Do Go On - 209 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (with Nick Mason)

Episode Date: October 23, 2019

It wouldn't be Block without a visit from our fifth Beatle, Mr Nick Mason! He came in to tell us about the origin story of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and also just to hang out with us because he's a cool dude.Buy tickets to our live shows here: https://dogoonpod.com/events/Our website: dogoonpod.comSupport the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPod Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/Submit-a-Topic Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader Thomas Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there.

Canada, we are visiting you in September this year. If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

This week's episode of Do Go On is brought to you by some live shows that we're doing. Matt says we need to move some units. And if you live in Perth, we are coming there. Not this Sunday, but the Sunday after that, which is November the 3rd. The Comedy Lounge in Perth, it's going to be a great time. November the 3rd. Remember, remember the 3rd. November.

That's how you remember what date to show up to this gig. Yes. So we hope to see you there. We're doing a live podcast and then we're doing a second half quiz show. It's two shows for the price of one. A few tickets available at do go onpod.com. And the month after that, early December, it's coming out really quick now. We are coming to the UK and we've got shows in Dublin, Glasgow, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol and London.

A couple of those are already sold out. But if you want to get in for the... show. It's just got to do go on pod.com. Matt, tell me, did I just move some units? I reckon you did, but I reckon what will move them even more is some sort of internet celebrity endorsement. Do you reckon we could get one?

Hi, it's Mesa here from the internet and podcast and stuff. I hardly endorse this event or product on the planet broadcasting network. It sounds like we're holding you at knife port. Yeah, sounds like. When it's actually a gun. It would be nice at this one, actually, yeah. A real luxury. Mayso says that you have to do it

You know what? I've been to tons of do-go on shows and you should definitely do that because I have a grand old time And maybe I'll be there I won't be there It's a long way away from where I live Can I cut that bit out and we'll just cut it on Maybe you'll be there Okay yeah cool maybe I'll be there

I'm giving away prizes Now on with the show this week And blessings and kisses This week we have a special celebrity guest I wonder God I can't wait to think it's here Who's it going to be? Who's it going to be?

Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnikey and I'm sitting here with not one, not two, but three handsome and beautiful people. And that is Matt Stewart, Jess Perkins and our celebrity guest, I alluded to seconds ago, Nick Mason. Thank you for having me here. It's always a pleasure. Happy block. Happy block, everyone. Happy block to you. Happy block to you. Is this peak block? Yes. Does it get any blockier than this? It does not get any blocky. of this. Whatever context that means. Is this the Blocky 2 of the Block franchise? Yes.

Blocky, yeah, Creed. This is Blocky Act 2. Back in the Blocket. You tried and I love it. I tried and I succeeded. Thank you. So if people don't know, Blocktober is the happiest, most joyful time of year where this podcast does the biggest and best topics of all.

Oh. Yeah. Can you imagine one day they're being Blocktober Carrels? Yes. Wow. I'd love that. I can. I can picture that.

Yeah. Full name, of course, being Block Tofa Grace period month celebration, I think. Is that right? That's pretty close. You came up with it, Nick, didn't you? What was it? I did not. I'm not even entirely sure I've been part of Blocktober before.

But if I have, what a pleasure. You have a pleasure. Absolutely pleasure. Last year you did a blocktoe for Grace report on Batman and Barry Finger. Oh yeah, that's right. Bill Finger. I was going to let you go and... Thank you.

Hope you receive emails. Yep, Barry Finger. You're a real a hole. Oh, what? But this week, so you're doing a topic that I feel like maybe we talked about a year ago or something. A few people had suggested it and I'm pretty excited. Do you know what it is, Dave and Jess? No.

No, you've said a couple of topics that Mesa may like to report on, so I don't know. Did you even, did you come up with a question? Yeah, give you a question. You know what? It's a four-part question. Ooh, that's a lot of parts. Feel free to jump in at any time you feel comfortable. You can jump in and try and guess all four answers.

Yes, you can. Yes. Okay. So, question one. Who leads? Alvin, the chipmunk. No. That's a...

Deodor? It's a partnership. They're equal partners. Okay. You're sure the question's on who leads? Oh. That's a good point. Leds.

Are you sure? It is about pencils, my... Yeah, this is about the HB pencil. It's my favorite pencil. It's... All right, question two. Who does machines? Oh, Donatello.

Yes. My favorite. Oh, Leonardo leads. Who? The best. Who's cool, but. and I cannot stress this enough, is also rude. Oh, that's Raphael.

That's Raphael. And who's a straight-up party dude? That is one. Jess, come on, you can have this. I zoned out. Oh, no. He's got whose last. Splinter the rat.

He's a radical rat. No. Who have we already done? We've done. We've done the leader. We've done the machine doer. And we've done the cool but rude one. Yes.

We've done. Rafael. That's right. It's the Ninja Turtles, but Leonardo twice. We're not counting one. Mike Lennado. Angelou. Correct.

He is a party dude. Ninja Turtles. We're going to talk about the Ninja Turtles. Cool. So you guys, who's in the Ninja Turtles, the Turtlemania wheelhouse here? I wonder. I definitely am. Yes.

Because my sister's three years older than I am. She was a huge fan of it when it was absolutely the biggest cartoon in the world. Yes. And because of that, I think that's why I am obsessed with it. Oh, really? Was it early 90s? Was the peak? Late 80s?

Yeah, it was kind of the early to mid-90s. Because that's when the movies came out. Yeah, well, what? Look, we'll get to it. Probably in a report. Potentially in a report. In chronological, Lord. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Turtlehead. I'm a turtle-heading right now. And I saw the second Ninja Turtle's film at the cinema. The Secret of the Ouse. Yeah, with vanilla ice and his Go Ninja, Ninja, go rap. Huh, what did he think of the movie? He loved it.

Oh, great. He always He likes to He likes to see his own work That's my favourite joke in the world When you do one of those Said it never works Here we are

No I think it worked very well Oh great Just for the people at home Mesa was double fist pumping His own effort there No but I was I was all the way And I had the figurines

Me and my brother As a family We got a bunch of them For Christmas one year And then we had to We got to choose Oh, my, you got to pick. As the bigger brother, I was the bigger man and I let him choose first, which was a crucial mistake.

A stupid mistake. So you've got a lame one is what you're saying. Well, I did, but it also changed my favourite because everyone's favourite when I was a kid was Michelangelo. Yeah, party dude. It's sort of the obvious one ago. He's the funny one. He's a party guy. He's everyone ever wants to be.

Women want to be him, men want to be on him all over. I'm about to say, worry that Matt's about to say that he's a Donatello man. I'm a Donatello. Oh, my goodness. What are you doing? He's got a stupid. Nick, mate. He took, so my brother took, took Michael Angelo.

So I took, I'm like, well, you got to go the leader then. And then he goes, you've played it right in my hands. I'm taking Raphael. He's called the root. I'm like, fuck. And then I took Donatello. Wow. He took Splinter.

I think I got Crang. And I think, um. Well, you've got a real bloody, bloody king's ransom of injurals figures. You grow up in the affluent east, my friend. Well, I imagine these, these were the, um. Who got the bloody turtle blimp? What do you want to think of the turtle blimp? I think these were bought at the Dandenong market or something.

Oh, okay, cool. They were probably Bleen-age Blurt and Ginger Blurtles, but, you know, pretty close. So I wasn't crang. That's what my report is on, actually. Page 1, it just says the teenage Mutant Ninja turtles were pretty good, but they were not a patch of the Blen-Age Blurt and Blurtle Blurtle Blurtleys. And because of that, I grew to love Donatello. He became my favourite.

Yeah. Even though probably, oh, it's tricky. I'd say Raphael's probably the most interesting. He's kind of like the Ryan from the O. You know, it's a brooding bad. Right, but which one is the Sandy from the... Sal, well, he's Michelangelo. Party, dude.

Cowabunga dudes. I'm Sandy Cohen. Let's go solve some cases. That's what he did. In the law courts. Yep. Michael Angel was famously a lawyer by day, right? Yeah, absolutely.

Laws up, dudes. So, the Ninja Turtles, I was a big fan back in the day, as we all were. So, do we just say, was just where you were found at all? My brother's seven years older than me. He's right in the sweet spot. Yeah. So we watched it. I watched the movies, which I can't remember perfectly.

But we had these, my brother had them. We had these like plastic mugs in each of their colors that had like stickers of each character. But over time, those stickers came off. So they were just colourful plastic mugs and they were our go-to Milo cups. Yeah. And did you have a colour and therefore character you would marlowe with? Well, we ended up only having red and purple left, and I would probably always go red.

Oh, the bad boy. The Ryan of the FC. You know me. Yeah. What a bad boys. A lot of bad boys and party dudes in this room, right? Yeah, there are, yeah. We're a room full of Raphael's.

That's right. And Mesa, your favourite? I think it might have been Raphael. Raphael. Wow. I'm the only one who picked the leader with two swords. What's wrong with you guys? I was walking.

in the room. I'm like, he's going to pick Leonardo. I loved Leonardo. I'm going to pick a favorite by the end. Okay, that's nice. Maybe we'll have different answers by the end. Yeah. But I mean, so yeah, like, I think, like, there's always a Ninja Turtle's property happening. Like, there's, there was just a couple of movies. They're going to reboot it again in like a year. But like, when I was a kid, like, it was, it was, it was, it was, like, the biggest franchise. And it started out as a comic book. I don't know if anybody knows that. But I should stress this is

probably going to be a lot of talk about the comic book but I should point out the difference between this and all the other comic book reports I've done in the past

is Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird who created the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles are very, very rich now. They haven't died in poverty and despair as most of the other people.

Everyone else, it seems like it all went wrong and everyone else got rich. Yeah, for sure. And so it's even quite difficult to determine and how rich they are.

But if it helps, Peter Laird at one point, bought 130 acres of land near his house so he could turn it into a ski resort. And Kevin Easton, Kevin Eastman at one point, had a number of Ferraris, the sci-fi fantasy magazine, heavy metal, like he bought it, like the whole thing, and he owned a tank.

Imagine having so many Ferraris that somebody, say, driving by or walking past, couldn't count them easily. It's a number of Ferrari. You know, it's a number. He's got several Ferraris. How many were you picturing? I was picturing two.

I was picturing like eight, which I don't think I could count quickly. It's quite a fleet. You know, yeah, a fleet of cars. I also love the idea, and obviously you'll get into how it all came about. But if you'd go back in time to, like, before this happened and you said, one day you'll have several Ferraris because you'll create a comic about some teenage mutant ninja turtles. Yeah, exactly. So anyway, so a very quick bit of background about the two guys.

So Kevin Eastman was born in Maine in the United States And he Hang on, you know, I've got some notes I'll probably read from the notes That might probably be able to go up until now You were just going from the top of your dome Yeah, we should say that like Jess Dave and I write a report

And we read a report We go away for work for work And he goes straight from the top of his dome I just go in top of the dome Yeah Okay here we go Okay so his grandmother was a painter And his father was a tool and dime maker

Who also liked to draw and so he thinks he gained some artistic sort of inspiration from those two. And his father and his mother were divorced, but his father would take him out on the weekends and take him to drawing classes because he knew that that's something that Kevin liked. After... There's always a moment like that. After high school, Eastman went to the art school in Portland.

He went there for like a semester and it was quite expensive and they didn't really mesh with what he liked. He liked cartoon. Yeah, just throwing Ninja turtles. That's all he wanted. The Autonomy was crazy, but who's crazy now? He yells from his tank because he's running down the dean of admissions. Who's crazy now?

Please, he also doesn't have pants off. When you're rich enough. You don't have to. Don't have to. So basically, what he loved was cartooning. He loved comic books. He loved especially Jack Kirby, who I think I've mentioned in a previous report,

who was kind of one of the people that built sort of the Marvel universe. But he didn't like the superhero stuff. He liked some of the weirdest stuff. He liked one's called Commandy, who's the Last Boy on Earth, which was kind of like a sci-fi, future fantasy kind of comic book. He liked The Losers, which was like a World War II style comic.

And one day, he was working in a restaurant and he met a waitress that he liked. They decided to move to Massachusetts together. That is fast. Yeah, pretty fast, right? I mean, how big was his tip? Very big.

Yeah. Would you like any dessert? Oh, sorry, he was working in the restaurant. Okay, right. I was also imagining him as a customer. He definitely said he was working. Okay. Because the first thing I thought was the nanny theme.

He was working in a diner and I'm off. Yeah, was it flushing queens? It was Portland, Maine. He was working in a diner in Portland, Maine. It kind of works. It kind of works, right? Not bad. And so when he was, he was in Portland, he was.

He moved to Massachusetts, the romance didn't work out so much. But when he was there, he discovered there was like a piece of street press. It was called Scat magazine. Oh, Jess, you've been to this. Just love Scat. No. Love Scat. What?

Aren't you a big Scat fan? No, I love Scar. Oh, sorry. How does Scar sound again? But she's never heard of Scat. I don't know what Scat is. But she is doing a poo. My goodness.

So anyway, Scat magazine was kind of like, you know, alternative was street press and they had cartoons and funny little articles and stuff like that. And he was like, this is perfect. I'm going to go to them and I'm going to show my portfolio and I'm just going to get a job there. This is going to be terrific. So he showed up at the doorstep of Scat magazine. And it turned out that immediately prior, they'd completely changed their business model.

