A Geek History of Time - Episode 251 - The Humors of the Ooze, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Four Humours Part IV

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

We were saying that we were going to get into the movies. Yeah, and I'm only going to get into a few of them because there were way too goddamn many for me to really be interested in telling you this clone version or this clone version in the early studio system. It's a good metric to know in a story art. Where should I be? Oh, there's Beast. I should step over here. At some point, I'm going to have to sit down with you and force you, like pump you full of coffee and be like, no, okay, look.

And are swiftly and brutally put down by the Minutemen who use bayonets to get their point across. Well done there. I'm good, Amian. And I'm also glad that I got your name right this time. I apologize for that one TikTok video. Men of this generation wound up serving a whole lot of them as a percentage of the population because of the war, because of a whole lot of other stuff.

Oh yeah. And actually in his case, it was pre-war, but you know... I was joking. Did he seriously join the American Navy? He did. Fucking... වවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවවව� This is a geek history of time. Where we... Can we start over? Sorry. And three, two, one.

This is a geek history of time. Where we connect an artery to the real world. My name a geek history of time. Where we connect an artery to the real world. My name is Ed Blalock. I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. And this week. My we're actually earlier today. My son sat down and was was putting together a drawing that he was very, very excited about. He was working on this while my wife and I were were moving around the house and cleaning,

which we have neglected for a while. So we had a lot of work to do. And what he wound up drawing was he wound up drawing four dragons. And I only figured out what he was drawing when he came running up to me and said, Daddy, what do you so blue dragons are the lightning dragons? And that's his favorite lightning everything like, you know. But blue dragons the lightning dragons, and that's his favorite is lightning everything like, you know, but blue dragons are lightning dragons and the green dragons, they're the ones that breathe the poison. What do yellow dragons breathe? And I had to think for a moment because

in the classic monster manuals, there are no yellow dragons. That's like the one, the one, you know, chromatic color that isn't in the monster manual. Yellow and purple. Well, yeah. But I had to think for a moment, I said, well, if I remember right, I believe they they breathed out a blast of like superheated sand. And that's that's what I'm remembering from the Dragon magazine article from God knows how many years ago when somebody was like, you know, we're missing, we don't have a yellow dragon like what's up with that. And so I told him that. He said, OK, and he went back to his drawing. And there was there was a moment of high drama when his green pen ran out of ink.

And he had to find a different green marker. But when he got done, he had his four dragons is four dragons and a red one, which he knew red was fire. And and he said, so, so yeah, you're there. And he was really excited to get it all done. And I have a photo that I'm going to have to send to you because like it's just it's adorable. And he is obsessed with dragons in general and Seeing him Moving in in his in his development moving into the phase where he can draw stuff and I can look at it and be like oh Yeah, okay figurative Like what he's doing is figured enough that like okay, I can recognize that But each of the breath weapons what I found was really funny was each one of the breath weapons with what I found was really funny.

It was each one of the breath weapons, like the lightning looked like a lightning bolt shape. And and the the green dragon's breath was like green motes coming out of the dragon's mouth. And so, yeah, anyway, it was adorable. And I feel like it's evidence I'm raising him right. And interestingly enough, there were four dragons. And if you look at it hard enough,

we kind of have our four humors going on there. So yeah, that's what I've had going on. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmonia. I am a high school history teacher up here in northern California. And I saw something I've never seen before. I will visit my partner's house as often as she'll visit mine,

because we live one town over from each other. And I will sit out on her porch and there will be raccoons. She lives in a place where there's a fair amount of raccoons. OK, I just see one of them walking about doing its thing. Driving there one night recently, I saw five of them organizing like one was clearly giving a speed and the others were clearly like, okay I think we're ready to pick it. Um They were they were organizing on someone's lawn. It was the weirdest thing. I think it was a work stoppage that we saw

Yeah, and yeah, so it's nice to see raccoons unionizing. I think that's good And yeah, so it's nice to see raccoons unionizing. I think that's good. But it was weird, man. I've never seen raccoons working in concert outside of a John Candy movie. Yeah, like that is just a comedy trope. But in fact, they do work together to get shit done. So what I really like about the way you told that story is being the union thug you are

your your go-to is they're they're talking to each other they're organized one of them's clearly the ringleader and they're and they're organizing a work stoppage And and I think this also is indicative of how little contact you've you've had with raccoons because what was really being plotted was a heist. Yes, yes. Like, like, no, no. Okay, you're going to need to distract the dog. Yes, it's the shit job.

I don't care. You're the best one at it. This is why we pay you one and a half share. Yeah, this is why you get an extra half share like come on You're you're you're gonna get the good banana peels come on right, you know So yeah So that's that's on the one hand. That's really funny on the other hand. There's a part of me that's deeply concerned Sure, you know, they're already industrious.

So yeah. Well, do you remember when when the most recent set of Planet of the Apes movies were coming out? Mm hmm. They did this kind of guerrilla marketing campaign where they generated marketing. But yeah, but they generated YouTube videos of, you know, chimps getting ahold of weapons and, you know, having violent interactions with, you know, revolutionaries

or other groups and other parts of the world, you know, as this as this like, you know, revolutionaries or other groups and other parts of the world, you know, as this, as this, like, you know, we should all be worried because, you know, they're, they're, they're coming for us. I have to admit, your story tickles that same part of the back of my brain. Right. Like, I don't know if I like that development at all. At some point, something's going to go bad. Yeah.

Well, you know, I mean, we we hear that crows are in the beginning stone age, you know, or they're in the middle of the cage. So stuff like that. Anyway, when last we spoke, speaking of anthropomorphized animals, yeah, it was 1983 and Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird had moved in together in Dover, New Hampshire Okay in November of 1983 the first turtle was drawn complete with the name Teenage Mutant under it Really? Yeah. Okay. So it was pretty cool Apparently a joke between the two of them and joking around with it

The two bandied it about until it became a full-blown comic book concept Mm-hmm, and that concept was largely a send-up of Daredevil's origin and fights at the time Right Daredevil gets his powers from toxic waste Daredevil fought a group called the hand and daredevil's mentor was called stick Yep Now At first the comic was a pretty dark one. It was all black and white and very very brutally violent

April meal She seemed to vacillate between being white and black it I to vacillate between being white and black. I think she was drawn as white, but her futures were in some of the comics, some of the early ones, more in line with how comic book artists were drawing black women at the time, curvy or hips, plump or lips, and very curly hair. She even made a mention of getting her hair permed or something. Now, she's the assistant to Baxter Stockman in the comic book. She was not a reporter. And Baxter Stockman himself was black and an inventor who was trying to build her better mousetrap, literally. Oroko Saki was a Japanese man who ran the foot clan and was ultimately their first major villain as the younger brother to the he was the younger brother to the man whom

