The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise has become a worldwide phenomenon. Who would've ever thought a story about the adventures of four teenaged humanoid turtles named after Renaissance artists who are trained in ninjutsu by a mutated rat and use their skills to protect New York from ninjas and aliens would turn into such a lasting success? TMNT originated in a series of Mirage comic books, but soon spread to two other comics series, multiple animated TV series, five films, video games, toys, pizza ads, and just about every other kind of merchandise you can imagine. At the peak of TMNT's success in the late 80s and early 90s, "Turtlemania" swept the United States, and then the world. Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello, Master Splinter, and April O'Neil are now household names.
What makes TMNT so enduringly popular? Is it the appealing strangeness of the story? Their infectious love of pizza? Their memorable catchphrases and humorous quips? Or is it childhood nostalgia from watching the cartoons and humming that famous theme song? Whatever the reasons behind its long-lasting fame, there's no denying that the Turtles have always had their dark side, too. The TMNT franchise itself can get pretty dark and intense sometimes, and the original comics, the different animated TV series, and the movies, all have their secrets lurking in the shadows.
Updated April 29, 2021 by Russ Boswell: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may have started out as a joke-turned-comic-series but something about the adolescent crime-fighters has managed to withstand the test of time. The heroes in a half shell have proven they're more than nostalgia fuel, thanks to recent television series, movie reboots, and upcoming video games. TMNT is here to stay and more and more fans are jumping on the Radical Party Wagon each day.
It's for this reason that we wanted to take a better look at the Turtles' journey so far. Their origins are a bit more violent than some people think and there are a lot of weird and wacky things that TMNT has inspired over the years.
30 They Have Dark Origins
When most people think of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, they think of the wildly popular 1987 cartoon series where they're portrayed as fun-loving goofballs who love pizza and corny one-liners, and only got serious to fight Shredder. But what you might not know is that the Turtles were comic book characters first, and their original comic versions were much darker. These dark TMNT comics had more blood, violence, cursing, and occasionally, drinking.
In these comics, the Turtles all have red masks (though the color-coded ones were used later), they swear (just like real teenagers!), and are more violent and gritty than their campy cartoon counterparts. They also actually take lives. Yes, the beloved Turtles were ninjas after all, and they had no problem eliminating Foot Soldier ninjas or enemies like Shredder. While their personalities were mostly the same, there's no doubt the comic book Turtles weren't the light-hearted party dudes we think of.
29 Do The Teenage Ninja Turtles Kill?
Most versions of TMNT have Splinter as the wise old sensei who trained his four Turtle sons in ninjutsu as a way for them to hide in the shadows and defend themselves. However, in the original comics published by Mirage Studios, in black-and-white format on cheap newsprint in 1984, Splinter had a much darker motivation for training them: to kill Oroku Saki, known as "The Shredder." Splinter's motivations were purely revenge since Shredder had killed Splinter's owner many years ago when he was still a pet rat.
And this is exactly what they do. The Turtles, as Splinter's trained assassins, call out Shredder and proceed to eliminate his (human and not android) Foot Clan ninjas. After defeating Shredder, they offer him the chance to regain his honor by committing Seppuku, but instead, he tries to destroy them all with a thermite grenade. Donatello uses his bo to knock Shredder off the building to his demise. It was crazy to see the Ninja Turtles' violent side.
28 One Of The Creators Didn't Like The Original Animated Series
While the original comics were a huge hit and inspired the cartoon, it was really the animated TV series that kicked off the franchise. Between the TV show, the comics, and the endless toys, "Turtlemania" soon swept the nation. While the cartoon series is fondly remembered by many, one of the creators was upset with how much the TV series lightened up the Turtles.
Peter Laird, one of the duo who created the franchise along with Kevin Eastman, has said he wished the first animated series had retained the darker aspects of the TMNT Universe, and not chosen to make the series so kid-friendly. The original Ninja Turtles comic was violent. Though ostensibly he oversaw the first animated Turtles projects, Laird had minimal involvement in the first one's development or the Next Mutation series. He did, however, take a more active role as a consultant in the darker 2003 animated series, which follows the original Mirage comics more closely.
27 No One Knows About Our Heroes Or What They Do
Whether fans came to TMNT from the original violent comic books or the light-hearted animated series, we all know the deal: the Turtle brothers use their knowledge of martial arts to stop the evil plans of Shredder and the Foot Clan, as well as any other baddies that might show up to threaten New York City, assisted by the wisdom of Splinter and the help of April O'Neil. Sounds pretty cool, right?