So instead of like doing funny articles and cartoons and stuff and then having it being supported by advertising, it turned out they could just make more money like designing, people's advertising. So they just switched. They were like, we're not going to make the magazine anymore. We're just going to be an advertising company called Scat. This is seconds before he arrived.

They all shook hands and went, that's it. We're not longer doing this cartoony thing. Knock, knock, knock. And so, yeah, so he was like, okay, fine. But they were like, look, we like your portfolio, though. It's kind of weird, cartoony stuff. You should meet this guy, Peter Laird. He's done some work for us before.

And so they gave him his details, and he called this dude up. and he's like, oh, hey, you know, I was recommended we meet up and we can work together kind of thing. And so he goes over to Peter Laird's house. And Peter Laird's house is like filled with, like, toys and comic books and artwork and stuff like that. And the first thing you see is sort of pride of place in the center of the apartment is like an original Jack Kirby piece of artwork from The Losers. One of his favorite comic books of all time. And he's like, well, this is going to work out. Yeah.

And they kind of, they really got along as friends. And then sort of summer ended and Eastman's like, well, I've got to go back to Maine. And then a couple of months later, Laird called him up and he's like, hey, listen, I got married. And I was having some cake at a diner. I met another waitress. And then one thing led to another. Anyway, I moved to a bigger house. It's got room for like a studio in it.

How about this? You move into our spare room. Nothing weird. But just move in his spare room and we can hang out and we can kind of work together and we'll see if we can come up with something. And he was like, okay, that sounds pretty good. And so they got together and they created a company called Mirage Studios. It was called Mirage because there wasn't anything to it. It was just like they made up led ahead and stuff like that.

But it was basically just them in the living room, like working on the couch. I like that. I know that name. Do I know it because of Ninja Turtles? You might too. Is there any other? Or the concept of a Mirage. Oh, no, that's it.

Yeah, that could be. Yeah, yeah. Did they go on or do anything? Well, you'll probably talk about that. Oh, yes. Okay. I forgot how the show works. Did you just shush yourself?

Shut up, Matt. Let me say talk. I was just, I was saying what some of the listeners were saying. Someone at home is like thinking shush so hard that it made me say it. Well done. That's powerful. Yeah, so what they basically they did. And they're in the future.

They were like, okay, well, maybe we'll create some characters. Maybe we'll create some work. We'll kind sell it to Marvel. We'll sell it to DC or something like that. and in the meantime what they did is they created the first thing they created was like a zine called gobbly gook do we all know what a zine is it's like it's shot for magazine yeah but it's like

photocopied yeah it's basically that it's kind of you know you create some artwork and some articles or whatever and you just photocopy it and stapled together and you give it away at alternative bookstores so sort of self-published yeah self-published and so they created they were working hard on that they came up with an issue of that and it had a character in it called

fugitoid who was a fugitive android hence the name and it had some you know art gallery samples and stuff like that they thought they might be would shop around and they had one one day they had they had a big day working on their zine uh and just just hanging out at home and they decided okay we're going to take a little time off we're going to we're going to relax and zone out and peter laird's favorite activity uh when he wanted to not focus on work was to like watch some bad tv so like watch the A team or like T.J. Hooker or something like that and just kind of like focus solely on that and just kind of concentrate. And Eastman's favorite activity when he wanted to relax was to annoy Peter Lear and like knock him out of it. Like I can just kind of

do anything he could to distract him and annoy him. And so apparently that day he just had like a stray thought and it was what if Bruce Lee was an animal? What would be the worst animal he could be? That's the genesis. He just had this thought and he's like, well, a turtle. Like, of course, because that's, you know, it's awkward and weird and slow. And you flip it over and it's back and it's done. You can't imagine with a shell on their back, they'd be all that agile, you know? Yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Unlike Bruce Lee, the greatest martial artist has ever lived. Quite agile. Yes. Arguably. Arguably. Aguably. Agile. He's an agile man.

So what he did is he just got out one of his sketchpans and he just drew like a really kind of awkward standing up on its hind legs. Turgs Turtle with like a mask on. I think I might have a piece of... Is the A team still playing this whole time? The A team is playing. They were soundtracked by the A team. Or the LJ Hooker commercial. Yeah, exactly.

Oh, here we go. So he just basically drew this figure. It's the first one here. This is good for the bloody listener, isn't it? And he just was like... I mean, it doesn't change all that much. Well, it's true. I mean, they get certainly more anthropomorphic over the years,

but he's got these little mask on. He's got his little nunchucks kind of thing. And that cracked Peter Laird up. So he basically drew this one. He's like, all right, good, good work. And he drew another one, which is a little more sort of... So they both both are the same artist there? Sorry, or did one draw.

That's Peter Laird on the left. Sorry, that's Kevin Eastman on the left. That's Peter Laird on the right. I've got to tell you that Peter Laird did a less good job. He's like, let me have a go. To be fair, he was just trying to watch TV. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It looks like he devolved the drawer.

It looks like the other way around. The second one's the sketch and the first one is like, more beautiful. And not to be outdone, Kevin Eastman then was like, all right, if we're going to do this. And he created, he sort of created four Ninja Turtles

with all their sort of individual weapons. And he created this little four-piece Ninja Turtles. He wrote Ninja Turtles. He drew this up. And then Peter Laird was like, okay, the teenage mutant Ninja Turtles. Man, that's awesome. That's the genesis of the character.

Wow. And so the idea was that every word in this represented like a hot trend in comic books at the time. So it was kind of like, let's see how many stupid trends we can fit in. So like mutants were the X-Men who were hot at the time. Teenagers, DC had a team called the New Teen Titans,

which is like Robin's superhero team. Bloody turtles. There were a lot of funny animal books. And like in kind of independent comics circles, there was a character called Cerebus, who was a medieval art vark kind of character. He was like the most popular independent comic book character at the time.

So they were like, yeah, to keep the turtles in, funny animal character. And of course, ninjas, which is kind of, you know, that's... Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee. And digital. Agility. Ningers are always cool. And what does that word at the top represent? That's a mystery to this day. Like, nobody knows the answer to that. Teh. Teh. Teh. Teh. Teh. Teh. Teh. Teh. Teh. Gotcha. Gotcha. Sorry. Dime Gotcha, gotcha. Sorry. Some question.

This sketch was sold at auction many years later for $71,000. Wow. So that's a bit of a... So he just sort of whips that up. Just whip that up. They're just hanging out on the couch, chatting, making each other laugh, and they made that. And they made that as a joke. And at some point, it goes bloody beyond a joke.

So they've got very different drawing styles, obviously. Yeah, Eastman is more kind of gritty, and Laird was more kind of sci-fi-e, maybe more Kirby influence. but yeah and so speaking of ninjas that's probably the biggest point like at the time daredevil was a big uh it was a huge comic book at the time there was a guy called frank miller he's a writer and artist and he basically he put a new spin on daredevil the marvel character was kind of goofy like a kind of a goofy silly like a lot of Marvel characters kind of goofy and kind of hokey and he put this sort of ninjury spin to this character so if you don't know the origin of

Daredevil he's like a he's a he's a he's a he's a he's a he's a he's a old blind guy walking across the road and this guy's about to get hit by a car and so he he uh he jumps and pushes the guy out of the way and as he does that this can't canister of toxic waste like falls off the back of a truck and hits him in the eyes and he goes out like a light and when he wakes up he's gone blind but all these other senses are kind of super enhanced and the ninja turtle's origin in the

comic books the the it was it was a like a couple of steps to the right. In the Ninja Turtles origin, that same thing happens, except after it hits the kid in the face, the canister then bounces off and it crashes into a kid who's holding a terrarium of turtles. And the whole toxic waste turtles mash up falls down into a sewer.

Right. And they also run it, and it splashes also onto a rat. Yeah. And they become, the mutagen, the ores, transforms into the teenage. So Splinter was there for. from the start.

In the original comic books, yes, yes, he was. They made some changes for the cartoons later, but he was always... Yeah, in the films they had Splinter was... He morphed from a... He was the pet rat of a karate expert. Yes, that's the... That's the say, so in the... Ninjitsu expert.

Injitsu. So in the... So this isn't just any rat. This is the pet rat. This is the pet rat of Hamato Yoyoy. who was a ninja master from Japan. And he was in love with a woman called Tang Shen, and he had a romantic rival in the form of a man named Orokunagi.

And he killed the man in a duel. And then he had to flee Japan and had to come to America. And then he was followed behind by a man named Orokusaki, who was Orokonaghi's brother, who then killed him and the woman, that Orukusaki being, of course, the shredder. Yes. The classic Ninja Turtles villain.

But then when the mutagen got on this, this rat, he of course remembered. Yes. And he was like, well, I better raise up these turtles as ninjitsu masters so we can exact revenge on the shredder. Yeah. Makes sense, right? Yeah, if I was a rat, I would want to exact revenge. Yeah, on my master's killer. Yes, exactly.

Yeah. By teaching some turtles. Ninsidzu. The dance. The ultimate dance. Exactly. And so in Daredevil, in the 1990 storyline, Daredevil, some ghosts from his past reemerge, his master Stick, who was another blind man who had like supernatural powers.

Donatello ended up using him. Exactly. And then the Stick brought him back into a battle with a ninja gang turned international crime syndicate called The Hand. So in the Ninja Turtles universe, we obviously have Splinter. That's the master of the Ninja Turtles who battle the Ninja Turtles. who battle the ninja gang turned crimes in to get the foot clan. Right. Instead of stick in their hand, it's splintering the foot.

Yeah, exactly. Love it. Pretty, pretty. It's basically satire. It's a little bit of satire, isn't it? I don't, to be honest, I don't really know what that means, but I love saying it. I think this is satire. I think it might be satire.

So basically, they were like, I think there's something in this, like this dumb, ridiculous thing. concept. And so what they did is they, over the next couple of months, they wrote a 40-page comic the Teenage Ninja Turtles, which had that storyline in it. And basically what they did is they got, one of them got a tax return, one of them emptied the money out of their bank account, one of them got a loan from his uncle. And together, they got about two grand together. And two grand at the time would buy you about 3,000, like, black and white copies of this comic book. Wow. And they were like, okay, what we'll do is we'll sell some at, you know, conventions,

and we'll sell some to comic bookshops and stuff like that. We'll see how we go. What they also did is because Peter Laird worked for very – I haven't mentioned this, but Peter Laird worked for newspapers for a long time. He did newspaper cartoons. He sold like illustrations to TSA who owned Dungeons and Dragons at the time. Oh, he was pretty savvy. What connection.

Yes, he was pretty savvy in terms of like how to get your brand out there. And so they created a media kit. was like four pages, which I've reproduced for you here. Good for the listeners. Wow, you've got a show bag, yeah. I've got a little show bag for us, right? And it's basically, it's like a little piece of, a little summary of the Ninja Turtles Adventures.

The story unfolds of the Four Turtles, embark on a perilous mission to confront this, the sworn foe, the malevolent shredder, who will prevail publication date. The first issue of Teenage Mutiny Ninja Turtles is set for May 1, 1984, and then it's cover price and blah, blah, blah. And then it contains like,

and like a more refined version of the classic Ninja Turtles look there. It's so funny because that that looks like the drawings my brother used to do of the Ninja Turtles and I was always like he hasn't done a great job.

But now I realise he's actually just he's drawn the originals. Yeah, well, maybe. And I should call him. I apologize. Live on air for Blocktober. He was going to be an artist until he came along.

He's actually pretty good. Well, you realize that now. Until you crushed his dreams. He makes his art with wood now. Yeah, he does. So here's a little advertisement for the Portsmouth, New Hampshire Minnicon, the comic convention where they were going to debut the Ninja Turtles. And here's a little full-color artwork that you might airbrush on a van.

Oh, wow. That would look like. Yeah, would have brushed that on a van. From right at the beginning, they had that Shredder design. Wow, Shredder looked. He didn't change all that much from there. He looks bad at. Yeah.

He looks way better there than he does in the Michael Bay films. That is almost certainly true. Where his suit is made of swords, basically. Like, have you seen it? No, I don't think so. They're like spring action sword. Yeah, it's real silly. It's real silly.

It's real silly, as opposed to this, which is real cool. So what they do is they took this media kit, and they sent it to 180 radio and TV stations. They sent it to the Associated Press. They sent it to all these news outlets. And it was basically like, this is the newest hot property. everybody get on board with the bloody ninja turtles and then they all started going maybe this is a bloody hot property maybe we should get on board

with the bloody ninja turtles Kevin Eastman said when we sent all these press releases Pete's idea we ended up getting tons of free press I think it had always had to do with the name I mean most people would see it and try to say it and after they picked it up it ended up going home with them somehow I think most of it had to do with the right place

at the right time I think we came out with something people wanted to see at that time or even there was more luck going on than I thought That's, that's, anyway, and so I honestly thought you were about to tell me they sent out 180 press kits and heard nothing back. Oh no, they heard so much. Yeah, wow, that's great.

