60 Fun Facts About Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The four Turtles are named after what kind of famous people?

Eastman and Laird lifted the names from art history, which is why Splinter's sons sound like a museum wing.

Which weapons does Leonardo carry?

The blue-masked Turtle is usually written as the team leader and its most disciplined swordsman.

What colour bandana does Raphael wear?

Raphael's colour matches his temper; he is the hot-headed Turtle who fights with a pair of sai.

What weapon does Donatello fight with?

The purple-masked Turtle is the team's inventor, and the staff is the only non-bladed weapon among the four.

Which Turtle wears the orange bandana?

The nunchucks caused so much trouble with British censors that some overseas edits of the cartoon trimmed them out.

Splinter, the Turtles' adoptive father, trains them in which martial art?

The joke that started the franchise was a slow, cold-blooded reptile with the speed of a Japanese martial artist.

What is the Shredder's real name in most versions of the story?

In the very first Mirage issue Saki dies at the end of the fight, which later adaptations quietly ignored.

Casey Jones, the Turtles' vigilante ally, hides his face behind what?

His arsenal is sporting goods too: hockey sticks, baseball bats and golf clubs pulled from a golf bag.

Where do the Turtles make their home?

The lair has moved between versions but almost always sits somewhere under Manhattan.

Who created the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

The pair were two struggling artists in New Hampshire when the idea began as a joke sketch one evening.

In what year was the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic published?

The cartoon followed three years later and the first live-action film six years after the comic.

The first issue debuted at a comic convention held at a Sheraton hotel in which city?

Mirage Studios later moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, but the Turtles were born in a hotel in a small New Hampshire port town.

Roughly how many copies made up the first issue's print run?

Those first-printing copies are now among the most valuable modern comics, changing hands for six figures in top condition.

The original Mirage comic was printed in what style?

It was oversized and magazine-format because that was what the cheap local printer could do.

The Ninja Turtles' radioactive-ooze origin deliberately parodied which Marvel hero?

Eastman and Laird were riffing on Frank Miller's gritty ninja-heavy run, right down to Splinter echoing Daredevil's mentor Stick.

The Foot Clan was a satire of which Marvel ninja organisation?

Foot versus Hand was the level of joke the whole comic ran on; the League of Assassins is DC, not Marvel.

Mirage Studios was funded with a tax refund and a loan from whom?

The name Mirage was a joke too: there was no real studio, just two artists working from home.

In the UK the franchise was renamed to avoid the word "ninja". What were they called?

The theme song was re-recorded with the new word, and the rename stuck across Europe until the 2003 series.

Which now-familiar element was introduced by the 1987 cartoon rather than the original comics?

In the black-and-white comics the four were hard to tell apart; the cartoon also gave them their catchphrases and their taste for pizza.

Which animation company produced the 1987 cartoon series?

The same studio made the 1980s Ducktales-era competitor Toxic Crusaders, another mutant toy tie-in.

How many episodes did the 1987 cartoon run for across its ten seasons?

It began as a syndicated miniseries in December 1987 and added a CBS Saturday-morning run in 1990.

The 1987 cartoon's theme song was co-written by which future sitcom mega-producer?

Long before The Big Bang Theory, Lorre and Dennis C. Brown wrote it on a $2,000 budget with a 48-hour deadline.

In the 1987 cartoon, the disembodied alien brain who allies with the Shredder comes from where?

The character was inspired by the Utroms of the comics, but the cartoon made him a lone exiled warlord who rides around in a robot body.

What is the name of the Shredder's giant mobile fortress in the 1987 cartoon?

It spent most of the series stuck somewhere inconvenient: the Earth's core, Dimension X, the Arctic.

The Shredder's henchmen Bebop and Rocksteady are mutants of which two animals?

They were invented for the cartoon and did not reach the big screen until 2016, because Peter Laird found them too silly for the 1991 film.

Which actor, later Uncle Phil on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, voiced the Shredder in the 1987 cartoon?

Avery played the Shredder for most of the run while starring in the sitcom at the same time.

Which catchphrase is the orange-masked Turtle best known for in the 1987 cartoon?

The 2012 Nickelodeon series swapped it for "Booyakasha!" before letting the old word back in.

Which food are the Turtles famous for loving?

One of the brothers takes it furthest, experimenting with toppings no human would order.

The 2012 Nickelodeon series first cast which American Pie actor as the voice of Leonardo?

He was replaced by Seth Green from season three onward.

The Turtle suits in the 1990 live-action film were built by which company?

Henson called them the most advanced creatures he had ever worked with; he died weeks after the premiere.

Who directed the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film?

Barron was best known for music videos, including a-ha's "Take On Me" and Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean".

Which studio distributed the 1990 film in the United States?

The independent studio behind A Nightmare on Elm Street picked it up after the majors passed on a kids' film about mutant reptiles.

