A
harried young lepidopterist claimed, way back in 1992, that:
"...the eighties ended over 10 years ago. As such, we must
take this opportunity to make the necessary judgements about its
myriad output." She was instantly dismissed by anyone with
access to a calendar, and was savagely beaten by a mob of unknown
assailants before living out her final days revoking anything she
could get her frictionless little hands on. I think it's fair to
say that she was way ahead of her time. The eighties now did end
over 10 years ago. Tom Wolfe and Margaret Thatcher's true colours
have been exposed, as have their genitals. There is but one thing
that remains judged unjudged (I'm getting lost in negatives and
wanky use of words. What I mean to say is "Here's what I'm
gonna talk about, cos I'm the boss dude.")
Although when we're
first introduced to them they appear to be babies, they are
classed as teenagers. I think this artistic license has to be
allowed. You can't base the cultural epicentre of the 80s (I have
a sneaking suspicion they didn't appear in the 80s, but rather
the early 90s. Live in ignorance. Why not? It's what George Wendy
Bush Jr does, and it's done him no harm) on four six foot tall
turtles that spend all day crying and shitting their
turtlenappies. Perhaps the mutation process briefly accelerated
their rate of ageing. I was only a dilettante viewer; I don't
remember all the ins and outs, I'm ashamed to say. I was always
more of a Mask man anyway. The mutant (just by being flushed?
Jeez, what a curry) and the turtle elements, I think we can agree
on, although the second element of their nomenclature varies from
country to country. In the good ol' USA of America, they were
classed as ninjas; here in good ol' Blighty (see, we're not so
different if you slice off our skin and leave us to bleed) they
were heroes, in case children thought there was anything big or
clever about fighting people using weapons and stealth. Quite how
they wouldn't pick up on this within the programme itself always
escaped me, but as I said, I never watched it with the frequency
required to earn the label 'fan'.
The real benefit
that these four disillusioned painters brought us was in the
world of Scrabble. Thanks to Donatello (the one with the purple
bandanna), we are all fully aware that a big stick, when in the
hands of a ninja (or, of course, a hero), is called a bo. Many's
the time during the last few goes of a Scrabble game when I've
only been a couple of hundred points ahead, and a bo on a triple
word score, previously presumed to be unusable, has stamped my
authority on the game. Rafael's rai (a fork-like weapon) doesn't
feature in the dictionary for some reason (lack of range?),
although rai is is in the dictionary, meaning a form of North
African music. Michelangelo's nunchakus suffered from numerous
deviant spellings and its length, and as such features rarely in
Scrabble games. Leonardo's sword, although possessing some proper
ninja/hero name beginning with K was never called anything other
than a sword. (Which is to say I forget its name).
I can buy the
existence of mutant turtles, I can buy the fact that they are
trained by an equally mutated rat, I can buy their flirtatious
relationship with a TV reporter, and in fact I applaud the
inter-species love that is hinted at frequently. The second in
command of the baddies (Shredder) never really felt like a fully
rounded character to me, but that's just a minor niggle. Many of
the names seem lackadaisical at best, but that which we call a
rose, by any other name still gets covered in cow shit. Despite
earlier misgivings (around 1996) about all the henchmen looking
identical, à la Star Wars, I have grown to accept, and even
welcome this facet of their existence. It's probably a by-product
of computer games where all the enemies look like three or four
characters, but I am now fully enamoured of the idea of having an
army of identical henchmen. If I ever need to form an army, I
will ensure that their uniforms fully hide any form of
individuality and personality, with the exception of one person:
a close personal friend, who realises that I'm just joking with
him, and so won't react against it and kill himself, or form a
rebel army and try and kill me. He would be, for the sake of
cliché, a habitual fuckup who just got the job in my army cos I
am being nice to him. The difference between him and the others
will either be a uniform that appears as if it has faded in the
wash, or will have a hole in it that allows his nipple to shine
through, with the option of attaching a plastic cover in winter
to cut down on draughts. But that's a long way off, and not
strictly relevant. I apologise for my tangent; I'm feeling a
little power-crazed today.
Second only to the
Scrabble element was the existence of Steinbeck's George and
Lennie within one character, taking both George and Lennie to
their absolute extremes. What can be smarter and wilier than a
brain with hands, and what can be more, umm... dumb and lumbering
than a dumb lumbering thing run by a brain with hands? Well, I
liked it anyway, and I plead with you not to judge it on the
basis of two dull sentences. Of course, at the time, I didn't
realise that it was epitomising two of the greatest characters
from fiction. Being only 10 at the end of the eighties, I
presumed that it was an allegorical interpretation of the Buddha,
placed in the post-modern setting of unmitigated violence and
hatred that was Thatcher and Reagan's eighties. How wrong I was.
This is a veritable
rollercoaster of highs and lows, no? I once went on a
rollercoaster that stayed at the same level all the time. I
believe they called it a train. It was quite fun, but rather
expensive. Anyhoo, my real, ultimate, problem with the turtles is
their attempt at anonymity. Ok, so at first people weren't sure
whether they were good guys or bad guys, and as such didn't
really want to be dealing with officially sanctioned
law-enforcement agencies, but to attempt to avoid said agencies
by wearing bandannas that cover their eyes smacks of stupidity at
the highest level. The only six foot turtles that I am aware of
are the aforementioned four. I feel secure in the knowledge that
in an ID parade, I could pick out a member of their gang with or
without a bandanna. It's just an insult to our intelligence.
This, and this alone, was the reason I favoured Mask.
Oh, and by the way,
it's a katana. A pretty good Scrabble word, actually, even though
it doesn't allow much opportunity to build it from previously
placed words.