They really got some heat on this, and it turned out they had these 3,000 issues, and they sold them all, which is pretty good. I mean, they gave some away to the friends and family and stuff like that. It was kind of like, you know, a lot of family members are like, oh, it's so cute, you're doing this. Isn't this? Isn't this a fun little nice thing?

It's got the vibe of just a real easy success story. everything just there's no been no struggle at all yeah I was hoping that they were not going to be able to sell any of the copies I was hoping that at least hate each other but they seem like really good balls there's still time still time there's still time

there's certainly time I mean some things are more important than mine yeah like tanks like buying a tank my seven Ferrari's are better than your tank yeah that's right it does seem like if this or Superman was laughed out of town

you would have assumed it be this but it was absolutely right But I guess Superman was the ninja turtles of his day. Absolutely. It's a man who's an alien. Oh, my God. And his planet exploded.

Nothing could hurt him. Apart from green rocks. All right, mate. You've had enough. You've had it. You've given it a good try. This is a bunning store, sir. All right, hey, all along.

It was always one of those. No, no, wait, wait, wait. What's your order at this McDonald's drive-through, sir? And then he got off the bus. And I was like, Dad? But my question is, why was he talking to the McDonald's drive-thru about a Superman idea? That doesn't make much sense. It's a good question, isn't it, Dave?

Yeah, I mean, you talked about it to your friends, maybe, or not a person you don't know. Dave, Matt gets enough people not understanding these jokes on Twitter. Oh, sorry. She doesn't need that. I get enough of this at home. When you're on the couch reading your Twitter reply. Yeah, if anyone is on my Twitter, everything I say is not real. Okay.

So he's definitely not doing any gigs coming up. Wait, apart from the plugs. Plugs are sincere. Everything else is being silly. When he said, thanks for coming out last night, really hates you all. Yeah, that's right.

So then they ordered another 6,000 copies because they're like, well, you know, we've still got orders coming in for these ones from comical companies and people who just want to buy it. And so they ordered another 6,000. Those sold as well. Dave, take note, this is moving units.

This is moving units. Do you understand now? How many press? releases if you put out to like TV and radio stations. None. No, you've got to get, Perth only respects media kids. Yeah, exactly. Okay, I'll send a few out.

No one's buying tickets if they're not receiving a media kit first. Duh. Sorry. Come on, man. So they sold, they sold these 9,000 issues. Amazing. And after they paid their uncle back and they pay for some bills and et cetera, they made like a couple of hundred bucks each.

And they're like, incredible. Amazing. What have we? What a world? Yeah. And their parents were like, oh, it's good, good for you. That's great. But you're great.

But you're never. I'll never own a tank. I'll prove you wrong, mum. That's what my mum says, which is weird. She's always, every time I speak to on the phone, she's like, oh yeah, what are you up to? How's work? How's this?

Where, right? And then as we say goodbye, I'm like, love you, mum. She goes, you'll never own a tank. Beep, be. You're like, but what kind of tank, mom? Like a fish tank? Fish tank? I can get one.

I'll get one tomorrow. Other kind of, third kind of tank. A third kind of tank. Gas. Gas tank, gas tank. You kind of do. How, where, tell me. In your car?

It's inside Colin. Oh my God. Yes. Take that, Annie. Colin is Jess's car. Otherwise, you'd be very confused. Uncle Colin. I put a tank in him.

Colin, let me access your gas tank. That's what I call my butt. So that was May of 84. And then Eastman had to go back to work at the restaurant. to pay some more bills and etc. And then they took a little hiatus. I think they took about eight months off. The next issue didn't come out till 1985.

Striking while the iron's off. That is a wild. As reading that, I'm just like, imagine being like, this is a miracle of what we've done here. Incredible. Should we strike while the iron's up? No. No, no, no.

I've got to go back to work. We wrote the other one in about three days. All right, eight months for the next one. Imagine if we could do a podcast every eight months. The dream. Wait, in between us, can I also only do one every eight months? Yeah, nice. It's the spirit.

Then they put out, does anyone have orders for the second issue? And they got 15,000 orders for this one. Whoa. And then they crunched some numbers. And they were like, okay, so if we release like six a year and they get at least 15,000, like that's, we can live off confidence. I don't have to work at the restaurant anymore. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. And they, yeah, so. I love those kind of numbers. You know, when you're like, hang on. Oh, my God. So they did three. They did four issues the year. They got 15,000 copies for the first printing of number two.

They got a resolicitation of number one. That sold 30,000 copies. Then they had a first solicitation of number three, which is 50,000 copies. Whoa. And it was jumps. It was pretty wild. I think they said, look, it's going to, Peter Laird, I think said at the time, okay, what's going to pay? It's going to pay our own bills and keep

us in, you know, keep us in a macaroni and cheese and pencils. Which Peter Leight eats? He eats pencils. Oh, okay. HB. But imagine, because they were sort of like, all right, if we can sell 15,000, we'll be okay. Yeah. Yeah. And they're selling 50. Yeah. That's sick. That's probably almost the best business plan you can have is doing a zeitgeisty pop culture thing. for a generation. Oh, for sure. If you, I mean,

to like into that, you know? Teach someone to do a pop culturey, Zitecasty thing once, and you know, you'll feed your family for a day. Yeah. But if you get a pop culturey, yeah, teach someone a whole generation to be into your zeitgeisty pop culture thing.

You'll let you buy tanks for a lifetime. Exactly. Because it means that not only, because it's not just big for the time, because I was thinking, oh, you've sold these comic books, but there's no guarantee they were later, but they grow up and then they want movies, you know, as they get older,

they want movies, they want adult movies, you know, porn versions. I mean, like, you know, not kids' versions. Dave, can you think of a porn title? You're good at that. Oh, yeah, you used to do that all the time, like three years ago. We've let that segment slow. Sorry to put you on the spot too. You can have a moment to think about it.

There's so many words to work with, the teenage, etc. Teenage has to say. I was about to say it's just emphasis on the teenage. Painage, surely. See? He's coming for you, territory. I am. And we can still keep with Secret of the Oos. Oh, that remains.

That remains. It's still great. Secret of the boobs. I think we just changed Ninja to Minger. Okay, so what are we up to now? So, Peneage. Putin? No, no, mutin's fine.

Putin. And then squirtles. Squirtles. Yeah, nice. Nice. Yeah. Right. I mean.

That's hot. That is the hot. If that hasn't already been made, I'd be very surprised. But, you know what I mean? Because now, like, movies are going to be made forever about this franchise, and they'll just keep collecting checks. I think there'll always be something, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Although, again, like, I think we've moved past this mania. Like, I think at this point, it's just like, oh, it's kind of a property, you know? Yeah. But, you know, people know the Transformers? Well, Ninja Turtles. It's kind of that kind of vibe. So how they work together is they would, Eastman would have like a general outline for the plot

and then they would get down to, they would work together, they would flesh out the issue, basic beginning, middle and end, Eastman would do the breakdowns and the layouts and then Pete would go through and say, okay, edit this, change this, fix the spelling because he was that guy. That's an important guy.

Well, exactly, that's right. And then they would basically take, they would get their plots together and they'd basically take half the stack each, sometimes at random, and just kind of start penciling. So they would, like, do half and half of any given issue, which is... Wow. And was the artwork consistent enough?

I think so. I think they... Well, you know what? I'm bloody... Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, it's a great question. Because when they did those initial drawings, we could tell one was different. Whoa.

Mesa's just handing out more from the show bag. These are the original issues, are they? No, these are reprints from the, maybe the late 80s? These are originals. Oh, okay, those are the originals. Are these worth more than my car? I doubt it very much. Are these worth more than my life?

Oh, yeah. They're somewhere in the middle there. Jess's life and then there's... These are cool. Whenever I see a comic, I'm like, I understand why people would like these. They're pretty. They're dynamic. So colourful.

Look at all the stuff going on. Colorful, but I will note that all four Ninja Turtles have the same colour mask. I was it going to have two. When did that come in? Well, actually, that... So the original Ninja Turtles comics are all black and white. These have been colourised, as you can probably tell. But yeah, on like cover photo, cover images and stuff like that,

they all had red bandanas, yes. There's a couple trying to get it on in this one, where the man, he's not wearing a shirt, he says, come on, hon, cagney and lacy is over, let's dot, dot, dot. Oh, L.I. And then she says, oh, herb, we might wake the kids, tee. So some of this is a little bit juvenile But at the same time

It's a little bit more adult Than like what most people know of kind of the Ninja Turtles Because this is kind of like You know this was a couple of men in their 20s Making a silly kind of joke comic That they're also taking quite seriously And it was kind of like well this is what we would like to read kind of thing I feel I've to derail the whole podcast

You guys are just going to be flicking Sorry No stop Look at that I was just you know Matt I was right, they're very pretty. In the next frame, did the pain age, uh, pootent, uh, minja squirtles come in and kick in the gear. Yeah.

Yeah. Tee he. Teh. That's one of their catchphrases. But yeah, is that? So I actually, I've got a like a big canvas print at home of Ninja Turtles. Oh, yes. And they all also all had red bandanas in it.

And I'm like, I'd, weird. My brother gave it to me because it's something we share, right? It's one of the few. Was that him trying to reconnect? neck. And thank you for giving up the first pick all those years ago. Yeah, maybe that's what it was. And finally, you know, after 20 years, we reconciled.

Oh, okay, you did. That's nice. Yeah. I'd like to imagine you opening that canvas and then saying, no. Give me the figurines, boy. I'm a grown man. But in that painting, they all had red bandanas like the artwork here. That's the classic Ninja Turtle.

Right. I didn't realize that. Anyway, I've painted over them with the right colours. Have you really? Oh my gosh. You're kidding. No, I'm not. You've just doubled the value of that, Matt.

So with this success, came a little bit of kind of licensing. There was like some people came to them with various offers. Like there were some little pewter figurines. They got put in a role-playing game called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness. There was like T-shirts and bits and pieces like that. But these guys, Eastman and Led were quite wise in that they remembered the story of Siegel and Schuster and Bill Finger and whoever else I mentioned on previous podcasts. We got really screwed out of a lot of stuff. And because they were like, you know, kind of independent comics guys, they were basically like when anybody came to him and was like, okay, we're going to, you know, we'll promote your stuff.

And maybe, you know, we'll give you some tie-in toys or whatever. And we'll take 90% of the profits and blah, blah, blah. They were like, listen, we're making enough money off this. We're making a couple of grand, a few grand in an issue. We're doing fine, and you seem quite slimy. So we're not going to, we're basically not going to. Slimy. Normally you'd think turtles would be into that.

Uzi boys. But in fact, Eastman and Laird were human men. I didn't, I don't know if I mentioned that. This isn't based on the real line. The theatre of the mind is entirely changed. Yeah, I know, right? The Kurt just came down. If you'd like to picture it.

Oh, I see. Yeah. Kevin Eastman in this era looked like a little bit like. Green Shell. Exactly. Green Shell looked like John Oates, like mustache and a mullet kind of look. Who's John Oates? From Hall and Oates. Hall and Oates. Okay.

How many oats do I know? Just the one. It's probably not him. Who could this one be? And Peter Laird was a nice, nice young man. It was more of a Daryl Hall type. No, not really. More of your stereotypical nerd. Okay. More of a day. The other two, Kevin Eastman is kind of more, the more kind of like, they're reportedly very nice if you ever meet them

they'll answer all your questions and they're very happy to talk about any aspect of them. I'd love to meet him. But Kevin Eastman's much more kind of regarious and kind of like

he's more excited about the biz and Peter Laird's kind of more like like he's kind of kind of shy and retiring and he'll Are you going to meet him? Oh, come on. I'd love to me. So can you make that happen?

I'll make some pause. That's a funny feeling maybe if I said it if I said it out of the universe. Yeah. The secret of the meat and grief. I'm sure. You're pretty big in the comic book world. You could make that happen, surely.

I'll probably figure out where they live. I mean, I could just look for a really big garage and put a tank in it. Yes. And a ski field around it. Some sort of ski field, yeah. But anyway, they decided that they would be kind of like, they would be in control of their own destiny. And they'd always have, like, final say on everything they put together. and they wouldn't give away control of anything.

But at one point, I'll let Jess reach up. Muttly in the corner. Okay. Then I'll just barrel through, shall I? In 1986, they were approached by a guy who they felt was still a little bit slimy. His name is Mark Friedman. He owned a company called Serge licensing, which is a sex. Just licensing already makes it sound like, oh, we just come around and license other people's stuff?

Yeah, we don't have to create anything. We're kind of, you know. And he's like, and he's like, okay, well, I'm different from everybody else. I've heard about you through like a toy company and you've got a little heat on you, so I'm going to bring, come in and... Extinguish some of that flame.

Exinguish some of that flame. Exactly, that's right. And they were like, listen, all right. John hopes you're on fire. They were like, you know, all right, fine. We don't, we don't think anything's going to come, you know, up with this, but coming anyway kind of thing. And he came over to their house, which at the time they were painting.

So he showed up in like a thousand dollar, and they were like in paint splattered like shorts and t-shirts. And he's like, who, this is, what are you doing? This is not, this is not professional. This is not the professionalism we're expecting. We're painting our house. Licensing. Was he writing checks with ivory?

