A Ridiculous What if...the Ninja Turtle grew up

So everyone grows up...I mean most people do. Peter Pan fans (Hook aside) know that not everyone grows up. Some of us though are still deeply connected to our childhood. From the generation before mine that loves to see shows like Leave it to Beaver to my brother and I who were talking about He-Man (movie and show) yesterday online, often things that were special to us then still are to some extent now, even if we can sit back and see how ridiculous they actually are. And some we find just as entertaining.

Well last night as I sought something to watch as I went to sleep I decided to put in the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. And as I watched it I began to ponder (the same pondering that in fact inspired the movie Hook) what it would be like when these turtles grew up, since they are only teenagers now. So for a little bit of Armchair Fun (and do take it as that and nothing more), here is my prediction on where the Turtles ended up (I realize there are new TMNT shows, but that's alternate universe as far as I'm concerned):



Leonardo grows up to find that only his brothers considered him a charismatic leader. Everyone else finds him whiny. In search of that power, he lands himself a role as night manager at Burger King, where his attempts at being a great leader are similar to those of Chad Vader. In addition he volunteers at a Karate Dojo where he is the most disliked instructor and regularly makes children cry because of his own insecurities. He also demoted himself to blue belt, just because that is the color he always wears. He is the most lonely guy out there, and sends all his friends away. April still sends him a Christmas Card, but hasn't told him she moved to a place down the street from his apartment - which by the way has all blue furniture.



Michelangelo went off to college, where he got really into the party scene. Too much so in fact. His crazy fun attitude about life got him deep into drinking parties and eventually he flunked out. Now he has two creepy turtle-like children with women whose names he did not even know. He is still living with Splinter because all of his money from his part time job at Kinkos (which he barely holds down) goes to child support. He gets really uncomfortable around April owing to an awkward alcohol related experience that they both promised never to speak of again. His beer belly, though partly hidden, has begun to pour out of his shell. He is still a Pizza-fanatic, and still loves the weird toppings. His current favorite is Pizza topped with Rum Cake and Schnapps. His California surfer talk is now mixed with a Mike Tyson slur after a series of alcohol related nunchuck accidents in the frat house. He still skateboards everywhere, since the state of New York won't let him get a license for another 10 years after he crashed the Turtle Van last spring.

Raphael is in prison. He never got over his renegade attitude, and Youtube now features a rather popular security video of that attitude resulting him getting physical with a couple of New York Air Port Security Officers after giving one the 2nd finger (which is his middle finger) over their insistence that he needed to remove his mask for Airport Security. Don't get me wrong, he whooped those security guards, he's a ninja turtle after all. But instead of practicing the art of invisibility his ego caused him to stay and humiliate the officers. And if you start trouble in a New York Airport after 9/11, you better practice the art of invisibility. After two years in Guantanimo he was sentenced to fifteen more years in upstate New York. He shares a cell with Casey Jones, who was arrested after he beat up Brett Favre for trying to come out of retirement again with another comeback in New York. Jones is after all, an avid sports fan. He tried to shank Raph in order to join a prison gang, but found that plastic toothbrushes melted into stabbing weapons do little against a turtle shell. Raph beat him up for trying, naturally. Although he later apologized as part of his required in-prison anger management sessions. There he discovered a lot of his bent up rage was because he also felt Splinter loved Leo more than him, and his whole attitude was a "cry for attention". Or so the prison psychologist says.



