I received my first Ninja Turtle toy -- a "Wacky Action Raphael" figure -- from my brother on Christmas in 1989. At the time, TMNT was completely foreign to me. I hadn't quite latched on to the phenomenon; in fact, I stubbornly avoided watching the cartoon at all. After getting that action figure, something felt different. A fanship the likes of which I hadn't experienced since much earlier in my childhood was stirring, and after noticing Shredder and Krang on the cover of a spiral notebook about a week later, nothing would ever be the same. I'd gone from apathetic to absolutely obsessed, surrounding myself with as much Ninja Turtle crap as possible ever since. Nations could be fed for what was spent to keep my TMNT toy collection up to date. As a child with very little to do and without the skills to keep up with the stickball kids, I let this little craze hit me with force, with glee and with open arms. As he said in the movie, Michaelangelo "loved being a turtle." As I said to my friends on the ride home from the theater, I loved Michaelangelo.
The earliest TMNT action figures included the four green heroes with soft rubber heads which would later be swapped out for hard plastic. On these early figures, the packaging featured an exclusive offer to help introduce fans to this new dynamo. Here's a scan of one such teaser...
I've since lost the booklet, but the teaser advises to find "details inside" about the legendary "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Club Kit." A lot of toylines over the years had these kinds of kits -- even the smaller lines -- but I doubt many would've created as much excitement without the benefit of four cool turtles and a big rat who offered bright yellow news reporters sushi in the sewer. The kit wasn't intended as a revenue source, but rather to create loyalty for a kiddy franchise that was aiming to be around for a long time. So, you'd prepare the little letter, send it off, and wait. And wait and wait again. For how long? Come on, you should know it by now.
"Six to eight weeks."
Article continued below advertisement: Visit our sponsors to support the site!
Each day that passed was tormenting, and when the mailman arrived empty-handed, he may as well have been smacking kids across the head with absolutely huge pieces of wood. For those six to eight weeks, the only thing that mattered to kids was getting that stupid kit. We'd gone past desire, blown through craved and landed squarely in the middle of need. Our lifeline was so far away -- lost somewhere within the many cities of a standard mail route. When would it come? When it was damned ready.
The wait nearly killed us, but the suspense was justified. Finally, the fan club kits would arrive, and finally, we could give up our daily ritual of waiting by the mailbox like puppies who got their instincts confused and considered mailmen their masters. Here's a look at everything young TMNT enthusiasts received straight from Mirage Studios' underground sewer lair...
"Your Turtle Force Membership Has Arrived!" I already knew that! I was holding it!
It's not common for kids to receive anything in the mail -- maybe a few birthday checks from a distant grandmother, a few kiddy catalogs and that was it. It was always very exciting to me as a child to get mail, and it's a passion I carry with me to this day. Getting mail is beyond important; if the mailman drops by and there's nothing for me, the rest of the day is ruined. I don't care if it's just the phone bill. I need mail to reinforce the memory of my street address on a daily basis. There was a point to this paragraph, but I completely forgot what I was trying to say.
Oh wait, it's back now. When a kid received something like a Ninja Turtles fan club kit, it was no time to be hasty in ripping apart that envelope. Think of Ralphie with his Ovaltine secret decoder thing. This was a huge event, and I'd bet that most kids used steam to open those envelopes with as little damage as possible. We'd carry the whole kit everywhere we went, envelope at all. To school, to the store, to our relatives' houses...the relationship grew borderline symbiotic. We got pride from the TMNT kit, and the TMNT kit got to call itself "well traveled" from us. It was really beautiful, actually. Hey fuck you.
I'm sure there's only sixteen people out there are interested in an old Ninja Turtles fan club kit, and of those sixteen, maybe one or two could give a shit about the envelope. So, moving on...
Shown above is the introductory letter from good ol' P.J. Van Egeren, the fan club president. I'm not sure if that's a real person or someone Mirage Studios made up because they were sick of forging signatures from Donatello. Nobody was buying it, folks. Even if Donatello was real, there's no way his liberally drawn hands could possibly work a pen.
"Dear Concerned Citizen..." Always nice to kick things off with a compliment. Apparently, the membership was only good for one year. After that, you had to pass vigorous tests, both physically and mentally, proving your continued worth as a true Turtle Force dignitary. And you had to throw them ten bucks or something, too. The letter also confirms that, as a member, we were obligated to battle evil wherever it was found. I assume most kids took this to mean that crapping out of the box and eating with their hands was no longer an option.
The letter continues on with a description of the kit's contents, and also promises a yearlong subscription to the TMNT newsletter, "The Chaos Chronicle." Oh man, I could think of so many better titles for a Ninja Turtles newsletter. "Splinter's Voice?" "Speak N' Shell?" "Printed Sheets Of Paper Containing Ninja Turtles Articles, Stapled Together?"
