Heroes in a half-shell, turtle power! I think Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was a popular franchise that kind of surprised everybody with how well it was received. I mean, if you think about it, the premise is pretty weird. Four turtle brothers are mutated into humanoid creatures and raised by a mutated rat in the art of ninjutsu. They use those skills to protect New York from various villains, including other ninjas, aliens, and more. Sounds pretty crazy,🀅 right?
What makes TMNT so popular? Why do people like it so much? I think part of it is the strangeness of the story. These guys are truly unique and it makes for some rather fun scenarios to play out. It also helps that the turtles in most versions are pretty entertaining. Another factor is likely a childhood nostalgia. Many grew up with the TMNT animated series or reading the comics. Either way, the Ninja Turtles is an homage backꦺ to when they were kids.
Yet it isn’t always about pizza, crazy catchphrases, and funny quips from our turtle heroes. In fact, TMNT can get pretty dark sometimes. And the franchise itself has quite a few dark secrets and facts hiding in the shadows. Whether it’s to do with the original comics, the various animated TV shows, or the movies, the TMNT franchise isn’t afraid to g🌠🃏et a little dark sometimes.
So, here are 20 dark facts that you likely didn’t know about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Think we missed a few? Be sure to let us know!
20 Cut Down Before Its Time 🉐 ꦓ
Between 2003 and 2009, an animated series of TMNT aired by Fox 4Kids. It was quite a bit darker than the previous animated series, hearkening back to the ori♍ginal comics. While it definitely has its lighter more humorous moments, it’s not afraid to get a little𝄹 more intense. But sometimes even this show went too far in some of its ideas.
There was going to be an episode titled “Nightmares Recycled” that would bring back the Garbage Man, a rather unsavory villain. It was also going to show that this villain used to be some sort conjoined twin to Hun, one of Shredder’s main henchmen, and was separated from♐ him and discarded. Apparently, the script was approved and some of the animation was done, but Fox pulled the plug, deeming it too disturbing. It would’ve made for a rather interesting episode at least. I guess we’ll never know.
19 He Has A Heart Of Stౠeel... Literally
We all know that Donnie is the genius of the turtles, and he loves anything to do with machines and technology. Depending on the medium and version of Donnie, his inventions ranged from ridiculous to incredibly futuristic. But apparently Donnie himself has become a robot/cybꦍorg in quite a few different versions and stories.
Most versions of TMNT had some sort of apocalyptic story arc/crazy what-if scenarios. And in many of them, Donnie winds up having his body destroyed so much that they make him a robot. In the Nickelodeon animated series, Donnie’s brainও is uploaded into a robot after his body is destroyed. In the Mi✱rage comics, he becomes a cyborg after an explosion heavily injures him. And the list goes on. Apparently, people love the idea of Donnie becoming the very thing he loves. It is kind of poetic, and he’d probably be the turtle to be mostly likely okay with that outcome.
18 ꦬ It’s The End Of The World... N🦹o, Seriously
If you haven’t kept up with the animated series that Nic☂kelodeon put out, you’re missing out. The series ended up being quite good, having a great mixture of intense fight scenes with light-hearted humor. But 🉐there is one story arc that is really out there.
In the arc “Raphael: Mutant Apocalypse,” a giant bomb of mutagen wiped out all of humanity and left the Earth a wasteland. Now, only mutants have survived and have split up into their own tribes. The entire arc is quite the homage to Mad Max. But the real secret is that there’s no indication that this arc is a what-if scenario. Most apocalypse scenarios are usually passed off as either a dr🌼eam sequence, an alternate future, etc. But in th🎀is case, it seems that this reality is going to happen.
17 He's Really Not Okay 🌱
In the 4Kids TMNT animated series, there’s a seaso🧜n where somethin🍰g is... off about Leo. Throughout a good portion of season 4, Leo is much angrier and more paranoid, so much that his brothers start to notice and get worried. This takes place after the turtles went up against and were almost killed by the Shredder.
While the show doesn’t ever come out and say it, and many kids probably wouldn’t catch it, Leo has a textbook case of PTSD. He’s more short-tempered and he’s constantly on guard. While we don’t know for sure if he h♏as nightmares and flashbacks, his behavior is of someone suffering from PTSD. It’s actually pretty interesting since a lot of kids shows don’t really get into the aftermath of a dangerous mission. They usually show the heroes brushing it off and being fine. But in this case, Leo isn’t fine, and it takes quite the interesting spiritual quest in order for him to confront these issues.