Donatello hit it big as an inventor. He was a silent partner in the entire iPhone phenomenon. The Turtle Communicators being early models of the eventual product. Steve Jobs was the smile, Donnie was the inventor. After Jobs' death Donnie was forced into retirement, not having a pretty boy to market his ideas. He now is on the writing staff for Big Bang Theory, although he still occasionally writes apps for Apple, such as the "which Ninja Turtle are you?" app which if you never realized is rigged to always answer "Donatello". He also wrote the Angry Turtles game, which features Raph getting launched at the Technodrome. He is on to his second gold-digger wife, who Splinter hates. So he doesn't come home often, especially now that Mikey is always asking him to loan him money. Although very successful, he still is stuck in nostalgia, missing the exciting action of his Teenage Years. Occasionally he pays people to reenact his old battles with Shredder, although as is common with nostalgia, the history has changed some and it really looks nothing like the old episodes. It usually ends with the other three praising him for saving the day, and April lamenting that their love would never be accepted. In 2011, he bought out Krang and now controls the foot soldiers and works out of the Technodrome. He has become his own enemy and April "Doesn't even know who he is anymore!"

Splinter enjoyed 2 years of peace after the Turtles moved out. He had a brief thing with Mini-Mouse but that was quickly over after Michelangelo moved back in. He also decided to take up Yoga, which he found much more preferable to ninjitsu in his old age. He became an Episcopalian, but was too ashamed to let them know when Mikey came home so he became a lapsed Catholic, where he figured alcoholic family and children named Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael was more normal. This new found faith has aloud him to add guilt to wisdom as he speaks to his children. April comes by a lot, and he suspects she's going to put him in a home...or the zoo.

Shredder came out of the closet and has been living la vita loca ever since. His obsession with catching Amotoyoshi (Splinter) which brought him all the way to New York he realized was his homosexual tendencies towards Amotoyoshi going back to their days together in Japan. He realized this when he could not shake the recurring dreams of Krang in the "body" suite. This was confirmed when it occurred to him he built that body suite for Krang, and decided to give it no clothes but underwear and suspenders. Once it was clear to him that Krang would never give him the steady relationship he wanted and was really quite abusive, he left him. Now he uses his marital arts techniques to own the dance floor in New York gay bars. He goes by 'Aroco' now (a nickname from his true name Arocosaki). Splinter, Krang, the turtles are all a thing in the past. Although Bebop and Rocksteady are still a part of his life, coming over on the holidays and playing monopoly with him once a month (which he always wins). He still wears the cape, but after a terrible accident that left three people dead no longer wears the blades to the club.

Krang was really bothered when he realized Shredder used that body suite for his own purposes. He always did find that suite drafty. The sense of betrayal led him to decide to return to Dimension X. He sold the foot clan and the Technodrone to Donatello for far less than he paid for it due to the housing crash and tight economy. Unfortunately in Dimension X he was not welcome, still exiled. And with no body to run away, he was easily killed. No one came to his funeral. It's unclear if that is because no one liked him or because Leonardo gave the Eulogy and as predicted spent the whole time talking about himself.


April lost her job as a reporter to a younger, more attractive girl. No longer doing the channel 6 happy hour news, she wrote for the newspaper for a while. But soon it was clear that she had gotten spoiled from the free scoops the turtles were giving her, and she lacked any real investigative reporting skills. And so in 4 months the paper let her go. That night Michelangelo invited her to a party to get her mind off of things. But we're not supposed to talk about that. Now she works at a pet store, but refuses to sell turtles or rats. She also does a weekly podcast which no one watches but Raph. Leo will watch if she tells him that she mentioned him in it. She visits Splinter a lot because she figures he too must miss the old days of 'Turtle Power', but she usually only visits early in the morning when Mikey is still passed out.


Bebop and Rocksteady are roommates in the Bronx. After Krang sold the Technodrome they were evicted. They lived on the street for a little bit, until they got steady jobs as telemarketers. Now they live comfortably. They visit Shredder...I mean "Aroco"...on a regular basis. Every once in a while they try to get Donnie to get them a chance to pitch Apple a new idea they have. But he has been weary of doing this since they proposed the iToilet. They're still idiots. But happy idiots.

Childhood never lasts forever. Adults always would say to me to enjoy my teenage years because they will blow by. And once gone, their gone. The Ninja Turtles would inevitably have to grow up into the realities of life. And the end of their adventures, would impact those whose lives were deeply connected to the adventures of these young, green, fighting teens.