The 1990 film cost about $13.5M to make. Roughly how much did it gross worldwide?

It opened to more than $25 million, the biggest opening weekend an independent film had ever had.

Which record did the 1990 movie break?

It held that title until The Blair Witch Project came along in 1999.

Who played April O'Neil in the 1990 film?

She was replaced by Paige Turco for the two sequels, reportedly after clashing with producers over the violence.

Most of the 1990 film was shot at a studio in which US state?

The sewer lair and Manhattan interiors were built in Wilmington, with a summer 1989 shoot in New York for exteriors.

Which rapper performs "Ninja Rap" in 1991's The Secret of the Ooze?

The Turtles crash his nightclub set mid-fight and he improvises the song on the spot, which is about as 1991 as a scene gets.

Instead of Bebop and Rocksteady, The Secret of the Ooze introduced which two new mutant henchmen?

A snapping turtle and a wolf; Peter Laird vetoed the cartoon duo, calling their shtick "silly to the point of being stupid".

In Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993), a magic scepter sends the Turtles back in time to where?

The year is 1603, and Jim Henson's Creature Shop sat this one out, which fans say you can see in the suits.

Which future Captain America voiced Casey Jones in the 2007 animated film TMNT?

Sarah Michelle Gellar voiced April and Patrick Stewart the villain Max Winters; it opened at number one.

Which veteran actor was announced as the voice of Splinter in 2007's TMNT and died the very next day?

The Conan the Barbarian and Avatar: The Last Airbender actor had recorded most of his lines; Greg Baldwin finished the rest.

Who played April O'Neil in the 2014 live-action reboot?

Will Arnett played her cameraman Vernon Fenwick, a character lifted from the 1987 cartoon.

Which blockbuster director's Platinum Dunes produced the 2014 and 2016 live-action films?

The 2014 film grossed $485 million, the most of any Turtles movie, despite poor reviews.

A leaked early script for the 2014 film caused a fan revolt by proposing the Turtles were what?

The script was titled "The Blue Door"; after the backlash the origin went back to ooze.

Which Arrow star played Casey Jones in 2016's Out of the Shadows?

The sequel finally put Bebop, Rocksteady and Krang on the big screen, then flopped hard enough to cancel a third film.

Which martial-arts movie legend voices Splinter in 2023's Mutant Mayhem?

The film was the first in which all four Turtles were voiced by actual teenagers.

Who voices the villain Superfly in Mutant Mayhem?

Post Malone is in the cast too, as the mutant Ray Fillet.

Which comedy actor produced Mutant Mayhem through his company Point Grey Pictures?

He also voices Bebop; the film's sketchbook look came from custom shaders that add scribbles and cross-hatching to the CGI.

The 2003 animated series was co-produced by Mirage and which company known for dubbing Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh!?

It hewed much closer to the darker comics than the 1987 show, and ran 155 episodes over seven seasons.

The 2009 special Turtles Forever teamed the 2003 team with which other version of themselves?

The special marked the franchise's 25th anniversary and even drops in on the black-and-white Mirage universe at the end.

What was the fifth, female Turtle added in the 1997 live-action Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation called?

Peter Laird disliked her so much that later projects were told to make absolutely no mention of her.

The Next Mutation Turtles crossed over with which other Saban series?

The Turtles are mind-controlled into fighting the Rangers before teaming up with them; different actors voiced them because of filming locations.

Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2018) was animated by Flying Bark Productions, based in which country?

The show broke with tradition by making Raphael the leader and by giving each Turtle a different real species.

Which Japanese company developed the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game, for the NES in 1989?

It sold about four million copies despite a notoriously brutal underwater level, and its arcade beat-'em-up cousin became a quarter-eating classic.

The 2022 retro brawler Shredder's Revenge sold how many copies in its first week?

The 1987 cartoon's voice cast returned, and Wu-Tang's Ghostface Killah and Raekwon rap on a boss track.

Playmates' 1988–1997 toy line included roughly how many different action figures?

About $1.1 billion of Turtles toys were sold in the first four years alone.

In 2009 the entire franchise was sold to which media company, parent of Nickelodeon?

The deal led straight to the 2012 CGI series and eventually to Mutant Mayhem under Paramount.

'Turtle Power!' by Partners in Kryme was the first what to top the UK chart, in 1990?

It spent four weeks at the top in the summer of 1990 and peaked at 13 in the US.

Which publisher ran Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures from 1988 to 1995?

The same company as Riverdale's gang, it started as a cartoon adaptation and turned into its own eco-conscious saga.

The Turtles' 1990 live concert tour, Coming Out of Their Shells, opened at which New York venue?

The Turtles played guitars and keyboards on stage; the show was sponsored by Pizza Hut and later broadcast on pay-per-view.