Toy Ads That Time Forgot: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
With the release of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle film that everyone assures me is the cat’s pajamas, I thought it would be time to take a look back at an ad from the Turtles’ past.
This commercial is mainly for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ van, which in itself is a very cartoony concept. If they were trying to keep a low profile there’s nothing that says, “Hey, look at me!” quite like a giant customized green van with your team name on the front. As a toy this thing is fantastic. It is everything that a kid could want in bringing the cartoon into their Ninja Turtle toy adventures. It’s not too small, and it’s not too big. It’s got some nifty action features. Most importantly, it looks just like the van in the cartoon.
The Turtle Cycle on the other hand? Well, it works for a budget minded Ninja Turtle fan I suppose. It’s one of those toys that you’d get because your parent’s couldn’t afford the van, but wanted to shut you up one of those gifts you got in a Christmas gift exchange. You know, one that you really didn’t want, but your satisfied that at least you got something Ninja turtle related and not another dumb seasonal sweater.
toy, toy collecting, TMNT, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, advertisement, ad, commercial
April 3rd, 2007 at 10:14 am
[...] Toy Ads That Time Forgot: Teenage Mutant Ninja… [...]
April 3rd, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Nice van, although I must admit to never having seen the appeal of the TMNT, they’re just some dirty turtles, who get told what to do by a stinking rat (who probably abuses them too), and who think they are harder than they actually are!
McDonalds have just started doing some TMNT toys over here.
A little fact you may not have known. When they were big in the early 90s, they were called Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles over here in the UK as Ninjas were seen as a bad role model!
April 3rd, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Yeah, I know about that. Silly Brits, Ninjas ARE for kids.
April 4th, 2007 at 5:02 am
This one brings back memories. Not of the toys; I’m aged and decrepit beyond belief and missed that one. When Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were at the height of popularity in Australia I used to do one day school visits and teach as a guest historian (or something - not sure why I was there except that I taught an awful lot of classes with no pay) and I entirely freaked a very young teacher out by having all the difficult 15 year old boys write bad language on the blackboard in categories of how insulting each word was and then I made the whol class use those words and write epic poetry battle sequences using the TMNTs. The teacher looked at them as they wrote and you could see on her face “Gillian’s training them to be juvenile delinquents.”
April 4th, 2007 at 11:01 am
haha, Gillian, that is great! Paul, you already knew how inspiring toys could be, but that’s pretty cool, huh?
April 4th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
That is cool. That’s def. something that would make learning fun.
April 4th, 2007 at 3:20 pm
Or as my yuongest calls them…Minjas.
April 5th, 2007 at 12:40 am
I guess its true, everything comes full circle. With the 80’s pop music making a come back and not the TMNTs its like my childhood is being relived right before my eyes.
Michaelangelo rules!