Except when you start to realize that the outside world is completely ignorant of their deeds. During the comic books and animated series, it's made obvious that the Ninja Turtles remain hidden from the public, despite the action-packed events of so many plot arcs. In the cartoon, the world also remains ignorant of the threat of Shredder and Krang, and it's a frequent plot point that the Turtles themselves are blamed for their crimes and any destruction they cause.
26 Krang Wasn't Always Bad
The character of Krang, the violent alien warlord from Dimension X, debuted in the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon show that launched the pop culture phenomenon known as "Turtlemania." For fans of the cartoon series, few characters were as iconic as the evil alien brain walking around inside a giant robot body, helping Shredder fight the Turtles (and having humorous spats with him along the way).
However, Krang as a character is exclusive to the show. His appearance was based on an alien race from the original comics known as the Utroms, a benevolent race that crashed on Earth 20 years ago. Krang and the Utroms couldn't have less in common: the Utroms peacefully integrated into human society with the use of android bodies, all the while trying to get back to their home planet. During this research, they lost a canister of an experimental substance, which is the same canister that mutated the Ninja Turtles.
25 The Turtles Inspired Many Parodies
Whenever something grows large enough in the mainstream, it starts to attract attention of another variety. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have seen their fair share of imitations. Many of these inspirations would go on to become somewhat successful "clones," but there were a handful of creations that were panned as hilarious knock-offs.
These titles were nothing like the original TMNT dark-infused comics we knew. Two shining examples of these strange but entertaining parodies were the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters and the even wilder Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos. The turtles even saw enough success to be parodied by Cracked and Mad magazines, both considered satire titans of the 90s and early 2000s.
24 Splinter's Darkest Mutation
The character of Splinter has remained consistent throughout all TMNT adaptations. He is a wise, intelligent, and elderly martial arts master who almost never raises his voice. He cares for the Turtles as his adopted sons and sometimes shows a dry sense of humor. Splinter is always a humanoid rat who wears robes, and it's sometimes shown he enjoys desserts and watching soap operas. However, one thing that has changed is his origin story.
In the original comic and the first movie, he is Hamato Yoshi's pet rat. In one film, he is simply a mutated rat with no connection to Yoshi. But other mediums have a darker version of his backstory where he is Hamato Yoshi himself, who was mutated into a human-sized rat by the same substance that created the Ninja Turtles. A frequent plot point is him trying to find a way to change back, usually to have it snatched away at the last minute.
23 Hamato Yoshi Took Lives
Even more alarming than the fact that the Ninja Turtles were trained purely for revenge is the idea that Shredder's motives aren't entirely evil or at least no worse than Splinter's. In fact, what turned him evil was that his older brother Oroku Nagi was slain by fellow ninja, Hamato Yoshi, in a feud over the love of a woman named Tang Shen. Afterward, Yoshi fled to the United States. This resulted in the young Oroku Saki joining the Foot Clan and rising through the ranks. He was chosen to lead the American branch of the Foot Clan, eventually becoming the deadly warrior known as the Shredder.
Under Saki's leadership, the Foot Clan became a crime syndicate that participated in substance smuggling, arms running, and assassination. Shredder took his revenge by eliminating both Yoshi and Shen, which led to Yoshi's pet Splinter training the Turtles and getting revenge thirteen years later.
22 The Nightmares Recycled Episode Was Scrapped Entirely
The animated series of TMNT that aired on Fox 4Kids from 2003 to 2009 was quite a bit darker than the classic 1987 series, harkening back to the original comics. In fact, one episode titled "Nightmares Recycled" was scrapped entirely for being too unsettling. It would have shown the origins of the Garbageman, a large, legless, unsavory villain. It was going to reveal that he was the conjoined twin of Hun, leader of the Purple Dragons and arch-nemesis of Casey Jones. The two were separated by a back-alley surgeon. The legless baby who would become Garbageman was wrapped in blankets and discarded in the trash, while Hun was kept and raised.
Apparently, the script was approved and some animation was finished before Fox pulled the plug, deeming the episode too violent and alarming for a children's program. Co-creator Peter Laird also criticized the episode as being too dark on his blog, noting that Garbageman was going to perish by falling into a vat of acid.