Is this the kind of guy where I'm at saying? Yeah, kind of like that, you know, leather briefcase, perfect hair, the whole thing, right? And he's like, look, I can make you millions, blah, blah, blah, the kind of standards feel. And they were like, okay, look, if you think you can really do something with the Ninja Turtles, will give you 30 days. And so they got a paper napkin and they wrote a 30-day non-exclusive contract on the napkin.

And they were basically like, see what you can find. I mean, these people print comics for a living and they can't find a piece of paper. Well, that's, I mean, that stuff's expensive. That comic stock is like,

it's like $22. Well, you can make me millions, right? Get the napkins. And so in 30 days, he did. He got letters of interest from various people. He got letters,

of interest from a place called Playmates Toys, which was a toy company. Is this the adult toys we were talking about before? You'd think so, but no, it's just a regular toy company. In fact, their toys marketed to children 4-2-8. Oh, it's a specific. Yeah, ages 4-2-8. And so they flew to California and have a meeting with these guys, and basically they were like, okay, we've looked at your work and we like turtles.

Who doesn't? But there's a little bit of stabbing and explosions and etc. I don't think we can build a toilet line around that, but tell you what if... Toilet line. Yeah, toilet line. Is that what I said? But yes. We don't think we can build a toy line or a toilet line.

I'd love to meet him. So they were like, listen, get a, basically get a cartoon deal, get an animation deal, and then we'll talk and see what we can do. And so they did. They were like, they were like, well, they basically went to an animation company, and they were like, now it's called Fred Wolf Films. And they were basically like, we got some heat on this toy, like, cartoon, comic toys. How much hate in this story?

What can you do for us? And so they sort of, together they developed a toy line in conjunction with a comic book, with a cartoon series, which is kind of like the standard situation. I think, you know, you use the cartoon to spook the toys kind of thing. Yeah. And like they came up with, they were like, okay, you know, we've got notes from the toy company, more mutants. You've got to chuck more mutants in so they created Bebop and Rocksteady.

There's a storyline quite early on in one of these ones where the Ninja Turtles encounter the Utroms who are like an alien race and they're like a brain, like a disembodied brain with a face and eyes. They're like benevolent scientists, but they're like turned that into a villain. So they created Krang. you know, who's the brain in the, his brain in the suit, you know, that whole, that whole thing kind of thing. And they cleaned up the origin a little bit instead of, you know, this, this being some sort of love triangle murder situation with splinter and shredder and blah, blah, they're just like, just say he was a man, Hamato Yoshi was a man and he was kind of shamed

in Japan and then he moved to America and then he was turned into a mutant rat. That sounds so much more simple. Yeah, exactly. So they reverse it. They're like, okay, well, he's a man who got turned into a rat. And then you have like a end game for the cartoon, which is like, well, maybe one day he'll become a man again kind of thing. Maybe the Ninja Turtles can help him out with that kind of thing. But can the turtles ever become a man? That's a good point.

I think they probably have. I love when they go undercover and wear the trench coat and the hat. I think that was the plot of the last Ninja Turtles movie. It was like maybe we can become human people men. How do you want to? You're a turtle. That's sick. Yeah, and you eat pizza.

Oh, that's right. They love pizza. Okay, so they also demanded a few changes. They're like, okay, we've got to simplify this. Again, less blood, what have you. Is there any way you can differentiate any of the turtles? Okay, we'll give them different coloured masks. We'll give them a little belt buckle that's got their first initial on it.

They'll have that. Can they love pizza? Can they have catchphrases? Can they say cowabunga? Were they always Renaissance artists from the start? Yes, the plan originally was to give them Japanese names because of the whole ninjitsu thing, and they couldn't figure out.

out names that sounded realistic or, I mean, there's Ninja Turtles, but still, they couldn't find, they couldn't find names that seemed right. So instead they went to a book of Renaissance artists and they were like, pick some names out of that kind of thing. So they were always. And then wasn't, was the story that Splinter was an art fan or something, and he named them? I feel like that was the story. And I'm, I think a lot of the origin I'm remembering is the first Jim Henson company movie or whoever that was, but Jim Henson did the public. That was Jim Henson, yeah, yeah. And I think that was, I think that was, I think, think that's what it was.

Splinter was the pet rat in the film. He was a pet rat, yeah. And he morphed, he got the ewes. And then the turtles were turtles and they were near. Yeah, so the, yeah, well, wasn't the turtles? The turtles morphed from turtles into human turtles. Mutant turtles, yes. And the rat was rat into mutant rat.

Correct. No one went human into animal. No, no, it only worked that way in the cartoons. And then they eliminated bebop and rock steady from that movie series as well. Yeah. Did they sort of try and go back to the comics? Yeah, the first movie was kind of a mishmash of the original comic books with some elements. So a lot of the story elements in these comic books here are in the movie.

So, like, there's a scene where, like, Raphael gets beaten quite badly and they have to escape to a farmhouse and all this sort of stuff. That's in these, but they also, they made some concessions for, like, people, the kids who knew the cartoons. Right, the car. They kept the mask the same. They love pizza. They say cow bunger, et cetera. But by all accounts, Peter Laird hated all this. Right.

He actually created Beabop and Rock Steady, but... Taking the piss almost. Yeah. It feels like they're also, what are the dumbest animals you would move into bad guys? A wart hog and a rhino. Rino, exactly. And he kind of hated the idea. Like, they got final saying a lot of this stuff, but they were also like...

kept getting presented with all these ideas, and they eventually have to start saying yes to some of them. Right. And, you know, and they kind of hated that, you know, every episode of the... The Ninja Turtles cartoon was kind of the same, and it went for 10 seasons. I was not aware. It went for nine years, the cartoon. And they hated the shredder and crang, and the bad guys were also bumbling, and it was also kind of childish and kind of dumb. This is a children's cartoon.

I've got to tell you, as a kid, that's why I loved it. Well, exactly, and people did. And people loved the cartoon and people love the merch. I have some figures here. By 1988, the Ninja Turtle's merchandising had made 175. million dollars. Wow. Are they still in their 20s at this time?

Yeah. Peter, uh, Peter, uh, Peter Laird's in his early 30s and Eastman is in his, uh, late 20s. That's, like, it must be a weird thing to be collecting money from this thing you hate. Like, you could, you could have put us up to it and you probably still could reverse some of these. Yeah. I wonder, yeah, like, um, again, I think they could, but again, it was this situation and I think you build an empire around you and then there's all these people sort of relying on you.

Right. So, like, at a certain point, the Ninja Turtle's comic book went for, I think, 129 issues. But Eastman and Lear had only ever made 15. Like, they only wrote and drew 15 because at 15, they were so snowed under with admin for the Turtles Empire that they couldn't do it anymore. Like, they couldn't. So they had to, like, hire more staff to write and draw. Do the fun stuff that they got into it. Exactly.

Like, they often referred to it as like they kept having to move. further and further away from the drawing board kind of thing. And so, yeah, like, there were a hundred and something issues. The vast majority of their output that they didn't even write or draw, or like they wrote some of it or they did some outlines when they had a chance. They never really collaborated together again after the first 15. They should have gotten more of a Stan Lee kind of, is an idea. You make this happen kind of role.

I think they did a tiny little bit of that, yeah. 1989 brought in $350 million worth of merchandise. You weren't even born then, and they were already earning that money. You know what I mean? I've got so much catching up to do. By 1994, which was the height of Turtle Mania. Okay, I'm alive by this point. I guess.

Cash in, sure. So, in total, since the creation of the Ninja Turtles in 1984, until 1994, merchandise sales was $6 billion. What? So at that point, like, That is crazy. That puts them up there with maybe only Star Wars, beats them in terms of merchandise there.

I had no idea was this big. Oh yeah, I mean, they were like... I guess it was big enough to get to me, which means it's probably pretty big. The toy line had something like 400 pieces in it, like... And Matt had most of them.

Yeah, well, by the sound of you know. Matt's brother had most. You divvy them up in some... He got the 350. Yeah, I think we started with the turtles and then it would have been... Would have collected them over the years. I don't...

I think he got both. with Bebop and Rocksteady in a future year. Maybe when I was already too cool for that stuff. You're like, whatever, I don't care, shut up. I don't know. I'll listen to blink when I two now. I'm too cool for Ninja Turtles. But yeah, so like they kind of,

I think also like, of the two of them, Kevin Eastman was more like, okay, I'm excited to see what people do with this. Like if somebody's going to, they're going to make a cartoon. I'd like to see how that turns out. Or like, if somebody's going to make toys, it'd be cool to see that kind of thing. But I think,

and I think, Eisman said at the time, something like, if people want to see what we did, you can just look at the comics. They're out there. If you want to read them, you can find them. That's the work we did. And we're proud of that work. But Led was also like, well, we put our names right at top of every single one of these things. And some of it is garbage.

And we should. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's so, such a weird thing to do a thing you make takes off and it feels great. Yeah. But it ends up kind of ruining your life. Yeah, for sure, absolutely.

What a weird scenario. It really seems like succeeding sucks. Yeah, it does feel that way. That's every story we've told about someone who succeeds. It sucks at some point. Yeah. I don't think I'm ever going to do it. Yeah, I'm going to make that decision as well.

Let's all make that decision and never succeed. Yeah. And we should stop by never trying, right? So I've got my own seven Ferraris in a tank. Okay. But it feels like you can do this and you could, you can jump out if you wanted to. Yeah.

You don't have to, there'd be pressures on, but you just have to keep some perspective. I do just have to backtrack one sec. Dave, would you let me borrow one of the Ferraris? Yeah. That's a really good question. Okay. What for? The red one?

What do you need it for? Yeah. Just go shops. Wow. Yeah, for sure. Come around. Borrow the Ferrari. Thank you, Dave.

I got six backups. Yeah, cool. Can I take the red one? Yeah. Well, they're all red. I'm not an idiot. I'm not a black... I'm not even buy different colors.

I'll buy a black Ferrari. Come on, go. I buy a black. like Ferrari. They're the badass ones. Red ones are for the bloody show-offs. Yeah, yeah, people that are showing off in their Ferrari. I'll get a nice, you know, sophisticated, humble black Ferrari, please.

I don't think it's not, I mean, they want the opposite effect, but it is not possible to see someone in Ferrari and not think, what a flapping tool. Exactly. Flapping tool. Flapping tool. Flapping tool. So Turtle Mania. So that's $6 billion. that was like

that would have included you know all the toys obviously all the video games all the lunch boxes the cartoon obviously there was a there was a live stage show in 1990 yeah it was a I want to touch on a okay that's where I draw the line I would not lend myself to a musical

oh you hate musicals what about Buffy the musical episode once more with feeling didn't say that one but that does sound pretty fun it is a good fun time What about the Scrubs? Yeah, I've seen the Scrubs one. See the Scrubs one.

Pretty cool. Is that the one with Colin Hay? Yeah. That's a feeling why I look for this piece of paper. Yeah, you're welcome. Have we got a bit of an idea about... I feel like Dave, just because he opens the show, and he likes him anyway, he's probably our Leonardo.

Probably. Yeah, okay. But outside of the studio, I think that falls away. Big time. We're not... Jess and I, when we're out of the room, we're not following your lead. No, no. If anything, we're out holding you up and dragging you along.

What? We don't talk outside of the studio. Well, that's the weird part about it. Jess and I keep talking and then you stop, you sort of sort of stop flopping. Yeah, drive away in my Ferrari, like a flapping tool. That's going to catch on it. Leave you on my. Come on, guys.

So I think I'm going to say Leonardo is Dave. Yes. Then, so I can't, I can't help it. feel and listeners will probably disagree with this but inside the room Jess is the Raphael. I agree. I was going to go with Raphael as well, yeah. So which one of us is the nerd and which one of us is the party dude?

Why would the listeners? Why would the listeners disagree with that? I think they think you're really fun and happy. But I'm the one who'll turn on a dime. Ah, cool, but rude. Yeah, they know. The duality of Man and Turtle, yeah. Yeah. I know, they do know.

I forgot. I thought that was our little secret. That's a, that I'm a pain in the eye. Fun fact, and maybe you can judge if this is fun or not, that theme song was written by Chuck Luray. Oh, yes. Vocals by Chuck Luray, famously, that jingle was written by a man

who then later created the show Two and Half Man about a jingle writer who is inexplicably irresistible to women. Oh, I didn't connect that together. Yeah, that's his own life. Wow, that is... Dave had mentioned part of that fact, but he didn't let me know about that he ended up making two and a half men, which is a show about it.

That's because I would never admit that I have watched enough 2 and a half men to know what it's actually better. But also, probably the most startling part of that fact is that he's name is Chuck Lurray. Thank goodness you pronounced it. I always say Chuck Lour, Chuck Lurie.

I never know. I never know. Chuck Luray sounds, all the sudden, I like the guy. No, do you know why I trust you? Why I trust you, Mesa? Because you are the Donatello of our podcast. Thank you.

You do machines. I do machines. But he's also, isn't he a party board? No, that's all spin. Oh. Maybe Michael Angela's all spin as well. Oh my goodness. So surely you're the party boy then.

You're literally drinking a beer right now. Well, sure. So that feels... It is mid-strength. Pretty party boy to me. Yeah, but that's so you can drink more later. It's pretty party. How did you know?

