Ep. 257: TMNT – The Forty Year Phenomenon

Fascinating Nouns

1984 was a big year. Ghostbusters and Terminator were released, the events of George Orwell’s novel take place, and in a Massachusetts suburb, two comic artists accidentally created one of the biggest pop culture events in human history: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. What started as a joke between friends has spawned numerous TV shows, movies, and video games. Only The Simpsons rivals it as far as longevity is concerned. But how did this happen? Well it turns out that the origin story of the TMNT is a strange, and serendipitous as the creation of the turtles themselves. I sit down with author and historian Andrew Farago to discuss all of the events that had to line-up to make this possible. Lightening in a bottle doesn’t even describe it, but maybe Aladdin’s Lamp does. We will discuss the dark and violent origins of the original comic, the perfect nature of the original theme song, and how a Muppet was used to pitch the cartoon to networks.

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