16 ♋ It’s All About The Toys
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has become such a popular franchise that it’s hard to imagine it not existing. But the reason the story took off as well as it did is mostly through toys. This has continued throughout most of the life of the franchise. Yes, the different TV shows and movies have ඣdone well, but it’s the merchandise where the♏ real money was made.
This is a little depressing because in this case the series didn’t get started simply because people thought it was an interesting story; they just wanted to sell toys off of it. Then again, those TV shows and movies likely wouldn’t have come about if it weren’t for the merchandise, and TMNT wouldn’t have become as iconic as it is now.
15 ಞ Becoming Your Enemy ꦫ
The Image Comics version of TMNT were known for being darker and a little bizarre. The series from 1996 were particularly cruel to our heroes. In th𒈔is story arc, Donnie was blown up and made into a cyborg, Leo lost a hand, Splinter became a mutant bat (I don’t eve📖n know), and Raph got horrifically scarred.
The craziest thing though is that Raphael becomes Shredder! Yeah, he starts wearing a version of Shredder’s armor (who by this point was dead) and eventually becomes the leader of the Foot Clan. There also may be a bit of an homage to this storyline in the 2003 anim🐷ated series. One of the episodes has the brothers facing their 💟fears, and Raph’s version has him fighting the Shredder, which then turns out to be himself.
14 🌃 Turtle Girl Power?
Did you know that TMNT had a live-action series? Yep, it was called The Next Mutation, and it was pretty bad, to be honest. If you thought the 1987 series was cheesy and campy, it had nothing on this series. One element that it introduced was the concept of female mutant turtles. Yeah, i𝔍t all went downhill fr✱om there.
There actually is a female mutant turtle called Venus de Milo. Apparently, she was with the other turtle brothers and was mutated along with them, but Splinter somehow overlooked her. She was raised by a man named Chung and trained in the art of Shinobi. She’s actually only appeared in The Next Mutation, and has not been included in any other reiteration of TMNT. I guess fans didn’t really like her.
13 An Epic Pizza Battle 🦄
We know our heroes in a half-shell love pizza🦩. Ever since the 1987 series, it’s become a huge part of their personalities and image. And it continued to the live-action movies. But did you know t💞hat Pizza Hut and Dominos fought over who would sponsor the movies?
Yep, we had two major pizza chains fighting over who would get to sponsor the Ninja Turtles movies. In the end Pizza Hut won, but Dominos got to be the featured pizza that the turtles ate. Next time you’re watching the movies, take a good look at the pizza they꧙’re eating; it’s꧑ totally Dominos. It makes sense that you’d want to be associated with the fictional characters that love pizza the most. So, I guess they both won. Man, now I want pizza.
12 Whiteꩲwashing T💧heir Humans
April O’Neil has become one of the iconic characters in TMNT, and is best known as the turtles’ first contact with the outside world. She’s the first human to befriend the turtles, and she often ends up helping them out on their missions and adventures. While her personality has changed from reiteration, she’s remained constant in her appearance, which draws from꧙ the 1987 series. In most versions, April is white and has reddish-brown hair.
But here’s the thing: April wasn’t white in the original comics. In fact, while they never say it, she looks like she’s likely African American. At the very least, she is shown having much darker skin and has curly hair.🌊 So basically, April got whitewashed when the series went to the silver screen. Sadly this isn’t that surprising, but it’s still pretty insane.
11 ꦓ Their Origins Are A Joke
It’s hard to imagine the world without the Ninja Turtles, but did you know that thei💖r origins came from a joke? The whole concept started out as a drawing of a turtle ninja Kevin Eastman made as a joke. Peter Laird then drew his own drawings of it in response. It actually wasn’t meant to go anywhere and was just something the two found amusing.
Later, the concept was explored more and the two created their own comic se🍃ries from it. It then got picked up by Fred Wolf at Murakami-Wolf-Swenson to be turned into a TV series and the rest is history. It’s kind of crazy how such a huge franchise came about because two guys were messing around and making silly drawings. Inspiration really can come from the most unlikely places.