Top five ways in which the original 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie has greatly influenced my life:
- They reference two of my favourite books, War and Peace and Grapes of Wrath, and considering that I watched the movie a hundred billion times (I actually memorized it and still can recite that scene where Michaelangelo orders the pizza -- "and nooooo anchovies, I mean nooooo anchovies". Yes.) would be really be a surprise if those two references planted the seed which would eventually blossom into a full-fledged biblio-obsession?
- Inspired my adoration for the lovable and charming party animal. Michaelangelo was my first crush. Yep, I had a crush on a turtle. There was an episode of the cartoon where they all became human and Mikey was a skateboarding dude and I fucking loved it. Incidentally, I also had the hots for Peter Venkman from the cartoon Ghostbusters, what a fox.
- I still have trouble turning my back on any of my belongings outdoors because I saw the Footclan at work and man oh man, those guys were gooood. The montage scene where the news report is playing over a bunch of young ruffians just liftin' stuff left and right? They steal a lady's TV when she just turns for a second!
- Pretty sure that my primal desire for an old dilapidated farm house complete with a claw-foot tub and peeling plaster stems from April's place where the turtles and Casey hide out. Ah, the romance!
- Well, it's a toss up between my insatiable hunger for 'zah (seriously, HOW GOOD IS PIZZA??) and how the voice in my head is usually either in an Oprah or Splinter voice, specifically I'm always reciting "and four baby turtles..." or "I made a funny" to myself.
Here's my favourite five minutes of the movie (oh man, when the pizza falls on Splinter's head? Classic.):
Side-note, how much does Casey Jones look like Elliot from Law and Order: SVU???