Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighters (TT Top 50 Edition)

[Lokii]

​

Pizza time. Oh it’s pizza time. Gather round everyone it’s pizza time.

Once you’ve received your complimentary slice,* raise it high into the air and recite the following oath:


Splinter Mikey Donatello

Ralph is rude but what a fellow

Leo Vernon April O’Neil

Baxter Stockman what’s his deal?

Roadkill Rodney Bebop Rocksteady

Pizza Thrower fueled and ready

No anchovies please, they are sour

Now you’re playing with TURTLE POWER!


That’s it, you’re in the secret club! First order of business: The Top 50 TMNT Stuff and Junk Countdown!


*Keep an eye on your mailbox.

***

50. Four Things!
(1 vote each, 36 points)
​

It’s appropriate that the opening entry is a four-way tie of disparate Turtle Junk. We’ve got a toy line, an obscure character, a wacky food product, and a bit of official lore. You couldn’t ask for a better start. Turtles is long, Turtles is wide. The reach of Turtles encompasses much, as showcased by our Number 50 entries:

Cyber Samurai Armor

A toy series from ’94 that sees our turtle boys decked out in ancient chrometanium super-cytech ultra-armor. Or something like that. As the TMNT merch machine churned along new and innovative concepts were needed to bolster the line and a number of non-canon themed sets ended up on store shelves. These vaguely beetle-themed samurai powersuits seem to be a reaction to the encroaching Power Ranger threat and the set was even going to include a giant mecha-turtle the brothers could pilot, but it never saw production. There’s been several attempts to introduce the suits in-universe including an episode of the original show, an arc of the Archie comic, and a Nickelodeon produced pilot where this very good elderly Michelangelo mentors a new generation of turtle-robots:

Cudley the Cowlick

The best character in the whole TMNT universe barely made it at #50? Surprising but true! Cudley is a pan-dimensional cow’s head who can transport people across time and space by carrying them inside his mouth. He’s emblematic of the whole Archie comic vibe, bizarre but oh so compelling. He’s shown up in various Turts projects over the years and even strayed to such far off pastures as the Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa.

“Cudely is so weird. I love him. An interstellar flying cow head is one of Archie's best additions to the TMNT verse.” – Dr. Nerd

Northampton, MA

Home of Mirage Studios and a frequent rural retreat for the turtles across their various incarnations. Usually after facing a major defeat them bros hide out at Casey’s (April’s in the film) family farm to rest and recoup before kicking Shredder’s butt. It’s here where they meet Splinter’s force-ghost. Interestingly, just last week the real Northampton voted to use $20,000 of Covid relief funds on four commemorative TMNT manhole covers. Cowabunga?


Character Popsicles

“Those ice cream truck things where the vague impression of a headband is bleeding in with the green so it's hard to say who it even is and the gumball eyes are basically guaranteed never to be properly aligned. Like the pies, I am able to rationalize this through what are arguably comic appearances.” – Purple

Toeing the line, IMO. These classic treats existing in-universe has disturbing implications.

 

[Torzelbaum]

Cudley the Cow

Abunga?

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I remember Cudley from that one Archie issue I read where they went to a space wrestling ring. It's also yet another time they tried to make Ace Duck a thing.

Northampton is a good choice but YEESH. They didn't even live in the sewers of Northampton. It was a farm nearby. Also the poor use of public health funds BUT MOSTLY THE FIRST THING.

 

[JBear]

I remember Cudley from that one Archie issue I read where they went to a space wrestling ring.

My list contains *several* entries from that one issue, and several more from that comics run as a whole, and given that Cudley the cow, who I expected to come in quite high and who narrowly missed my own list, came in so low tells me that basically none of them will rank.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

He's really a character who is Archie TMNT but feels more like 80s Marvel. Specifically the weirder, goofier cosmic X-Books. He 100% would fit in with Excalibur or Longshot.

 

[JBear]

He's really a character who is Archie TMNT but feels more like 80s Marvel. Specifically the weirder, goofier cosmic X-Books. He 100% would fit in with Excalibur or Longshot.

