> 00:51:35,826 in the motion picture industries. 1043 00:51:35,860 --> 00:51:38,596 Listen, Golden Harvest is so right for this 1044 00:51:38,629 --> 00:51:41,832 because Golden Harvest did the Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee films. 1045 00:51:41,866 --> 00:51:43,434 And they had the best martial art guys 1046 00:51:43,468 --> 00:51:45,035 in the world, which everybody knows. 1047 00:51:45,069 --> 00:51:47,705 And I went to Tom Gray, my boss, 1048 00:51:47,738 --> 00:51:49,740 who looked at me like I was smoking dope. 1049 00:51:49,774 --> 00:51:53,811 I said, "Bobby, I'm not even interested in that title." 1050 00:51:53,844 --> 00:51:56,547 You know, "Why would I even be interested in that?" 1051 00:51:56,581 --> 00:51:59,284 And he said, "Well, it's gonna be big!" 1052 00:51:59,317 --> 00:52:02,320 I went, wallpapered Hollywood for, 1053 00:52:02,353 --> 00:52:04,021 off and on, three months 1054 00:52:04,054 --> 00:52:05,590 pitching it to everybody, 1055 00:52:05,623 --> 00:52:08,693 who also thought I was on massive doses of drugs. 1056 00:52:08,726 --> 00:52:11,929 I'd go in and pitch it, and they'd go, "Turtles?" 1057 00:52:11,962 --> 00:52:14,999 GRAY: He said, "Well, would you do me a favor and have a meeting with Kim, 1058 00:52:15,032 --> 00:52:17,602 "at least tell Kim why you don't want to do it and whatever." 1059 00:52:17,635 --> 00:52:20,571 And I was more interested in the food 1060 00:52:20,605 --> 00:52:24,141 than I was in listening to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 1061 00:52:24,175 --> 00:52:26,043 As I was pushing out of the booth, 1062 00:52:26,076 --> 00:52:28,045 I took one of the magazines, 1063 00:52:28,078 --> 00:52:30,248 and I looked at it and I had an epiphany. 1064 00:52:30,281 --> 00:52:32,550 I suddenly got it. I said, "Wait a minute, 1065 00:52:33,584 --> 00:52:37,388 "this is nothing more than our Chinese stuntmen. 1066 00:52:37,422 --> 00:52:40,157 "We're the best kung fu makers in the world. 1067 00:52:40,191 --> 00:52:43,561 "We put four of our best stuntmen in suits 1068 00:52:43,594 --> 00:52:46,130 "and we shoot this in Hong Kong, 1069 00:52:46,163 --> 00:52:48,366 "we can make a movie like this!" 1070 00:52:48,399 --> 00:52:51,402 We talked about doing a live action movie 1071 00:52:51,436 --> 00:52:54,839 using animatronic Turtle figures. 1072 00:52:54,872 --> 00:52:57,708 I remember talking on the telephone with Raymond Chow, 1073 00:52:57,742 --> 00:52:59,810 and he said, "What do you think you could make the movie for?" 1074 00:52:59,844 --> 00:53:01,912 And I said, "I think we can probably do it 1075 00:53:01,946 --> 00:53:03,548 "around two and a half, three million 1076 00:53:03,581 --> 00:53:06,984 "if we do all of it in Hong Kong at the studios." 1077 00:53:07,017 --> 00:53:09,520 The initial writer they brought us, 1078 00:53:09,554 --> 00:53:11,622 Peter and I completely freaked out. 1079 00:53:11,656 --> 00:53:13,491 Trying to figure out how are we gonna get this 1080 00:53:13,524 --> 00:53:15,693 stereotypical Hollywood kind of guy 1081 00:53:15,726 --> 00:53:19,096 to understand our characters and the importance 1082 00:53:19,129 --> 00:53:20,831 because a lot of pressure was on us now. 1083 00:53:20,865 --> 00:53:22,867 Fortunately, Golden Harvest hired this director, 1084 00:53:22,900 --> 00:53:24,302 his name was Steve Barron. 1085 00:53:24,335 --> 00:53:28,439 I had seen a reel that he did with Michael Jackson and a-ha, 1086 00:53:28,473 --> 00:53:29,940 and I knew he was working rotoscopes 1087 00:53:29,974 --> 00:53:31,576 and all these kind of techniques, 1088 00:53:31,609 --> 00:53:33,878 and I really liked what he was about. 1089 00:53:33,911 --> 00:53:36,180 BARRON: Golden Harvest had had a script written 1090 00:53:36,213 --> 00:53:38,483 and they'd come away from 1091 00:53:38,516 --> 00:53:40,951 the original material, which a lot of movies do. 1092 00:53:40,985 --> 00:53:42,320 They come away from the book 1093 00:53:42,353 --> 00:53:44,889 and they think because it's a film, 1094 00:53:44,922 --> 00:53:49,226 you've gotta come up with the scenes that work in film, so called. 1095 00:53:49,260 --> 00:53:52,162 And I felt that a lot of these scenes that were in the comic books, 1096 00:53:52,196 --> 00:53:55,232 the original few book volumes 1097 00:53:55,266 --> 00:53:57,067 were great movie scenes. 1098 00:53:57,101 --> 00:53:59,904 We had discovered a young writer 1099 00:53:59,937 --> 00:54:02,673 who was writing for Wonder Years, called Todd Langen. 1100 00:54:02,707 --> 00:54:05,710 BARRON: So, I brought him in and we actually sat in L.A. 1101 00:54:05,743 --> 00:54:08,979 at the Mondrian Hotel for two months, 1102 00:54:09,013 --> 00:54:13,250 and we locked the door, and I had all the comic books, 1103 00:54:13,284 --> 00:54:16,454 and I ripped out all the pages that I just felt were movie scenes. 1104 00:54:19,857 --> 00:54:21,826 It was gonna take six months to prepare 1105 00:54:22,993 --> 00:54:26,230 all of those uniforms, the props, 1106 00:54:26,263 --> 00:54:29,400 everything ready to shoot on time in July, 1107 00:54:29,434 --> 00:54:32,470 and I didn't have the money, so I gambled. 1108 00:54:32,503 --> 00:54:35,440 I was emotionally committed, but I didn't have the guts 1109 00:54:35,473 --> 00:54:38,543 to go back and say, "I think this is not three, 1110 00:54:38,576 --> 00:54:41,846 "it's looking more like seven or eight." 1111 00:54:44,815 --> 00:54:48,719 These are the original 1112 00:54:48,753 --> 00:54:52,557 ideas for that sewer, which actually... 1113 00:54:52,590 --> 00:54:56,761 When I finally talked it over with the director 1114 00:54:56,794 --> 00:54:59,364 and producer, they didn't change very much. 1115 00:55:00,831 --> 00:55:04,168 Well, texture gives you atmosphere, 1116 00:55:04,201 --> 00:55:09,306 especially this disused pumping station down in the sewers, 1117 00:55:09,340 --> 00:55:12,209 which was their home. 1118 00:55:12,242 --> 00:55:17,014 And the very first sketch I did of their home was this one. 1119 00:55:17,047 --> 00:55:20,551 They collect stuff that comes down the tunnel, 1120 00:55:20,585 --> 00:55:25,055 they wander about finding all kinds of interesting things. 1121 00:55:25,089 --> 00:55:27,858 So, it was creating an environment, 1122 00:55:27,892 --> 00:55:30,027 because there was a big battle in the sewer, 1123 00:55:30,060 --> 00:55:31,862 and they lived in the sewer 1124 00:55:31,896 --> 00:55:34,965 and so much of the action happened there. 1125 00:55:34,999 --> 00:55:39,604 We built all this out of fiberglass to stand up to the stresses 1126 00:55:39,637 --> 00:55:42,640 and had actual water pumping through it. 1127 00:55:45,309 --> 00:55:47,712 We really lucked out on that first movie 1128 00:55:49,547 --> 00:55:51,416 for two main reasons, 1129 00:55:51,449 --> 00:55:54,284 Steve Barron, the director, and Jim Henson. 1130 00:55:54,318 --> 00:55:57,588 Steve Barron, very creative guy, 1131 00:55:57,622 --> 00:55:59,223 had a real good vision, 1132 00:55:59,256 --> 00:56:02,593 solid idea of what he wanted to do 1133 00:56:02,627 --> 00:56:05,830 within the fairly limited budget he had to work with. 1134 00:56:05,863 --> 00:56:09,834 And Jim Henson, fantastic talent. 1135 00:56:09,867 --> 00:56:13,871 We really got lucky to be able to get him to do the creatures, 1136 00:56:13,904 --> 00:56:15,005 and he nearly didn't do it, 1137 00:56:15,039 --> 00:56:16,741 because he was really not happy with, 1138 00:56:16,774 --> 00:56:20,344 early on, the violence in it, 1139 00:56:20,377 --> 00:56:23,748 in relation to his Muppets and his fan base. 1140 00:56:23,781 --> 00:56:27,317 It was something very risky for him to put his name to. 1141 00:56:27,351 --> 00:56:31,221 He'd had not a lot of contact with the film, 1142 00:56:31,255 --> 00:56:33,123 although he and Steve Barron were good friends, 1143 00:56:34,224 --> 00:56:37,094 and obviously he and I were father and son, 1144 00:56:37,127 --> 00:56:41,298 so he stayed in touch with the film in a large way. 1145 00:56:41,331 --> 00:56:43,133 At one point, he was concerned that 1146 00:56:43,167 --> 00:56:45,536 there wasn't enough money to finish the film, 1147 00:56:45,570 --> 00:56:47,672 and I think he was trying to help with that, 1148 00:56:47,705 --> 00:56:50,307 because it was made on a very low budget. 