Finding Real Life Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

My earliest memory of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was in the late 1980’s. I recall eating pizza with my father and watching four green turtles take on a giant! I was shocked to see two inside the giant’s body!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started out as a comic book created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird in the early 1980’s. The TMNT became a humongous pop culture hit thanks to a man named Mark Freedman, who was responsible for marketing the turtles to kids.

The original comic book origin has as different story than the television program. I’m much more familiar with the TV show origin. The television program featured the turtles all having different colored bandanas and belt buckles with their initials to help kids tell the turtles apart.

In a nutshell for the 1989 show, you have a rivalry between two talented ninjas known as Oroku Saki and Hamato Yoshi. Saki plays a role in having Hamato Yoshi banished from the Foot Clan,. With no money flees to New York and dwells in the sewers living among rats.

Saki turns the original Foot Clan into an evil organization and is now going by The Shredder. He allies himself with a living talking brain who goes by Krang, and has been banished to earth.

One day while walking, a young boy accidentally trips and falls, smashing his glass bowl of pet turtles. All four turtles fall into the sewer ironically above Yoshi’s head. He takes them in as his own.

Unbeknownst to Yoshi, Saki heads to America and looks to finish Yoshi once and for all. Saki drops a pink glowing slime known as mutagen into Yoshi’s sewer. This mutagen covers all four turtles! Yoshi comes in contact with the mutagen while removing it from the turtles.

The mutagen has an effect to turn whoever touches it, to take on the form of whatever animal they had last been in contact with. The turtles became humanlike because of being in contact with Yoshi. Yoshi became more like the rats. .

The turtles nicknamed Yoshi “Splinter”. Splinter knew the turtles would be rejected from the human race, so he trained them in ninjutsu to stay out of sight, and have the ability to defend themselves. Splinter named his turtles after four Renaissance artists- Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo.

We are not sure how Leonardo inherited the leader role in the show, but he leads his brothers into combat along with ensuring they keep up their practice. He wears blue and wields katana blades. Although he worries about his brothers constantly, he is the most zen of the bunch.

Donatello is the quietest of the bunch. He has a passion for knowledge. Without Donatello’s crafty gadgets, who knows what trouble the turtles may have been in for. Donatello dons purple and uses a bo staff for combat.

Raphael comes off as the sarcastic loud mouth teenager. Anytime a fellow turtle or villain leaves themselves open for a joke, rest assured Raphael will gladly stick his comedic sense in. Splinter trains him with sais and wears red, which is the original color of all four turtles in the first comic.

Michelangelo is known as the party dude! He wears bright orange and excels in battle dueling dual nunchakus. He would rather have a good time than fight.

This may come off a bit bias, although he is the least motivated out of the four, he is the most gifted. Michelangelo also was incorrectly spelled Michaelangelo! He is my favorite turtle for his namesake and he prefers fun over fighting.

Now with their ninja skills intact, their current age, and being transformed by mutagen these reptiles became known as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!

The show pulled me in emotionally. The enticing music every time the Turtles engaged in battle. The hip theme song of the show! The energy the theme song brought me I couldn’t control myself to stand still! Screaming, “COWABUNGA” and “TURTLE POWER” was equivalent to yelling, “I FEEL WONDERFUL!”

When watching the series at my grandma’s, if I behaved, she’d let me run around the house and jump on the furniture during the theme song.

The show was blessed with incredible VA talents of Rob Paulsen (Raphael), Cam Clarke (Leonardo), Barry Gordon (Donatello), and Michelangelo (Townsend Coleman), and Splinter (Peter Reneday). Reneday was superb in his role as Splinter! His calming nurturing father figure voice made me want to obey his teachings. My personal favorite quote from Splinter is from season 8 as I still have chills anytime I hear him speak this. “If you believe the ill others speak of you, then you have lost before you begin! Winning is nothing! Doing your best, and acting with honor are the only things that matter, and if you won't ”

The more I watched the more excited my energy became hearing anybody talk Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

The TMNT skyrocketed into popularity in the early 1990’s, and became a merchandising feast. You had everything from bed-sheets and clothing to pies and sporting equipment. A few of their video games are on my top ten of best video games created. The turtles became so popular they even made the big screen!

Similar to the original toon, the movie also hits me in “the feels’ with its music, VA talent, and story. I just love what the movie taught me about loyalty and forgiveness.

