Movie Minutiae - My Intro to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
By Johnny Betts, Moviegoer Advocate
Contact Johnny
The first time I ever heard about the turtles was in 1988 when I was spending the night at my friend
Brian's house. He didn't live too far from me, so this soon became a weekend ritual. I'd spend the
night, we'd make prank calls (if you're reading this then I apologize, Ms. Swanson, for that call in
6th grade when I said Kristi snuck out of the house to be with a 40-year-old man, that was probably
inappropriate), and we'd get sick from eating massive amounts of junk food that I didn't have
access to at my house.
Brian would sleep on his nice comfortable bed, and I'd be left huddled and shivering under his desk
with a bean bag pulled on top of me in an effort to find warmth. I always resented Brian's lack of
desire to ask his mom if I could have a blanket and pillow, but there's no sense in remaining
bitter.
Anyway, one night we received a call from Ben Tuller. Ben was a nice guy, although not exactly riding
life's fast track. He was the kind of friend who was fun to pick on because of how easily he
rattled. I'll never forget the time I accused him of wearing Sears Roebuck jeans and he got so
mad that he threw his miniature Gideon's Bible (we were headed to Chapel, you see) clear across the
room and stormed into the bathroom crying. A volatile one, that Ben was. I felt a little bad, but
I couldn't help but rest easy in the fact that I wasn't the one hurling the Good Book all over
the place.
"I've got the new issue of Nintendo Power," Ben boasted, "and one of the upcoming Nintendo games is
called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!"
For those of you not old enough to remember or who weren't big enough dorks to care, Nintendo Power
was the be all and end all of magazines for elementary school students. That and Mad Magazine.
Power gave us such gems as the famous Contra code (up up down down left right left right B A B A
select start) and the code for Punch-Out that would take you directly to Mike Tyson. If Nintendo
Power said it, then rest assured it was true.
However, Brian and I refused to believe any of this because Brian also had a subscription to the
magazine but had yet to receive the latest edition. So we did what any normal kids would do and
laughed voraciously at the absurd name and mocked Ben ruthlessly for stooping so low as to desperately
attempt to impress us with deceit. "Yeah right, dork face," I astutely observed.
"I'm serious!" was Ben's retort, but Brian and I remained steadfast in our belief that Ben was
lying. Ben, sounding like he was holding back tears, yelled, "Fine, don't believe me!" and hung up
the phone.
Later that night, as Brian and I were cutting a swath through our second 6-pack of coke and
second large pizza, Brian had an epiphany. "Hey Johnny, I think Ben might be telling the truth."
Puzzled and bemused by his statement, I inquired as to why. "Well, think about it," he said. "Ben
isn't smart enough to come up with a crazy name like that on his own. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?
It sounds silly, but it's too creative for Ben to have made up."
It was at this point that we accepted that this was probably legitimate, and we apologized to Ben
the following Monday for assuming he was smart enough to create such a fantastical name himself. Ben
didn't seem too impressed with the apology, but he realized it was the best he was going to get and
he accepted it all the same.
Nintendo would indeed go on to release the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles video game, and while I
certainly thought it was cool at the time, attempts in later years to play it and relive a little
old glory showed just how cheesy the game truly was. May we never revert back to the old school
"play a game for four hours with only three lives and if you die you have to start all over" style of
video gaming.
Brian, Ben, and I would all go our separate ways after I transferred to another school in 7th grade.
I kept in touch with Brian for a while, but I haven't seen him since the time three or four years ago
when I happened to run into him at a local theater. He was working as a manager. When I went back
a couple of months later, he was already gone.
For a guy who looked like a chubbier Doogie Howser, Brian drifted with the wind quicker than you'd
expect. He'd give you a cell phone number one day and it'd be disconnected the next. Chance
meetings always ended with promises to keep in touch, but those promises were only ever met with
other chance meetings. But man, we sure had some fun times back in those hazy, moist-eyed days of
our youth.
As for Ben? I saw him about 15 years later in the bathroom at a Memphis Tigers football game. Our
paths crossed, and as we made eye contact, our faces were painted with looks of strained recognition.
Finally realizing who the other was, we said our brief hellos, engaged in about 8 seconds of small
talk, and went our separate ways, never to see each other again.
Ghosts from the past. They're odd. Reminders of a more innocent time in our lives. Memories long
forgotten but instantly recalled. Unearthed time capsules. I like to think of everybody
I've met in life in terms of exactly how I left them. Were that reality then I'm sure we'd all be
living in simpler, more innocent times.
But that reality would also leave me as a kid who lived for baseball, video games, pizza, and
watching Joanna Kerns every Wednesday evening at 7:00 PM Central as opposed to the adult who lives
for, well, baseball, video games, pizza, and watching Joanna Kerns every evening on Nick at Night.
Never mind. It looks like growing up truly is overrated.
Perhaps most of us really don't grow up much beyond what we once were. We get a little funnier,
a little smarter, a little more muscular (I'm just using myself as an example here), and our attitudes
are shaped by our experiences, but deep down we're the little kids we've always been.
If you aren't, then enjoy living a miserable life. The rest of us have some living to do, and I hope
you'll excuse us if we act like kids while doing it.
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