BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
Happy First T.M.N.T. Day!
Holidays. They are a day set to the side to commemorate an event, a person, or something special in general. It’s a gathering and a party all in one. It’s to reflect and to respect. We don’t need to wait around for calendars, births, and anniversaries to dictate our lives. We can and should celebrate everything with pride and peacefulness. They’re great guides, but there is no reason not to have your own “Day”.
This is generally a great idea to use as a theme for an excuse to hang out and have a good time.
This is why I give you…
My First Annual Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Day!
Before Michael Bay, the same guy to mess with the Transformers, Nightmare on Elm Street, puts a fork in another piece of our childhood I call out to you to take back your Turtle Pride. If you’re like me and grew up with the four sarcastic live sized turtles who learned how to be ninjas from a live sized rat in your lives then you know this sounds like a lot of fun. If you’re older or younger you would seriously enjoy this on an ironic level. It’s the four sarcastic live sized turtles who learned how to be ninjas from a live sized rat! They fight an old evil ninja bad ass named “shredder”. It’s the late 80’s and early 90’s so everything has a certain dirty grit to it. It’s a guilty pleasure waiting to be indulged in.
The plan:
Drink.
You need as much alcohol you need to get to level or intoxicated you desire and then go like two more drinks than that. This is optional. If you’re not a drinker, replace the booze with pop or milkshakes or whatever you can indulge classily in for a while.
Eat.
Pizza of course. You eat pizza! You see where we’re going here? Booze, pizza, over the top 80’s “cowabunga!” humor. It’s the perfect combination. If you want to get fancy with it drink wine and eat Turtles chocolates. Eat anything “turtle” you want, but you have to have some pizza or some variety. It owe it to the turtles.
Decorate.
Set up your party space as needed and desired. Cut out pictures, wear colorful holed fabric across your eyes, listen to soundtracks, watch the old cartoons, read the original comic books, play with the old toys. You can go as far with this as you want. You don’t NEED to decorate, but it’s never a wrong idea to spruce up any occasion.
Watch.
I’m talking about ALL THREE of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie trilogy. Before you shun the idea, it’s 4 and a half hours or so. That’s about the perfect time to have a party go from start until end. Start it at 6 and you’re saying goodbye to your last lingering guest by the end of the third movie. It’s a great trilogy to sit through. The first movie is the best and it introduced the whole world to us in a much darker and more adult tone. It’s silly and corny, but it still the most mature of the three. The first word in the movie is “Damn!” for petesake! These are kid’s movies. You have to remember that. The third movie is just sorta weird and there. At that point you’re feeling good and your mind is wandering and there is surely chatter going on. A lot of folks should be having their fill of the trilogy during the last one. It’s a “wind down” session to close out the night. By the end of the credits you’ll be helping the drunk one into a cab, cleaning up the pizza boxes and ready to move on with your life. Bed, another party to go play the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle video games? I’d go with “Turtles in Time”.
This can be your night, your pregame in the afternoon before going on for the night or anything you want. It’s a good time to eat, drink, and indulge but it’s also a fun trip down memory lane for some and a crazy bizarre journey to those not formerly attached to the iconic franchise.
Here are some things you’ll notice:
Things you’ll notice in: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
-There are “Oscar” worthy scenes of drama where Turtles have really deep and heart felt emotional breakdowns AND breakthroughs together.
-The CRAZY weird and creepy animation and acting in the flashback scenes.
-You’ll notice a young sleazy Sam Rockwell trying to give cartons of cigarettes to young kids.
-The last half of the film is just like a cliché sound board. The problem is how much I remember how big this kind of pop culture was.
-The fact that Shredders facial scares weren’t even that bad. He could have probably used some creams to clear that up or maybe an out-patient doctor’s appointment. He didn’t need to wear his signature mask. He must have been bullied.