1149 00:56:50,340 --> 00:56:51,942 I started having second thoughts 1150 00:56:51,976 --> 00:56:53,744 about doing it as a Hong Kong movie, 1151 00:56:53,778 --> 00:56:57,414 but I was somewhat afraid to go back to Hong Kong 1152 00:56:57,448 --> 00:56:59,450 and tell them that I needed more money. 1153 00:56:59,484 --> 00:57:00,885 Playmates were telling me that 1154 00:57:00,918 --> 00:57:03,153 Christmas was gonna be huge for the toys in '89, 1155 00:57:04,421 --> 00:57:07,057 and so I felt confident that I'll sell the film. 1156 00:57:07,091 --> 00:57:09,259 I just took a risk, I took a gamble. 1157 00:57:09,293 --> 00:57:13,163 And then I went to the marketplace and I got killed! 1158 00:57:14,298 --> 00:57:16,366 Nobody wanted the movie. 1159 00:57:16,400 --> 00:57:19,637 At the same time we'd been seeing all the design concepts 1160 00:57:19,670 --> 00:57:22,272 that Jim Henson's Creature Shop had been doing in London. 1161 00:57:22,306 --> 00:57:25,710 Building, sculpting the heads and the bodies of the costumes, 1162 00:57:25,743 --> 00:57:29,980 and sending us video tapes of the tests of the people wearing them. 1163 00:57:30,014 --> 00:57:33,918 BARRON: There was also a thing where we needed to test quite a lot of 1164 00:57:34,919 --> 00:57:39,023 stages of the Turtles in London. 1165 00:57:39,056 --> 00:57:42,026 So, we thought we'd get one guy from London, 1166 00:57:42,059 --> 00:57:45,763 and so we could constantly use him to test the first prototype. 1167 00:57:45,796 --> 00:57:48,065 So, I had maybe 180 grand in cash 1168 00:57:49,634 --> 00:57:51,502 and I got an $8 million budget, 1169 00:57:51,536 --> 00:57:53,437 pay or play with Henson. 1170 00:57:53,470 --> 00:57:55,540 And the deal that I thought I had 1171 00:57:55,573 --> 00:57:56,874 that would have saved all of this 1172 00:57:56,907 --> 00:57:58,408 has just died. 1173 00:57:58,442 --> 00:58:00,545 I said, "Raymond, I need $6 million." 1174 00:58:01,912 --> 00:58:04,849 He said, "Tom, we don't have $6 million!" 1175 00:58:04,882 --> 00:58:07,818 "I don't know if we'll make money, but I'm so convinced 1176 00:58:08,953 --> 00:58:11,388 "that if you give me the money, we'll open 1177 00:58:11,421 --> 00:58:12,957 "and we'll get our investment back. 1178 00:58:12,990 --> 00:58:14,291 "At least that." 1179 00:58:14,324 --> 00:58:17,494 And it was a pause and he said, "Okay, 1180 00:58:19,163 --> 00:58:20,665 "I'll go find it." 1181 00:58:20,698 --> 00:58:22,833 Okay, so now what? 1182 00:58:23,601 --> 00:58:26,170 Now what? Now what? 1183 00:58:26,203 --> 00:58:28,539 The first thing was 1184 00:58:28,573 --> 00:58:31,542 we needed the main, the principal Turtles 1185 00:58:31,576 --> 00:58:35,846 and the characters to be cast who were gonna be inside the suits. 1186 00:58:35,880 --> 00:58:39,984 SISTI: So, I went and I did what I call my Full Tilt Bozo performance. 1187 00:58:40,017 --> 00:58:42,920 Spinning around and jumping around and doing my lines. 1188 00:58:42,953 --> 00:58:44,855 And then I finished with a big flourish and a roundhouse kick 1189 00:58:44,889 --> 00:58:45,990 and put my foot through the wall. 1190 00:58:46,991 --> 00:58:50,160 So, there I was with my foot stuck in the wall, 1191 00:58:50,194 --> 00:58:52,062 and thank God he laughed 1192 00:58:52,096 --> 00:58:54,665 and he said, "Anyone who would put that much energy into the performance 1193 00:58:54,699 --> 00:58:56,366 "deserves to be one of my Turtles." 1194 00:58:56,400 --> 00:58:58,102 And he asked me to be Michelangelo. 1195 00:58:58,135 --> 00:59:01,538 It was a very sweet, lovely script and silly, 1196 00:59:01,572 --> 00:59:03,674 and I'm silly, 1197 00:59:03,708 --> 00:59:06,577 and working with turtles, like, why not? 1198 00:59:06,611 --> 00:59:09,446 Seemed like a good idea and I was up for it. 1199 00:59:09,479 --> 00:59:13,684 And anything that's got Jim Henson's name attached to it. 1200 00:59:14,952 --> 00:59:17,487 Went in, I actually met Steve Barron, 1201 00:59:17,521 --> 00:59:19,990 the director, the first audition 1202 00:59:20,024 --> 00:59:22,159 and, from what I remember, maybe the only audition. 1203 00:59:22,192 --> 00:59:24,028 It was one of the easiest experiences. 1204 00:59:24,061 --> 00:59:26,330 And we just talked about punk rock 1205 00:59:26,363 --> 00:59:29,967 and the Sex Pistols and things like that, and I got it. 1206 00:59:30,000 --> 00:59:33,871 And I got to wear Sid Vicious T-shirts throughout the whole thing, 1207 00:59:33,904 --> 00:59:35,840 so I was really into that at that time. 1208 00:59:35,873 --> 00:59:37,675 MAN: Thirty-six, take seven. 1209 00:59:37,708 --> 00:59:40,344 BARRON: Ready, and action! 1210 00:59:40,377 --> 00:59:42,312 MAN: We were awesome, bros! 1211 00:59:42,346 --> 00:59:44,514 So, I was the puppeteer captain, 1212 00:59:44,548 --> 00:59:49,053 and then once the film started shooting... 1213 00:59:49,086 --> 00:59:50,888 So, I had to find the performers 1214 00:59:50,921 --> 00:59:53,924 and develop the hand controls with everybody, 1215 00:59:53,958 --> 00:59:57,161 and then once the film started shooting, 1216 00:59:57,194 --> 01:00:00,130 I handed that function over to Kevin Clash. 1217 01:00:00,164 --> 01:00:02,566 CLASH: I had another role with Ninja 1218 01:00:02,599 --> 01:00:05,269 where I was kind of the puppet captain for the movie. 1219 01:00:05,302 --> 01:00:10,240 So, I was the one who had to go to Steve and say, "Listen, 1220 01:00:10,274 --> 01:00:12,977 "Raphael's not gonna work, his head is not working, 1221 01:00:14,779 --> 01:00:17,648 "and we have no idea when it's gonna be up and running." 1222 01:00:17,682 --> 01:00:19,784 And they would lose their mind. 1223 01:00:19,817 --> 01:00:22,586 HENSON: With Steve Barron, who started talking to me about 1224 01:00:22,619 --> 01:00:24,354 how we could do these Turtles, 1225 01:00:25,923 --> 01:00:28,292 it was really important to him that, if possible, 1226 01:00:28,325 --> 01:00:30,795 there was no wires going to the characters, 1227 01:00:30,828 --> 01:00:33,330 no cables going to the characters. 1228 01:00:33,363 --> 01:00:35,565 I even remember we had a test sheet 1229 01:00:35,599 --> 01:00:39,269 that showed the character had to be able to do a forward handspring 1230 01:00:39,303 --> 01:00:42,639 then a flip and then drop through a manhole cover, 1231 01:00:42,673 --> 01:00:44,809 was what his litmus was. 1232 01:00:44,842 --> 01:00:46,911 He wanted it to be able to do that move 1233 01:00:46,944 --> 01:00:48,946 and still also be an animated character. 1234 01:00:48,979 --> 01:00:51,849 They were seriously challenged in those suits. 1235 01:00:51,882 --> 01:00:55,219 There were times where 1236 01:00:55,252 --> 01:00:58,222 you would have to rip a head off and give them some oxygen. 1237 01:00:58,255 --> 01:01:01,358 I really felt like, "I better do my job fast 1238 01:01:01,391 --> 01:01:04,261 "because this guy's gotta get that suit off now!" 1239 01:01:04,294 --> 01:01:06,731 CLASH: I remember Leif getting sick inside one of the heads, 1240 01:01:06,764 --> 01:01:08,165 which was very interesting. 1241 01:01:08,198 --> 01:01:10,267 It was like, "I'm gonna be..." And it was too late. 1242 01:01:11,902 --> 01:01:14,204 SISTI: The whole rig weighed about 70 pounds. 1243 01:01:14,238 --> 01:01:16,774 So, between that and the fact that we were suddenly 1244 01:01:16,807 --> 01:01:19,209 thrown into the midst of these things where you could only see out of 1245 01:01:19,243 --> 01:01:21,946 two little tiny holes in the front of the head, 1246 01:01:21,979 --> 01:01:23,147 it got a little hairy at times. 1247 01:01:23,180 --> 01:01:25,482 It was very difficult to get out of their suits. 1248 01:01:25,515 --> 01:01:28,485 They had... All of the cables and everything 1249 01:01:28,518 --> 01:01:30,620 went down the back of their necks. 1250 01:01:30,654 --> 01:01:32,656 So, they would be able to take the head off, 1251 01:01:32,689 --> 01:01:34,058 but they couldn't take it totally off, 1252 01:01:34,091 --> 01:01:35,692 they would have to put it off to the side. 1253 01:01:35,726 --> 01:01:37,728 And all of the servos and all the mechanisms 1254 01:01:37,762 --> 01:01:39,897 were actually inside of the back of the shell. 