Did I tell you that already? To capitalise on the turtle's popularity, a concert tour was held in 1990, premiering at Radio City Music Hall in August the 17th. The coming out of their shells tour Featured live action Featured live action turtles Playing music as a band

Donatello keyboards Leonardo bass guitar Raphael drums and saxophone Michaelangelo guitar Hang on drums and saxophone That is a wild combination Wild right Maybe he's got like a tube

I'm guessing I'm guessing LAD is hating this More than anything On stage It's not the thing he hates the most We'll probably get to that On stage around A familiar plot line

April O'Neil is kidnapped by the Shredder And the Turtles have to rescue her I haven't really talked about Apoll In Neal, but she was kind of like... What a yellow jacket? That's for the cartoon. Oh, right. Was a reporter? So she was in the comics?

That's also for the cartoon. Oh. In the original, she was a computer programmer, and she works for scientist Baxter Stockman, who creates the Mousers, which are like little pest control robots, that he's also using for crime. Right. And then she teams up with a tour. It seems cooler that she was a computer scientist. I think so, too.

Yeah, I wonder why they, I guess it was just so, because she was always reporting in crimes, it was an easier thing to connect her to all. all episodes? I think so, yeah. Because like in the comic, she's kind of like the normal point of view character, but most of the time

she's just at home. Right. But in the cartoon, she's basically the fifth member. Well, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Most of the time, she's at home.

Yes. In the comic books, it's later revealed that she was created by a magic crystal. Okay. Okay. That's the best April learning.

Well, that's where all babies come from. Yeah, absolutely. Anyway. Is that what they call it? Concert tour. Magic Crystal. still in my pants. Guys, we'll wake the kids.

The theme of... Te he. Oh, Tee-hee. Should we pull out the magic? The story has a very Bill and Ted-esque feel with the theme of the power and rock and roll literally defeating the enemy in the form of the Shredder who only rapped about how he hates music.

No! Trying to eliminate all music. My name is Shredder, and I'm here to say, I hate your music. The tour was sponsored by Pizza Heart. I feel that's the most... Back in. Yeah, I'm... Is that the thing they headed the most?

That's also not the thing they hated the most. The thing they had, Peter Laird specifically hated the most, was a TV series from 1996 called Teenage Muti Ninja Turtles, The Next Mutation, which was created by Saban Enterprises. They created the Mighty Morphan Power Rangers. And so this was a very Mighty Morphan Power Rangers style show, and it had a fifth turtle in it. And one of Peter Laird...

Scrappy do. She's very much, she is, she is, considered the Scrappy do on the Teenage Mutinyja Titals franchise. So when Scrappy was so annoying Oh hey Shut the fuck up!

Let me out him, let me out of him shut up. Wasn't he the villain in one of the movies? I think you might have been. Yeah, maybe. Let's say yes. Yeah, yes. So when Eastman and Laird farmed out their stories to be written

while they concentrated 90% of their lives on running this gigantic empire, one of the rules, they gave them all these rules and one of the rules was no more turtles. There's four turtles and there's no more turtles because they're not special if you can just make another turtle. Sure, yeah. And another rule was no girl turtle.

Okay. And the reason I mean, you only had to say no more turtles, right? Yeah. Yeah. And as well, just to really make this clear. If you're going to do another turtle. Which you shouldn't. No, and her name should not be Clarissa.

Oh. And the rule I think was because they didn't like the idea of, I just put a bow on it and say it's a, you know, it's a girl version, it's like Ms. Pac-Man, just put a bow on the top for the sake of they're being a girl turtle. And this one was called Venus de Milo, and she was like. She had no arms? She had arms and boobs.

She had, she was like a. Turtle boobs. Yeah, exactly, yeah. That's really weird. And also they copped some flack at the time as well. Because she's, the ninja turtles, their names are like, they're artists, they're created. but Venus de Milo is a creation.

Like she's just, she's a work of art is what she is kind of thing. She's an object is what she is. Yeah, rather than a person. That's what. And I bet she had long eyelashes too. I think she probably did have a lot of. Who was that for? Who is the sexy turtle for?

Yeah, I don't. I assume that was just kind of they're like, oh, we want to market these toys to kids as well. We want girls as well as boys to buy the toys. Yeah, yeah. A girl turtle, so girls can see themselves in the, yeah. But who is it for the horny teenage boys?

Who wants the sexy turtle? Answer me, Mesa. It was me. I knew it. Busted, you walked right into my trap. I demanded it and I sent letters. It doesn't make a sexy turtle later. I've got to see this.

That's so confusing. I'm obviously missing something and someone's at home and going, no, it's actually. I don't think you are. Okay. Oh, actually. Yeah, but basically, Peter Laird especially hated this. because like the entire time they've been doing this for the, you know, the decade plus they've been doing it,

like people are coming up to them being like, well, if four turtles are good, five turtles is better. You know, just this idea of like, just more, more stuff and more toys and more appearances and more video games and blah, blah, blah. And they're like, we can't. Nah. So with success. There are things that are more important than money.

Ferraris. Hmm. So I think you can't buy. Yeah. Mother's validation. So speaking of bloody. There's a little... Oh, yuck!

Yeah, no good, right? That's real weird. Look at her legs! I think that might be like a fan art, but it's still... Okay, sorry, I apologise. No good. With success also came lawsuits. Of course.

There's some delightful lawsuits. I thought of the teenage Muti Ninja Turtles first. Yeah. Oh, my God. So this is from an interview with Kevin Eastman from the comics journal in the late 90s. Apparently, at any given moment, they would have between 15 and 20 lawsuits. going at any time like that so at that point you've just got a lawyer

on retainer oh yeah they have so many lawyers there's so many lawyers for contracts there's so many lawyers for merchandising and licensing and apparently like every time somebody would create a new character like in their workshop they would have to buy it off them and then they would have to you know arrange a royalty arrangement

and then they would have to license it in every country in the world for every medium so they'd have to be like okay if they've created a character for the comic books we're going to have to license it for TV and movies and video games and board games and what have you. And apparently, like, every time somebody created a character, it cost them $150,000 and just in fees. So that was like a bonus for that, for the artist?

No, that was, that was, that lawyer fees. Lawyers were loving it. But basically what would happen is if you created a character for the comic books, they basically gave you an option, they were like, okay, you can either own that character because it's yours, and we'll give you royalties when we print the comic books and we'll you know, we'll give you an accredited by, credit in the comic books or whatever. Or if you give the ownership to us, we'll give you 50% of the royalties for their character forever. Wow.

Which was basically like if they, and this was basically the save time. Yeah. Like if we own it, we can license it out easier and we'll just give you royalties forever kind of thing. That feels like the better deal because they're also going to be more likely if the company own it, they're more likely to use it rather than using your character. Yeah, yeah. It was a, there's a couple of people were holdouts for whatever reason. Yeah.

But most people were like, yeah, that's a really good deal. It sounds like they, um, uh, Baird and Eastman were, they'd learnt the lessons of the past. They didn't want to rip people off, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it was, it became extraordinarily complicated. But yeah, they were basically like, we can't be, we can't be those guys. Yeah.

And then again, I think also if they did give control of all their stuff to, to somebody else or like a large corporation. operation, then all of a sudden, that is what's happening. It's just another Marvel or DC. They were actually, they were, they were, they were, they were, they were, they got a meeting with Marvel at one point and, and Marvel were like, how about you, that Marvel had at the time a creative, a creator owned imprint called Epic and they were like, how about you bring the turtles on, we'll give you, you know, it's, it's a, you know, it's a, you know, it's a, you know, it's a hand-painted art and bloody, bloody, bloody, beautiful stock and

it's incredible, you know, and we'll give you all this creative control and also we'll take 50% of the profits and. Sorry, what was that last minute? No, nothing. Beautiful stuff. Beautiful card stock. Just after that. Yeah.

So in terms of lawsuits, there was a show called Howdy Doody where a character apparently had the catchphrase Cowell Bunger. They sued for $1 million, sorry, $5 million for unauthorized use of the catchphrase cowabunger. Wait, which way did that case go? At the Turtles or from the Turtles? That was at the Turtles. That was at the turtles from this guy called Buffalo Bob. Okay. At the show, Howdy Doody.

So Cowabunger wasn't just a word that... I thought they lifted that from... No, they did. They lifted it from like surfer culture. So... It was just a frit. Well, that's the thing. A lot of these are...

So, but this is what's called a strike suit. And basically what it is is you go, I'm suing you for this and I want five million dollars. And then they just kind of like faff around a bit. And then they'll say, look, we'll settle for 50 grand. Yeah. kind of thing. So it's no effort on their part.

They just file the motion and kill time. They're just looking for you to pay them off basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. To leave them alone. So apparently a lot of people would say they created the turtles. One guy said, God told them about the turtles and he didn't act on fast enough. How do you prove that? Yeah.

How do you prove it's not true, Jess? This is from Eastman's interview. There was a guy, homeless guy, that Peter led knew a little bit and he helped him out with money and et cetera. And one instance, this homeless guy created something, like he invented something called Presidents in outer space, which was, and Laird drew it for him. It was like, George Washington in a space suit, like with a big domed kind of helmet. That's fun. And I guess in this guy's mind, it turned into a turtle.

And he's like, I created the turtles. So I'm kind of... A bit of a leap. And he filed a suit. This homeless guy filed a suit against him and kind of tied that up for years. They also got sued by the animation company that created the cartoon. because basically those people said, We created this.

Well, we need more money because everything that made the turtles good and profitable, we invented. But it was also, but it was, and again, it was like this strike suit. It was kind of like, okay, we put the turtles in the sewer. But if you go to like issue one of this comic, the turtles are in the sewer.

Or it's like, you know, we put April O'Neill in a jumpsuit and that's issue two of the comic. Right. They didn't check any of the reference to you. I mean, they're using the wrong examples. What about the coloured bandanas and these sort of things? Like, they definitely did make a lot of money. That's true, but that was Peter Laird.

He did the bandanas. Okay, we should have checked that. I think that was actually Matt Stewart hand-painting his own gift. Look forward to posting a photo of that on social media. So they had to fight all these suits. They had to kind of like, they couldn't let up. Because if they let one go through, they'd have to let a whole bunch of them go through. apparently in a lot of countries

there's something called first to file which is basically if you file a trademark in a country even if you had nothing to do with it and then the original owners of that property come in, you can sue them so there was a guy in the Middle East and his name was Abu Shady

I got a funny feeling about this guy and he would go he would look at like popular entertainment properties in the United States and he would file them in the various like Middle Eastern countries where he was. And then a couple of years later,

like the Ninja Turtles guys would move, like, hey, we'll bring this cartoon and the action figures or whatever to the Middle East. And this guy was like, what are you doing in pinching on my trademark? His name was literally Mr. Shady. His name was Mr. Shady, right?

And then basically he was like, okay, if you want the character, if you want the rights of these characters back, you've got to pay me, you know, X thousands of dollars kind of thing. Crap, are we registered for the Middle East? Have we? Oh, dear.

For Ninja Turtles? We should do that. No. Mr. Shady. Yeah. So another one in Russia, if Russia had no like, it was like the Wild West out there. There was no trademark, basically. Like anybody could rip you off, anybody could make your own action figures or whatever.

So basically what they did in Russia is they had all these toys manufactured in Turkey where they had factories. And they would literally drive them out. Like the authorized Teenage Mutin Ninja Turtles retailers would bring trucks into like markets in Russia. and like sell them off the back of the truck. Oh, wow. And basically the guy, the agent who arranged all that was like, if anybody gives you any trouble, I'll kill them for you. That's pretty good.

That sounds cool. That's pretty good. So they do business in Russia, all right? The Ninja Turtles attracted like ripoffs. There was tons of ripoffs. You guys might recall the bike of mice from Mars. I love them. Oh, my God.

Vinny was my guy. I love street sharks as well. Oh, yeah. Were Battled Toad sort of a rip-off? They were very much a rip-off? Oh, yes. Street sharks is dumb, isn't it? So I had a few toys of street sharks.

Of course you did. In comic book form, there was the adolescent radioactive black belt hamsters. There was the preteen dirty gene kung fu-c kangaroo's. Some of these were like... They're sort of spoofs. Yeah, some of them were spoofs. I mean, they're spoof and a spoof. Don't spoof a spoof.

Well, some were spoofs and some were like, some were spoofs and some were like, well, this stuff's hot. This dumb stuff is really hot. So I'm going to, you know, just make, let's make something even dumber. Let's make something even dumber. And hotter, like a girl one. Oh, that's smart. Put boobs on it.

Well, if a new, if a new group went and did that, let's make girl frog mutants. I reckon that could have been smart. But bike and wife, actually, bike and mice from Mars did work. I think I think so, yeah. I was a fan. I had a toy of that as well. He had a lot of toys. I love toys.

Did you have to split them? up with your brother. I know my sister Jane definitely got the Michael Angelo toy. Yeah. That's how you end up doing a podcast. You get heartbroken as a child. Yeah. You're a ruined person.

And then you pretend you like Leonardo and Donatello, but really, we're both. We both wanted Mikey. Did Mark get Mikey? Probably. They should have cut the boring ones loose, you know what I? He's gotten rid of them. It's the Mikey and Raf show. Should have said four Markies.