Hamato Yoshi had murdered over Oroko's beating of the woman that they both loved as rival members of the same clan. Right. There's an unwilling love triangle that ended brutally. Yes. A roguosaki then came to the United States to open up the New York Foot Clan franchise, which would then enable Splinter, who'd been the rat pet of Hamato Yoshi, to seek final revenge through his four adopted turtle sons. Yes. Now, even early on, there were hints of the turtle's personalities being different and

somewhat archetypical, but they weren't that deeply explored in the first run of the comic. When the story opens, it's with Leonardo's voice and he's all about duty and training and testing themselves. His accounting of his brothers is pretty plain, but for the fact that he mentions how much Raphael loves a good fight Yeah, that's deeply established Yes, few pages later Raphael takes over the story and Mentioned that his three brothers are different than he is in that they don't have a problem with the dark and or Yeah, in that they don't have a problem with the dark and damp of the sewers

He prefers the nighttime and outside of the sewers in-damp of the sewers. He prefers the nighttime and outside of the sewers. And then he says, quote, but this is where I belong. Such a feeling of freedom, so much room to move about. End quote. So he doesn't like the sewers. Yeah. So again, you're seeing personality differentiation, but you're not seeing it along the lines that we've been talking about yet. Now, when they finally fight the Shredder, Oroko Saki, Raphael is the first one to charge in. Leonardo is the only one to do any damage in one-on-one combat, and he assesses the situation as needing to move to distance attacks for a bit. Okay.

So it's mostly just the two of them. In the second comic, Raphael's highlighted as being a hotheaded and he's sparring with Michelangelo. Donatello mentions that when he gets that way, you just have to let him and Michelangelo fight it out. Leonardo though is all about responsibility and Donatello and Michelangelo don't really get personalities. But as you read through the next few issues,

it's clear that Donatello does machines. Right. He's seen tinkering with a piece of electronic equipment. And then when it comes to shutting down the Mausers, he mentions that he understands computers pretty well. He also plans out a demolition taking into account the structural integrity of the place and the positioning of the explosives. And it's Donatello who realizes that the Mausers run on radio frequency and he's able to shut them off all at once. And later when they're breaking into TCRI, it's

Donatello who figures out how to get past their electronic surveillance system and he picks the lock, quote, just as I thought magnetic locks. So all I've got to do is create the right flux pattern in this probe Which tech talk tech talk tech talk? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah So still Michelangelo doesn't have very much of a personality by this point Raphael keeps showing how hotheaded he is when he has to go off on his own to search for splinter Despite Leonardo telling them that they should stick together as Splinter taught them. Now, by the time the fourth comic comes around, Michelangelo has just had a couple moments

that hint at a personality. He ultimately, he compliments April's pad, his words, and when sparring with Raphael, Michelangelo says a few witty things to tease him and egg him on. He's also the one to tell an overly angered Raphael to lighten up. And Raphael chides himself afterward, wondering, allowed to himself. What's wrong with him since Michelangelo is his best friend? At that point, Raphael meets Casey Jones and Raphael learns a bit of where being extra hotheaded can get you.

Okay, yeah. Now Michelangelo seems to be the more sarcastic and wisecracking one to be honest, though it's a really low bar. All four of them are hyper serious most of the time. And as the comic wears on, it's largely just that they aren't really four distinctive clear personalities played by the turtles They're just shades and hints of personalities. Yeah now in 1983 Marvel's daredevil fights the Yakuza The X men who are all the rage at this time have just finished fighting the brood in space

And we see Madeline Pryor appear for the first time And we see Madeline Pryor appear for the first time And then they go into the underworld to fight the Morlocks whom we meet for the first time in 1983 The new mutants have also just debuted The the fantastic four have gone to the negative zone to fight something or some some other thing or Anyway, they go there a lot. Yeah, it's a fantastic for what? Yeah There's a lot of commonality between the comics and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Stylistically it actually reads like an homage to Miller's approach to comics, especially his approach to Daredevil Okay, subject matter is decidedly silly. I asked my son which comic he was reading recently

And he said oh they got a border triceraton worship and they're running out of air because of course they are. So space, mutant things, fighting ninjas, like it's it seems to be that Laird and Eastwood were definitely reading Marvel Comics. Oh, yeah. Now, the original run was unsteady and in constant anyway. Issue one came out in May of 1984. Issue two came out October of 1984. And this happens when you don't have a comic book company or an actual plan and you have two guys who started the ideas and inside joke. But after issue two, fans had to wait until March of 85

for issue three, but then April until March of 85 for issue three But then April of 85 you saw issue four and then June saw issue five and by September of 86 they'd made it up to issue nine Okay Now sometime in 1987 and I haven't actually nailed down exactly when although it's clear There's several possible jump-off points Eastman and Laird licensed the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles concept to Playmates Toys. And I think issue 11, which released in June of 87, helped to codify what the ad men at Playmates Toys were looking to do. You may easily recognize this issue as the foundation of the scenes in the original live action movie from where they're at April's farm Having fled from the foot clan burning her pawn shop to the ground. Yeah, okay in the comic

They retreat to Casey Jones's grandmother's abandoned farm in Northampton April writes in a journal and or her diary and that becomes the frame for us really reading the codification of the four turtles as the four humors So okay, and I remember I remember that issue. Good. Okay. Well January 25 1987 Winter remains with us snow day snowed two days straight clear today Leonardo's still pretty out of it. The battle tore him up terribly in both body and mind. Physically, he's healed incredibly well, but mentally, I'm afraid he has a lot of catching up. He's always put himself in front of the rest of the guys, taking charge, bearing the extra weight, playing the big brother, but when someone like that feels they've failed,

they fall hard. He's recently developed an intense obsession with the surrounding forest and spends all his time there. I hope he finds what he's looking for and comes out of this depression soon. We all need him back. Leonardo actually had gone stag hunting and he fails to fell the stag and instead he's overpowered and outmaneuvered by it. He ends defeated in chagrin. He remains phlegmatic, though, even in his defeat. He steadfast and honor bound to tend to his clan. Clan Leonardo is the water. Okay. She says, I guess I could never know for sure how he feels inside, but I do know what you are. I do know what losing your home and everything you own feels like.

Those things that you've felt gave you a sense of being and strength in this world. Belongings that touched memory cords of loved ones. Father, I know he's hurting. And then she shifts to Donatello, February 10 1987. Everything is so strange. I feel like I've never looked at myself or the guy- or the guys before. Everything is so strange. I feel like I've never looked at myself or the guys before. We're all so different now. I try to identify people I used to know with those that surround me now, and it's hard. Don isn't doing too badly, although he does work obsessively at the huge amounts of repairs that need to be done here. The place has been vacant since Casey's grandmother left four years ago, it was pretty run down then. Besides a million little things, Don's rebuilt the windmill to pump water, devised a water wheel

that creates enough current for lights in the fridge, and also installed a wood stove for better heating all around. His most recent undertaking will, if it works, satisfy Craven we've all had lately, hot running water. February 15 1987. Success, shower time, everybody's going nuts. February 17 1987. Feeling strangely depressed Lely, I guess I expected Don to rest a bit after this last hard won victory. No such luck. I heard him rummaging around in the attic this morning. Who knows what he's working on now. February 17 1987. Don's writing too. He must have found Now, Don Tello is writing and writing and writing, and there's lots of crumpled up paper in the attic wastebasket that's overflowing. And despite his apparent success with the windmill, he can't quite express himself.