1255 01:01:39,930 --> 01:01:42,599 BARRON: Then we built these wooden horses 1256 01:01:42,632 --> 01:01:45,169 that we'd put around the set. 1257 01:01:45,202 --> 01:01:49,173 So that the best way to rest this 65 pounds on your back 1258 01:01:49,206 --> 01:01:52,777 was to lean forward in a certain position, which they sort of... 1259 01:01:54,078 --> 01:01:56,781 They found that position, built these wooden horses 1260 01:01:56,814 --> 01:01:59,049 and so they'd sit on them on the set. 1261 01:01:59,083 --> 01:02:03,988 So, 11:00 at night in South Carolina somewhere, 1262 01:02:04,021 --> 01:02:07,758 and these four turtles would be dead on these horses 1263 01:02:07,792 --> 01:02:08,959 in the middle of the fields, 1264 01:02:08,993 --> 01:02:11,896 and it was a very eerie image. 1265 01:02:11,929 --> 01:02:15,032 Any times that there were any kind of animatronics 1266 01:02:15,065 --> 01:02:17,968 where there was any dialogue going on, 1267 01:02:18,002 --> 01:02:20,905 you'd have the hero suits, 1268 01:02:20,938 --> 01:02:22,306 and they would be doing their thing. 1269 01:02:22,339 --> 01:02:25,810 And then anytime that there was any kind of fight sequence, 1270 01:02:25,843 --> 01:02:27,377 then that's when we would step in. 1271 01:02:28,879 --> 01:02:31,115 HENSON: Initially, nobody was sure 1272 01:02:31,148 --> 01:02:33,183 what the second unit was gonna shoot. 1273 01:02:33,217 --> 01:02:36,386 Steve thought he wanted to just give me some sequences, 1274 01:02:36,420 --> 01:02:37,888 like flashback sequences, 1275 01:02:37,922 --> 01:02:39,957 to just let me shoot and have fun with. 1276 01:02:39,990 --> 01:02:43,560 Then he found he had to shoot the drama, 1277 01:02:43,593 --> 01:02:48,332 and couldn't shoot the fights often, to stay on schedule. 1278 01:02:48,365 --> 01:02:50,134 So then I had to start shooting fight sequences, 1279 01:02:50,167 --> 01:02:51,768 which was a lot of fun for me, 1280 01:02:51,802 --> 01:02:54,604 which was not at all what I was expecting going in. (LAUGHS) 1281 01:02:54,638 --> 01:02:56,240 Although I had been involved 1282 01:02:56,273 --> 01:02:58,242 with the creation of the characters right from the beginning 1283 01:02:58,275 --> 01:03:00,177 and knew they had to be able to fight. 1284 01:03:00,210 --> 01:03:02,312 So I had been working with stuntmen 1285 01:03:02,346 --> 01:03:04,181 all the way through the preparation of the film. 1286 01:03:04,214 --> 01:03:07,551 Normal film speed is 24 frames a second, 1287 01:03:07,584 --> 01:03:10,821 and the Turtles were cumbersome and a bit slow, 1288 01:03:10,855 --> 01:03:14,224 and I wanted to have them 1289 01:03:15,492 --> 01:03:18,095 believably able to use those muscles. 1290 01:03:18,128 --> 01:03:20,564 So, we shot a lot of it at 23 frames per second, 1291 01:03:20,597 --> 01:03:21,832 even the dialogue stuff, 1292 01:03:21,866 --> 01:03:23,100 which was kind of unusual. 1293 01:03:23,133 --> 01:03:25,335 I don't think it had been done before. 1294 01:03:25,369 --> 01:03:28,338 And that would just... Only one twenty-fourth of a second, 1295 01:03:28,372 --> 01:03:30,707 but it would just sharpen up their movements a little bit. 1296 01:03:30,740 --> 01:03:32,342 So, when you'd see them on set, 1297 01:03:32,376 --> 01:03:34,511 they'd be a tiny bit slower than when we got them on film. 1298 01:03:36,180 --> 01:03:38,748 And then we'd use 22 and 23 for the ninja fights, 1299 01:03:38,782 --> 01:03:41,218 which is very common in Hong Kong, anyway. 1300 01:03:41,251 --> 01:03:43,287 I tell you, the technology was a challenge. 1301 01:03:44,821 --> 01:03:46,590 When you talk to some of the puppeteers 1302 01:03:46,623 --> 01:03:49,059 who actually had to program those heads of those Turtles, 1303 01:03:51,195 --> 01:03:54,298 they would program all of these different expressions 1304 01:03:54,331 --> 01:03:57,067 and different things they would want the Turtles to do, 1305 01:03:57,101 --> 01:03:59,269 and the next morning, everything would have crashed 1306 01:03:59,303 --> 01:04:01,071 and they would have to start all over again. 1307 01:04:01,105 --> 01:04:02,472 It was very frustrating, 1308 01:04:02,506 --> 01:04:04,508 because it was very primitive at the time. 1309 01:04:04,541 --> 01:04:07,211 We were shooting very close to the Wilmington airport, 1310 01:04:07,244 --> 01:04:09,113 and every time the guys set up for a shot, 1311 01:04:09,146 --> 01:04:10,480 the Turtles wouldn't react 1312 01:04:10,514 --> 01:04:12,182 or they would react when we're not ready, 1313 01:04:12,216 --> 01:04:14,051 and we suddenly figured out 1314 01:04:14,084 --> 01:04:16,053 that the interference from the radar... 1315 01:04:17,487 --> 01:04:20,324 We had to go on a military frequency 1316 01:04:20,357 --> 01:04:21,558 because the commercial frequency 1317 01:04:21,591 --> 01:04:23,593 was too close to our own frequency 1318 01:04:23,627 --> 01:04:25,729 for the radio waves. 1319 01:04:25,762 --> 01:04:28,132 We had to figure out all these things going on. 1320 01:04:28,165 --> 01:04:31,768 HOAG: We used to have something we called Major Turtle Breakdown, MTB. 1321 01:04:31,801 --> 01:04:33,737 Sometimes you'd see a Turtle, 1322 01:04:33,770 --> 01:04:35,605 suddenly a jaw would drop 1323 01:04:35,639 --> 01:04:37,975 or an eyeball would go off in a weird direction, 1324 01:04:38,008 --> 01:04:39,276 and something would happen, 1325 01:04:39,309 --> 01:04:41,011 so you wouldn't have them there. 1326 01:04:41,045 --> 01:04:44,114 So, I got used to working with, if necessary, 1327 01:04:44,148 --> 01:04:46,917 a paper plate on a C-stand or nobody. 1328 01:04:46,951 --> 01:04:48,385 Where's Raphael? 1329 01:04:50,587 --> 01:04:52,622 Hmm? MAN: Cut it. 1330 01:04:52,656 --> 01:04:55,625 Then they would always say, "Okay, we'll shoot the rat." 1331 01:04:55,659 --> 01:04:56,994 Because the rat was hardwired, 1332 01:04:57,027 --> 01:04:59,129 it wasn't fully radio-controlled. 1333 01:05:00,564 --> 01:05:03,100 Um, I'd like to do that again, if I could. 1334 01:05:04,401 --> 01:05:07,637 The truth is Splinter took a close-up much easier 1335 01:05:07,671 --> 01:05:11,208 because we weren't trying to hide a person inside of Splinter. 1336 01:05:11,241 --> 01:05:13,210 Splinter was a hand puppet, 1337 01:05:13,243 --> 01:05:15,212 so all the interior of the mouth was really there. 1338 01:05:15,245 --> 01:05:18,448 The Turtles were tough because the actors inside 1339 01:05:18,482 --> 01:05:23,087 were looking through holes in the actual head. 1340 01:05:23,120 --> 01:05:26,756 If the mouth was open, they could see a little bit through the mouth, 1341 01:05:26,790 --> 01:05:29,326 but the truth is if you put a lot of lights on, 1342 01:05:29,359 --> 01:05:31,228 the camera would be able to see right inside 1343 01:05:31,261 --> 01:05:34,198 and see that there was a person in there. 1344 01:05:34,231 --> 01:05:36,266 When I was a kid, I watched very dark fairy tales 1345 01:05:36,300 --> 01:05:39,503 and read dark Grimm's Tales, 1346 01:05:39,536 --> 01:05:43,974 and even though you'd find them a bit spooky, 1347 01:05:44,008 --> 01:05:48,578 that was the most exciting thing and engaging stuff. 1348 01:05:48,612 --> 01:05:51,748 HENSON: That was a controversial decision, to say the least, 1349 01:05:51,781 --> 01:05:54,084 in the making of the film. 1350 01:05:54,118 --> 01:05:57,554 I think there was a lot of concern from the studio 1351 01:05:58,455 --> 01:06:01,258 about how dark the film was. 1352 01:06:01,891 --> 01:06:03,227 CLASH: Steve had 1353 01:06:05,462 --> 01:06:07,631 unbelievable vision for this movie, 1354 01:06:07,664 --> 01:06:10,234 I mean, unbelievable. 1355 01:06:10,267 --> 01:06:13,370 He really didn't want anybody to really "see them" see them. 1356 01:06:14,771 --> 01:06:17,041 That was a whole thing at the beginning, as far as 1357 01:06:18,642 --> 01:06:22,112 not letting the audience, but teasing the audience. 1358 01:06:22,146 --> 01:06:24,114 He really made you feel like you were 1359 01:06:24,148 --> 01:06:26,050 in a sewer with these four turtles. 1360 01:06:32,322 --> 01:06:34,391 OFFICER: You all right, ma'am? APRIL: Yeah, I'm fine. 1361 01:06:34,424 --> 01:06:37,061 In hindsight, I know that was the right decision, 1362 01:06:37,094 --> 01:06:40,264 that Steve thought, "I'm gonna keep the film moody 1363 01:06:40,297 --> 01:06:42,966 "and contrasty and dark, 1364 01:06:42,999 --> 01:06:44,568 "and that's gonna help me to allow 1365 01:06:44,601 --> 01:06:46,836 "the cameras to get a little bit closer." 