Rebooted Origin: Conan O’Brien On Michael Bay’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Being a member of Generation X rather than Generation Y, the extent of my relationship with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is that it was an interesting little indie comic that effectively satirized Frank Miller’s ninja-focused Daredevil comics. So, not being of the appropriate demographic to have a feeling toward the classic TMNT children’s cartoon beyond it being that thing I watched sometimes when I was too hungover in college to change the fucking channel, I am not consumed by the sense of impending doom that some are feeling over the news that Michael Bay is producing a new TMNT movie.

However, being an American citizen in the early 21st century, I understand that Michael Bay has the reverse Midas touch; everything he touches turns awful. He made the Transformers – fucking toys, fer Christ’s sake – look shallow. He made Armageddon, and soon after the United States cancelled its manned space program. I am surprised that, in the wake of Pearl Harbor, that we didn’t retroactively lose World War II.

So I feel your pain… as does Conan O’Brien, who produced the short clip of “exclusive” footage of the upcoming Bay TMNT flick that’s actually quite funny, and which you can watch after the jump.

Jiu-Jitsu Hot Dogs: TMNT: Raphael #1 Review

When I was five years old, I ate a bad hot dog on Christmas Eve and spent Christmas Day hurling like an inveterate alcoholic on an Antabuse drip instead of playing with my shiny new Maskatron. The experience was so bad that I literally couldn’t even look at a hot dog for about ten years afterwards; the thought of them made me sick, even though I knew that I might like them if I could put the bad memories behind me and try them again.

It was in this spirit that I bought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle: Raphael #1.

Intellectually, I know that TMNT started as a pretty hard-edged satire of Frank Miller’s Daredevil and Ronin, and that any humor in the book came from the inherent absurdity of turtles being involved in a ninja story played completely straight. And that I actually liked those early stories. And that there was a reason that those books were so sought-after in the middle, late 80s. I know this.

But then there was that fucking cartoon.