I have another entry on my list from that issue that feels almost directly cribbed from Marvel, but I'll keep quiet for now just in case a miracle happens.

 

[Octopus Prime]

There is no art more beautiful than the melty popsicle gumball

 

[Octopus Prime]

He's really a character who is Archie TMNT but feels more like 80s Marvel. Specifically the weirder, goofier cosmic X-Books. He 100% would fit in with Excalibur or Longshot.

Him and Wigit definitely hangout

 

[WildcatJF]

this is already off to an amazing start

 

[Lokii]

I was wondering if TMNT where the first melty gumball pops but couldn't find the answer. It was possibly them or Bugs Bunny from what I can tell, it might be that both IPs were part of the same rollout. Still, this is the type of question you'd think the Internet would be on top of. There wasn't even an incorrect Quora.com result!

 

[Dracula]

I really like how so many iterations of TMNT have the "flee to a farmhouse in Northampton" storyline. The small details tend to be different with each one. Since I grew up watching the 1990 movie, I associated that storyline with Raph...but it's usually Leo who gets injured, even in the original Mirage story. Sometimes the place they go to isn't Northampton at all. In the Nickelodeon cartoon, Leo gets beaten up so bad that his voice actor changes.

I also like how it reflects on the humble origins of TMNT - despite the story being so strongly associated with NYC, it's easy to forget that Eastman and Laird didn't live there. They were New Englanders in a tiny town far from the big city. Their concept of NYC, like many of our own, came mainly from its collected depictions in media. When the turtles came to Northampton, the story really became a "write what you know" situation.

Y'know, barring the fact that giant mutant turtles aren't usually seen in the real-life Northampton.

If you wanna see a tour of the town as reflected in the Mirage-iverse, check out issue #14 of the original comics. It's a kind of forgettable Casey/April mob story, but it's set in Northampton, and the artwork features lots of real-life locations familiar to Eastman and Laird.

Anyway, entry #49 coming later today!

 

[Falselogic]

I never read any of the comics for TMNT. All of my experience of the franchise comes from the cartoon, toy line, and 90s live action films.

 

[Daikaiju]

I'm glad I got to visit the Museum of Sequential Art back in it's heyday. Lovely town.

 

[Dracula]

#49: Roadkill Rodney
Points: 37 | Lists: 2
“Do not resist us!”​

Roadkill Rodney is a mechanical menace designed and built by the Foot Clan. Originally seen in the first season of the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, several Rodneys were dispatched by Shredder to kidnap animals from the Bronx Zoo for use in experimentation. The Rodneys have a quirky uni-wheel design and demonstrate a number of special abilities, like deploying a drill from their “head” to tunnel through the ground, extending electrified tendrils, and unfolding laser cannons from within their front compartments. The Rodneys also chattered with their victims, regardless if they could understand or not.

Beyond the cartoon, Rodneys are arguably better known as minor enemies seen in many of the Konami-published video games. In fact, the robots didn’t even get named in the cartoon series - officially they were just “Robotic Unicycles.”

But the first arcade game featured several enemy concepts drawn from the animated series’ first season, including these demented droids from Dimension X. Even the robots’ banter from the show made it into the game, though ports and sequels tended to leave it out. The Rodneys almost always appear by dramatically emerging through the floor, then they speed around on their wheels, zapping the turtles with their laser beams and retaliating with their tendrils. Always annoying to deal with, but very satisfying to dispatch by trapping them against the borders of the screen.

The Rodneys are a classic example of the “weird science” that tends to pop up again and again in Turtles media, as well as the trend of enemy robots often introduced to give the ninja teens something to stab or slice without having to depict troublesome blood or injuries on children’s TV.

 

[Purple]

You really have to wonder how these are assembled that the stick is always properly aligned but then the eye-inserting part of the line is so consistently like, a good 40 degrees off.