1366 01:06:46,870 --> 01:06:49,606 I felt, "Let's just really try 1367 01:06:49,639 --> 01:06:51,175 "and get into these eyes of these creatures." 1368 01:06:51,208 --> 01:06:52,642 Even though they weren't real, 1369 01:06:52,676 --> 01:06:55,045 and even though everybody was worried about that. 1370 01:06:55,079 --> 01:06:57,514 There's a big scene with Splinter and Raphael, 1371 01:06:57,547 --> 01:06:59,649 and it moves from one to the other, 1372 01:06:59,683 --> 01:07:02,252 and nobody had been that close to an animatronic 1373 01:07:02,286 --> 01:07:04,621 in animatronic history, I don't think. 1374 01:07:06,356 --> 01:07:08,625 I am here. 1375 01:07:09,926 --> 01:07:11,428 My son. 1376 01:07:11,461 --> 01:07:16,566 The darkness gave the film a gritty credibility 1377 01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:19,569 that I think is the difference between it making $20 million 1378 01:07:19,603 --> 01:07:22,306 and it making way over $100 million, 1379 01:07:22,339 --> 01:07:24,241 and in the end, God knows, $500 million. 1380 01:07:24,274 --> 01:07:26,476 It was fortunate that, 1381 01:07:26,510 --> 01:07:29,279 I think most of the guys at the studio here, 1382 01:07:29,313 --> 01:07:32,082 Jim Lawson, Steve Lavigne, and Ryan Brown, 1383 01:07:32,116 --> 01:07:34,351 Mike Dooney, Eric Talbot, 1384 01:07:34,384 --> 01:07:36,186 were all able to go down to the set, 1385 01:07:36,220 --> 01:07:38,188 because it was in North Carolina 1386 01:07:38,222 --> 01:07:40,290 at the old Carolco studios. 1387 01:07:42,692 --> 01:07:45,529 And we were all able to walk around on their backlot, 1388 01:07:45,562 --> 01:07:47,997 where most of the street scenes were filmed. 1389 01:07:48,031 --> 01:07:50,066 It was a trip. (LAUGHS) 1390 01:07:50,100 --> 01:07:53,337 I don't think any of us had ever been on a movie set before. 1391 01:07:53,370 --> 01:07:57,073 There, 20 yards away, 20 feet away, 1392 01:07:57,107 --> 01:07:59,543 was some of the Turtles in full costume, 1393 01:07:59,576 --> 01:08:00,944 in the stunt costumes, 1394 01:08:00,977 --> 01:08:03,247 playing around, one was playing around with a Mexican hat. 1395 01:08:03,280 --> 01:08:06,483 And it really... You froze dead in your tracks 1396 01:08:06,516 --> 01:08:09,753 because it was night, it was live, 1397 01:08:09,786 --> 01:08:12,356 and it was a real Ninja Turtle, you believed. 1398 01:08:12,389 --> 01:08:14,424 It's like, "There they are and they're alive and they're real. 1399 01:08:16,893 --> 01:08:19,229 "This is amazing. This is amazing on every possible level." 1400 01:08:19,263 --> 01:08:21,965 It was virtually stunning. 1401 01:08:21,998 --> 01:08:24,434 (INDISTINCT TALKING) 1402 01:08:25,735 --> 01:08:28,272 It's a very exciting moment in history. 1403 01:08:28,305 --> 01:08:29,306 Hopefully history's in the making. 1404 01:08:31,941 --> 01:08:33,710 LAIRD: All right, show them the production. 1405 01:08:39,649 --> 01:08:42,952 It's like they reached into my brain and Kevin's brain 1406 01:08:42,986 --> 01:08:45,389 and pulled out what we felt these Turtles should look like, 1407 01:08:45,422 --> 01:08:47,090 and then they did it. 1408 01:08:47,123 --> 01:08:50,126 In foam, latex and acrylic paint 1409 01:08:50,160 --> 01:08:51,495 and bits of leather. 1410 01:08:52,829 --> 01:08:54,164 They just did it. 1411 01:08:54,198 --> 01:08:57,601 Steve Barron, I think, just because he wanted to be nice 1412 01:08:57,634 --> 01:09:00,237 or maybe he thought we would be great in the parts, 1413 01:09:01,738 --> 01:09:05,242 asked Kevin and me if we would like to be 1414 01:09:05,275 --> 01:09:07,911 in the background of a scene as garbage men. 1415 01:09:07,944 --> 01:09:11,080 And I'm not really comfortable with doing those kinds of things, 1416 01:09:11,114 --> 01:09:12,882 so I said, "Thanks, but no." 1417 01:09:12,916 --> 01:09:14,484 But Kevin was up for it. 1418 01:09:14,518 --> 01:09:16,853 I seem to recall that at a certain point, 1419 01:09:16,886 --> 01:09:20,123 you can kind of see this blurry dark shape 1420 01:09:20,156 --> 01:09:22,859 moving across the screen behind one of the Turtles 1421 01:09:22,892 --> 01:09:25,229 way off in the distance, and I think that's Kevin. 1422 01:09:30,600 --> 01:09:33,870 FREEDMAN: When you see a film being shot, 1423 01:09:33,903 --> 01:09:36,139 you only see little snippets, 1424 01:09:36,172 --> 01:09:39,075 you see some dailies, just short segments, 1425 01:09:39,108 --> 01:09:42,479 you don't see the vision of the filmmaker put together on film, 1426 01:09:42,512 --> 01:09:44,314 so it's very, very hard to judge. 1427 01:09:44,348 --> 01:09:46,950 Now the film is together 1428 01:09:46,983 --> 01:09:50,254 and Tom Gray calls me and says, "I want to show you the film." 1429 01:09:50,287 --> 01:09:54,391 It was Tom Gray, it was myself, Mark Freedman, 1430 01:09:54,424 --> 01:09:56,760 Peter Laird, Kevin Eastman, 1431 01:09:56,793 --> 01:09:59,596 there may have been one or two other people from Mirage Studios, 1432 01:09:59,629 --> 01:10:01,698 and we're in a theater without children, 1433 01:10:01,731 --> 01:10:04,668 and we see the film with no audience reaction, 1434 01:10:06,202 --> 01:10:09,172 and we start to shake, we get scared. 1435 01:10:09,205 --> 01:10:12,542 We're not sure if we like it, we're not sure if it's good, 1436 01:10:12,576 --> 01:10:15,111 we start doubting ourselves, we start thinking about it, 1437 01:10:15,144 --> 01:10:16,780 second guessing, you name it. 1438 01:10:17,947 --> 01:10:18,748 We're scared. 1439 01:10:19,983 --> 01:10:21,685 (GONG STRIKING) 1440 01:10:32,496 --> 01:10:34,398 People were cheering this trailer. 1441 01:10:34,431 --> 01:10:38,702 And these weren't necessarily little kids as well. 1442 01:10:38,735 --> 01:10:41,738 They were just people who thought this looked great. 1443 01:10:46,242 --> 01:10:47,644 We get to the movie theater 1444 01:10:47,677 --> 01:10:50,347 about 45 minutes before the first showing 1445 01:10:50,380 --> 01:10:53,817 on a Friday night in March of 1990, 1446 01:10:54,584 --> 01:10:56,486 and we're first on line, 1447 01:10:56,520 --> 01:10:59,589 I looked behind me and I don't see anybody. 1448 01:10:59,623 --> 01:11:01,358 I said, "Well, isn't that special?" 1449 01:11:01,391 --> 01:11:04,160 And within 15 minutes, 1450 01:11:04,193 --> 01:11:07,263 people show up and the line grows 1451 01:11:07,297 --> 01:11:09,599 out the movie theater, around the block. 1452 01:11:12,636 --> 01:11:13,870 Ya! 1453 01:11:13,903 --> 01:11:16,373 I love being a turtle! 1454 01:11:16,406 --> 01:11:18,608 FREEDMAN: When the credits rolled 1455 01:11:18,642 --> 01:11:23,980 and the audience erupted in applause and cheers, 1456 01:11:24,013 --> 01:11:27,384 I think I grabbed onto my wife Renee and I said, 1457 01:11:27,417 --> 01:11:30,554 "I'm not sure what this is, but it sure feels good." 1458 01:11:30,587 --> 01:11:34,290 We opened at 25 million, or 26 million. 1459 01:11:35,091 --> 01:11:37,026 Broke all single records, 1460 01:11:37,060 --> 01:11:38,695 non-holiday playing time, 1461 01:11:38,728 --> 01:11:40,764 in the history of the business. 1462 01:11:40,797 --> 01:11:43,467 That Monday morning after we opened on the record week, 1463 01:11:43,500 --> 01:11:47,671 every single studio guy that had seen the film 1464 01:11:47,704 --> 01:11:51,107 and passed on it in the year and a half prior to that 1465 01:11:51,140 --> 01:11:55,579 called me, all wishing me congratulations, everything. 1466 01:11:55,612 --> 01:11:59,048 "I wish we had seen it. God, how did you know?" 1467 01:11:59,082 --> 01:12:02,419 All that and, "Oh, by the way, can we have the sequel?" 1468 01:12:02,452 --> 01:12:04,521 And I said, "Fellas, 1469 01:12:04,554 --> 01:12:06,690 "the sequel stays with the believers 1470 01:12:06,723 --> 01:12:07,791 "and that's New Line Cinema." 1471 01:12:08,157 --> 01:12:09,292 Huh? 1472 01:12:09,325 --> 01:12:12,095 ALL: Cowabunga! 