She even links depression and him in the same sentence. Donatello is melancholic as can be. He's thoughtful and in this instance,oding above of literally above everyone in the attic Which shows just how disconnected he is from being the earth-born one that he truly is Mmm. Okay, then April writes February 26 1987 Michelangelo worries me the most Mike who could find a joke in just about any situation doesn't laugh much anymore Except for some half-hearted goofing

around with Casey and Ralph and Raph, he's been almost painfully solitary lately. So it's so unlike him. But then all of us seem to have a need to be alone these days. As what happens made us unable to be close, I don't know. Mike's chosen a back section of the barn for his sanction. Cleared a lot of junk out and created a little workout space. The other day I happened in on one of his sessions. He was already on edge. And then it shows Michelangelo destroying a punching bag

and then a workbench and then a wall of the barn. And finally he rests his arms on the hole and the wall of the barn and he lets out a breath. April then muses, we all feel so much pain and confusion, each of us keeping his personal torment bottled up inside, each seeking relief in his own way. The cure hangs plainly clearly in front of our faces, but who will be the first to reach out? We need each other. So her coverage of Michelangelo is more about what's missing from him than what's actually there. His trauma has shut him out from who he really is, which is sanguine.

He's acting more like Raphael who's caloric with his anger and brutal frustration. Normally he's light like the air, but here he's breathing with fire. And then she covers Raphael. March 2, 1987. Raphael scares me the rest of the guys I can feel for worry for but not Raph Raph runs hot and cold very unbalanced unpredictable I keep my distance lately I've noticed he doesn't sleep much he's always always always the first up and the last to bed I think I've heard him leaving the house late at night too I wonder where he's going or what he's doing standing

guard. And then we see him doing exactly that and it's as though this kind of angst is exactly his style and he's out of the cooped up sewers. He has a few chats with Casey Jones, the resident sociopath and they get along to being two of the same type. Rafael is choleric in his nature usually, but he and Michelangelo are acting each other's opposites. So right now Raphael is reaching out to Casey Jones and Michelangelo is isolating,

but normally Raphael is the fire that Leonardo has to put out. Okay. Yeah. Now by the way, at this point, there's been multiple quartets on TV before the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before they before they get to TV donning different colored eye covers. You got to keep in mind in the comics, it was all black and white, but on the covers they all wore red. Right. Right. So

the A team started in January of 1983. It features the choleric BA Barakas, always ready to fight, the sanguine Murdoch, the craziest fucking fun to be around, the phlegmatic face who is literally the face of the team and the peacemaker between the team and the world and the melancholic Hannibal, who loves it when a plan, his plan comes together. Right. That lasted until March of 87, interestingly. Golden girls, even more so. The A-Team was a chance to blow shit up hypermasculine like, but the whole point of the Golden Girls was the relationships between them and their approaches

to the world. Now, the Golden Girls get started in September of 85 and last until 1992, such was their success. Dorothy, B. Arthur's character, was clearly the smartest, most grounded and the most sarcastic. The Nolan College and Earthly. Sophia, Estelle Getty's character, was obviously the most choleric and fiery. Everything she said was conflict starting if anyone wanted a piece of her. She regularly would mention violence. Yes.

Blanche, Charlotte Ray's character, was 100% the social mover and shaker of the group, and she was the heir. She floated into scenes above it all and brought cheer in a self-absorbed and charming kind of way with a real economy of words at her command. And of course, then Rose, Betty White's character was sweet, stupid, dim-witted, kinder than anyone. Rose. Right. Absolutely the flagmatic and watery one. She went with the flow. She told the darkest stories

in the cheeriest ways, and she never lost the spark in her eye. Honestly, you could use this overlay on quite a lot of TV shows, but I specifically am highlighting the ones where the center is a quartet because you could argue that friends does the same thing where Joey and Phoebe kind of orbit the the the central four. But yeah, I'm sticking largely to the quartets. Yeah,, moreover the quartet was on TV in the mid 1980s right when all this personality type Alternative education seeking latter-day hippies who wanted to still be hippies, but with money were now parents Their meetings would comprise these kinds of shows and their children would be advertised to along same philosophical veins in the form of toy cartoons that reflected the same.

Okay, yeah. And we talked about last time the fact that Ford just keeps on popping up, but we've liked quartets for a long time. The Wizard of Oz was a quartet. The Beatles, the Fantastic Four, all of them predate this explosion in the 80s. But there's one quartet that is inherently 1980s. The Four Horsemen. Okay, all right, I'm here for it.

Rick Flair, Arne Anderson, Tully Anderson Anderson and Oli Anderson. So Rick is clearly the air based Sanguine one, always talking, always inviting the ladies back to the hotel, even that fat one. He would say that too. No, he would do that. He'd be like, I could have anyone in this building, even that fat one right there. and he legit would invite all of them to the hotel Wow Arne was the flagmatic and watery one He adapted to anyone if they needed him to be the TV champion He'd be the TV champion if he needed to tag team with Oli or Tully he could

Tully was melancholic and earthy being the technician of the group and Oli was and still is the choleric fiery one who is all piss and just a little bit of vinegar. Alright. Now the Ghostbusters, you had Venkman taking on the Sanguine, Ray taking on the Phlegmatic, Egon the melancholic and Winston being the most head forward of the bunch as the choleric one if there's a steady paycheck in it. We also saw Stand By Me and Heather's. Okay, yeah. In Stand By Me, Gordy was melancholic, Teddy was caloric, Chris was phlegmatic, and Vern was sanguine. And in the 90s it continued,

Buffy, Seinfeld, Friends, like I said, Joey and Phoebe had orbits around the core four, South Park, American Pie, Sex and the City. In fact, in Sex and the City, it's really obvious. For instance, Miranda is melancholic, Samantha is caloric as fuck, and Carrie is the sanguine one, Charlotte is the phlegmatic one. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And we saw this in the early 2000s with Mean Girls.

And just in the last couple of years with the Bad Batch, when they stripped down to the four who were protecting Omega. Right. Now, incidentally, the role-playing book by Palladium was the first licensing of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles property. It came out in 1985 and had a detailed section of mental illnesses as that was a functioning part of the game. Yeah, I'm going to have to spend some time talking about Palladium books here soon.

Yeah, you will. Because, wow. Yeah. You talk about zeitgeist. In this section, you could create your character with optional mental illnesses, including insanity, troubles brought on by traumas that like near death experience, demonic possession, torture, etc. Oh, yeah. It also featured a section that didn't age well the section on sexual deviancy Which despite the DSM no longer classifying? sexuality is mental illness

included homosexuality pedophilia and bestiality as though those were three equal things Yep. Yeah now the APA actually had sexual Homosexuality removed his mental illness in 1973. And in the DSM-3, it was no longer listed as such. Now those two sections are later literally covered by a white sticker by Palladium Games, doing due to the parental backlash of the originals. Yeah.

