TMNT: Mutant Mayhem's Cleverest Easter Egg References A Classic Toy [Exclusive]
This article contains spoilers for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem."
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" undeniably does one thing better than any of the other "TMNT" movies that came before it: The film accurately and delightfully portrays Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo as teenagers. Along with having teen cast members Nicolas Cantu, Micah Abbey, Brady Noon, and Shamon Brown Jr. record their dialogue together to capture their young energy bouncing off each other, "Mutant Mayhem" really hones in on the challenges of growing up, especially when being a mutant keeps you from being part of society.
Thankfully, by the end of "Mutant Mayhem," the turtles aren't seen as monsters, and they're actually accepted by heroes as the humans of New York City, which allows them to experience something else that no movie has done before: Letting them go to high school. The turtles take off their masks, put down their weapons, and throw on some human clothes to walk into Eastman High School as perfectly normal teenagers. What makes this even better is that one of the turtles is wearing a piece of clothing that makes a deep cut callback to an obscure action figure from the '90s Playmates toy line.
TMNT toys were weird in the '90s
In the '90s, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" was all the rage, and there was a massive toy line with endless variations of the four heroes in a half-shell. But how can you have so many different action figures based on these four characters when they always look the same in the movies and TV shows? Well, you give them wacky outfits, of course. Throughout the early '90s, various Playmates action figures turned Michelangelo into a birthday clown, made Donatello Dracula, put Raphael into Civil War soldier gear, and had Leonardo become a cop. One of those silly action figures gets a subtle tribute at the end of "TMNT: Mutant Mayhem."
Beachcombin' Mike was one of these weird variant action figures that was part of the "Sewer Spitting" line of turtles. Each of the turtles had an accessory on their back that actually held water, allowing you to squirt it out of a tiny hole in their mouths. Michelangelo's figure (seen above) came dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, and it's this bit of clothing that inspired the very shirt that Michelangelo can be seen wearing in the final scene of "Mutant Mayhem," as well as the mid-credits scene that shows him joining improv club.
'Mondo Gecko has a roller skate on his tail, there's things like that'
When we spoke with director Jeff Rowe earlier this week (full interview coming soon), he confirmed the Beachcombin' Mike Hawaiian shirt reference, and then he dropped some other deep cut Easter eggs for the die hard fans. In fact, the director even mentioned a scene that ended up on the cutting room floor, though that deleted sequence still resulted in some new action figures that made it to shelves. Rowe recalled:
"Mondo Gecko has a roller skate on his tail, there's things like that. There's the TCRI environment, which we really tried to make look like the Technodrome toy. It's not a toy thing specifically, but when the turtles get electrocuted in TCRI, we do the 2D bone silhouette thing from the video game. At one point, in the Shredder version, when they were in high school, there was a scene where they go to a party, and then they just dress up as classic toys."
This was actually something I'd been wondering about, because Playmates released a new "Mutant Mayhem" action figure pack that featured the new versions of the turtles dressed up in costumes exactly like a few of the silly, old school action figures. Check it out:
Playmates
Yes, out on shelves right now, you can get an action figure four-pack with Beach Bum Mikey, Cowboy Leo, Astronaut Raph, and Donnie as Spock. It's a shame we didn't get to see them suited up in these costumes in the movie, but we're still pretty pleased what ended up in theaters. Plus, Rowe says they might figure out a way to fit them into the eventual sequel, so we'll see what happens.
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" is in theaters everywhere now.