1473 01:12:13,296 --> 01:12:16,700 I went out to dinner with Jim after that 1474 01:12:16,733 --> 01:12:19,636 and we drove past a movie theater, 1475 01:12:19,669 --> 01:12:24,741 and there were lines of kids with the whole outfits on. 1476 01:12:24,774 --> 01:12:27,911 And we actually saw one of the ushers come out, 1477 01:12:27,944 --> 01:12:30,914 and at a certain point he had to tell them 1478 01:12:30,947 --> 01:12:32,849 that they weren't gonna get in. 1479 01:12:32,882 --> 01:12:36,386 And, man, we saw the emotion that happened down that line. 1480 01:12:36,420 --> 01:12:38,254 Jim and I watched it 1481 01:12:38,287 --> 01:12:42,091 and he said, "Wow, this movie's a big, big hit." 1482 01:12:42,125 --> 01:12:46,630 So, yeah, that was the last film that he was on. 1483 01:12:46,663 --> 01:12:48,965 I was glad that he was around to see 1484 01:12:48,998 --> 01:12:50,967 the success of Ninja Turtles also. 1485 01:12:54,904 --> 01:12:58,842 From my point of view, it's very humbling 1486 01:13:00,043 --> 01:13:02,746 that people would, after all these 20 years, 1487 01:13:02,779 --> 01:13:06,916 that they would still be into something that we helped create. 1488 01:13:06,950 --> 01:13:10,587 All the hard work, all of the people that said no, 1489 01:13:12,689 --> 01:13:16,526 it just went out the door. We did it, we made it. 1490 01:13:16,560 --> 01:13:18,528 Coolest part is that on camera they worked, 1491 01:13:18,562 --> 01:13:21,364 you believed they were real. 1492 01:13:21,397 --> 01:13:23,500 I cannot sit here and honestly say 1493 01:13:23,533 --> 01:13:25,502 there is anything I would change 1494 01:13:25,535 --> 01:13:26,803 about them to make them better. 1495 01:13:40,917 --> 01:13:43,653 I remember watching that movie kind of religiously, 1496 01:13:43,687 --> 01:13:47,156 almost every day. The first one, anyways. 1497 01:13:50,359 --> 01:13:52,762 Going to bed or before I went to bed, 1498 01:13:52,796 --> 01:13:55,164 it wouldn't feel right if I didn't watch that movie at the time. 1499 01:13:55,198 --> 01:13:57,033 I don't know what that was, 1500 01:13:57,066 --> 01:13:58,602 but it definitely had an impact on me. 1501 01:13:58,635 --> 01:14:00,036 I do remember the feeling of 1502 01:14:00,069 --> 01:14:02,472 the first time I heard the theme song, which was... 1503 01:14:03,940 --> 01:14:06,476 At that moment, I just kind of instantly knew 1504 01:14:06,510 --> 01:14:08,712 that it was gonna be a lifetime investment. 1505 01:14:08,745 --> 01:14:10,614 The great thing about the Turtles was that 1506 01:14:10,647 --> 01:14:14,050 they were so unbelievably huge when I was growing up 1507 01:14:14,083 --> 01:14:16,019 that you had to be a Turtle fan. 1508 01:14:16,052 --> 01:14:18,588 There was the Thundercats and He-Man toys, 1509 01:14:18,622 --> 01:14:20,824 but then there's this one green toy that stood out, 1510 01:14:20,857 --> 01:14:23,960 this one toy that was so different. 1511 01:14:23,993 --> 01:14:26,963 I remember just even the typography of it, 1512 01:14:26,996 --> 01:14:29,599 the fact that it was made from the shells was always really cool. 1513 01:14:29,633 --> 01:14:32,802 I was really into toys like He-Man and all that stuff. 1514 01:14:34,337 --> 01:14:35,371 I saw these toys and I was like, 1515 01:14:35,404 --> 01:14:36,773 "What is this? I don't get it." 1516 01:14:36,806 --> 01:14:38,908 You know, "Do they like pizza or something?" 1517 01:14:38,942 --> 01:14:40,877 It just didn't make any sense or whatever. 1518 01:14:40,910 --> 01:14:41,978 So, I got Donatello 1519 01:14:42,011 --> 01:14:45,281 not really knowing the context of what it was, 1520 01:14:45,314 --> 01:14:47,383 of what he belonged to or whatever. 1521 01:14:47,416 --> 01:14:49,686 And then other kids in school 1522 01:14:49,719 --> 01:14:51,154 would be like, "Oh, you have Donatello!" 1523 01:14:51,187 --> 01:14:53,823 And they have Leo or somebody and they go together. 1524 01:14:53,857 --> 01:14:55,725 If I were to be a world leader, 1525 01:14:55,759 --> 01:14:57,561 then I would definitely have to say 1526 01:14:57,594 --> 01:14:59,763 that being a kid and growing up with Ninja Turtles 1527 01:14:59,796 --> 01:15:02,098 definitely affected the way I view the world. 1528 01:15:03,900 --> 01:15:05,535 EASTMAN: We would have a bunch of discussions 1529 01:15:05,569 --> 01:15:08,037 with our agent, Mark Freedman, of longevity, 1530 01:15:08,071 --> 01:15:11,240 and he always said, "Look, kids, it's gonna be intro year, 1531 01:15:11,274 --> 01:15:13,543 "the banner year, and then the discount bin year. 1532 01:15:13,577 --> 01:15:16,112 "Three years tops for any successful toy item 1533 01:15:16,145 --> 01:15:17,380 "and then you're done and gone." 1534 01:15:17,413 --> 01:15:20,216 AARONIAN: Usually if a toy line, especially action figures, 1535 01:15:20,249 --> 01:15:23,286 if they can last three years, that's fantastic. 1536 01:15:23,319 --> 01:15:26,455 A three year life cycle is really good for this industry. 1537 01:15:26,489 --> 01:15:29,125 The percentages of a successful product are probably one in 10, 1538 01:15:29,158 --> 01:15:30,293 so it's very low. 1539 01:15:41,871 --> 01:15:43,607 Without a doubt, Turtles affected my life. 1540 01:15:44,507 --> 01:15:45,675 I was obsessed with Ninja Turtles! 1541 01:15:47,376 --> 01:15:48,511 Everybody wanted to be the Turtles. 1542 01:15:48,544 --> 01:15:50,780 Everybody was either Mikey, Leo, 1543 01:15:50,814 --> 01:15:54,217 the geek, Donnie, or the badass wannabe, Raphael. 1544 01:15:54,250 --> 01:15:57,053 Somebody could set a Barbie doll in front of me and a Ninja Turtle, 1545 01:15:57,086 --> 01:15:58,688 and I was just drawn to the Ninja Turtle. 1546 01:15:58,722 --> 01:16:00,423 I think it was the action. 1547 01:16:00,456 --> 01:16:02,892 You see something, especially in a group, 1548 01:16:02,926 --> 01:16:06,029 you just can't help but to just be like, "Oh, my God, 1549 01:16:06,062 --> 01:16:07,731 "I want to be this one, I want to be that one!" 1550 01:16:07,764 --> 01:16:09,332 It was just real to me. 1551 01:16:09,365 --> 01:16:13,002 I don't know anybody my age who wasn't crazy about the Turtles. 1552 01:16:13,036 --> 01:16:16,572 Every school had almost every class filled with Ninja Turtle fans. 1553 01:16:16,606 --> 01:16:17,907 I like Michelangelo. 1554 01:16:17,941 --> 01:16:19,108 Leonardo. 1555 01:16:19,142 --> 01:16:20,243 Raphael. 1556 01:16:20,276 --> 01:16:21,244 Donatello. 1557 01:16:21,277 --> 01:16:23,046 Mikey. 1558 01:16:23,079 --> 01:16:25,114 I remember walking downstairs Christmas morning 1559 01:16:25,148 --> 01:16:26,616 and I got Leonardo. 1560 01:16:26,650 --> 01:16:28,117 It's really like everything that kids would want. 1561 01:16:28,685 --> 01:16:30,553 And I like the Turtles, 1562 01:16:30,586 --> 01:16:33,923 but the most best is Splinter. 1563 01:16:33,957 --> 01:16:36,192 So, I made this Turtle Van out of a shoe box, 1564 01:16:36,225 --> 01:16:38,094 and that shoe box came with me everywhere. 1565 01:16:38,127 --> 01:16:40,596 Around that time, it was my life. 1566 01:16:40,630 --> 01:16:45,434 They at one point had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Valentine's Day valentines. 1567 01:16:45,468 --> 01:16:47,637 Come on, that's a no-brainer. 1568 01:16:47,671 --> 01:16:49,873 I gave you the "Cowabunga, dude" one. 1569 01:16:49,906 --> 01:16:52,241 But it pretty much took over the world. 1570 01:16:52,275 --> 01:16:55,679 And I think a lot of kids who grew up with it 1571 01:16:55,712 --> 01:16:57,914 know exactly what I'm talking about. 1572 01:16:57,947 --> 01:17:00,549 Now we're becoming successful in Canada, 1573 01:17:00,583 --> 01:17:02,652 now we're becoming successful in Mexico, 1574 01:17:02,686 --> 01:17:05,922 now it's the Tortues Ninjas in France. 1575 01:17:05,955 --> 01:17:09,325 * Tortues Ninja, Ninja Tortues Ninja * 1576 01:17:09,358 --> 01:17:10,626 (LAUGHING) 1577 01:17:10,660 --> 01:17:12,128 And then we're doing... 1578 01:17:12,161 --> 01:17:13,863 The name has to be changed to 1579 01:17:13,897 --> 01:17:16,966 "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" in the UK 1580 01:17:17,000 --> 01:17:18,802 because they've outlawed "Ninja." 1581 01:17:18,835 --> 01:17:20,103 It's still successful there. 