Now the second licensing of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was actually Dark Horse Miniatures. Right. Okay. And then came the big boys. The cartoon hit the airwaves in December of 87, just in time for Christmas, except that Playmates Toys released the toys not in time for December Christmas season, which was a move I was stunned to discover. But it actually does make sense in many ways, because Teenage Mutant Generals was prior to the cartoon a cult classic. And toy

companies hadn't found success in fortune backing unproven properties. So they followed the 1980s model, saturate the market with cartoons of the characters first enough so that the kids get invested in the characters and then release a fuck ton of toys. And over the next nine years, Playmate released over 400 different toys of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles variety. And they made a lot of money in doing so.

And this enabled TV writers to develop sales slogans and then work them into the cartoon so that the toys could be easier sold For instance heroes in a half shell turtle power Cowabunga also do to Bart Simpson Okay, yeah, so in the summer of this makes sense Yeah, and in the summer of 1988 the toy line released to great success and this includes the four turtles, April and Neil, who's now unambiguously white and hot. Rock steady, bebop, a foot soldier, shredder and splinter and no KC Jones at first.

They also had multiple forgettable vehicles that came with joke books. Also, there was a way to collect pizza points to send in with the money to redeem for all sorts of merch like books and VHS cassettes towels Yeah, I could go on and on about the toys. There's 400 of them and they get really weird Just go on tiktok and search for them if you want. It's it's kind of fun There's even a crossover Star Trek Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set of figures The captain is Leo, but none of the rest make any fucking sense. Rafael ends up being the chief medical officer. Michelangelo is the chief engineer and Donatello

is the first officer. Okay, wait, what? I know. Like, no, none of that makes any sense. Right. At all. Right. You're's, you know, the kind of thing that's, you know, the kind of thing that's, you know, the kind of thing that's, you know, the kind of thing that's, you know, the kind of thing that's, you know, the kind of thing that's, you know, the kind of thing that's, you know, the kind of thing that's, you know, Of them all Michelangelo is the chief medical officer Rafale is the first first officer and Donna. Obviously the engineer Yeah, but I mean come on and and Yeah, I mean I can go on a whole TV tropes rant about like the relationship between ref and Leonardo like right Anyway, yeah. Now, wow, point here is that the four turtles represent the four temperaments, which really represents

the four humors, and that that was a pattern in the wallpaper kind of thing that was happening in the mid to late 1980s, ready to be plucked. And every effort was made to maximize the ability of toy companies to move products into the hands of the kids of forlorn hippies Now okay, yeah, what I'm about to discuss is largely my own impressions of what I saw and since And and have since processed as an adult It has been remarkably hard to pin down what actually happened in real numbers in this realm of my research. I honestly had an easier time finding out how many eggs Americans consumed in the 1930s than I've had with this. Okay, by the way, the answer to that is 231 per year per person.

So good to know. Yeah. So all of this take with the intuitive bias, the warning that it deserves. But in the late 1980s, former hippies and boomers were parents. And by the late 1970s, cocaine was making comeback. Because barbiturate depression that had characterized the early 1970s was depressing. Disco and partying really stepped up the communal use of the drug as well as the smuggler culture and the CIA. We did an episode on this. Yes.

However, this has a shelf life. And as they began having their first and second children in the late 1970s, the younger boomers also found that there was a greater need to be awake in the morning. So cocaine and disco all night doesn't work. Yeah. And they also have to go and grind out another shitty day at work because now two income families are on the rise. Right. So the result is that cocaine hung around a lot longer in the unmarried party lifestyle longer, but it had left suburbia in a cloud of disappointing obligations. So with the popular panic over crack, cocaine use in the 1980s peaked in 1987 and then it began tumbling down. Parents had to reckon with their children and their jobs and their tiki-taki houses with frustrated bourgeois sensibilities

being a fond but bittersweet memory. Okay. And now comes the book movement. Income the books about how they could still have their dreams. It just meant reversing the Great Migration, buying up cheap land in the South and living on self-sustaining eco-friendly farms and probably something with crystals. Jesus Christ. They had to quit the cocaine in the disco, but they could still vibe out to Country Joe and the fish, Neil Young's newer stuff, the Indigo Girls, Tracy Chapman and Katie Lang.

All while living close to the earth and sending their kids to unschooling camps or adopting Montessori Waldorf teachings for their kids, both of which heavily featured the vulkish vibe that they were seeking. And if you're wondering, yes, this does in fact perfectly match up with my parents moving us to Bronson, Florida to live on a 10 acre farm and have a self-sustaining farm. So so what you're saying is this this whole episode has been built around your childhood trauma. Personal. Yes. Yeah, this is your your your very personal bitterness. OK, got it. And the self-sustaining farm worked really well.

All it took was them working three jobs between the two of them. And I think an eventual bankruptcy. Jesus Christ. So, okay. What was also happening though, what drove my parents to this, not just dumb boomer dreams, but also that we're seeing the knock on effects of Reaganomics in the large cities. For instance, in San Francisco, city workers were getting laid off in droves due to the lack of monies coming in

because of the freezing of Prop 13. So Prop 13 had frozen property taxes. And as a result, there's also, well, and additionally to that, there's also a lack of federal funding for support services. And the result means you've you've got a Drop in services right at the same time as you have greater Policification of the cities

Which is now necessary because the cities are lacking the appropriate other supports because they don't have a tax revenue or federal funding anymore for the growing growing population of unhoused persons. By this point, Vietnam veterans are suffering from mental illness. Mental illness is getting bigger. Reagan has closed a lot of the institutions when he was governor. And in the mid 1980s, people who'd found the middle class invited, inviting were now being handed their hat and coat and being told that they'd hopefully get hired back after this downturn finished.

They had to lay off municipal service workers who then had to sell the houses that they'd been able to afford and not be able to buy back when they came back. Wow. Yeah. So in other words, everything that John Carpenter was talking about in the opening scenes of They Live. Oh, shit. Yeah, okay. All right. Wow. That's okay. Yeah. Now 1987 saw then the deer of the consumer price index. So if you're a family facing that whose parents grew up believing in their exceptionality and holding onto that vulkish sensibility they'd found comfort in sitting in puff puff past circles in the park after

school, the amount of books out there about leaving the rat race becomes ready reading. Yeah, okay. And of course, it didn't work out. Luckily, the cities were able to hire folks back and thank God for unions. Incidentally, this was true also in the private manufacturing centers.

Think about the Rust Belt. It also led to anti-Asian sentiment that led to battle tech. Yeah, yeah. As well as the murder of Vincent Chin and all sorts of awful shit. Yeah. It also led to a re-centering of manufacture in largely right to work states, which then would further weaken the ability of unionized labor to keep a middle class stable in America. So people got jobs eventually who were lucky enough to have had a strong union in the municipal branches of labor. However, living in the city center was no longer a possibility. Shit, even owning a home was less and less a possibility by the early 1990s.

