Seth Rogen's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Obsession Has Caused Some Injuries
Though there's no way to determine the actual numbers, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is probably responsible for convincing most kids that they need to take up some kind of martial arts. Of course, most of them end up disappointed to learn that they won't be wielding any of the weapons that Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo whip around, and very quickly they come to the realization that practicing karate (or ninjitsu) isn't nearly as fun as beating up the Foot Clan. But that didn't stop "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem" writers and producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg from giving martial arts a try, albeit in a more haphazard way.
Leading up to the release of "TMNT: Mutant Mayhem" (which is a bigger box office hit than it seems), Rogen and Goldberg had some stories about trying to become "Ninja Turtles" themselves. In fact, they both told stories that directly implicated Rogen in damaging property and injuring himself with one of the Turtles' signature weapons.
'Part of the reason I did karate was because of the Ninja Turtles'
In the July issue of Empire Magazine (via IGN), Rogen first acknowledged how much "TMNT" influenced both he and Goldberg in their early formative years. Rogen said:
"It's hard to discern how much of Turtles created who we are, but it's not a small amount. We were the absolute perfect age, and comic nerds, and animation Saturday-morning guys. It was a heavy influence on us."
Children of the late '80s and early '90s were all about the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." That's why we ended up getting a wide variety of Saturday morning cartoons trying to replicate their success with other mutated animals fighting crime, such as "Biker Mice from Mars" and "Street Sharks." So it only makes sense that Rogen and Goldberg were inspired to do karate because of the heroes in a half-shell. Rogen explained:
"Part of the reason I did karate was because of the Ninja Turtles. Me and [co-writer Evan Goldberg] both did karate together. My dad got me nunchucks that I cracked my head open with, because I was obsessed with the Ninja Turtles, and Michelangelo specifically."
Any kid who grew up with "Teenage Mutant Nina Turtles" has a story about breaking something or hurting themselves with either play weapons or something around the house that they pretended was one of the trademark Turtles' weapons. Leonardo had swords, Donatello had a bo staff, Raphael had sais, and Michelangelo had nunchucks. Yours truly had a small dowel rod that he used as a bo staff and a pair of plastic nunchucks that he certainly smacked himself with. However, Rogen hit more than himself with those nunchucks.
'Seth had just got these nunchucks'
Goldberg recalled another story from their childhood with disastrous results, telling Empire:
"Seth had just got these nunchucks. He was like, 'Yo, check this out, I want to show you this awesome move', and just immediately shattered a huge chandelier from his parents' house into a billion pieces. It took us, like, five hours to clean. On a sitcom, you'd be like, 'This is too broad.'"
Rogen added, "It was as though what I was trying to show him was my ability to destroy a lamp." Mission accomplished!
But for every kid who had a passing interest in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," there's another who actually rode that wave into some kind of martial arts tournament and ended up going home with a trophy. There's probably another kid somewhere who grew up to start their own martial arts school. But it doesn't stop there. There are adults working today who grew up on the "TMNT" animated series, and they're not making cartoons. And then you've got Rogen and Goldberg, two kids who grew up messing around together, bonding over their love of the "Ninja Turtles," and now they're making the latest, and possibly greatest, movie featuring their childhood heroes. And they certainly didn't listen to the Turtles when they tried to keep people off drugs. Follow your dreams, kids.