1582 01:17:27,510 --> 01:17:31,781 Rock, dudes! We did it, we won! 1583 01:17:31,815 --> 01:17:33,216 It was kind of thrown out that, 1584 01:17:33,249 --> 01:17:35,752 "If you guys want to try to come up with some ideas, 1585 01:17:35,785 --> 01:17:37,687 "you can send them to Playmates, 1586 01:17:37,721 --> 01:17:40,656 "and if they get used, that's cool." 1587 01:17:40,690 --> 01:17:44,027 Probably the toy I'm most famous known for is Rat King. 1588 01:17:44,060 --> 01:17:47,496 BROWN: They took Leatherhead, Ray Fillet, the cockroach, Scumbug, 1589 01:17:47,530 --> 01:17:49,298 Wyrm, Mondo Gecko, 1590 01:17:49,332 --> 01:17:52,335 toy Antrax was created by Mike Dooney and Dan Berger, 1591 01:17:52,368 --> 01:17:54,904 and then the Canadian Royal Mounted Police Moose, 1592 01:17:54,938 --> 01:17:57,040 and that's the one they picked, obviously, 1593 01:17:57,073 --> 01:17:59,075 because that makes the most sense, 1594 01:17:59,108 --> 01:18:01,344 it's more than a basketball-playing giraffe, or... 1595 01:18:01,377 --> 01:18:03,012 I did an elephant, too. 1596 01:18:03,046 --> 01:18:04,513 Well, the elephant's a witch doctor, 1597 01:18:04,547 --> 01:18:05,949 so I don't know if that's politically correct, 1598 01:18:05,982 --> 01:18:08,117 but at the time it was accepted. 1599 01:18:08,151 --> 01:18:11,788 I did Sergeant Bananas and Wingnut from Screwloose. 1600 01:18:11,821 --> 01:18:13,790 It was almost a rule 1601 01:18:13,823 --> 01:18:15,725 that you could not have a character 1602 01:18:15,759 --> 01:18:18,795 with two arms the same or two legs the same. 1603 01:18:18,828 --> 01:18:22,431 One of them would have to be a toilet plunger 1604 01:18:22,465 --> 01:18:26,235 or a robot leg or a tentacle, 1605 01:18:26,269 --> 01:18:28,271 and it was cool! 1606 01:18:28,304 --> 01:18:32,375 They did some really amazingly creative sculpts and designs 1607 01:18:32,408 --> 01:18:33,676 and paint jobs and stuff. 1608 01:18:33,709 --> 01:18:35,711 Mutagen Man. 1609 01:18:35,745 --> 01:18:39,315 Actually, I think I did the preliminary design for that. 1610 01:18:39,348 --> 01:18:42,085 Turtles have been kind of the Barbie of action figures. 1611 01:18:42,118 --> 01:18:44,720 You can apply almost anything to Turtles. 1612 01:18:44,754 --> 01:18:48,091 BROWN: Playmates decided nothing sells better than a Turtle, 1613 01:18:48,124 --> 01:18:50,626 so they were starting to concentrate on just Turtle variants. 1614 01:18:50,659 --> 01:18:52,796 I submitted a lot of stuff, 1615 01:18:52,829 --> 01:18:54,730 a lot of really bad stuff. 1616 01:18:54,764 --> 01:18:58,567 I had this line of mutant people, like a plumber. 1617 01:18:58,601 --> 01:19:02,038 I had Motorhead, which was a mutant cabbie, 1618 01:19:02,071 --> 01:19:05,208 a traffic cop who had a stoplight for a head. 1619 01:19:12,281 --> 01:19:14,483 Also, can we talk for a second, 1620 01:19:14,517 --> 01:19:16,285 about to blow your minds, 1621 01:19:16,319 --> 01:19:18,321 about the video game. 1622 01:19:18,354 --> 01:19:20,423 TRACHTENBERG: There's a couple tiers of the video game. 1623 01:19:20,456 --> 01:19:22,391 There's the original game, the Nintendo game 1624 01:19:22,425 --> 01:19:24,961 that was in the movie Wizard, that was impossible. 1625 01:19:24,994 --> 01:19:26,896 ALBRECHT: It is the hardest game. 1626 01:19:26,930 --> 01:19:30,199 But the arcade four-player beat 'em up. 1627 01:19:30,233 --> 01:19:35,538 That video game is almost, in its own category, 1628 01:19:35,571 --> 01:19:39,175 bigger than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were in their category. 1629 01:19:39,208 --> 01:19:41,878 That video game was special in its own right, you know? 1630 01:19:41,911 --> 01:19:43,246 I remember playing people and I was like, 1631 01:19:43,279 --> 01:19:45,982 "I have to be Donatello, that's my guy." 1632 01:19:46,015 --> 01:19:49,118 Not because of his skills, 1633 01:19:49,152 --> 01:19:51,955 but because that was the guy that I related to the most. 1634 01:19:51,988 --> 01:19:54,290 TRACHTENBERG: Turtles in Time at the arcade. 1635 01:19:54,323 --> 01:19:56,792 $20, and we were so close to beating it. 1636 01:19:56,826 --> 01:19:59,262 We ran out of money, and that was our allowance of five weeks. 1637 01:19:59,295 --> 01:20:01,497 ALBRECHT: Man, back in the day, you had to pump money in... 1638 01:20:01,530 --> 01:20:04,133 So, produced through the studio, the Archie Comics... 1639 01:20:04,167 --> 01:20:06,469 Steve Murphy wrote a lot of those, 1640 01:20:06,502 --> 01:20:08,671 Ken Mitchroney and a lot of the guys drew all that stuff. 1641 01:20:08,704 --> 01:20:11,207 We produced it in house and published through Archie. 1642 01:20:11,240 --> 01:20:12,575 BROWN: Pete and Kevin said, 1643 01:20:12,608 --> 01:20:14,543 "Do whatever you want with the Archie book," and we did. 1644 01:20:15,845 --> 01:20:17,646 I had some ideas I wanted to do 1645 01:20:17,680 --> 01:20:19,315 and no one else wanted to do it. 1646 01:20:19,348 --> 01:20:20,716 I think Mike Dooney had done 1647 01:20:20,749 --> 01:20:23,319 an adaption of the Murakami-Wolf show. 1648 01:20:23,352 --> 01:20:25,855 DOONEY: So, I was actually watching it on TV at home, 1649 01:20:25,889 --> 01:20:28,424 we didn't even have a VHS of it or whatever. 1650 01:20:28,457 --> 01:20:30,726 I was watching it on TV and I had the storyboards, 1651 01:20:30,759 --> 01:20:32,361 so I would draw it that way. 1652 01:20:32,395 --> 01:20:35,131 And I felt that there was some other things we could do with it 1653 01:20:35,164 --> 01:20:37,533 if Pete and Kevin agreed with me, 1654 01:20:37,566 --> 01:20:40,769 and I talked to them and they said, "Yeah, that'd be great." 1655 01:20:40,803 --> 01:20:43,106 Then I talked to Murph and wondered 1656 01:20:43,139 --> 01:20:47,076 if he'd partner up with me, because I couldn't write it. 1657 01:20:47,110 --> 01:20:48,912 If something in the book 1658 01:20:48,945 --> 01:20:52,415 influenced someone to maybe recycle 1659 01:20:52,448 --> 01:20:54,817 or make the world a better place, 1660 01:20:54,850 --> 01:20:56,285 I think it's all for the better. 1661 01:20:56,319 --> 01:20:58,521 BRAMMER: They were just goofy and strange enough 1662 01:20:58,554 --> 01:21:01,991 to where you can do a lot of things with them, 1663 01:21:02,025 --> 01:21:04,760 and that's one of the things that makes them so popular, 1664 01:21:04,793 --> 01:21:06,295 they can go to an alien world, 1665 01:21:06,329 --> 01:21:08,998 they can run around downtown New York. 1666 01:21:09,032 --> 01:21:12,101 You can just use them in different situations, 1667 01:21:12,135 --> 01:21:14,170 and it always just seems to work. 1668 01:21:14,203 --> 01:21:16,172 We also produced live entertainment. 1669 01:21:16,205 --> 01:21:19,675 In fact, we opened up on Radio City Music Hall. 1670 01:21:19,708 --> 01:21:24,547 You couldn't stage a play, so to speak, for little kids, 1671 01:21:24,580 --> 01:21:28,918 so instead they had the Turtles become rock stars. 1672 01:21:28,952 --> 01:21:31,287 The day of the opening, the Turtles were just above 1673 01:21:31,320 --> 01:21:33,957 the Radio City Music Hall marquee, 1674 01:21:33,990 --> 01:21:36,592 and they were performing one of their songs live, 1675 01:21:36,625 --> 01:21:38,261 and it was a terrific show. 1676 01:21:38,294 --> 01:21:42,098 And that show went on the road, 1677 01:21:43,532 --> 01:21:46,035 and the Turtles appeared live across the country 1678 01:21:46,069 --> 01:21:48,571 in venues everywhere and internationally as well. 1679 01:21:48,604 --> 01:21:51,707 The summer after my sophomore year of college, 1680 01:21:51,740 --> 01:21:52,775 a friend of mine was working 1681 01:21:52,808 --> 01:21:54,777 at a theater company as an intern. 1682 01:21:54,810 --> 01:21:57,846 Todd Holoubek ran into a State rehearsal and said, 1683 01:21:57,880 --> 01:22:00,649 "Does anybody here want to be a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle?" 1684 01:22:02,385 --> 01:22:05,254 I'd heard the name Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, I thought it was funny, 1685 01:22:05,288 --> 01:22:07,023 I didn't really know what it was. 1686 01:22:07,056 --> 01:22:09,158 I think everybody in the group said yes. 1687 01:22:09,192 --> 01:22:12,295 So, we went to this rock and roll office. 1688 01:22:14,163 --> 01:22:16,765 A guy named Steven Leber ran this office. 1689 01:22:16,799 --> 01:22:19,435 GARANT: So, they needed anybody who could go out 1690 01:22:19,468 --> 01:22:23,172 and put on the costumes and do the advance work. 1691 01:22:23,206 --> 01:22:27,376 So, you would travel one city ahead of the tour 1692 01:22:27,410 --> 01:22:29,178 and do promotion. 