But the gap between renting and owning still meant enough disposable income that cable was now available. And cartoons and live action movies that featured the four Renaissance named turtles with incredible ninja abilities, recall the Ninja boom of the 1980s, were still effective enough. Yeah. And it's still effective enough that you could buy your kids cool toys every Christmas that featured the four humors incarnate. Wow. Yeah. Now, the movie that came out in 1990 was a big deal for the kids, also for independent studios. It would actually be the highest grossing independent studio film until 1990 and what nines Blair witch.

Seriously, seriously. Oh, wow. All right. It made 10 times its budget in the US and Canada alone at $135 million. The opening the opening weekend for this movie made back double its budget. Wow. I mean, I remember that it was popular, but I had no recollection that it was that big a hit. Oh, it was huge. Now, fun fact, Robin Williams, who was in Cadillac Man with the woman who played April O'Neill, Judith Hoag, helped her research her character by letting her read his copies of the comic book. You know, he's a treasure.

He really, yeah, god damn it. So the next year, they did it again, but without all the the violence which is hard to do because it's a ninja movie Ninja movie. Yeah, but if you think about any and all of the violence that happened It's almost all human on human and there were literally none of the turtles use their weapons to do violence. Oh Wow Oh, wow, yeah, all right. Yeah, it also has twice the cringy wrap Yeah, well, yeah, there's that They actually trick the bad guys into using their own weapons

And Ernie Ray's junior just uses his fist and his feet Okay, I think Michelangelo uses sausage at one point Okay. I think Michelangelo uses sausage at one point. Yeah, it's played for played for a lot of comedy. Yeah. Yeah. And Kevin Nash uses his arm gauntlets as super shredder to try to get them to collapse under peer pressure.

Oh, okay. Yeah. And yeah But you don't see them using katana bow sigh or nun chucks on any people um This this movie still did decently although this time they doubled the budget and they only made back three times the budget So, you know, yeah, which still sounds like success to me Yeah, only total gross three times the budget 78 million Okay, now that didn't stop the studios for making more movies. They went back in one more time

They made well, they actually went back in time for that one to come to think of it And they made double that budget, but that was it Yeah, I mean so the that's all these movies were proven money makers Now still the cartoon was doing baffo business for the toys The toys have actually been ranked third ever in total sales for a franchise right behind G.I. Joe and Star Wars making 1.1 billion dollars From 1988 to 1992 alone. Those are its peak really they outdid Transformers. Yes Okay, yeah now between the first cartoon and today there have been seven movies there have been seven TV series

There's been a pizza tour. I didn't even mention the 23 different video game iterations Including the arcade game that got easily hundreds of dollars out of me and my brother at a pizza place where kids Mm-hmm so yeah back to 1920 Yes Yeah. Back to 1920. Yes. Due to the rapid rise of industrialism and post civil war economic boom, immigration to the US kicked into high gear. And by 1920, roughly one third of the 105 million Americans were either foreign born or the children of people who were foreign born. That means one third of the United States lived in what are commonly referred to as immigrant communities where half or more of the areas populated by both immigrants and their

children who are born here or otherwise. Further, in 1900, about three quarters of the populations of many large cities were composed of immigrants and their children, including New York, Chicago, Boston, Cleveland, San Francisco, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Detroit. The American experience was very much an immigrant experience. Okay. And because of the increased demand for manufactured goods made more possible by the 25 or not 25, 250,000 miles of railroads that were criss-crossing the United States like so much scabbing over and there was a higher demand for unskilled labor.

Now, given the push factors in Italy, Austria, Hungary, Ireland, Russia, China and Japan, later joined by India, there was a ready supply of just such a supply of workers. And since immigrants were generally more willing to accept lower wages and inferior working conditions than native born workers, this led to New York City's population being 35% foreign born. Now, add to that their children who were born here and the number is within view of 50% of the city.

Okay. Now, because of the aforementioned acceptance of lower wages, that meant that housing would be confined to lower income areas, and this meant that we're talking about more than 2 million New Yorkers in 1920 living in incredibly dense neighborhoods. For instance, East Harlem, formerly called Italian Harlem and Spanish Harlem, is an area roughly 1.5 square miles in area. In the 1920s, it housed over 100,000 Italian Americans. Over 80% of them were either first or second generation Italian Americans. were either first or second generation Italian Americans. Just a decade earlier, it also had housed 90,000 Jewish Americans. So all told in New York by 1920,

Russian Jews made up the largest foreign born group in New York with 480,000 people, followed by Italians 319,000, the Irish 203,450 and Germans 194,154. Wow. Now this kind of density and hamleting was forced on these populations. It also has West Coast analogs as well. The kind that may well apply to the most recent Teenage

Mutant Ninja Turtles movie. Depending on how you count blocks, Chinatown in San Francisco has been anywhere from 13 to 30 blocks in its history, long. In July of 1885, you could say it was 13 to 20 blocks. It covers an that's about 1 8th of a square mile or one quarter mile by half a mile and in that area in 1880 over 26,000 people live there Wow, yeah Now because of the Chinese Exclusion Act that number dropped to 11,000 by 1920 Okay, and in cities throughout the United States the tale was roughly the same for Japanese neighborhoods laws were erected against their getting to own property

especially in California Incredibly small ethnic Hamlets that lived primarily that that they lived primarily in and anti-Asian violence and exclusion by practice. All that said, there were significant differences between Japan and Chinatown. As the Japanese immigration wave came to the US, there was an emphasis placed on their presumed higher degree of civilization compared to their Chinese antecedents by Americans. They were allowed to come over with families, which meant more wealth. And due to the gentleman's agreement,

picture brides allowed for further immigration of women from Japan, while women for China were incredibly rare and were far more exploited. For instance, in 1850, there were roughly 12,000 Chinese men living in San Francisco. There were 10 Chinese women. Okay, hold on. I'm sorry. Say that again. So in 1850, there were 12,000 Chinese men living in San Francisco. Right. There were 10 women. What the fuck? Yeah. Well, there the pushback was very, very different.

So you were sojourners if you were Chinese immigrants. So there's no need to bring family. There's no need to bring women. It's just men going to work for 10 years and then coming back. That was the plan. Wow. Uh huh. Now by 1880.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. All right. Yes. It was, I think to date, it's still the community with the largest out of balance ratio as far as gender goes. Yeah. My God.

In terms of like what happened historically. Now by 1880, 1800 of the roughly 2,600 Chinese women living in San Francisco were actually sex workers. Okay. And I don't think that very many of them were chosen as such, like it's not like how we see sex work now, right? It's far, far worse. And our ideas on sex work right now are not good. But yeah, it was bad.

Yeah. By contrast, the ratio of men to women in the same time in Japan town was only six to one. In Chinatown, it was 21 to one. Yeah. all right. And six to one is is really huge, by the way. Yeah, six to one is is crap. But wow. Yeah. Yeah.

