Turtle Spotting!

The Lunatic Cafe

I just read a book called The Lunatic Cafe, by Laurell Hamilton. The main character is training an assistant to, er, raise zombies (that's what she does for a living!) She mentions that she keeps her "zombie-raising" gear in a specific type of bag, blah, blah, blah -- and then looks around to see that her protege is carting his gear around in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bag.
She got extra points with me because she didn't say anything snarky about it..
Submitted by Dee

Dean Koontz's Hideaway

Recently, I read a passage in Dean Koontz's Hideaway that mentioned the Turtles. They were talking about nuns, and this is what was said:
"Sure," he said. "Only Superman could survive a fight with a real hardcase nun. Batman? Fooie! Even your average nun could mop up the floor with Batman-or make soup out of the whole gang of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
It was on page 257.
Submitted by CJ

Sola Er En Feit Gud

I'm reading a Norwegian book called "Sola Er En Feit Gud", by Jon Ewo which directly translated would be "The Sun Is A Fat God".

Anyway, I was kinda surprised when I saw that the main character was looking at the clouds, and this is what he said:

(talking about the sun) "I dag har han rista ut et fint dryss av skyer og leiker nesten julenisse der han gjemmer seg og titter fram-- forsvinner i sleden sin bak en sky som ser ut som bukken til Peer Gynt og kommer fram igjen bak en sky som likner en Teenage Ninja Turtle."

Would you like me to translate, maybe?

"Today he's shaken out a nice sprinkle of clouds and nearly plays Santa Claus there he's hiding himself and peeking out-- disappears in his sled behind a cloud that looks like a Teenage Ninja Turtle."

What's odd is that in Norway we know them as Teenage Mutant HERO Turtles, and not Ninja Turtles.
Submitted by Lola S. Cubish

Anti-Violence Commercial

I was watchin the tube the other day when I came across a commercial for some sort of anti-violence on TV campaign. In it, they showed a couple of kids watching TV and, of course, they were watching the TMNT toon!
Submitted by Lord Krang

Game Pro Magazine

I got subscribed to GamePro magizine, and in the last issue, someone wrote to gamepro mag asking "is major mike a ninja turtle?" and he replys "Now you've done it! You make major mike mad. do you see shell on mike's back? Do you see any goffy ninja gear?" and they go on saying if you guess what game major mike is from, enter this contest.
Submitted by Racoono

State Farm Insurance Commercial

There were a bunch of little kids riding bikes, and one of them had on a TMNT helmet (green with the headband and eyes showing).
Submitted by Lord Krang

Radio Ad

There was a radio ad on recently advertising a documentary (VH1's Behind the Music) about Vanilla Ice. At one point the announcer said: "And even sold to the Ninja Turtles."
Submitted by Me!

The Suburban Book Of The Dead

p.16
"Michaelangelo. Man that guy was famous. He was number one. Michaelangelo"
"The name rings a bell" Rex scratched at his head. "Yes, of course, he was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. wasn't he?"
Fido looked up at his master. Rex looked down at his dog.
"Sorry," said Rex. "It just slipped out."
"Jump in the hole, man."

p39.
Your super-villain always has to fall off a roof-top, or somewhere real high at the end. Doesn't matter who he is, Dick Jones, Darth Vader, the Shredder or the Joker, they each got to take the big plunge in the final showdown.

p145
p145. Barry the Time-Travelling Sprout: "Everywhere, every time we were, he'd want to get his likeness done. He had this book, see, A Complete History of The World's Art. So every century we were in he'd say "We must drop in and say howdy to Michelangelo or Raphael or Doantello or Leonardo," and he'd get his picture painted."
"The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles painted his picture?"
"Chief, that gag was done back on page 16 and it stunk then."
"Sorry, please continue"
Submitted by AJ

Mining Magazine

Turtle-mania reaches mining industry. Triton Resources Ltd has named five anomalies in the Raeside area near Lenora, Australia, after characters from the film Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." These 'anomalies' were gravity anomalies - ie: bits of the earth which 'weigh' more than the surrounding area. This usually means that there is a metal ore deposit of some sort - as in gold or lead or whatever. Presumably they used the boys names and I'm guessing the fifth one was Splinter! Pretty cool huh?
Submitted by Dinogrrl