1693 01:22:29,212 --> 01:22:31,580 They were producing a rock and roll Turtle tour 1694 01:22:32,915 --> 01:22:34,517 called the Coming Out of Our Shells Tour. 1695 01:22:34,550 --> 01:22:36,485 GARANT: And the songs that they were singing 1696 01:22:36,519 --> 01:22:40,156 were on this big giant show at Radio City Music Hall, 1697 01:22:40,189 --> 01:22:43,959 which had sold out a four-week run at Radio City Music Hall. 1698 01:22:43,993 --> 01:22:47,930 So, it was this big show and Broadway dancers were in the outfits. 1699 01:22:47,963 --> 01:22:50,466 * We're the Turtles! 1700 01:22:51,267 --> 01:22:54,037 * You can count on us! 1701 01:22:55,604 --> 01:22:59,875 And on the subway home, my friend Ben is going, 1702 01:22:59,908 --> 01:23:02,078 "You know, it would be kind of cool to sort of 1703 01:23:02,111 --> 01:23:05,548 "get paid to travel the country and be a turtle." 1704 01:23:05,581 --> 01:23:08,151 And I'm like, "Yeah, it would be kind of cool to do that." 1705 01:23:08,184 --> 01:23:10,186 And by the end of the subway ride, we had convinced ourselves 1706 01:23:10,219 --> 01:23:11,887 that we were gonna drop out of school 1707 01:23:11,920 --> 01:23:13,522 and become Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 1708 01:23:13,556 --> 01:23:14,723 And that's what we did. 1709 01:23:14,757 --> 01:23:17,760 So, it's this vinyl suit 1710 01:23:17,793 --> 01:23:21,197 with big rubbery attachments 1711 01:23:21,230 --> 01:23:24,633 and a hard plastic shell and the robotic head, 1712 01:23:24,667 --> 01:23:28,237 which is filled with servos and whirring gear 1713 01:23:28,271 --> 01:23:30,873 and electronics, and the eyes open and the mouth moves 1714 01:23:30,906 --> 01:23:33,209 and you control it with a remote control. 1715 01:23:33,242 --> 01:23:36,645 Me and Mike Black both did an appearance as the Turtles 1716 01:23:36,679 --> 01:23:42,185 at a pizza restaurant somewhere in Juarez, Mexico. 1717 01:23:42,218 --> 01:23:44,587 They were doing a show in Texas, 1718 01:23:44,620 --> 01:23:47,356 but we were gonna go into Mexico in Juarez to promote it. 1719 01:23:49,125 --> 01:23:51,294 And the idea was we were gonna go to this ice cream store 1720 01:23:51,327 --> 01:23:53,696 and greet kids at an ice cream store and wave, 1721 01:23:53,729 --> 01:23:58,367 but when we showed up, there were thousands of kids there. 1722 01:23:58,401 --> 01:24:01,537 And there was no crowd control, 1723 01:24:01,570 --> 01:24:03,106 there was no cops, 1724 01:24:03,139 --> 01:24:05,541 it was just this sea of people. 1725 01:24:05,574 --> 01:24:08,611 And we went up on the roof of this thing 1726 01:24:08,644 --> 01:24:10,713 and it was like Saigon. 1727 01:24:12,115 --> 01:24:15,184 We were up on the roof in these turtle outfits 1728 01:24:15,218 --> 01:24:19,188 as a sea of Mexican children were just... 1729 01:24:19,222 --> 01:24:22,658 And we had pizza to throw down at them and T-shirts. 1730 01:24:22,691 --> 01:24:24,427 I'll never forget looking through this turtle mask 1731 01:24:24,460 --> 01:24:26,829 at these thousands of kids 1732 01:24:26,862 --> 01:24:29,698 just massed outside this store 1733 01:24:29,732 --> 01:24:30,833 cheering and waving, 1734 01:24:30,866 --> 01:24:32,401 and we're dancing. 1735 01:24:34,069 --> 01:24:36,505 It was kind of a profound moment, because 1736 01:24:36,539 --> 01:24:39,375 it brought home not only the phenomenon of the Turtles, 1737 01:24:39,408 --> 01:24:41,410 but there was also something sort of larger and sadder 1738 01:24:41,444 --> 01:24:43,078 about the state of our world 1739 01:24:43,112 --> 01:24:45,848 in seeing all these poor kids 1740 01:24:45,881 --> 01:24:47,350 who were just as caught up 1741 01:24:47,383 --> 01:24:48,717 as their American counterparts in this thing, 1742 01:24:48,751 --> 01:24:50,619 but had no access to it, 1743 01:24:50,653 --> 01:24:52,655 in the way that their American counterparts did. 1744 01:24:52,688 --> 01:24:55,358 It was kind of a bummer, but the ice cream was good. 1745 01:24:55,391 --> 01:24:58,727 * We gotta let the music be 1746 01:24:58,761 --> 01:25:02,030 * You know you gotta fight to be free * 1747 01:25:02,064 --> 01:25:04,967 We were afraid that this was a one-off. 1748 01:25:05,000 --> 01:25:07,102 Obviously, so was New Line, so was everybody. 1749 01:25:07,136 --> 01:25:09,205 The whole industry said, 1750 01:25:09,238 --> 01:25:10,873 "It's a one-off, it's Cabbage Patch, 1751 01:25:10,906 --> 01:25:13,476 "it will never be another one." 1752 01:25:13,509 --> 01:25:15,178 So we rushed, 1753 01:25:15,211 --> 01:25:17,413 we came up with a concept. 1754 01:25:17,446 --> 01:25:19,882 We got that thing shot and on the screen in one year. 1755 01:25:19,915 --> 01:25:20,949 That's pretty amazing. 1756 01:25:20,983 --> 01:25:22,651 And then we decided, 1757 01:25:22,685 --> 01:25:25,921 "Let's air it out for a year. Let's... 1758 01:25:25,954 --> 01:25:28,457 "It's got muscle in it." 1759 01:25:28,491 --> 01:25:33,028 It did from 134 to 82, that's not too bad. 1760 01:25:33,061 --> 01:25:34,463 So, when we did the third movie, 1761 01:25:35,964 --> 01:25:38,834 we tried to make it more towards the first movie, 1762 01:25:38,867 --> 01:25:41,970 which had a bit more of an edge and a bit more of an epic feel 1763 01:25:42,004 --> 01:25:43,972 and the back to Japan storyline. 1764 01:25:44,006 --> 01:25:46,141 LAIRD: The first movie I see as a huge step forward, 1765 01:25:46,175 --> 01:25:48,177 maybe even a huge leap forward, 1766 01:25:48,211 --> 01:25:51,547 and the second movie was a huge step backwards, 1767 01:25:51,580 --> 01:25:54,650 so we kind of ended up in square one with the third movie. 1768 01:25:58,387 --> 01:25:59,588 EASTMAN: It's really hard to describe, 1769 01:25:59,622 --> 01:26:01,056 even when you're going through it, 1770 01:26:01,089 --> 01:26:02,458 when you're in the middle of it. 1771 01:26:02,491 --> 01:26:05,461 I remember the biggest effect it had on probably both Peter and I 1772 01:26:05,494 --> 01:26:09,565 was that we went from guys that got into the business 1773 01:26:09,598 --> 01:26:11,667 to write and draw comics, tell our own stories. 1774 01:26:11,700 --> 01:26:15,571 In, say, 1986, '87, 1775 01:26:15,604 --> 01:26:17,873 we were still drawing roughly 90% of the time, 1776 01:26:17,906 --> 01:26:19,642 80% to 90% of the time, 1777 01:26:19,675 --> 01:26:22,110 and then handling business 10% to 20% of the time, 1778 01:26:22,144 --> 01:26:25,047 and then the following year, it was a complete reversal. 1779 01:26:25,080 --> 01:26:27,783 LAIRD: Kevin and I, we had kind of been growing apart 1780 01:26:28,717 --> 01:26:31,186 as friends and also business people. 1781 01:26:31,220 --> 01:26:33,222 He actually moved out to the west coast, 1782 01:26:34,390 --> 01:26:35,924 I think, in the early '90s. 1783 01:26:36,392 --> 01:26:38,294 At that time, I had 1784 01:26:38,327 --> 01:26:40,195 a number of other creative things that I had. 1785 01:26:40,229 --> 01:26:41,697 I owned Heavy Metal Magazine 1786 01:26:41,730 --> 01:26:43,332 and we were producing a new movie there. 1787 01:26:43,366 --> 01:26:44,633 LAIRD: And we ended up realizing, 1788 01:26:44,667 --> 01:26:46,269 I think both of us came to the conclusion 1789 01:26:46,302 --> 01:26:48,837 that you can't really run a partnership this way. 1790 01:26:48,871 --> 01:26:52,107 We'd already gone 10 years, or at least seven years 1791 01:26:52,140 --> 01:26:54,810 beyond where they thought it was going to go. 1792 01:26:56,645 --> 01:26:59,748 I'm grateful for every single one of those years 1793 01:26:59,782 --> 01:27:00,883 and experiences, 1794 01:27:00,916 --> 01:27:03,286 so I signed over creative control to Peter. 1795 01:27:07,122 --> 01:27:11,059 LAIRD: Back in 2001, I started up the Turtle comic again, 1796 01:27:11,093 --> 01:27:14,196 really doing it myself except for the penciling, 1797 01:27:14,229 --> 01:27:15,931 which Jim Lawson did. 1798 01:27:15,964 --> 01:27:20,102 I was plotting it, writing it, lettering it, toning it, 1799 01:27:20,135 --> 01:27:22,938 doing some inking on the first few issues. 1800 01:27:22,971 --> 01:27:25,841 And I was really having a whole lot of fun with it, 1801 01:27:25,874 --> 01:27:30,078 and I thought, "This is great, because I'm able to pick up 1802 01:27:30,112 --> 01:27:33,148 "about 10 years after the last time I did a regular Turtle book." 1803 01:27:33,181 --> 01:27:36,585 And although it did appeal to a bunch of people, 1804 01:27:36,619 --> 01:27:40,055 I also started getting a lot of people commenting that, 1805 01:27:40,088 --> 01:27:44,393 "Jeez, I really liked the old Eastman/Laird ones a lot better." 