And unfortunately, Japanese women at the time were largely exploited as sex workers as well in San Francisco. However, by 1907 Japanese women immigrants to the United States outnumbered the men and they were being brought in as wives to the men who were already there or along with their families. So this accelerated them away from sex workers by 1919 when the ladies' agreement took place. So there's gentlemen's agreement in 1905, there's the ladies' agreement as well. Okay. Anyway, Japantown is roughly six blocks in area in San Francisco and has a similarly insane population density. Yeah. And again, these densities were forced upon them. They're not by choice. They're by necessity, like every other city. They weren't allowed safe transit anywhere. Spectacle violence was all too common in the early 20th and late 19th centuries

against Asian immigrants. And it also occurred in other neighborhoods too, whenever there was an economic downturn, or when the wealthy wanted to distract labor from their real enemies. Yeah. So, due to this, for the children of Asian and other non-white immigrants, the message from their native from their parents is very different than it is for children of white enough immigrants and or white native-born folks in the US. Okay. Okay. So now, I'm usually, I had trouble with the research on this.

There's not as much as I would be comfortable with. So take this with the salt lick that it might deserve. Okay. But I've read through several op-eds, several think pieces and blogs of children from immigrants. Or children of immigrants. And the through line that I can draw is this. My parents were more strict than my American friends' parents. Specifically, they wrote, the most common things that they wrote about was that they had to be home earlier,

they had to dress more conservatively, they don't gather where there's lots of children And there's also a sentiment of underlying malice expected by the immigrant parents From the population around them though that came through less clearly in european immigrants than it did with everyone else So if you were from the global south or the global majority, there was typically a fear of malice that European immigrants did not really seem to experience based on what I've read. Okay, that's that tracks. Yeah. Now I found this quote from an article titled the hidden stress of growing up a child

of immigrants. Quote, both parents and children must navigate the realities of racism, but each generation experiences discrimination differently. While U.S. born children of immigrants don't have to, whether the trauma, traumas of migration itself, they may have a harder time enduring discrimination, thanks to having a singular frame of reference, says Tomas are Jimenez who was a professor of sociology at Stanford.

Parents instead have a quote dual frame of reference and quote, which means that quote parents are judging life in the United States based on their comparison to the place that they left. More more of human as he says, quote, kids only know the kinds of discrimination they face in the United States and that often leads them to conclude that things are a lot worse than what their parents had faced or that they're pretty bad. He says further, quote, this is all compounded by the challenges of assimilating to Western culture, a process called a culturation which encompasses learning new governmental infrastructure vital procedures related to education and voting can be confusing to understand social classes and gender roles and social rituals like how you stand or how close you stand to another person while conversing or what clothing you're supposed to wear in different contexts. Even grocery

shopping can be completely disorienting. Okay. All right. So that's the immigrant experience, the Asian immigrant experience and the children of those immigrants. And what I also found to be true was that immigrant parents tended to be tended toward a more conservative view by default than their own children had, both regarding their home culture and regarding the culture in which they live now. So this leads to generation gaps that are further compounded by the parents and children living in two different cultures in the same house. Okay. Okay. Quote, the child has to juggle parents' expectations and behaviors in a world that doesn't

quite fit because US-born immigrant children tend to be more adept than their parents at picking up Western culture and language, which makes sense given that they grew up in it, the gulf between parent and child only grows larger. Okay, yeah. I also found a woman of Assyrian descent describe it this way in a different blog, to this day I still struggle with their grip I can sometimes understand and appreciate why they raised me this way as immigrants in America they dealt with a lot of the same feelings as I felt when I was younger they struggled without fitting in as a child just like me when my mother's family moved here, she was only a year old. She was raised in Davisburg, Pennsylvania. She didn't have anyone to relate to around her other than her siblings.

She had it so much worse than I did, but today she loves being who she is. My dad moved to America when he was nine. He was raised in Detroit, Michigan, and in an attempt to fit in, he had to sacrifice some of his identity. Today, I see him as one of the most confident down-to-earth people on this planet. He always stresses to me that I couldn't make a bigger mistake than being fake with myself. I think that all this time, my parents were trying to point me in that direction. They wanted me to love who I am. They didn't want me to try so hard to be something I'm not just because I wanted to blend in. Instead, they taught me how to stay true to myself and how to be comfortable in my own skin. Okay.

So, one article that I read was from a stand-up comic from Kenya who lived in Texas and is now in New York. And it was just really a list of shit that she said to her parents so they'd let her go out. One of my favorites was because I couldn't tell if it was a joke or not. She said, quote, there's this very exclusive Ivy League school. It only accepts the top 10 smartest people from their age group. I'm one of those people. So I have to go to the location of my choice to pick up the admin the admission letter. I have to do it in person so they confirm that it's me. Wow. Yeah. The sheer the hood spa. love did that. Like, you know, wow.

And the knowledge that you have to lie to your parents to get to go do normal stuff. Well, yeah. And what I'm what I'm pulling here is that there's a lot of generational differentiation and a lot of protectiveness from that first generation being exercised on the second generation and not appreciated as such. Yeah. Now, there were a ton of resources for therapy

and trauma informed practices when addressing the culture, golf and generation golf. Because I'm ultimately talking about turtles, I'm not going to get into the stigmatizing of mental health needs in different cultures and or The relative cultural belligerence of that phrase might represent Yeah, however, I found several things written by people who had just moved out on their own for the first time and at the age of 25 or so and

How stunted they feel one said that she moved until she moved out her mom still made her abide by a curfew at the age of 24 be back before nine or I'll call the police and they actually called the cops on her once when she was 21 Wow, yeah, and again, there's that protectiveness right these are some threads and I'm drawing together for you I Think my parents did behavior definitely played a role in preventing me from fostering good friendships They wouldn't let me go out go to friends houses in primary school Because they had the idea that girls shouldn't stay out. It would give the wrong idea They always had to know every last detail about my classmates

They trusted me to hang out with a Vietnamese girl because they knew her parents It's they trusted me to hang out with a Vietnamese girl because they knew her parents. Another friend was a Lebanese girl because my parents saw her as studious. Any friends have to be female. And wow. Yeah. And it's just again, it comes from a protectiveness, right? A we're putting all this energy into getting you to something you better not blow it. But also want to keep you safe. Yeah, it's.

I mean, you you see these themes all the time on TicToc and YouTube and all these places where people who are who are from these backgrounds talk about this stuff. You know, yeah, it's it's an entirely different paradigm from, you know, our experiences. Oh, absolutely. You know, who we grew up being. Yeah. So and she also noted the different dynamics in her own household. She said as different kids reacted differently to what they faced,

you could tell the difference in just the different siblings. She said, quote, my sister is the youngest and she knows how to sweet talk my parents. She's learned how to lie well so she can have some freedom. She has become adept at manipulating them because she's observed how our parents, she's observed how our parents she's observed how our parents have treated the rest of us. Once I asked my mom directly, at what point will you stop policing me? Her response was, you can be over 40 and I'll still do it. And she was totally serious. She assumes that I'll be single for the rest of my life.