A touching scene involves Leonardo watching over his injured brother. Earlier, Leo lashed out at Raphael, and told him the team doesn’t need him anymore. Raphael leaves and ends up getting jumped and injured. Leo feels responsible and terrible he let his emotions get the best of him. Just seeing him sit there filed with regret and sadness taught me a great example of what can happen if you let your emotions get the best of you.

Ninja Turtle prime also featured a ridiculous rock concert! I received this on VHS as a Christmas present. I actually liked the songs and story. Cam Clarke and Peter Reneday reprised their roles from the cartoon for the concert. It was from this concert Master Splinter taught me another great lesson, “It is the smallest things make the biggest difference”.

Anything my hands and eyes laid on TMNT brought a phenomenal powerful energy! I felt I could conquer anything! A massive amount of joy. The comedic scenes in the cartoon and movie never lost their flavor. I still laugh as hard as I did now back then watching them for the first time.

Overtime, my friends started moving away from TMNT and into Power Rangers, WWF wrestling, and X-Men. While I liked all of them, nothing compared to the Turtles for me.

Whenever I was ill and had to take the day off from school, I’d pop on a TMNT VHS tape. They helped put light into the darker days of adolescence.

When the internet came to be, I felt rejuvenated to speak with fellow Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans! I networked in forums and social media groups. The communities were loaded with amazing people. My energy would spark up again sharing our favorite stories of the “good ol days”.

For a few years I was on a mission to collect every 1987-1996 TMNT action figure from turtle mania. There are two groups in particular that helped me with my collection! Many selfless people sharing information about rarity of each figure, accessories that came with each toy, and great links for under market value prices! I became good friends with a handful of them, and still talk with them occasionally! We all went above and beyond when we dealt with one another in regards to buying/selling/trading. One friend even gifted me a very rare hard to find sumo ninja turtle just because he valued my friendship! The turtles continued to attract great people in my life.

One special person in particular I met from networking with Ninja Turtles fans changed my life forever. She was such a great inspiration. She greatly helped me getting out of my comfort zone, including heading out into the unknown! I never flew anywhere by myself before and without meeting her who knows if I ever would have done so! I’ll never forget the confidence boosts I had with our time spent together.

In 2019, I was able to meet the VA’s from the original TMNT cartoon! It was a dream come true! Just to be able to share my appreciation and gratitude for they did for me as a child and shake their hands was an honor! I was able to yell the most popular catchphrase from the show, “Cowabunga!” with Townsend Coleman, the voice of Michelangelo! I have a photograph with all four actors holding up the turtle they voiced! The magic I felt way back as a child was still inside me. This was a healthy drug for lifting my spirits.

The lessons learned and joy experienced I found in TMNT for over 30 years cannot be replaced. How can I keep this joy with me always? Watch the old cartoon and movies? Wear TMNT merchandise? Yell “Cowabunga” and devour pizza? There has to be something more.

When I started studying the law of vibration, I was clueless about how my environment played a big role with how I felt. It may be common sense to some that if you surround yourself with angry people, you will become angry, however, I was never aware of my surroundings in this manner.

When I started thinking about who I really wanted to attract into my life, I not only had to be direct about who I wanted to attract, but also had to become what I wanted to attract.

I want to attract healthy, competent people, selfless leaders, and people unafraid to take risks. I also want to surround myself with people who can make me laugh and who will share their wisdom and experience. So that’s who I needed to become too.

As I began working to become all of those things, I started to feel like a real-life TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE. I felt the same energy I felt as a kid watching my Turtle friends exert their turtle power.

I also started finding close friends who exuded that same Ninja Turtle energy. The people I have started attracting into my life for my inner circle over the past few months have energy equivalent to that Ninja Turtles high energy. Instead of prejudging what is going to go wrong, I know nothing will go bad! There is no back talk, drama, or complaining among us. If we need to be vulnerable with each other when we falter, we communicate without judgment and lift each other back up together! There is no “you could you would you should!". We are not afraid to ask each other for advice because we trust one another to provide constructive criticism. Most importantly, we are happy for one another when one succeeds. There is not an ounce of jealousy between us, and it's not a competition of who outperforms who. In fact, when my friends prosper, I feel like I prosper as well just because we are so tight!

Surrounding myself with this turtle power has helped to provide me time for creating and crushing goals. Much like the original “Turtlemania”, the pizzazz may die down with some relationships. This time around though, I am not worried about who stays and who leaves. Why would I focus on what is leaving, when I know another great person coming into my life is just moments away? Knowing I have this power over my life puts me at ease and I look forward to the future loaded with excitement!