21 Shredder's Inspiration
Turtle archvillain Shredder is one of the most recognizable villains of all time. His distinctive bright purple outfit and Samurai-esque armor with blade-covered metal plaques on his arms, legs, and shoulders, are all iconic. Raphael once quipped in the cartoon that it's bizarre fighting someone named after "a kitchen utensil." As it turns out, Raph wasn't too far from the truth, since the design for Shredder was inspired by a cheese grater.
One night while Ninja Turtles co-creator Kevin Eastman was washing his dishes, he ended up putting his forearm through a trapezoidal cheese grater and gripping the handle. "Could you imagine a character with weapons on his arms like this?" He told Peter Laird, envisioning what would become Shredder's armor. His original name was going to be "The Grater," or "Grate Man," but thankfully Laird suggested "The Shredder" instead.
20 The Turtle's Origins Were Inspired By Daredevil
While the early comics were certainly dark, it would be a mistake to say Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was meant to be completely serious. In fact, the story of the Turtles is a pretty open parody of superhero Daredevil. In the Marvel comic, Matt Murdock pushes a blind man out of the way of a speeding truck and is struck by a radioactive canister of toxic waste, which blinds him but makes his other senses more powerful. The Turtles' origin story is identical, except the canister rolls into the sewer and bathes four ordinary turtles in glowing green goo, mutating them into the pizza-loving ninjas we know today.
It doesn't stop there: Splinter's name is a reference to Daredevil's own mentor, Stick, and the Foot Clan's name is a parody of Daredevil's own ninja enemies, The Hand. Daredevil isn't the only comic book to inspire the Turtles either; their name and attitude came from combining X-Men and Teen Titans, leading to the idea of teenage mutants.
19 The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Had Their Own Concert Tour
At the height of their popularity, the heroes in a half shell had their green teenage reptile hands in the middle of many soups. Merchandising was off the charts for TMNT, with toys, commercials, video games, themed-consumer goods, and even music. It got so wildly blown out of proportion that the turtles themselves even went on a rock-and-roll-inspired tour.
1990 saw the iconic foursome shredding through Radio Music Hall, with a live-action version of Leonardo on bass guitar, Donatello on drums, Michaelangelo on guitar, and Raphael playing both drums and the saxophone. The whole show had heavy Bill And Ted vibes, with a Rock and Roll Opera-esque storyline to boot.
18 Shredder Was Never Meant To Be The Main Villain
The character of Shredder has remained fairly consistent across most TMNT-related media. Every adaptation has had him as the villain at one point. Yet, though Shredder is often considered to be the main antagonist in the TMNT franchise, it was never the creator's intention for him to be the main archenemy. In an interview in The Ultimate Collection, Vol. 2, Peter Laird said:
"In truth, though many TMNT fans who became fans via the first animated series see Shredder as a REALLY important part of an ongoing, long-running battle with the Turtles, I don't think Kevin or I ever did. Yes, he was an important part of their history, and they probably would not have come into existence without his involvement in their world (or more accurately Splinter's world)...but that's about it. Other than bringing Shredder back for "Return to New York" (and the few issues preceding that set that arc up), I never missed him in any of the other TMNT books I worked on."
17 Their Origins Were Actually A Joke
So many of us grew up with the Ninja Turtles that it's hard to picture a world without them. But when we really break it down, the premise is a little bizarre. Namely the part about a giant rat teaching ninjutsu to four mutant turtles in order to take down an armored Samurai guy. But while the plot may be strange, few know that Ninja Turtles' origins started as a joke.
That's right: the whole concept started as a silly drawing of a turtle dressed as a ninja that Kevin Eastman made as a joke. Peter Laird then did his own sketches of "turtle ninjas" in response. Both of them just found it amusing and never meant it to go anywhere. But later, they explored the concept more and took inspiration from superhero stories, creating their own comic series out of it. It was picked up by Fred Wolf for Murakami-Wolf-Swenson studios and turned into a TV series, and the rest is history.
16 The Turtles Inspired A Lot Of Weird Food Items
TMNT inspiration was everywhere, to the point that things started to get a little crazy. The 90s were a bevy of oddities anyway but seeing the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles take a dive into the world of snack foods was especially weird. By the end of it all, grocery stores had seen a number of radical foods.