Okay. So like, there's there's a question being begged there. Sure. Like, what motivates her mother's assumption there? Is there a cultural expectation that well, like, no, you're going to stay here to take you're going to stay close to take care of us? I don't think so. Or is it like so? Or is it like going? Well, you know, you've you've been all westernized and, you know, now you're you're in this, you know, feminist environment where you're just never going to get married and you're going to be an old maid, you know, forever. I think it's more not trusting the outside world and not thinking that her daughter can find a nice Vietnamese boy Yeah, okay, you know you're not gonna marry one of those white guys, so you're just gonna

You're never gonna find anybody Oh, or maybe her daughter's gay and this is her only way of understanding it Okay, alright. But back to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and their most recent movie, Mutant Mayhem. Now, have you seen that one yet? I have not. Oh, it's so good. Yeah?

Yeah, it really, it's kind of what sparked this whole thing for me in the first place. Oh, okay. Now, the other series and movies that came in were veryingly good and bad with no need for longevity study. They played on the same basic themes for the with various directors and writers putting their own spin on it and this one commercially performed on par with the rest, making its money back and then some but not to the multiples that we saw in 1990. Yeah. In fairness, the market's drastically different now too. Yeah.

But this movie, Mutant Ma'am, captured my attention quite effectively. The artwork is amazing. It's drawn in a kind of graffiti New York aesthetic and it's deeply New York style, along the same lines, but very stylistically different as spider-verse movies. Yeah, I noticed that in the trailers, the similarity there. Right? Yeah. Now, in this one, Splinter is a single dad, kind of identified as such too.

That hasn't been the thing normally. It's not codified that way. This in he's coded as a single dad and he's voiced by Jackie Chan, which is fun. But he's a single dad who had the traumatic experience when he was walking around in town as a grown-ass rat with the turtles in his hand. So he is a mutant rat. He's walking around downtown New York and it goes badly for him, right? And he's got the turtles. But the crowd soon sees that he's a rat,

turns ugly, tries to kill him and endangers him and the turtles. His reaction is to raise them in the safety and seclusion and teach them the way of the ninja and that humans are brutal and evil and will try to milk them. Oh, okay. What? Yes, milk them. It's an ongoing thing. Okay.

Yeah. Got it. It's the not fully informed. Okay. Assumptions, you know, okay, got it. Now he splinter also dives briefly into humor stuff. He says, my son, Michelangelo, you have heart, Donatello, you have wisdom, Raphael, you have bravery, Leonardo, you have honor. Um, in all honesty, though, that's kind of like the least aspect of this movie. It really doesn't play to the humors so much. Okay.

Although at one point during the movie, there's a massive fight at the end, of course, and Michelangelo sees Raphael flip over a truck and says, we got to get you some therapy. So you still have these little things. Yeah. And and it's not like it's devoid of the humorism and the personality stuff that's certainly there throughout the movie. Michelangelo does remain the jovial and joking one.

And he's very friendly and pragmatic just like we've seen in other iterations. Raphael is cool but rude. He definitely has some choleric rage issues that we see play out in fun ways. Donatello uses tech the whole time to make things better, to adapt to the fight. He stays on his iPhone the whole time sometimes and thinking his way through things, helping April with tech stuff. He is the melancholic thinker. He tends toward depression and scrawnyness much more than his brothers.

Leonardo shows the most compassion and ability to lead out of all of them, setting himself aside as a responsible one who's super excited about leadership Even at one point shouting see me leading After he has like kind of a Captain America moment nice Now the plot is pretty simple the four turtles are teenagers and they're looking to live in the human world and they're looking to live in the human world. They long to live alongside humans despite their dad's admonitions. And as a result,

the tension between the two generations exists and the boys end up lying to their dad about their whereabouts. Now, they eventually make a human friend, a young high school reporter named April O'Neill. She herself is a weirdo outcast too, so they begin to think that they could find a way to make the world accept them.

And that's kind of the overall theme is the children of a migrant seeking acceptance from that world. Okay. They're not looking to rule things. They're not looking to get rich or even to become well known. They just want exception and connections with the world around them. And this is something that their father cannot fathom as he tries and fails to keep them safe and isolated. Now eventually they meet up with other mutants of similar background but clearly not raised within a strict Asian immigrant parent. In fact, they're all decidedly more street than suburban. And I say that knowing that the sewers are a suburban pun.

But um, thank you. Now they're led by Superfly, whose dad was Baxter Stockman, a black genetic experimenter. Superfly himself is voiced by Ice Cube and is very much Ice Cube from Boys in the Hood. Not are we there yet. There is a decidedly immigrant who made it to the middle class versus native born people who haven't yet vibe going on here by the way. Okay. And because Superfly is leading a bunch of mutants, a gang, if you will, the boys finally have found people like them. Of course, they were trying to take him down in a plot designed to help save April her prom. But

there you go. So then you get into the distinction between good mutants and bad mutants. as it turns out none of super flies crew Or really bad mutants just him and he's bad because he wants to make the world all mutant Because then everybody will be equal and chill to him Okay So this this is backed up by the fact that the very company that employed Baxter Stockman tried to destroy all the mutant study made And when they capture the turtles they do in fact try to milk them Okay

So that that particular check of Malaprop pays off. Yes. Okay Now TCR I is the corporation literally draining the lifeblood of the immigrant community in the area Okay So eventually Superfly becomes an enormous and destructive version of himself which all the mutants together have to stop and through the power of their own efforts The media which is represented by April being on TV to plead their case as a counterpoint to the berating narrative that all mutants are equally bad. And she's like, no, no, no, there's some good ones here.

Look, these guys are doing this. The people of New York actually show up to help the good mutants fight the bad mutant now that they know the difference. There's there's some parts of this that I'm I'm not entirely comfortable with. Yeah. Like, you know, proximity to whiteness and becoming the good ones. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay. Now at the end of it, the boys gain the acceptance they've been craving. And then they dress like the humans in the humans' various styles. They engage in the ultimate acceptance marker for children of immigrants. They go to public school.

Okay. Leo dresses preppy. He works with April in the newsroom. Donatello wears a hoodie and hangs with the AV club and coding club all of whom are on their computers Raphael joins the wrestling team and michael angelo joins the improv squad All right Now at the end a tribe called quest music hits and the boys go to prom and hang out with other teenagers And after the credits tcriCRI contact Shredder setting

up for the sequel. Alright. Oh, and Splinter gets into a relationship with one of the other mutants, finally reaching out to connect as well because he's learned that the city can be pretty rad to mutants. Okay. Okay. So the whole movie is very much allegorical for the immigrant experience and it's 100% aimed at kids while firing it over their heads completely. It normalizes this experience and while it's trapped by some of its own conventions, good

versus bad mutants, for instance, the thing that is tweaking you so hard, integrationists versus separatists, it does do an excellent job of highlighting coming of age in two cultures at once. Okay. And given its style, its target audience and its message, I dare say it's probably the most important social commentary we've seen come out of this property yet. Yeah, it sounds like it. I mean, based on everything you're saying about it, it's there's a level of self awareness involved in it that nothing else in the in the property has had. Right.