 

[Daikaiju]

You really have to wonder how these are assembled that the stick is always properly aligned but then the eye-inserting part of the line is so consistently like, a good 40 degrees off.

There's gotta be an episode of Unwrapped or something similar showing that.

#49: Roadkill Rodney

Oh I hate these guys whenever they show up in games. Such lasting fame considering they show up once in the original show wrangling the rhino and warthog used to prep Bebop and Rocksteady.

 

[Lokii]

I love Rodneys they're my favorite dog

 

[Issun]

I forgot about Turtle Pops. On speculation as to the ur-facepop, I think it might actually have been Spidey.

 

[Daikaiju]

So the Mouseketeer Bar is the proto-pop?

 

[Issun]

So the Mouseketeer Bar is the proto-pop?

I didn't know about that one. Though the more modern ones are all some vaguely fruit-punch flavored "frozen dairy desert" with bubblegum eyes so the Mickey pop would be a bit different.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I like the sleek and simple design of the Rodneys. Less is more is good for robot designs, at least for fodder that's also supposed to be a Swiss army knife.

 

[Falselogic]

I never even knew those weird robots had a name?! Also, what a strange name! I thought they were like Mousers 2.0!

 

[Bulgakov]

This is an excellent robot until you have to shake its hand.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I never even knew those weird robots had a name?! Also, what a strange name! I thought they were like Mousers 2.0!

Someone wasn’t pouring obsessively through the instruction manual of the NES game

 

[Issun]

Someone wasn’t pouring obsessively through the instruction manual of the NES game

I thought every 80s/90s kid did that on the ride home.

 

[Daikaiju]

I wonder where exactly the design originated. Laird loved drawing robots as did Michael Dooney, who often assisted on issues.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Laird loved drawing robots as did Michael Dooney, who often assisted on issues.

I mean, the Rodney's are from the cartoon and I don't think Laird did much on the cartoon beyond creator credit. In fact, I get the impression he wasn't really a fan, at least at the time. I believe a lot of the beloved Turtles mainstays come from David Wise like Krang and Bebop and Rocksteady. But a lot of people worked in it. Could be any of them.

But check this, in my reseach I learned PETER CHUNG was the creative director for the first three seasons. THIS Peter Chung.

 

[Dracula]

#48: Vanilla Ice
Points: 39 | Lists: 2
GO NINJA GO NINJA GO​

Vanilla Ice's finest work, and perhaps the true Secret of the Ooze -- Bulgakov

Robert Matthew Van Winkle, alias Vanilla Ice, is a musician and stand user known primarily for his hit single Ice Ice Baby as well as the Academy Award-winning film Cool As Ice. In 1991, he made his feature film debut in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze when the heroes in a halfshell, in the midst of a battle with the Foot Clan, bust through a wall right into a venue where Mr. Van Winkle is performing music in front of a raving crowd. Totally unphased by the appearance of four mutant turtle maniacs, Ice breaks out into the now immortal NINJA RAP. The turtles proceed to beat the ever-loving crap out of the Foot Clan to the delight of the crowd. The evil ninja captain, Tatsu, also fails the vibe check and gets shell-smashed straight down to the dance floor and everyone cheers especially the children watching this on their home televisions. Vanilla Ice, for his effort, reprises Ninja Rap over the closing credits and reviewed the experience later as “one of the coolest” of his entire career. Fans quickly raised Ice and Ninja Rap as pillars of TMNT canon and nobody has ever argued or felt embarrassed about this.

 

[Bulgakov]

A true reminder of the power of music.

Please focus hard on the peak of the song, the second verse, written long before the assistance of ChatGPT:

Lyrics, fill in the gap
Drop that bass and get the NINJA RAP
Feel it, if you know what I mean
Give it up, For those heroes in green
Just flowin, Smooth with the power
Givin it up, Hour after hour
Cause in this life there's only one winner
You better aim straight so you can hit the center
In it to win it, With a team of four
Ninja Turtles that you gotta adore it's the

 

[Daikaiju]

. . .