Yes. The Mikey Bros. That's a party. Yeah. That's a party. That's a party. Yeah, it's a party. So at a certain point, they were like, okay, disremesment again,

at a certain point, Pete and I was spending 90% of our time running a business that was completely overwhelming. You could never comprehend what we had to do, and what we had to do it, and it was our responsibility. These were our creations, we controlled them. And if we wanted that control, we had to spend the time we had to spend. So at a certain point, like, the guys that were making there, the comics were like, you know, hey, we're finished drawing for the day. You guys want to see a movie or something like that?

And they're like, we can't. We've got four hours of meetings after this. You know, kind of like, you know, we got we got licensing. We've got to do, you know, media interviews. We've got to deal with people, insane people suing us kind of thing. Like they were like... Sucks to be the boss. This has got a real feel of sell it and start another new small fun project.

Or don't. Like sell it and just retire young and be rich for a while. But they sounds like they want to be drawing and stuff. So they could sell it and see if they're, hiring back as artists. But then imagine they would start another project just for the love of art. And then that does really well. Not again.

Yeah. Kevin Eastman did do that. He took a little bit of time away and he created his own another publishing company called Tundra, which was basically like, it was like creator-owned and it was like, all, you know, independent creators come at me with your great original ideas for projects and basically like 70 people came, like professional comic book writers and artists came on board

with great pitches and great ideas and it kind of got overwhelmed and he lost like $15 million on it and it folded so. Oh, that's not great. That's great, he didn't want success. He didn't want, exactly, he didn't want success. But do you want to lose 15 mil?

Yeah, that's the price of not success. But imagine having enough that you could lose $15 million. And still have a tank. Still have a tank. Maybe you have to sell the tank. Oh, not the tank. I think he kept the tank.

repossess the tank. Good luck. Hi, we're here to repossess the tank? No, you're not. Just one moment. I just have to get something out of the tank. I left my wallet in there one sec. I'm just going to get that. No worries. Hey, May so, this might be a stupid question. I'm ready. How do they make the swords shiny like that? It's paper. The artist. Yeah. Not the ninja himself. No, the artist. How do you get that effect?

It's just white, mate. So it's an airbrushing effect, I think. Oh my God It's amazing That really looks like it's shimmering Would you like to hear something? I was almost afraid to touch it I thought I would have sliced that finger right open Yeah yeah yeah

Do you want to hear about some crazies Because in addition to lawsuits They also had crazies Yeah Okay So one of the worst ones Was a guy named Chris Vigran Who said

Who believed that he was riding on a bus once With Peter Laird And he told Pete about the Ninja Turtles And like this is this is pre the big break. And Peter Laird was like, that's an incredible idea. He's $100,000 in cash, like on the bus.

He just carries that for good idea. Yeah, he just did. And he was like, okay, you know, thanks. We now own the Ninja Turtles, but appreciate it. There's $100,000. And this guy was like, okay, but I didn't know it was going to be that successful. I thought. I thought it was a dumb idea.

I thought it was a dumb idea and I just accepted the $100 grand, but now it's been massively successful. I want $40 million. And he was like. In cash. And he's like, I'm going to drive to the, I'm going to take the bus rather to the Mirage studios and I'm going to get my, I expect there to be a check when I, when I get there. So apparently he was walking around like near their offices like at a sports bar and he was like,

I'm the president of Mirage. I forgot where my office is. Can you, can you tell me where it is? I've got a bloody. Of cool. Right away, sir, Mr. President. Yeah. That doesn't sound suss at all. Even if someone just said, do you know where the Mirage offices are?

Yeah, they're just down the road. But if someone walked in and said, I'm the president, I forgot where it is. Yeah, I don't know. I work, yeah. Also wear my pants. And what's the accommodation to the same? What's my name?

Then he pulled out half a garden shear and started waving it around. A couple of guys tackled him to the ground. The police came, arrested him, took him to jail, and he called Mirage for bail. I bailed him out and it was back there in the morning. Right away, Mr. President. And apparently, he still writes some letters and stuff. So that's pretty good.

The real question is, what happened to the other half of the garden chair? That is. Probably left it in somebody. Probably left it in bloody somebody who worked for Marvel or something. Who knows? That is the real question, Dave. There was a girl from France who had sexual fantasies about the Ninja Turtles. Duh.

Yeah, duh, exactly. We'd send drawings and really detailed explicit letters. So that's pretty... I'd never considered that. How? I thought Simba was hot. Yeah. Yeah, look, I...

Yeah, I... I did consider that. I never considered this. Ninja turtles. A lion, yeah. Oh, big time. But a ninja turtle? I don't know.

I mean, they don't have, they got, what do they have a cloaca? I don't know how they're bits and pieces work. That's a really good question. I wish we asked Al a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. Do you think he would know?

Do you think he has? Do you have all the cloaca information? He came in and he did a whole episode about penis. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Pinesis, was the plural of me? Pini. Peenies. That can't be right.

Apparently it is. Peanies. Apparently. I think we all go peenai because it's like the octopi situation. Yes. But it's not. No, apparently peonies. Or platy pie.

I don't think either of those are right though. It's platipodes. It makes it peonies. It's a Greek word. Yeah, it's weird. Octopodes. Makes me one of, you know, peonies. I'm mister.

Pienies. That's the kind of voice. It feels like you could only say peat, be, yeah, with the peonies. You know, It's one of those words. Excuse me, and Mr. wear the peonies.

I'm the boss of Mirage and I've hit my head. Where's my penis? Nice. And I've hit my head. Excuse me, sir. There's a new character of mine. It's very one-dimensional.

I think there's an independent comic in it. I mean, that could make me a few bucks. Look, eventually the stress was too much for the two men. Oh no. All good things must come to a man. Almost good. Yeah, absolutely.

All good things. No, they're still alive. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'd love to meet him. Good. Let's make it happen. Let's send him an email. Eventually, Kevin Eastman sold his share of Mirage to Peter Laird for an undisclosed amount, but it was probably a lot.

That was in the year 2000. The year 2000. And in 2009, Peter Laird sold the entirety of the Teenage Mutinyin Ninja Turtles to Viacom who owned Nickelodeon. So now that's in their... hand. So they're now, they're now free. Here's the thing, though, when Peter Led sold his, the entirety of the Ninja Turtles to Viacom, he put a clause in his contract that basically says he can write 18 black and white comics a year, like he can create them under the barrage banner if he wants to, which he's done a couple of times. And also Kevin Eastman, who is, who has been out of

the game for a long time, there's currently a currently running Teenage Muti Ninja Turtles comic book series and he's writing and doing art on that. Oh, cool. So I think... They have gone back to the start. They, that's really what they wanted to do in the first place, I guess. It's like, they were just like... And they seem...

They live on opposite sides of the country now, like, Laird still in Massachusetts and Eastman's moved to California, but it seems that's... California. Oh. Where Raphael lives. Exactly. In the O.C. Yeah.

And that's, that seems to be what they've, they always wanted to do. And after several decades of intense stress and churning through lunatics and millions of dollars, they were just like... It's a real nice story in the end. It's a nice start and finish. A bit of a mess in the middle. A bit of a hash in the middle, but yeah.

The movies are they... What did you think of those films? I've seen a couple of the Michael Bay ones, and I thought, fine. Look, I like the first one from 1990, I enjoyed a lot. I got that on VHS when it came out. It was a green VHS. I enjoyed that.

Because that cop's a lot of shit. I mean, we were kids then, so it was probably, it was sort of, it felt kind of adult. Yeah, it did, especially compared to the cartoons, I think, yeah. I like that one a lot. That one did really well. That cost like $14 million to make, and then it made like $300 million. Right. And the rest were kind of declining in quality and also in, in,

box office returns, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That movie was actually turned down by pretty much every major studio. Really? Like Disney and Warner Brothers, et cetera. Even though it was such a hot thing. Yeah, because a couple of years prior, you'd think so because they're making, they're making billions of dollars kind of hand over fist.

Was this Howard the Ducks doing? No, but it was, it was, uh, He-Man's doing. Uh, because a couple of years beforehand, they'd made a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe movie with Dolph Lundgren in the role. And again, that was the hottest, that was a hot, hot, hot property. Yeah. And that bombed, like, super hard. Yeah.

It does, like, thinking back to it, it got so big from being this stupid light cartoon. And then they kind of made it into this gritty, sort of realistic, but also still obviously ridiculous. Hyper real? Is that what that is? Hyper realistic, yeah. But I did love it as a kid.

I watched it a lot. I had it on video and played it a lot. Taped it off the TV. Had a number one hit single. T-U-R-T-L-E power. T-U-R-T-L-E-R-E-E-Power. Pretty good, right, Jess. Got it, yes.

I never heard of that, but I like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that song was badass. Yeah. Look, I'm sure I've missed out on a lot of stuff here, but if you have any questions about the teenage mutant digital's. Now's your chance. You won an only chance.

So who's who in the turtles? Oh, my goodness. No. Thanks, not Leonardo. So you said they're going to refresh the series for another movie franchise? Again, yes. What's the deal? Is it going to be Bay again?

Or a full refresh? No, it's going to be, this one's not a sequel. This is a reboot. So I think Bay is out. It's probably doing another Transformers movie. Because he, there was a, did you remember when he was, was rebooting it. He wanted to make him aliens. I do remember that, yeah. And he got a lot of

kickback, yeah. I was like, why? That might have also been like a, like a ruse. Yeah, the blue boat. You give them the worst possible options and then people write, you go, oh, maybe I will make a mutant and then they go, all right, we'll let you make them snowmorp, snowboard down the mountain. Yes. I guess they probably

would do that. Yeah, I thought I thought those sounds are as probably, pretty much exactly what I thought they were going to be. Exactly, yeah. But I love the idea. I'm always excited for a reboot.

Aren't we off? But you don't know. No one's attached to this stage. Not a single person, no. Oh, love that. No one wants it. I wonder if Venus de Milo will be attached. Oh.

They have, since Viacom have acquired the teenage new ninja turtles, there is now another female turtle in the comic books. Her name's Jenica, and she's been much better received. She just looks like the other ones, except she's a girl. That's good. But how do you then know that she's a girl? High-pitched girl voice And she's got a bow in her hair

There we go Yep What color Yeah what color's the mask The mask is yellow So Nice Right and they go for five

Because it's the same As the Mighty Morp and Power Rangers I think they did Yeah That is They just needed one more I think The next position

If it's gonna be successful It's gonna be five It's gotta be five It's the magic number Four Ugh When's a foursome Ever been successful

Um Um Um Um Um Yeah Yeah Yeah.

Here's a little fun fact for you. I might round it out with this one. Love a fun fact. In the 1980s, the first pitch Eastman and Laird got for a film treatment was from Roger Corman, who's the famous kind of schlocky independent film director. And the idea was that the turtles were going to be played by men in turtle shells and green makeup. These men were going to be Billy Crystal, Bobcat, Goldthwaite, Sam Kinnison and Gallagher. That's fun.

Yeah, right? It's weird, right? That would have been real weird. Super weird. Yeah. So strange. But yeah, maybe, because they, I mean, they kind of were into subverting stuff. So maybe it could have almost.

I think if this hadn't kicked, if the insane Ninja Turtles Empire hadn't kicked off, the multi-billion dollar mayhem, I think if they'd stayed indie and hadn't been sellouts, this could have been the thing. Yeah. It would be like, hey, remember that movie that Sam Kinnis? Remember the last movie Sam Kennison was in before he died? He would have been Raphael, no doubt. Oh, yeah, for sure. Bob Goldthwaite would have been Michaelangelo, I think. Yeah.

Well, Billy Crystal would have been Leonado, but who's Gallagher going to be? The watermelon guy. He's the nerd. All right, fair enough, yeah, yeah, yeah. The watermelon guy. He's the nerd, yeah. Oh, that's a great report. Thank you.

I didn't know really any of that. Well, I knew. I knew they existed. Thank you. But also not a lot of it. enough of that. That was fascinating. It was fascinating, right?

I'm sure I've missed a bunch of stuff. I made some notes that I didn't quite get to, but... That is one of those things that you can never get to all the stuff, especially with something so rich. I didn't even cover the Archie Comics. There were two. Wait, what does that mean? Well, they, in conjunction with the cartoon, they also made like a child-friendly

archie comics version of the Ninja Turtle. So there was like the grim and gritty version running at the same time. There was like a cute friendly version. I wonder how many grandmothers accidentally picked up the wrong. one, like, oh, dear. Oh, no.

I'm trying to figure out. So 2009's when he fully sold it. Yes. And then that would have been when they started developing the Michael Bay. Yes, but there was also that

CGI series. That was 2007. That was TMNT. Oh, I saw that at the cinemas. That was the last, that was the last movie kind of under the

guidance of Peter Laird. Right. I think. That did, like the critics really liked it. I remember. That one was, more about...

You can't get it. It's not available online. I tried to watch it recently, and it's not on any of the streaming services. And I don't think you can't seem to buy it on iTunes or anything. That one was more about like the teenage Mutiny Zoo Turtles becoming like sad middle-aged men. That's why I related. That one.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for that report. What a pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Ma's sir. Would you like to hear a fact, a quote, or a question? Yes.

