Generation Ninja Turtle
I'm a child of the '80s. I'm not quite sure if I'm a Millennial (in fact, given the opportunity, I will argue that I am not until the sun burns out), but I am a proud member of Generation Ninja Turtle.
I was four years old, right in the candy-colored, merchandise gobbling sweet spot, when the 1987 cartoon premiered, propelling Leo, Donnie, Raph and Mikey to global superstar status. Ninja Turtle pajamas? I had 'em. The 1990 arena rock "Coming Out Of Their Shells" tour? Front row seats. I used to dream of being pulled up onstage like Courtney Cox in the "Dancing in the Dark" video. Except, you know, with giant, mutant Turtles.
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I won't profess to being a true O.G. TMNT fan -- I was a couple of years too young for the early days of Laird and Eastman's grim and gritty, black and white comics -- but every Saturday morning found me parked in front of the TV with a bowl of Count Chocula and a heartful of Cowabunga.
"Who was your favorite Ninja Turtle?"
I was a generally well-behaved kid, but my one adolescent tantrum is still recalled at family gatherings. It occurred during a family vacation when my older cousin Jenny bought us younger kids TMNT ice cream pops. I didn't get my favorite Turtle (Michelangelo), and proceeded to lose my shit all over Terminal C of Newark Airport.
Ask anyone born of Generation Ninja Turtle to name their favorite, and you'll get an impassioned answer that'd serve as a better personality assessment than any Meyers-Briggs test. Did your still-forming persona identify with the hot-headed, rude dude Raphael? Carefree party guy Michelangelo? Brainy and under-appreciated Donatello? Or responsible big brother Leonardo? Somewhere, some psych major must have gotten into a top medical school by writing a Freudian analysis of the Ninja Turtles.
The Turtles will never capture a generation's imagination and adoration quite like they did us '80s babies. But every few years, a reboot still tries to catch lightning in a bottle and replicate that success. 2007 gave us Sarah Michelle Gellar and her CGI Turtles. Last year, we had Megan Fox's nostrily amphibian friendfs. And while the new series on Nickelodeon is one of the better incarnations, they're still not my Turtles.
But what if they were? What if Leonardo, Donatello, Raph and Mikey grew up alongside their fans? I mean really grew up. Who did they become once skateboarding and pizza gave way to divorce and hemorrhoids? The question isn't just "Who is your favorite Ninja Turtle?" It's "...and what are they doing now?" Who did they grow up to be?
It's a subject I've thought entirely too much about. Here's what I've come up with:
Leonardo
Leo's still the responsible older brother. He's settled down in Hoboken with a wife, Mariana, and their two half-mutant kids, Descartes and Newton. Leo's a soccer dad in a league populated with other mutant kids -- children of The Mutanimals, Muckman and a few hundred pupae of Baxter Stockman's buzzing brood.
Following the ultimate defeat of the Foot Clan, the Turtles began to drift apart as they grew older. Leo was the glue that held them together, and after a few years without Shredder and The Foot to rally around, he lost his focus. He accomplished all the goals Splinter laid out for him, but it's left him feeling unfulfilled.
Since Mariana went back to work at the insurance agency, Leo's been a stay-at-home dad. He hung up the Katanas -- Mariana doesn't let him keep weapons in the house with the kids -- but he still sees adventure everywhere. It borders on paranoia, and he may have a touch of PTSD. Every neighborhood watch meeting devolves into Leo spouting theories about the rise in graffiti really being a cover for an invasion from Dimension X.
Leo misses the excitement of his glory days, and still keeps in touch with the old gang. He's even Facebook friends with Bebop and Rocksteady. The only person he's lost touch with is Casey Jones, who vanished after 1999.
Michelangelo
Michelangelo's party dude persona and natural charisma led him to beating Guy Fieri on "The Next Food Network Star." He now hosts his own show where he tours the country on a skateboard, reviewing pizza restaurants.
But Mikey's not all happy-go-lucky. As a kid, Mikey never wanted to be taken seriously. Now, it's all he wants. He knows the crew snickers behind his back and rolls their eyes whenever he spouts his catchphrase, and he doesn't blame them. At this point, even Michelangelo is tired of "Cowabunga!" But Cowabunga's been good to him, leading him to lucrative endorsement deals and a restaurant in Vegas.