Ending on a rather mysterious note, P.J. warns that bad guys don't always wear costumes. I don't know if that's necessarily true within the confines of Ninja Turtles lore, but I guess it's a better parting note than P.J. mentioning his rumored fetish of violating fruit. Yeah, that way. Coming up on Channel 6: fan club president fucks fruit.
Of course, the kit contained your official membership card -- numbered, signed and totally notarized. A larger, suitable-for-framing version of the card was also included. This probably provided kids with their very first reason to obtain a wallet. Considering the time period, I guess the second and third reasons ranged from Paula Abdul newspaper clipping to Weekly Reader test cheatsheets.
The sticker shown above was also tucked inside the envelope, featuring a "Mutant Power!" slogan and four Raphaels. Actually, no -- this kit came out during the very early-goings of TMNT's massive hold on children, and the kit used the heroes' comic book look. Even more interesting is the fact that fans of the TMNT comic generally hated the progression towards toys and cartoons. To say the transition was less than faithful is an understatement -- the comic stories were comparatively much darker, and you could even argue that they weren't quite "meant for kids." The idea of four humanoid turtles doing battle atop city skyscrapers was too good to resist, so the rights were sold and the rest is history. Of course, I didn't mind. I was way too young to give a shit if Donatello wasn't so goofy in the comics. I was only interested in recreating his trademark purple bandana.
Thanks to the fan club kit, now I could!
Of course, few kids know how to tie a bandana. I still can't pull it off. Sacrilegiously enough, most of the things probably ended up as snotrags. P.J. would've had a fit at the sight of something like that. Thank God he's dead.
Even if we couldn't tie it, an official TMNT bandana was something to brag about. At the time, most of your friends would've also been fans of the greenios, and they likely would've begged and pleaded to try the thing on. "Just once??" No friggin' way. It's understood that kids don't like to share, but I'm going to take it a step further: kids very much enjoy not sharing. Dangling the carrot was our favorite pastime. So, your friend wanted to try on that bandana? "Maybe in a little while. Maaaybe."
No worries, though. If you ran the risk of taking pity on your poor friends and going against ever fiber of your being by sharing, the kit offered a solution...
For just three bucks, you could order a second bandana for your friend! You'd be so gracious and giving and heroic, just like P.J.'s stupid letter told you to!
Apparently, the fabled bandana warehouse was located in Schaumburg, Illinois. I never knew the city existed, and now I know that they've got a bandana plant. This kit was a teaching tool disguised as entertainment. It's the kind of thing that'd make Bill Cosby slap someone five.
Oh yeah, you got a comic book, too. It's nothing like those "Archie" TMNT comics that came out a few years later, but rather hearkens back to their grittier roots. It's all in black-and-white, April's a frizzy brunette, and the Turtles...well, they're actually pretty cool. There's still a lot of humor in the stories -- it was just more subtle and designed for the kind of audience that didn't throw tantrums at the sight of a toothbrush. The comic is only a few pages long and doesn't really go anywhere, but still manages to end with a great cliffhanger as April agrees to sleep in the Turtles' sewer lair because a huge dragon bit the roof off of her apartment building. I kid you not.
You can say whatever you want about their true motives and intentions, but this was a great service to us young fans. The kit was something to look forward to, something to enjoy, and because of that silly letter from P.J. (rest in peace), the kit even encouraged kids to read. We only read about our included membership card and uncostumed villains, but hey, we were still reading. A+.
Probably more remembered by TMNT fans were the "Pizza Points" and all of the wonderful things they granted us access to. A Pizza Point was the equivalent of a proof-of-purchase, and after you collected a bunch of the things, you could trade 'em in for various Ninja Turtle goodies. Weird stuff, too -- lots of stationary, frisbees, plastic dinnerware and other oddball items. Occasionally, they'd even offer exclusive repaints of existing action figures in this manner, which have now appreciated in value and cost about as much as your very own planet.
Now that I've explained the inner mysteries of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Fan Club Kit, I fully expect each and every one of you to be a better person. P.J. has set the example -- let's follow his lead. Let's help old ladies cross the street, let's never spit gum on the ground again. Let's be Ninja Turtles without shells or a TV show. You know, let's do our part.
I received my first Ninja Turtle toy -- a "Wacky Action Raphael" figure -- from my brother on Christmas in 1989. At the time, TMNT was completely foreign to me. I hadn't quite latched on to the phenomenon; in fact, I stubbornly avoided watching the cartoon at all. After getting that action figure, something felt different. A fanship the likes of which I hadn't experienced since much earlier in my childhood was stirring, and after noticing Shredder and Krang on the cover of a spiral notebook about a week later, nothing would ever be the same. I'd gone from apathetic to absolutely obsessed, surrounding myself with as much Ninja Turtle crap as possible ever since. Nations could be fed for what was spent to keep my TMNT toy collection up to date. As a child with very little to do and without the skills to keep up with the stickball kids, I let this little craze hit me with force, with glee and with open arms. As he said in the movie, Michaelangelo "loved being a turtle." As I said to my friends on the ride home from the theater, I loved Michaelangelo.