1806 01:27:44,427 --> 01:27:48,464 And I think that the problem 1807 01:27:48,497 --> 01:27:49,998 that people were having with it 1808 01:27:50,032 --> 01:27:53,101 actually relates to something, 1809 01:27:53,135 --> 01:27:55,037 one of those fortuitous circumstances 1810 01:27:55,070 --> 01:27:56,705 that comes along every so often 1811 01:27:58,374 --> 01:28:02,411 where two people of largely different personalities 1812 01:28:03,979 --> 01:28:06,582 can get together and work together on something 1813 01:28:06,615 --> 01:28:09,818 and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. 1814 01:28:09,852 --> 01:28:12,321 It's actually one of the things I kind of regret, 1815 01:28:12,355 --> 01:28:14,457 about the fact that Kevin and I have not 1816 01:28:14,490 --> 01:28:16,325 been so close over the years, 1817 01:28:16,359 --> 01:28:20,262 because he and I went through this together and no one else did. 1818 01:28:20,295 --> 01:28:22,465 And I'm sure there are things 1819 01:28:22,498 --> 01:28:24,767 that he would say to me or I would say to him 1820 01:28:24,800 --> 01:28:26,869 that would spark some memory in our heads, 1821 01:28:26,902 --> 01:28:30,706 like, "Oh, yeah, I remember when that kind of goofy thing happened." 1822 01:28:30,739 --> 01:28:32,375 Pete! LAIRD: What's that, Kev? 1823 01:28:33,776 --> 01:28:35,844 See, we had a design idea here. 1824 01:28:35,878 --> 01:28:37,946 See up here where it's all white... 1825 01:28:40,916 --> 01:28:43,185 LAIRD: My favorite Turtle has always been Donatello, 1826 01:28:43,218 --> 01:28:45,454 because he's the pacifist of the group. 1827 01:28:45,488 --> 01:28:47,923 Kevin's favorite Turtle is Raphael, 1828 01:28:47,956 --> 01:28:50,826 probably the most aggressive of the Turtles. 1829 01:28:50,859 --> 01:28:53,261 And I think it was the combination of those two approaches 1830 01:28:53,295 --> 01:28:56,499 that really made those early issues something special. 1831 01:28:59,435 --> 01:29:02,037 RICHARDSON: So, it's been two and a half decades for the Turtles, 1832 01:29:02,070 --> 01:29:04,707 so we've seen lots of generations of 1833 01:29:04,740 --> 01:29:07,175 five to 11-year-olds come through, 1834 01:29:07,209 --> 01:29:10,212 but they all react similarly 1835 01:29:10,245 --> 01:29:12,581 when it comes to the Turtles, so there's something... 1836 01:29:14,583 --> 01:29:17,820 The core of the Turtles is appealing to kids. 1837 01:29:17,853 --> 01:29:21,056 But now we're seeing parents, especially dads 1838 01:29:21,089 --> 01:29:22,591 coming up with their son, 1839 01:29:22,625 --> 01:29:25,093 and the son's three or four years old, 1840 01:29:25,127 --> 01:29:27,730 and the dad's like, "I loved the series, 1841 01:29:27,763 --> 01:29:28,931 "the original Turtles, when I was a kid, 1842 01:29:28,964 --> 01:29:32,000 "and now my son has found it on his own." 1843 01:29:40,609 --> 01:29:42,845 LAIRD: The sale of the Turtle property 1844 01:29:42,878 --> 01:29:46,214 was something that had been considered for a long time, 1845 01:29:46,248 --> 01:29:49,918 and then in October of 2009, we signed some papers 1846 01:29:49,952 --> 01:29:52,855 and got some checks and that was it. 1847 01:30:04,232 --> 01:30:06,268 We're walking down the toy aisle, the action figure aisle, 1848 01:30:06,301 --> 01:30:09,204 and this mother's kind of dragging this kid out of the aisle going, 1849 01:30:09,237 --> 01:30:12,875 and the kid's pitching a fit going, "Mommy, please!" 1850 01:30:12,908 --> 01:30:15,844 And just as we're getting there, the mom was like, 1851 01:30:15,878 --> 01:30:17,646 "No, no, no, I'm not buying you 1852 01:30:17,680 --> 01:30:19,147 "one of those stupid Ninja Turtles," 1853 01:30:19,181 --> 01:30:20,415 and went off. 1854 01:30:20,449 --> 01:30:22,885 And Peter and I looked at each other and went like, 1855 01:30:22,918 --> 01:30:25,420 "Holy, what did we do?" 1856 01:30:25,454 --> 01:30:27,456 These characters were as real, 1857 01:30:27,490 --> 01:30:29,558 and are as real, even today, 1858 01:30:29,592 --> 01:30:31,326 for so many people, 1859 01:30:31,359 --> 01:30:33,228 because it just touched so many lives. 1860 01:30:33,261 --> 01:30:35,764 The Turtles is a great story from that standpoint, 1861 01:30:35,798 --> 01:30:39,034 it's a story of two guys that borrowed money 1862 01:30:39,067 --> 01:30:42,805 and had a dream and took a comic book to press. 1863 01:30:42,838 --> 01:30:46,341 It's lightning in a jar, it really is, 1864 01:30:46,374 --> 01:30:49,678 and you can't create that on purpose, 1865 01:30:49,712 --> 01:30:52,515 you just got to do it from your heart. 1866 01:30:52,548 --> 01:30:55,150 To put it in perspective, the peak year 1867 01:30:55,183 --> 01:31:00,188 we shipped 100 million units of figures and vehicles. 1868 01:31:00,222 --> 01:31:02,525 Which I would guess that 1869 01:31:02,558 --> 01:31:04,159 that is the biggest single year 1870 01:31:04,192 --> 01:31:07,763 that any action figure line has ever experienced. 1871 01:31:07,796 --> 01:31:11,667 If nothing else ever is said about this franchise is that 1872 01:31:11,700 --> 01:31:14,069 it changed so many people's lives, 1873 01:31:14,102 --> 01:31:17,305 and at this point in life, it's all good. 1874 01:31:17,339 --> 01:31:20,008 Certainly when we got the job originally, none of us, 1875 01:31:20,042 --> 01:31:21,977 and I'm sure you've heard this from everybody else on the show, 1876 01:31:22,010 --> 01:31:25,447 nobody knew that we'd be here talking about it a generation later. 1877 01:31:25,480 --> 01:31:29,818 There is something about that central concept of the Turtles that is timeless. 1878 01:31:29,852 --> 01:31:33,321 Four outsiders brought together under a mentor, 1879 01:31:33,355 --> 01:31:34,657 living in this world 1880 01:31:34,690 --> 01:31:36,491 and trying to make their way, 1881 01:31:36,525 --> 01:31:40,062 it's a fabulous sort of parable for adolescence. 1882 01:31:40,095 --> 01:31:44,432 Even The Avengers are big on the movie screen, 1883 01:31:44,466 --> 01:31:47,369 but the Turtles also had a TV show 1884 01:31:47,402 --> 01:31:49,672 that was on every day, that kids watched, 1885 01:31:49,705 --> 01:31:54,076 they had three movies out, they had an album and a tour. 1886 01:31:54,109 --> 01:31:59,114 So, if The Avengers also had songs about being Avengers, 1887 01:31:59,147 --> 01:32:03,318 and were going on tour on stage as The Avengers, 1888 01:32:03,351 --> 01:32:05,788 there's no comparison. 1889 01:32:05,821 --> 01:32:08,090 I do think that there's something just built in the core 1890 01:32:08,123 --> 01:32:11,159 of these four green guys 1891 01:32:11,193 --> 01:32:14,296 that is endearing forever. 1892 01:32:14,329 --> 01:32:18,533 How I was working in a lobster restaurant in Maine, 1893 01:32:18,567 --> 01:32:21,069 met a waitress that I really liked, 1894 01:32:21,103 --> 01:32:22,037 we fell in love, 1895 01:32:22,070 --> 01:32:24,039 she was going to school in Amherst, 1896 01:32:24,072 --> 01:32:26,942 I moved with her to Amherst, 1897 01:32:26,975 --> 01:32:31,413 happened to have a getting-by job at a pizza place, 1898 01:32:31,446 --> 01:32:32,547 just happened to be on the bus 1899 01:32:32,581 --> 01:32:33,882 on the right day, at the right time, 1900 01:32:33,916 --> 01:32:36,351 to find this magazine that somebody left behind 1901 01:32:36,384 --> 01:32:39,187 that made me pursue my career goal 1902 01:32:39,221 --> 01:32:40,989 of wanting to write and draw comic books 1903 01:32:41,023 --> 01:32:43,025 to this place in Northampton, which led me to Peter. 1904 01:32:43,058 --> 01:32:46,161 What if that person who had that Scat magazine 1905 01:32:46,194 --> 01:32:47,963 hadn't dropped it on the floor of that bus 1906 01:32:47,996 --> 01:32:49,765 that Kevin was taking from Amherst to Northampton? 1907 01:32:50,966 --> 01:32:52,234 It would never have happened. 1908 01:32:52,267 --> 01:32:53,201 There's too many... 1909 01:32:54,670 --> 01:32:56,605 Too many happy accidents. 1910 01:33:12,254 --> 01:33:14,056 (INSPIRING MUSIC PLAYING) 1911 01:36:22,811 --> 01:36:24,512 (YOU GOT THE POWER (TURTLE POWER) PLAYING)