Oh, we're in great luck because this. This is the time of the show where we do a fact, a quote or a question. What's the segment called? Jess has got a jingle for it. Fact quote or question. Ding! And this is a segment where one of our Patreon supporters, who can support us at patreon.com slash do go on pod.

And they, if you're on the Sydney-Shaunberg Memorial Deluxe, rest and peace level, you get to give us a fact, a quote, or a question. As well as so many other things like voting on two of the three topics we do, and you get into the Facebook. How many people give a quote? Quotes are the least common. The Donatello. Fact is the most common.

Because people want to tell you things. Yeah. Then question and then sad old quotes. Yeah. Poor old quotes. Sad loser quotes. Sitting on the corner. Oh, pick me, pick me.

Now it's picking your quote. Yeah, quotes. You nerd. God damn it. No, some people do sometimes. No one has in a long time. I'm just looking, I don't think anyone has in the last few months and no one is in the next. Man, if you want to get read out on the show, do a quote.

Well, the novelty sake. Sure, yeah. What's the best quote you ever heard on fact quote a question? Oh, man, as if I remember. What's a quote you've ever heard at any point in your life? Just say it was from this. Who's going to know? Yeah.

I remember once someone quoted themselves, which I really like. That's good. That's good. Imagine having that level of confidence. I can't. That's buying a tank level of confidence, I sure, you know. But this time around, it is a fact, and it comes from Christian Goodyear. And he also gets to give himself a title, and he's given himself the title of VP of Procrastination.

Brackett, I'll run for president later, bracket. That's good stuff, Christian. That's good. That's the title that keeps on given there. I love that. I wonder if that's all part of their. Like Christian, very good year. He nailed it.

And his fact is, geez, it's short but sweet. I never read him to him. read them. I'm saying it, sweet. I don't know what it is. It's short, though. There is an estimated 300 sextillion stars in space. That's a sexy fact. Wow. I'd never heard that number before, sextillion. But that makes me assume it's big. Yes. I also don't fact check any of the facts. I shouldn't tell them that. Because that's going to maybe, please give us real facts. I think you could tell. I think if somebody gave you a fake fact, you'd know. You'd know within you. You're pretty streetwise. That would be a weird fake fact to give.

So you aren't all looking at me quietly laughing that I'm saying a fake number sextillion. No, I think that's a... That's a real. Yeah. Dave would know he's a mathematician. Mathematician. I copyrighted that phrase. Thank you, so much.

But in all territories, including this territory. I want make the Remainer disappear. It's Christian Goody. That's a great fact. So short and sharp. I reckon that's the most succinct. Geez, I don't know why I go for that word I can't say it

That's the same as orangutang Because I do a podcast That's a lot about movies I often have to say the word Well choreographed Choreography Oh yeah It's very difficult for me

Photography Photography Yeah Yes Abominable You know It is You know

It is I just can't say the word Sixth Yeah Dave you just said it then I don't know if I did, because every time I think I'm nailing it, these guys go, that wasn't it. One more time. Give us one more. Henry the 6th.

Yeah. I think maybe you were saying 6th. You were cutting out. So I've made zero effort to change my ways and now I'm getting it right. I don't know what I did. We bullied it in you. Yeah, that's it. See, a lot of people say bullying bad.

Bullying works. I think we show bullying good. Bullying good. A lot of people say bullying bad. Not me. Anyway, thanks so much, Christian. Good Year. And we also like to thank a few Patrions at the end of our episodes, Mason.

Would you be willing to thank a couple as well? Yes. Jess normally gives us a little game to play. Maybe we give them some sort of a thing based on the topic of the episode. I think we should give them a bandana and a weapon of choice. Oh, yeah. Great. We never really talk about that.

Okay, so Leonardo, Blue with the two swords, as Dave said. Oh, you know what I didn't talk about, Nunchucks. Nunchucks. Michael Angeles. Briefly, when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, if we have time for more thing, when the Teenage Mutual Ninja Turtles movie came out in the UK, people were very surprised because up until that point

they'd known them as the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. In the UK, that's what they called, because apparently calling something Ninja in the UK was essentially against the law, because Ninja promoted like, it was like a crime, it had connotations relating to crime, And so, like, that was very much a big no-no. So if you look at, like, an intro for that cartoon at the time,

they've, like, really crudely, like, scrubbed out the ninja part, and they've, like, it looks like they've white-out in, drawn it in with white-out hero in there. And all reference to ninjas are taken out in it. Because there was a, there was a, there was a censor at the time for the British... Sensor. Thank you. Of the British Bureau of Film Classification, who had a thing against ninjas and specifically against...

against nunchucks. For whatever reason, like when he, when he... His wife ran off with a nunchuck, maybe. When he became the head of the BBFC,

he recall all copies of Enter the Dragon, the Bruce Lee movie, because he's got Nunchucks in it. Even though that movie had been out for like six years at the time. He recalled it. He recalled every copy. He's like, but this is banned now,

you've got to bring it in. He also... There's an amnesty. Yeah, there was a movie in the 80s called Dragnet. It had Tom Hanks in it and Dan Aykroyd. And in that movie, there's a scene where there was an Enter the Dragon poster on the wall. That also got censored because he hated Nunshuck. That's weird.

How do people like that get those jobs? I don't know. Same so strange. It's so specific. It's just forceful and like he can make the tough decisions, I guess. So if you bought a copy of, if you sort of all the posters for Enter the Dragon in the UK, he didn't have Nunchurch. in his hands he had a stick, like just one. A twig.

Yeah, exactly. And so this was a problem for the Ninja Turtles because obviously Michaelangelo has the Nunchucks. So in the, like, all references to it in the cartoons had to be removed. And the Ninja Turtle's cartoon even got kind of like more and more. Right. I remember in the cartoon, he went from Nunchucks and then he suddenly just had like a grappling tool. He had a grappling hook, which was like the step. They all had a grappling hook, but that became kind of his standard issue.

Yeah. Very boring weapon. Basically, the creators of the cartoon were like, well, if this is going to happen in the UK, it could happen anywhere. You know, we better alter this cartoon, so it's less offensive to people. The sense is like, two swords. Love it. Yeah.

Oh, hang on. That doesn't make any sense at all. I forgot, this is my favourite story of all time. Oh. If I can find it. Talk about yourselves. Favorite story of all time. For me, it's probably Romeo and Juliet.

Star Cross lovers. Will they won't? they were on a break nice is there ever any doubt about will they yeah first couple

will they won't they kill themselves yeah yeah maybe it's a story for another time that's so I know the nunchucks

I yeah they're sort of the fun ones I remember in the first film pretty sure it was the first film there was sort of a a nunchuck off between Mikey and one of the foot clan

and they So he was like the foot, so they're in the full black suit. And he's sort of showing off a bit with his nunchucks. So Mikey then does a trick. And then it's sort of a back and forth thing. And it finishes, he wins it by basically,

like he'd spin a basketball on your finger, he spun the nunchucks on his finger with the chain part touching his finger. And he sort of like was blowing on his nails, nonchalantly. You were lucky you lived in Australia because in the UK they didn't get that same. Wow.

Also in the second. Ninja Turtles movie, they were like cowtowing to censorship and so most of the characters don't even use their weapons in that movie. And there's a scene in that... They're just talking out. There's a scene in the second one where Michelangelo rather than using

his nunchucks, he has like two sausages together and he spins around like they are nunchucks, the British version they cut that out as well. Oh my God! Because it was too... Hang on, because... Probably vegans. Yeah, because quotes... Oh, it's so

weird and amazing. It's just one man having this weird. He's having a weird day. Because apparently, according to me, Furman stood strong, insisting cuts of this scene, insisting cuts of the scene had to stand because of concerns that the sausages would look like weapons to any streetwise eight-year-old.

That was like an official British... But he was okay with swords. He was like, well, that's the thing. They were the least deadly weapon in there. They were like tiny, pointy... I mean, all trotons are point. but they're like triple stabbers, Raphael's thing. Yeah, triple stab.

So anyway, this is my favorite, and I'll leave you guys on this, but this is a story from film classification in the UK. Maybe I should have done the whole report on this, but they had a meeting about this because they were like, some of his fellow employees were like, my kids are saying you're ruining these movies, you're ruining the cartoons, like they're just a bit of fun. There's no crime or whatever.

So in an attempt to swerve the director from his chosen path of non-nunchucks, An examiner now decided that extreme steps had to be taken. Halfway through one of the board's meetings on weaponry, he reached into his pocket and sly produced a pair of the dreaded chain sticks. He then started to swing them around above his head, but unfortunately the chain immediately got caught around his neck and the examiner nearly strangled himself. But even after this peerless demonstration of the weapon's self-destructive capability

in the hands of enthusiastic amateur, Furman was still not persuaded to desist. Finally, in exasperation, the examiners told him that there was no evidence from the police or the courts that the weapon had been used for years. replied the imperturbable director. That shows the success of my policy. So that's...

That's bureaucracy for you, am I right? That's incredible. It's PC gone mad. Anyway, back to shoutouts. That's much like the Homer's rock that prevents bears. Tigers. Or St. Patrick got all the snakes out of Ireland. Yeah, right.

There's never any snakes. Maybe there is. I don't actually know. Maybe somebody could send a fact in. That would be so good. That would be so good. So let's thank a few Patrions. Please.

And what was your idea, Mesa? We're going to give them all... Adonnas and weapons. A colour. Yes. So we need to come up with eight different colours. Not possible. Well, we've already eliminated blue, red, purple, orange and yellow.

Yeah, I mean, if they sound like a Donatello. Okay. All right, great. Eight different shades of brown. Do you want to kick us off, Mesa? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, where are we? So up here on the white one.

Okay, right. This is Vanessa Hackett from Long Beach, California. Oh. Oh. There's a full address. All right. And our email is... Okay, cool.

That bit is... That's confidential. Oh, okay, cool. All right, well, hack it. I'm thinking like... Machetes in each hand. Oh, hack... Yeah, machete.

What's a hatchet again? Is that like an axe? Like a little axe. Yeah, two hatchets. Yeah. All right, I can't say hatchet. One hatchet. One machete.

That's awesome. Yeah, that's badass. What does the Vanessa sound like? What color? What color bad? Vanessa? I'm getting a lavender. I'm getting turquoise.

I was thinking lime green. Well, we're never going to come to a conclusion here. Well, we've just taken three of the... You've got the deciding vote. Okay, well, it's striped. It's lavender. It's diagonally striped. Turquoise lavender.

It would look quite nice, actually. Yeah. We've gone big early. We've used up... I just said, are we going to think of it in eight colors? We've used burnt three on one. You did this. You all did this.

And we've burnt two weapons and three colors. That's right. Vanessa, thank you so much for your support. Vanessa's on the Facebook group. And if you are one of our Patreon supporters, You can also join us on this Facebook, the Patreon, do go Patrions on Facebook. God, that's so good. There's a link on the Patreon page or ask me for it if you need it.

Just on the street. Yeah. Cut the shops. Yeah, let me from your car. What's a Patreon group, Carl? So thank you so much, Vanessa. Who else would you like to make? We've got Anya Kogis.

She's from Brunswick, but not the Brunswick you're familiar with the Brunswick in New Zealand. I'm Brunswick, New Zealand. I'm familiar with Brunswick in New Jersey. Yes There's also a Brunswick in New Zealand. New Zealand. I'm doing the Harker here. No.

I'm a flightless bird over here. Nice. I don't know any New Zealand's weapons. Oh. A jandal. But they don't, their cops don't carry them. I don't think they're a big weapon nation. I think they're peace-loving.

They're love-loving. You're right. They're kind of the better. in a lot of ways. Oh, in every way. Better rugby. What about a yo-yo? Better cricket.

Oh, a yo-yo. But like, if you're like sweet, sweet tricks, but also if you want to, you hit someone in the head. They're really good. Yeah. Walk the dog. Yeah. Wow.

Color? What color? O'nia. Well, I... All black. Oh. Yes. Black's the best bandana anyway.

Yeah. Goes with everything. Yeah. It's very Melbourne, actually. Oh, classy. Anya, Anya. Thank you so much, Maa. So thank you so much.

Anya, good Anya. Is that what, basically what Dave went for? Yeah, but just slightly better. All right. On to you, Matthew. Well, I'd love to thank from Croydon in New South Wales, Beth Hall-Hawood. So not the Croydon I'm thinking of it. Yeah.

No, that's worry. I feel like this is going to happen a bit. Oh, I'm Croydon here. Sorry. Beth, Hale, Hayward from Croydon. What are you thinking, Beth, Jess? What kind of weaponry? Weaponry, I'm thinking a bazooka.

Nice. Oh, wow. That is great. That has opened up a whole new dimension of weapons we can use this. Sensor is going to love that. Pizuca, okay, that's fine. It was only tunchucks. Oh, yeah, bazooka, no worries.

Fun, great, that's awesome. Oh, I love a bazooka, yes. And what color for Beth? I'm thinking silver. Silver and bazooka. That's a good combo. I like it. That does feel like when they're really taking it up and not.

This feels like a modern day Ninja Turtle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, somebody's going to be rose gold at some point. Rose gold is so in. I love it. Yeah. She says with their rose gold are. Look at me a piece of shit.