As much as Leonardo wants to be happy for his brother, he frequently finds himself staring resentfully at Mikey's frozen pizzas in the supermarket as he pushes a shopping cart while wearing sweatpants.
Donatello
Donnie was the first Turtle to leave the lair. He made millions with his popular mutant dating app, "Sewr." But Donnie was discontent. All of his life, he thought that if he and his brothers could just beat the Foot Clan and get out of the sewers, then he'd be happy. But now he's done it all, and there's still an emptiness inside his shell.
Donnie spent his first million traveling the globe, and invested the rest with Raphael, who had found work as a financial adviser. But Raphael's bad investments lost all of Donnie's money, and when the money vanished, Donnie's marriage went with it.
Donnie's now divorced, resentful and working as a substitute math teacher. His life, once full of promise, is now haunted by regret and frustration. He's a certified genius, but struggles to grasp Common Core. But his greatest struggle is keeping his anger towards Raphael in check.
Raphael
For years, Raphael's bad attitude got him fired from one job after another. He always blamed his pinhead of a boss or office politics, never taking responsibility for himself. After crashing and burning and losing Donnie's fortune, Raph moved to Atlanta, where he channeled his stubborn hotheadedness into dominating the pharmaceutical sales industry. He's making a killing, and was still in his 20s when he cleared his first six-figure year -- a fact he proudly and drunkenly slurs every year when he goes back home for the traditional Thanksgiving Pizza. He doesn't understand why Donatello is still mad at him, rationalizing to himself, "I made a career change, why can't Donnie just think up a new app?"
Raph claims that finding religion turned his life around. But although he's been "saved," he's as aggressive and hot-headed as ever, now tempered slightly with a tinge of piousness. His relationship with his brothers is strained. He thinks they resent his success and personal relationship with God, but the truth is, they're just fed up with his self-indulgent rage. He's as big an asshole now as he was at 15.
Raphael's single. Though he's found a few dates on Donatello's app, nothing has led to a meaningful relationship. He blames wishy-washy mutant woman not being able to appreciate a nice guy in the half-shell.
Splinter
The thing about growing up is, your parents get older, too. Splinter always seemed like the oldest living person/animal in New York, even when the Turtles were teens. Like at any moment he might just crumble to dust and rat hair. But he's still alive, thanks to a brain transplant into Krang's old robot body.
With Shredder defeated, Splinter's enjoying retirement in a West Palm Beach active-senior community. He golfs every weekend, is always welcome at the mahjong tables, and Friday nights finds him an in-demand bachelor at the weekly dances. He's one of the few men in the community whose knees still work, cybernetic though they may be.
He's begun dating a widowed grandmother named Esther. They're sweet, late-in-life companions. On Saturdays, he drives her to the flea market in the mornings, and they have dinner that night at one of the nicer buffets in town. The boys visit every now and then, though not as often as Splinter likes. Leonardo visits most frequently. Whenever he does, he takes his boys canoeing through the Florida Everglades where they can put down their phones and get back in touch with their reptilian roots.
April O'Neil
Although the animated adventures of the Turtles ended in 1996, the '90s still had plenty in store for April O'Neil. As a journalist, she covered the Lewinsky Trial, was in Hong Kong when the UK passed sovereignty to China, and was the first to report on the Y2K bug.
She was romantically linked to members of three different boy bands, and ruined the career of a young Justin Timberlake when she broke the story that he's really a mutagen-exposed package of ramen noodles.
April returned to New York in 2003, where she had a string of bad relationships that went nowhere, and even briefly dated Michelangelo. She had a baby girl with an anonymous donor from Dimension X, and Leonardo helped get her into his kids' daycare. They've grown close -- perhaps too close. He leaned on her while having marital problems, and they once shared a drunken kiss. But after he went back to Mariana, they never spoke of it again.
Casey Jones
Jones went to a Phish concert in 1999. He hasn't been heard from since.
Howard I. Kaplan is a freelance writer of content copy, and comics. He lives in Los Angeles, CA with his wife and two-year-old son, a budding young Turtles fan in his own right.