So today is Father’s Day, and as such I felt I should write a blog for this occasion, talking about a a certain paternal anthropomorphic rat. I know it’s been done before, but I’m gonna take a stab at it too. To be fair, I know next to nothing about the original Mirage Comics source material, so it will not appear in this article. I will be looking at the Father/Son dynamics in the original toon, the 4 movies and the new animated series.
In a paragraph that’s sure to basically be me beating a dead horse, in the original 90’s TMNT animated show, Splinter was more a mentor than a father. Seldom did the call the Turtles “my sons.” The only time I can actually point to specifically is in Enter the Shredder where he says, “Head upward, my sons. Find a way around all this.” In fact the Turtles and Splinter are more like a group of buddies than a family in the old series, referring to each other as friends or turtles collectively and using the full names (Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michaelangelo) when referring to each other. Though the OT, as it’s called in fan circles, may be them most well known it is the least familial of the TMNT incarnations. To be fair, my favorite incarnation, the Archie Comics, based on the original toon’s universe did revive the Turtles family dynamic in it’s run.
The movies take the family aspects and kick it up a notch, at least the first live action film and the recent CG film. Splinter as a father is played up quite a bit and is used as a counter for not only the Shredder and Tatsu’s relationship with their Foot “children” but Charles Pennington and his son Danny. Splinter lectures his son, in one of the most poignant scenes in all of TMNT, feels true pain from being separated from his sons, and in the end is joyously reunited with them. The second and third movies still have the family aspect, but toned down in favor of the story, though in Ninja Turtles (90) the family aspect was part of the story. Again in 2007 the Turtles were on the big screen and the family aspect took center stage, this time as a foil to Max Winters and his Stone Generals. This time however the family relationships, in my opinion, were tacked on and felt hollow.
When it comes to the Turtles as a family probably no element of the franchise has made it the corner stone (aside from maybe the original Mirage source material.) than the 2003 TMNT reboot series. There is not just the father/son dynamic of the Turtles and Splinter, but Splinter and Yoshi and Yoshi and the Ancient One. Splinter feels like a real father here, disciplining the Turtles when necessary, and experiencing joyous occasions with them as well. To a lesser extent, Yoshi and the Ancient One play roles as father figures not just to Splinter, but to the Turtles as well. If you want to see the Turtles and Splinter as a real family, demonstrating a strong familial bond, look no further than the new series.
So there it is, not quite what I had in mind when I first decided to pen this article, but t’will serve I guess. Though the original retro Turtle toon has a nostalgic feel to it, the family element just isn’t there as much as it is in the movies and new TV series…and don’t even get me started with the live action vomit that is Next Mutation. “We’re not brothers. We’re pet shop turtles born and bred on a turtle farm, so are you.” Give me a break. What a lame excuse for the turtles to try to, pardon the pun, get some tail.