-The “Turtle Power” song is great. I wonder why no one covers the song at the end credits. It tells the plot of the movie in really detailed rapping. It’s going to be stuck in my head for at least a week. I seriously wouldn’t trust anyone who knew EVERY word to the song though. They would not have anyone’s best interests in mind.
Things you’ll notice in: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze:
-April is different. In “Secret of the Ooze”. The role of supporting human friend is shifted from the bad ass Casey Jones character to Keno, a pizza delivery kid who knows karate and makes really “Asian-American” sitcom stereotypical one-liners.
-The fake technology in these “laboratories” are great. It’s close to being B-movie bad, but at the time this technology passed as high-tech.
-Alan Rickman!? Nope. It’s David Warner!
-Sillier, less violent and more pop culture aimed. This is more cartoonish and less mature. This stuff is aimed more at merchandise buying kids. It’s still a good time because you’re getting a buzz from your booze or preferred indulgence.
- It’s a pleasant surprise to see Vanilla Ice because 1.) He’s Vanilla Ice and 2.) You know what’s coming. By the time “Ninja Rap” hits you should have forgotten it was coming up. It’s just really hard to believe that Mr. Ice pretends that he didn’t already write these lyrics waiting his entire life for this moment to happen. He acts as if “whoa! Look at this stuff. Hey choreography team let’s create a dance on the spot and by the way, I’m gunna freestyle this.” Then he proceeds to rap his ass off.
-False finish! Did you really think Shredder would die by the power of playing ONE keytar note through one of Vanilla Ice’s amps on it’s HIGHEST level!? No! I think the amp company should be sued because there was no reason for anything to come out of to see a giant man in metal through the air, through a window, and all the out to the same body of water that contained “the ooze”?
-“Super Shredder” is Kevin Nash, professional wrestling and many time champion. For those who watch wrestling is all “oh course it is! Why are you wasting my time with this!”, but if you don’t you’re probably thinking “so what”? Regardless. Notable.
Things you’ll notice in: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III:
-This movie should only be watched in cases like this. You never want to pop this in on it’s own as any real representation of the Turtles or even good movies. Basically, only watch this if completing the trilogy.
-It’s like they point to our money and say, “you give more of that and we’ll give you more of this” as they then point to a generic picture of the Ninja Turtles.
-April has a shorter hair style has a hint of “grunge” to her. The Turtle costumes look more like the toys. They have spots and look more plastic than before.
-The flashback stuff to ancient Sammari suck. It’s not entertaining and knowing the plot is going that route very soon is sucky.
-Casey Jones is back! Thank God it’s not Keno. Keno should have went heel.
-Donatello is voiced by Corey Feldman. Yes, folks. THAT Corey Feldman. It’s distracting.
-What if this whole world is in the head of this crazy Casey Jones’ guy? How hard would it be for a man who works at a pet store to have a brain aneurism at karate class to start seeing crazy things. The whole trilogy is in his head! It’s not “Alice In Wonderland” it’s “Casey Jones in Turtleville” He’s part of the first one, but just to help out and give some zingers of his own. Then he’s out of it for the second one and starts thinking about being a pizza delivery boy and then finally in part three he protects the wise life sized rat for no real reason because in reality he has “father issues” and then he’s crushing the TV reporter April O’ Neal and has a creepy fantasy so he’s her new mysterious love interest that’s again just accepted as friend of the Turtles. He’s ultimately the hero. Conspiracy?
-The turtle magic and nostalgia trip is properly placed back on the memories list by the end of part III. You got really into it, but the third one is just not that great and drags on. It’s background by the end.
So pick a day, any day, maybe even set it up to go WITH the release of the new Michael Bay blockbuster version that’ll be coming out soon. I don’t have my hopes up on it being any good and there is a good chance I’ll never watch it on purpose. But we’ll have the original trilogy, well the original two at least. That’s worth celebrating.
If “Bad Sweater Parties”, “Throwback Thursdays” or “Woman Crush Wednesdays” can become things then why not this?
Just pick a day!
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