Customers could grab TMNT-themed Chex-style cereal with marshmallows (and a strange add-in bag filled with something called Pizza Crunchabungas), Green Ninja Turtle ice cream, Chef Boyardee ravioli in turtle shapes, and pizza-flavored (and shaped) corn snacks. Hostess even got in on the merchandising action with special green-colored pudding pies.
15 Tatsu's Temper Was Originally Much Worse
The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles live-action movie that came out in 1990 was a smash hit. It became the most successful independent film of all time and spawned two sequels. If you saw it, you probably remember the scene where Shredder's second-in-command, Tatsu, flies into a rage and starts brutally beating a teenage Foot soldier. Other Foot Clan members stop him before he goes too far. Originally though, this scene was much darker.
Tatsu was supposed to eliminate that soldier. In the original comics, Tatsu destroyed the young man with his bare hands right then and there. The movie was going to stick with the death, but this was cut and replaced with the dialogue "You'll be alright," due to being seen as too dark for the movie's target demographic.
14 "Giant Android Cow Head Spaceship" Sounds Like A Band
For the first seven issues, the Archie Comics' version of the Ninja Turtles was a perfect copy of the TV series. Then things started to get weird; very weird. Like the time that the gang flew around the galaxy in a giant cow head spaceship. In "Cudley the Cowlick," we're introduced to Cudley, a gigantic alien cyborg cow head able to carry people through time and space by carrying them in his mouth.
As if that wasn't weird enough, Cudley was capable of traveling to different dimensions. What this meant story-wise was that he was able to visit the colorful Archie Comics' universe and the grittier black-and-white Mirage Comics universe. Not only does this make a giant cow head terrifyingly powerful, but it means that different versions of the Turtles exist simultaneously in different dimensions at once, a concept that would be explored further in the cartoon crossover Ninja Turtles Forever.
13 Null Was A Very Dark Villain
Much of the Archie Comics run of TMNT was spent fighting regular bad guys and generic thugs, but one storyline had them fighting a horned being named Mr. Null. While Null was first portrayed as a minor enemy and a typical evil businessman who was destroying the rainforest and dumping toxic waste into the ocean, it was eventually revealed he was far more than that. Null claimed to be the Devil himself and sold the Earth to an alien named Maligna. He was charged with eliminating the human race.
This guy also had demonic henchmen modeled on the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. As he grew eviler, Null's horns grew and he sprouted bat wings and a demon-like tail. Notably, Null is remembered for committing what's considered the most horrifying act in the history of Archie Comics when he ordered his killer cyborgs to brutally eliminate the Mighty Mutanimals. Ironically, they were axed because their toyline wasn't thought to have potential, so a pitched cartoon was also canceled.
12 A Fourth Movie And A Proposed Second Mutation
The 2007 CGI Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie as well as the recent big-budget Michael Bay films released in 2014 and 2016 are both reboots for the series. The original TMNT movie series started in 1990 and spawned two sequels in 1991 and 1993. While the first TMNT movie was praised for keeping a consistent tone with the comics, Secret of the Ooze and the widely-disliked third movie were criticized for being too goofy and kid-friendly. However, what most fans don't know is that there was almost another sequel.
Ninja Turtles 4 would have introduced Kirby, a fifth Turtle with claws and a tattered cape, and had the Turtles undergo "secondary" mutations so that Leonardo could coat himself in indestructible chrome, Donatello would have telepathic and telekinetic powers, and Splinter would bulk up like a furry Hulk. Casey Jones would also have cybernetic fists, April would've worn a skintight outfit, and Shredder would look like a general in the KISS army. Early sketches on Laird's blog indicate it would've been...well, extremely strange.
11 Something's Wrong With Leo
In the fourth season of the Fox 4Kids TMNT animated series, there's something not quite right with Leonardo. He's angrier, more paranoid, and begins to lash out at others. Leo is acting so different that his brothers notice and start to get worried about his mental health. He's very short-tempered with them and seems constantly on guard. This takes place in the wake of the Turtles nearly losing their lives in the battle against Shredder.
While the show doesn't come right out and say it, Leo's symptoms are pretty obviously a case of PTSD. Chances are he was also suffering from nightmares and flashbacks. While most kids who watched the show probably wouldn't catch it, it's still pretty cool that a cartoon marketed for children tackled such a deep subject. After all, after a big battle or dangerous mission, most heroes just seem to shrug off the trauma and be just fine. But Leo shows it sometimes doesn't work out that way, and he has to confront his issues head-on.