Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: We Wish You a Turtle Christmas

Tune in as we unearth a 1994 cash-grab video starring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — or at least some version of them — a special so low-quality, it happens in a sewer.

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🎙 Guests:

Shawn Robare (Branded in the ’80s, Cult Film Club, @ShawnRobare).

Jonathan Zelenak (@TheSewerDen).

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💬 Topics & Tangents:

1. About the Sewer Den, Jonathan’s massive TMNT collection, and his blog post about We Wish You a Turtle Christmas.

2. Of course we touch on the Turtles’ Coming Out of Their Shells Tour.

3. The Turtles’ smiles look like they’re from Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun music video.

4. Cash-grab video releases like this anime version of The Little Mermaid from 1975, which had a not-at-all-coincidental resurgence around 1990.

5. Writer Tish Rabe also produced Big Bird in China and 3-2-1 Contact, created The Cat in the Hat Learning Library after Dr. Seuss’s death, and has written over 160 children’s books.

6. Y’all want to watch 43 minutes of the Ninja Turtles on Oprah?

7. That time a warehouse that housed the Rock-afire Explosion actually exploded.

8. The resurgence of Rollerblades is right around the corner.

9. The only pizza place willing to appear in this special is Sbarro, which has come a long way since the Fat Boys’ All You Can Eat.

10. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pizza Cookbook is a real book you should own.

11. The cheapest gifts we’ve ever gotten our parents from our elementary school Christmas bazaar.

12. Fun game: Sneak the Wrap Rap on a playlist in the middle of New Kids on the Block’s Christmas album and see if anyone notices.

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“We Wish You a Turtle Christmas” © 1994 Christopher Films, Inc. / Mirage Studios.

Full show notes with links at adventcalendar.house.
Say hi on Twitter @adventcalhouse.

Theme song by Bronwen’s Ghost.
Full show notes and social links at adventcalendar.house.