Peter S.Beagle's Immortal Unicorn, Vol.2

I was reading the story "A Rare Breed" by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough; a very funny contemporary piece about unicorns living in the woods around a typical '90's town, unicorns who attack people and generally act rather annoying (the truth about them is a good plot twist, though). In one scene of dialogue between the narrator and the other characters, there is this amusing little mention:
"I mean, now the forest service is acting as if they knew about the unicorns all along but up until now, who ever heard of them? I'll bet they're the result of a secret genetic engineering program the government's been conducting..."
"Yeah," Ramona said, "Or maybe mutants from toxic waste like the Ninja Turtles."
Lance nodded encouragingly, if a bit patronizingly. I doubt the patronizing had anything to do with the Ninja Turtles. I don't think he knew who they were.
Submitted by Johanna

Metallica

From the Master of Puppets CD. . .
"Also Extra F***en yahooz to... carlsberg bevees; sushi; absolut vodka; alka seltzer; the young ones; remoulade; skykow; boom shankar; Teenage Mutant Ninja-Turtles; and most of all... Edna!!!"
Submitted by The Elf, clarified by Jonathan.

Fox Trot

TMNT has been featured at least twice in the comic strip Fox Trot. View them at: http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/8151/foxtmnt1.gif and http://www.geocities.com/televisioncity/8151/foxtmnt2.gif . Enjoy!/
Submitted by Lord Krang

Also, the youngest kid in Fox Trot has a Ninja Turtles lunch box.
Submitted by The Ingvaldo

Geocities

Well, according to my Geocities daily dose (found at http://www.geocities.com/):
"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Raphael was named for painter Raphael Santi, born on this date in 1843."
And, congrats Dawn on getting yer page linked from that. :)
Submitted by April CK

KFC

KFC ad for their pita/roll thingies - a view of driving down a highway, and Donatello's voice says "Pizza? I don't want a pizza!"
Submitted by Ria-angelo

Yellow Pages

There is a commercial for the Yellow Pages in which a man is challanged to make himself a cowboy in 24 hours using only the yellow pages. In a store, in cowboy clothes, the man (who is Asian, hence the joke, I suppose) stands in front of a mirror and says, "Ninja cowboy!" which of course was a line from TMNTII!
Submitted by Robbette.

Ziggy

In a Ziggy. . .whatever, Ziggy is sitting on a park bench talking to a ninja. The ninja says "Actually, there isn't much work for an aging ninja, since those teenage mutants came on the scene.
Subbmitted by Me!

In another Ziggy, a tailor has Ziggy standing in front of a full length mirror, wearing a turtle shell, belt with a giant "Z" buckle, and a black eye mask. The tailor says "It what all the sucessful cartoon characters are wearing!"
Submitted by Me. . .

In yet another Ziggy, Ziggy is standing outside of a toy shop. In the window of the shop there is a sign: "TEENAGE MUTANT LAYWER TURTLES." Ziggy says "Oh no."
Submitted by Me.

Smithsonian Magazine

There was a Smithsonian article on scientific naming and the use of ninja turtles for a new species.
Submitted by Leonardo

Babysitters Club

The TMNT movie was mentioned at least once in the Baby Sitters Club books.
Submitted by Robette

Bronx Zoo

In the Bronx Zoo in New York, there is a very interesting manhole cover. It had the Ninja Turtle logo on the top and their names engraved under a plaque dedicating the cover to the city of New York.
Submitted by Ryioko

Michael Jackson

There was that TMNT poster in McCally Culkin's room at the beginning of Michael Jackson's black or white video. A TMNT frisbee too! I always got a kick out of that.
Submitted by Cherubae

Mario is Missing!

One of the questions in the Rome part of this game is:
Who painted the Sistine Chapel Ceiling?
A.Donatello
B.Michaelangelo
C.Leonardo
D.Splinter
Submitted by me!

3-2-1 Contact - Magazine

MAD Magazine

MAD did several ninja turtle spoofs, and an entire TMNT special issue. I'll try to get the exact issues.
Submitted by Me!