Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Cinema Memoir #47

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (March 30th, 1990)

Perhaps the most anticipated movie of my adolescent life. I can't imagine a single boy between the age of 6 and 12 who doesn't like pizza, reptiles, and martial arts. Putting the three together was a stroke of marketing genius.

Needless to say I was a big Ninja Turtle fan back in the day.

Seeing this movie in the theater was as close to a religious experience as I could get at age 10, although I can't remember much of the experience except for the anticipation leading up to it.

Ninja Turtles was the first (and probably only) cartoon I watched with any kind of regularity, but as soon as I learned about the live action movie, my interests switched from the ink and paint fantasy to the flesh and blood reality.

This is the first publicity image I ever saw from the film. It's from Nintendo Power and I can remember every library day in fourth grade racing all the other kids to the magazine section just to stake claim to this picture.

We didn't have the Internet back then so I spent many an hour staring at this very image. You can't imagine how much time I spent searching for it just for this blog post. It sure brings back some memories.

I also remember when this movie came out on video. My mom bought it for me the day it came out but wouldn't let me watch it until I finished all my homework. It was the most torturous afternoon of my fifth grade life. All I could do was stare at the VHS case, caressing the embossed image on the front from time to time as I trudged slowly through pages and pages of long division.

(Poster from impawards.com)
(Image from Nintendo Power)

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