The Ramblings of Guise Dugal

Ninja Night! Ninja Night! Ninja Night! Ninja Night! Ninja Night! Ninja Night! Ninja Night!

So for Friday night I decided that I was going to have a night of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and wanted to write about something that always stuck with me about the movie.

No, it isn’t a review of the movie, as that is so overdone.

It isn’t about the childhood memory of the first time I saw it, which was actually a pirated copy from Cyprus that my friend got before the movie came out in the UK and was about 30-45 minutes longer because it had all the fight footage with nunchuks kept in.

It’s not even about how the movie stays cool even to this date.

No, you likely came here to see a self-depreciating, embarrassing memory tied to a strange segue that leads to a non-rewarding payoff that will be forgotten more than that guy with the green eyes who smiled at you today as he let you pass. Remember him? Nope.

When I was a kid I was in to all sorts of clubs and organisations. Usually one at a time, and very rarely for any real length. I was a Beaver, a Cub, and for about a week a full Scout. I was in Boy’s Brigade. I was in Swim Club. Then my friend, the same friend who had the pirate video of Turtles started to attend a youth club in the town. Now we’d both been members of village youth clubs in the past, supported by funding from the local parish councils, and really those were a disappointment – you got school disco music and a ‘tuck shop’ selling not-even-discounted sweets.

The promise came of a youth club with a Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) to play Mortal Kombat on, a pool table, crafts and a sports hall. My friend’s mother was a volunteer for the club. The only drawback was that it was a YMCA youth club. Now, we’re not going to go down any cheap jokes on the YMCA or anything, because this is all about me, dammit.

You see, the youth club ran every Friday and one night they had karaoke night at the Y. I was only about nine and I could pretty much be talked in to anything. ‘Anything’ in this instance being participating in karaoke.

‘Anything’ in this instance being videotaped participating in karaoke.

‘Anything’ in this instance being videotaped participating in karaoke singing “YMCA”.

Anything’ in this instance being videotaped participating in karaoke singing “YMCA” and doing the movements.

…Anything’ in this instance being videotaped participating in karaoke singing “YMCA” and doing the movements for a promotional video that would resurface two years later when I moved to Secondary School, and shown to every House Group during assemblies. Eventually I had to move school.*

Guess what? It turns out the video was shown to all Secondary Schools in the area.

This of course is far away from the club I had hoped for (prepare for segue), what I’d hoped for was the club displayed in a simple throwaway scene in the first Turtles movie, a scene that barely managed a paragraph in the novelisation.

The establishing shot of what was known as ‘Pleasure Island’. Set to MC Hammer rap and mixing Pinnochio’s Pleasure Island with a bootleg Kool-Aid Warehouse.

A place where kids smoked fat cubans over a pool table, drank Miller while playing poker and flooded arcade consoles like NARC with quarters that didn’t even come from their allowance. Skateboards were ridden and in the back room, instead of one basketball hoop with a half-detached net, kids trained to be ninjas. Screw the cartoon robot warriors, angsty teenagers are best for fighting.

“Got any cigarettes?”
“Regular…or Menthol?”

“Go. Play!” ~ Tetsu

No matter how old I get or how often I see it, I can’t view the scene with the Foot’s hideout without a sense of awe and longing. The thought of just how amazing that place would be and how few places have even come close. Really the only rivals for teenagers to look up to were Ernie’s Juice Bar in Power Rangers and the Dojo from VR Troopers, and neither manages to scratch the surface.

With the choice between being video taped singing and dancing to Kung-Fu Fighting or YMCA, I’m going for the chopping and kicking. Besides, there is something to say for the genius in setting up your own private army of street thugs and youthful ninjas, based on the illusion of freedom.

To see it in action, through the glory of YouTube before it gets pulled:

* Before you call Bullshit, I did move school shortly afterwards, but for completely different reasons.