For example, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT, to the hard core fans or today's youth) first appeared in a comic book in 1984. Their debut coincided with the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles; Michael Jackson's hair catching on fire while filming a Pepsi commercial; President Reagan calling for a ban on chemical weapons; crack gaining popularity; every girl pining for Jake Ryan from Sixteen Candles; and a time when Big Brother should have been everywhere. TMNT: a fictional team of four teenage anthropomorphic turtles, named after Renaissance artists -- Michelangelo, Donatello, Leonardo, and Raphael -- who were trained by their anthropomorphic rat sensei, Splinter, in the art of ninjutsu. From their home in the storm sewers of New York City, they battled petty criminals, evil overlords (Shredder, anyone?), mutated animals, and alien invaders while attempting to remain isolated from society. They also loved pizza. If you can still match the Ninja Turtle name with the color of his mask, you know you were a true fan.
In the late 1980s, my brother had the TMNT action figures. We watched the cartoons and the movies; I envisioned myself as feisty April O'Neil, fighting side-by-side with the turtles while also reporting on (and resolving) the injustices of the world. I personally found myself torn between two of the TMNT heroes: bad boy Casey Jones, who used hockey sticks to conquer unwieldy criminals and wore a hockey mask that made him slightly reminiscent of Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th movies, and bad boy Raphael, the misunderstood Ninja Turtle who wore the red mask. That's right: I had a crush on a turtle. (Side note: Elias Koteas, the actor who played Casey Jones in the original TMNT movie, has gone on to star in some great shows, such as The Killing and Chicago P.D. And I still find myself having a slight crush on him...even without the hockey sticks and mask.)
I'm not sure whether my crush on Raphael stemmed from the cartoon or the actual movie (there definitely appeared to be some interesting sexual undertones between April O'Neil and Raphael) but, either way, Raphael was my favorite turtle. As a young girl, I found myself wishing he was my boyfriend. I mean, how great would it be to have a Ninja Turtle boyfriend? Raphael, with his deadpan sense of humor and slight sarcasm in a non-offensive way; athleticism and muscularity; slightly dark with his bad boy attitude; and ability to wield a sai. Throw in a love of pizza and the potential ability to retract into his own shell, and Raphael seemed perfect to an eight-year-old girl. (However, if given the choice, I'd still choose Fred Savage over Raphael. So no need to be jealous, Fred Savage.)
I've shared this childhood crush with numerous people, which most seem to meet it with disbelief and slight revulsion. A crush on a fictitious cartoon character that's...a turtle? I've had to explain before that I didn't mean the Renaissance painter (I mean, how's that not weird to have a crush on him? Raphael the painter has been dead for almost 600 years.) It wasn't until my friend, Erin, and I started discussing it one day...and we both realized that we had had crushes on Raphael, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. I felt vindicated, as Erin is beautiful, smart, witty, and a genuinely nice person. I choose to believe the crush is not weird. It even came up at work one day, where one of my friends then drew Raphael on my dry erase board -- Raphael stayed on my dry erase board for months, until an unfortunate accident with someone's sleeve ended his run on my board. But until that sleeve wiped off the better part of his body, it was a glorious run with Raphael looking over my shoulder each day.
But here it is 30 years after the release of the original cartoon -- 25 years after the release of the original live-action TMNT movie -- and the Ninja Turtles are still popular. A cartoon version of TMNT still airs on network television, and a new live-action movie was released in August 2014 and they've already slated the release of the sequel in 2016. For Halloween this year, my niece and nephew are planning to go as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: my nephew is going as his favorite turtle, Michelangelo, and my niece is debating as to whether she'll go as a princess turtle or one of the original Ninja Turtles. For my nephew's birthday, my niece gave him an 11-inch Michelangelo action figure, and I gave him the corresponding Raphael. Donatello and Leonardo aren't far behind, if I have my way. So...maybe that means my dream of finding Raphael, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, can still happen.
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