And oh, OK, let me hold on. It's clearly a choice too. Yeah. There is a level of contextual self-awareness. Yes. There has been all kinds of winking at the camera and smirking self-awareness like the whole time. But like, I think I'm phrasing it right when I say that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, given its style and its target audience and its message, yeah, that's really about it is that it is the most salient and important social commentary that we we've seen the property that was built around Appealing to frustrated boomers who chose to check out of the life that they were handed that they were handed

Their children were the target audience to begin with And now it's aimed at those those children's children and addressing more than just multicolored humor theory Yeah, all right, so the people who grew up with it as a toy are now taking their children to see mutant mayhem and They're they're exposing their young children to a allegory on the immigrant experience children to a allegory on the immigrant experience. Now, reviewer John Nugent said, quote, it's that adolescent experience that keeps this latest entry feeling more alive and engaging than it has any right to this adolescent outsider tale. And with Splinter, quote, respon as

kind of a first generation immigrant dad, his turtle sons and the second-gen kids Get better at aclymy acclimatizing to a hostile environment Okay, the only thing left to do I Think is to tell you my favorite turtle story to finish the episode and you are not going to be happy at all that I told you this. Okay. Okay. So any just real quick before we get as you do the cross.

Yeah, well, yeah. Before I go to this epilogue. Yeah. What have you gleaned? Because then I'm going to go to the epilogue. Okay. I think the biggest thing that I've gleaned is the time shift from when this property showed up to this most recent avatar of the property on film. Anyway, I think it's really striking how it started out as a parody in nearly every way.

in nearly every way. Yep. Got turned into a corporate property, like on every level. It is like, okay, no, we're taking this and we're going to milk it for all the cash we can get out of it. And the self-awareness of this most recent incarnation and the conscious choice to be like, no, no, we're going to tell a story about the immigrant experience through these four personalities, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I think it I think it says something about corporate wokeness You know, yeah the the like you can you can decry well, you know, they're only doing this because it'll make them money And like okay. Yes because it'll make them money. And like, OK, yes, motivation means something. Why people choose to do things is important. But the very fact that we're going to self consciously make a movie about immigrant youth experience

because it'll make us money. Yeah, as something about the wider culture having changed in the meantime. And that's remarkable to me. I agree. I think as a bellwether, as a marker, it shows that that there is acknowledgement that the immigrant experience is one that should be sold to, should be accommodated in the market. Like, yeah, I agree. All right. So, all right. Here's the story.

I'm with you. Like it went from parody to humorous based thing right at a time where people were really into that weird kind of essentialism. Mm hmm. And now we are in a very different time. And yeah, they decided to make it about the immigrant experience. Yeah Okay, so in 1990 Yeah, some 250,000 turtles were imported into Britain to sell to the sudden demand of young turtles fans who wanted them as pets and

For just a few pounds kids could easily buy a small turtle Not knowing that it would be growing to the size of a dinner plate over its lifetime and When parents and children no longer wanted to take care of the animals who would live up to 40 years if properly cared for They would often take a little side trip to the rivers and ponds nearby and dump them off there. Okay. Now that makes them an invasive species and they devastated naked native ecosystems. Yeah, that's that's predictable. Okay. Now, unfortunately, no ooze was reported sadly despite this incidental move toward recreating Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle origin stories. Mm-hmm

But the problem became so severe that the European Union banned the sale of the most popular breed the red-eared terrapins in 1997 okay now Fast forward to the Frankfurt Airport in 2014 Okay, all right now because of this and other bands smuggling has grown in popularity No, oh, yeah a man. No traveling from Mexico City to Barcelona by way through Frankfurt Yeah, I had to go through an x-ray machine in Frankfurt to board the next plane. No. Customs officials found 55 turtles.

30 arboreal alligator lizards, four horned vipers and five killed spined spiny tailed iguanas. OK, I'm sorry. I could have sworn I could have sworn that in the middle of that, you said horned vipers. Yes, four of them. Right. That's. That's a venomous snake. It is. It is.

That's that's like, like, OK, you know, strapping strapping horny toads to your body is like a sign of, oh, my God, I need the money for my drug habit. Like, OK, that's that's a level of desperate, like, OK. But agreeing to smuggle venomous snakes, right, on your person. Yeah. OK, so what was what was dude wearing?

I assume garter belts. I mean, you know, you would catch fibers to those like what? I don't know. Like a moon suit. Like I don't know. Like one of those big this was 2014. Right. I'm trying to I'm trying to think whether the big puffy jacket Parker look was was in might have been at that time.

Like, yeah, how do you oh? Okay, yeah, so this dude was was trying to carry a reptile house You know through customs on right this person right So wow, okay Now I need to step in here and point out that there's an enormous International turtle smuggling ring going on in the world Okay. Now, I need to step in here and point out that there's an enormous international turtle smuggling ring going on in the world. Okay, yeah.

Now, I knew about this story for years, but I did a search for it just with the keywords Frankfurt Turtle Seized. And I got pages and pages and pages of stories before and since the one that I was referencing in different places all over. It's even a Christmas. Yeah, now here's the part where you're gonna really, really, really hate. Frankfurt's policy with seized animals is to simply destroy them.

Ah, fuck. And because this can be costly and upsetting and time consuming, they've approached the destruction of seized animals in a rather brutal fashion. They put them into an industrial shredding machine and I have no idea if they're alive at the time or not. They literally throw the turtles to the shredder. That means that in Germany, shredder finally vanquished the turtles to the shredder. That means that in Germany

Shredder finally vanquished the turtles See now I hate you now I hate you I Didn't write up until that moment And now I do Good day, sir. Good day day good day, sir. Oh Oh my god So fucking awful Oh man

Yeah, that Yeah. Yeah. That sucks. Yeah. Yeah. So any any books you're reading? Yeah. Let's let's change the subject quickly away from that. My God. I am going to very strongly

recommend swords and devil tree. The Adventures of Fawford and the Gray Mouser by Fritz Lieber. Another author that I mentioned, same as Jack Vance, when I was talking about the state of fantasy in the 1950s. Fritz Lieber is another very important author, especially to the formation of what we think of when we think of Dungeons and Dragons and Fawfard and the Grey Mouser are two classic characters in the genre. So find it, read it, it's awesome. There you go. How about you? Okay. I'm actually going to recommend a what's the word I'm looking for? It's, um, it is a would it be young adult, I guess, or at least teenager Book by Robert Sullivan called rats observations on the history and habitat of the city's most unwanted inhabitants and

It's okay cool. It's rats in the sewers. I I found it to be kind of a worthwhile worthwhile thumb through It's it's pretty long and it gets into the history of rats in New York largely. Very cool. All right. Cool. Do you want to be found? I do not want to be found. But if you're listening to us, you have found us. That's either been at our website at www.geekhistorytime.com or on Spotify or the Apple podcast app. Wherever you have found us, please take a moment to give us the five star review that we know that you know we deserve. And please make sure to subscribe. And where can you be found sir? You could find me over on threads at duh harmony

You can also find me at the comedy spot on March 1st and April 5th Doing capital punishment capital punishment is back, baby Come check us out in the spring All right, very cool. Cool. All righty. Well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damian Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock.

And until next time, keep rolling 20s.