Silver Ninja Turtle. Thank you so much, Beth. And I'd also love to thank from Abbotsford, but not the one you're thinking. Oh, what? Abbotsford in British Columbia, Canada. Well, that's the one I was thinking. You weren't thinking the Abbotsford not far from here. Around the corner.

Oh, what are the chances? I'd love to thank from Abbotsford, Matt Peters. Matt Peters. When I think Abbotsford, I think the Abbotsford Convent. Yes. So I think maybe some sort of large crucifix. Oh, yeah. It's like a rosary bee, but like a really big one.

Rosary bee. It's made out of titanium. Yeah, yeah. With the crucifix on the end. Yeah, yeah. And if I think Abbotsford, I think of Abbotsford's stout. So I'm thinking like a deep brown. Yeah, nice.

Fomy. I'm pretty sure the nuns at the convent wore brown. Yeah. And light blue. That makes sense. Oh, brown and blue. Yeah. Those nuns.

They're never going to pick up wearing those kind of colors. Yeah, those stupid nuns. It is nuns. Hello. You're going to be celibate the rest of your life. You know what I mean? Virgins. Yeah, they do sound like they're probably virgins.

Thank you, Matt Peters. Thanks, Matt Peters. Probably not a virgin. There's anything wrong with that. I know we have a lot of virgin listeners, probably. And I'm not making fun of them. I was one of them once. Were you?

Wow. Might still be. You thought this was a safe space for you to admit that, but it wasn't. Can I thank some people as well? Please. That would mean a lot to me. I would love to thank from Remington, VA. Virginia.

Virginia. The original state. I'm such an idiot. I wonder if that's also Remington is where electric razors come from. My hair straightener is a Remington. Whoa. And my hair dryer.

Wow, they diversified. I would love to thank Andrew Loving. Oh, I love love. He's love by name, chainsaw by nature. Oh, yeah. He's a real sicker. Terrible chains are impression, but you get the idea. I do the noise impersonation.

I'm sorry, give us a change saw. I'm so sorry. That's embarrassing. I mean, you were pretty close, actually. V-FU is close. Mine sounds like a vacuum is stuck on a peanut. But a chainsaw actually sounds a little more like this. Holy shit, I'd like shut up because I thought there was a chainsaw in the room. No, yeah.

No, no, I was mad, actually, yeah. Oh, my God. I also got the petrol smell. Yeah. Somehow. Have you done? Did you? at the same time.

I bring in, it's a whole 3-day experience. He's been drinking kerosene. Man of a thousand noises and six cents. The noise is always accurate, but it's mostly petrol. I don't know what's going on there. Oh, Andrew, laughing.

We love you. Color? I'm thinking like a crimson, like a very deep, burgundy kind of red. All the blood from the chains. Started white. Oh, sure.

Love heart. Yeah, with all the blood. I think of love heart. You two went very different. I went. because he's chopping people up. But Matt was like, oh, because he loves. He loves chopping.

And he hates washing. So red. Oh, God. Who doesn't? So thank you so much to Andrew. I'd also love to thank from Columbus. What's GA? Oh, Georgia. Herbert Covington.

Oh, Detective. I know Herbert Covington. I love the detective Herbert Covington. He's a frequent tweeter, a frequent retweeter of all of our stuff. Herb, we appreciate that. Yep. Love Herbs work. Weapon-wise, maybe, oh, I was thinking herbs, so like a herb rack.

Oh, yeah. I love it. Yeah, good, good. I like it. So he's got access to spices, which you can throw in people's eyes, but also physical rack. Yeah. He just hit people at the head with.

Yeah. He mostly has the spices at the start of the fight, towards the end of the fight. They're just, just broke a glass. There's peppercorns. There's nutmeg being thrown. Yeah. Cuman. But it's a little bit like Captain America's shield.

Like it returns to him. Oh, yes, sure. No, Katz. It just throws it in a certain way that it comes back to him. Well, who's to say Herbert doesn't have the skills to do that? Exactly. That's what I mean, yeah. Exactly.

So thank you to Herbert. Thank you to the man of a thousand spices. We appreciate that. Finally, I'd like to thank a couple of people if I may. You've all had a go. I reckon I know what you've all. to do now. Could I please thank from New York

and not the one you're thinking of. Oh. The one in the United States of America. Oh. In New York State. Okay. Camilla Jones. Camilla Jones. That's not so far off an actual character. Casey Jones. That's true. Yeah. I was thinking

it's not so far away from Camilla Parker Bowles. Right. Yes. Also that. Also relevant. Combine. Let's combine hockey mask. Yeah, hockey mask. Golf clubs? Yep. Bola hat.

Bola hat, exactly. There we go. And I love of Prince Charles. Is she that one? A bit like an odd job. Throws the hat. I get confused with her and Fergie. No, Fergie's in black-eyed pace.

Okay. She's not the one with Prince Charles. That's Kenilipa. I'm very familiar with the London Bridge. Okay. That London London Bridge. That London London Bridge is going down? Yeah, I think so.

I don't know what it's a shame. Yeah. Camilla Jones. So has you got a hockey stick? She's got a bowl of hat. In the movie, at least, the original movie, he had a, I think he had a bag of golf clubs, maybe some hockey sticks in there as well. Yeah, and like a cricket bat in there. He's got a cricket bat. Oh, cricket bat. I love that.

Oh, man, he's got everything. You know? That's right. Like Camilla Parker Bowls as well. Wow. And a color. And a color. I'm thinking like a, like a mint green.

Oh, that's beautiful. Like a, like a pants suit would be. You know, the pants suit mint green. I love a mint green. Fantastic. And I love mint. I love mint. I love mint chocolate.

Thanks, Camilla. The place where they print money. I love the mint. I love all mint. Thank you, Camilla Jones. You complete us. I mean, not all mint, obviously. Not all mint.

No, hashtag not all mint. That's the one for our Kiwi listeners. Not all mint. Do you think they put a tea in the end of men? Yep. Not all mint. They say, they, Kiwi say women as woman. Yeah.

There's a lot of woman here. I know that I don't know that I can't, I, I never, like a Kiwi stand up or something talking, or just a person. Yeah. I'll, I will not get past that word. They'll keep talking for another few minutes. And I'm just saying, woman. Yeah. Mean women.

Is this Joker up here, right? Well, Matt, I don't see accents. Okay. You are better than I. Yeah, the best of us. Dave, bring it home. Finally, I have saved a great name for last. All the way from Sacramento, California.

California. California. Here we come. Ooh. All the way from Sacramento, Alicia Hall or Alicia Hall. Alicia. Oh, Alicia. Yes.

It's like Silverstein, Silverstone. Silver. Silver Stein. Alicia Silver? Berenstain. Stone. Berenstown Bears. Alicia Hall, thank you so much for your support.

And the weapon of choice, Mesao. What are you thinking? Oh, Christopher Walk and dancing in a Fat Boy Slim film clip. That's the color. That is the color. What's the weapon? Well, you know, in that other Fat Boy Slim film clip, everything's all exploding. Just a bunch of those.

Oh, great. in like a fridge and just explodes. Alicia, you were so lucky to come on last. So we're going to go on to one of those paint places where they'll make their color paint, whatever you ask for. And we'll go... A paint shop. Paint shop.

One of those color places. A paint witch doctor, yes. That's not in my vernacular, sorry. I'm not using that word right, but you go on to one of those paint shops and say, I want to paint my living room in Christopher walking dancing. Yes. In the weapon of choice video. And they'll do that for you.

That's how good they are. I mean, they'll sigh deeply before they do it. Not again. Don't you want just beige? Yeah, we've got beige ready to go. Don't you want hogs bristle? That's what my parents have all over their house. What?

Hogs bristle. That's not true. That sounds like a Harry Potter spell. It does, and that's the colour. Hogs bristles, sir. How lovely. Oh, Potter. Mr. Popper.

Hodge's bristle. Matt has recently watched all the Harry Potter films. Good for you. How'd that go as an adult? Oh, thank you so much for seeing me that way. I quite enjoyed him and then was sort of unsatisfied a lot at the end of, you know, it was like, I sort of like the idea of it. I've never seen the last one, so I like the idea of it. And there was a great scene where Nick Cave was playing and Hermione was dancing with one of the guys, either the red-headed one.

or the main character. Right. Harry Potter. And they're in a tent, but it was bigger inside. I really like that. Were you watching Doctor Who? That's it. Anyway, thank you.

I think I just like that song is what it was. That's a good song, yeah. It was good song. But look, let's let Mesa go. Okay. Thank you to everybody who did support us. On Patreon, if you want to, you can head to patreon.com forward slash dogoon pod. Dugan pod is all of our social medias.

It's our email address. Just look it up. You'll get there. Yeah, look it up. Doogopod.com is our website. Everything's there. Yeah, we got merch. We got tickets.

We got beautiful pictures of our faces. Yeah. Cartooned form. Yeah, they're drawn by other people, so they're actually a bit better. Totally. Yeah. Let us know on the social media's if you're a turtle head. I'd love to see some photos of you wearing face paint as a child.

Yes. Or as an adult. Or even better. If you want to make the extra step. Do it today. Do it today. Yeah. Don't we have a photo?

We've shared a photo of you in Ninja Turtles. No, the green power angel. Of course. I've got, there's a photo of me with Ninja Turtle face paint as a kid. That's all I'm, I think I'm just looking for an opportunity to share a photo. I didn't realize that's what I was doing.

But that's probably what my brain was trying to do there. Yeah, we want to see it. Oh, if you're sharing them, maybe I could maybe share a one of mine. Yeah. Maybe you could share some personal vulnerabilities Tell us those ones Oh, okay, great You're listening?

Feelings? Who's got feelings? I'd like maybe share those, eh? Wow, this could be a whole new me. So yeah, anyway, thanks everyone for it. Probably especially Mesa and this also wraps up the block for another year. Isn't that sad?

Does it? Is this the end of block? The second last week of block. What? What are you talking about? unless you've decided to release it in a different order than what Jess and I were thinking. Maddie, have you come up with an additional report for block? Like the most epic block there ever will be.

Yeah, I thought that our most requested topic was coming up next week. Oh, right. I just assumed Mesa goes last. No. All right, we're going to, oh, we're recording him in order. I love this. I was already going to be confused about trying, I was going to try and do some sizzle. Like, I'll go, I predict next week.

Oh my God. I'll get sidetracked by meeting the creators of the Ninja turtles. Oh my God, that would be so good. Maybe do it anyway. Just in the next episode, just constant sizzle to something that we'll never eventuate. Happened the week before. Yeah, great. All right, I'll do that.

Yeah, cool. Thanks so much for coming for the penultimate. What a pleasure. Thank you, Nick Mason. Some of the shine has been taken off it now that I know I'm not the last one, but all right. You were the last one last year. That's what I thought it was our block tradition. Oh, okay.

Go out with a maceau. Traditions are made to be broken, in my opinion. That's what they say, isn't it? That's why you're the best. That's what they say. That's why you're all the best because of that weird, dumb saying, yeah. If we want to hear...

Me misremembering things is why I'm the best. If we want to hear you every single week, mate, so you have a fantastic podcast. You can go to the weekly planet. I don't know, you can go to your podcast app and you can find the weekly planet where we talk about movies and comic books and TV shows and such. Would you ever have done a Ninja Turtle special? No, I think we reviewed the most recent Teenage Muti Turtle's movie,

which I didn't mind, and I got a lot of hate mouth and not minding it. Really? With the eight. How dare you have an opinion? I will never do it again. Yeah, don't do it. But more importantly than my dumb podcast,

if you're interested in saving the world a little bit, Planet Broadcasting is doing a fundraiser to ease the fact that we're all burning up in the world's burning and we're all going to die. So we're raising money to build a seaweed farm, which apparently, if the science checks out, We can all live there In an octopus's garden Exactly

But you can go to planetbrocasting.com We're up to like $56,000 Which is pretty Pretty impressive thanks to all the listeners So that's really good And the the Intrepid Foundation Which is helping us to do this

Is matching that dollar for dollar So every time If you donate a dollar And we'd appreciate that They'll put in a dollar also Who's the Intrepid Foundation? Is that the charity? That is the charity

The charity is spending, wait, they're donating it to themselves. Yeah, I think they must be. That's so good. No, I think it's a third party. A third party. They're linked to in the intrepid travel. Yes.

You know, the travel company that does tours and stuff. That's their charity. Yeah, that's great. They're funneling some of their Contiki profits into all this. Yeah, exactly. Awesome. Turning good times into good vibes. That's right.

That's not anything. All right. So, please finish this. All good things have to come to on anyway. Well, we'll put a link to that fantastic charity in the podcast description, as well as the other links to Mesa's other podcasts, The Weekly Planet and our website. You can buy tickets, all that stuff that just said. But until next week, we'll say thank you, Mr Mason.

Oh, thanks for having me. But a pleasure to have the fourth slash fifth beetle in the room once again. But until next week, I'll say thank you and goodbye. Bye. Mesa. I love that. This podcast is part of the Planet Broadcasting Network. Visit planetbroadcasting.com for more podcasts from our great mates.

I mean, if you want, it's up to you. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later, oh, you should come to Manchester. We were just in Manchester. But this way you'll never miss out. And don't forget to sign up, go to our Instagram, click our link tree.

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