Hey everyone,
Guess this is a weird topic for most people, I mean 'being a turtle?' What is this? A topic for role players? No this is a topic for those who have wore costumes be it for work or fun as a Ninja Turtle.
My story goes back to 1990, and the beginning of it can already be found here on TMNT-L in the topic "
Coming Out of Their Shells Tour". The feeling of being a Turtle at the tour was something I couldn't get off my mind. I LOVED it! The idea of people being around me, having fun, and no one... no one picking on me at all. It was so different from my normal life. Though I thought that would be the only time I would ever have a feeling like that... as life went back to normal after the concert. My costume was used for Halloween, than in November we went to Chicago for a Si-Fi con called "Windy Con".
My dad was a guest at the convention, he had a panel on how to make costumes that he did at conventions. So the family goes to these events. For this convention he made me a Krang to wear on my shoulders. The mouth would open and shut, at this event I met
Hot Head. He liked the Krang my dad made and we started to talk Turtles, he told me about the original Turtles that use to wear Red masks and was a comic book. Wow what new news that was to me!
While at this convention I got to wear my Turtle costume, and people started to ask the question... "Do you do Birthday parties?" I would say no and just go on with the con like normal, saying how my dad made the costume than run off and make friends with the other kids there and play games. Getting lost under Chicago was a lot of fun! After the event the question of "Do you do Birthday parties" stayed in my family's heads... so we first tested the waters here in Michigan by doing a photo shoot at a Flea Market. Getting a black back drop, making some more props, foam pizza and had the foam Krang. And we started, even with a tape deck playing the "Coming Out of Their Shells Tour Music" This was my first time going out there to show people that I wasn't just a costume, but a Turtle. This was fun, though there wasn't much kids that went through so a lot of the day was standing around.
This is when my mom started to do her research, we wrote up a Bday party plan, my dad made seven games that could be used for the parties, and we even had a script. My mom than called Surge to try and get the rights for the party, though the phone call was short and my mom never even got to say what she wanted to do. She just got to the point that we have a Turtle costume that's so good people think we should market them, before she could go on that this is about parties... the person said "We already have someone who does that" and hung up on her. Well that's when we started checking into other stuff... and learned from a local business lawyer that as long as we didn't call ourselves "Ninja Turtles" we were ok to go with this party idea. So the plan was made, we'd get some parties into our history so that next time we go to the companies we have at least some back ground. And that's when I got the title of "Mikey, The Party Turtle" I was not to say to anyone that I was a Ninja Turtle, nor could I call myself Michaelangelo.
I still clearly remember our first day doing a party, it was March 1991 and the scripts were just finished the day of the party. So they handed the scripts to my brother and I as we got in the car, we had lines to remember. My brother was "The bad guy" aka Bebop, who would crash the party. I remembered my lines all the way to the party, and got there. It was a bit crowded with kids, and I remember a thin white hall way I had to walk through a few times, I remember vaguely that we only missed one line (which was a joke when Bebop would come in) though other than that, the party was a hit. The memories of this party is not too strong, since it was so long ago. But I do remember the feeling after the party was pure excitement I so enjoyed every second of it. This was the beginning of a new life for me. One that I'll never forget.
The next few jobs was not Birthday parties, though the premiers for TMNT 2 in the Detroit area. The first two we did for free, our only fee was the family getting in to see the movie free. The first one was held by the "Dare" Program, which at the time I was a part of in school so we found it funny that we were doing something with them. This event was held at the AMC Southfield City 12 Theatre on March 16th, at Noon. Normal ticket price for anyone going was $10.
I remember we had to be at the theater by 11am, so that day we did not get to watch TMNT! I left the VCR recording, and left. Once we got there, there was kids already showing up and a radio station. We were staring at the movie poster knowing nothing about it, besides for two new mutants. Being TMNT fans who else would we believe those Mutants to be, but Bebop and Rocksteady. So when the kids asked, that is what we told them. Though the question that I thought I would get wrong took place by one of the fans that came... a child came up to me and asked "If you're the real Michaelangelo? Which episodes aired on TV today?" to this day I don't know how I did this, esp since I wasn't one of those fans who even read the titles of episodes I knew them by story more than names. Though some how, without even thinking about it, I said two titles right off.. the kid's jaw dropped. "WOW! You're right! You are the real Turtle!" Where did I get the titles? How did I know that? I'll never know... the kid ran off and told his mom that I was a real Turtle cause I knew the answer to his question. That was the first of many times where I answered questions that I should not have known the answers to.
We got interviewed by the Radio people that were there, and got to talk with all the kids. Right before the movie, we were allowed to get out of costume and go in watching it with the fans. Man did our jaws hit the ground when Tokka and Rahzar hit the screen... while other kids were cheering and going on about it, my head was spinning... 'what do we tell the kids after the movie?!!!' Though the answer was simple enough. It was right after the Turtles brought down Super Shredder that we got pulled out of the movie, to go get our costumes back on. And the answer we told the kids were... "What fun would it have been to tell you, we wanted to surprise you." And that answer went over well.
At this event they passed out TMNT 2 Sticker Albums, a magazine all about the movie, TMNT Pies, and Leo Suckers. This was my first time seeing and trying the pies and at first I was so hooked to them. I started to buy them all the time, and collected all of the stickers that came with them! Though I ended up buying so many I got sick of them.
The next event that took place for us was the main offical premiere... This one was held at the Showcase Cinemas in Pontica on Thursday, March 21st. With more backers behind it, like WXON 20 Detroit (which is now the WB network here in Detroit), 96.3FM Raido WHYT, and Crystic Fibrosis Foundation. The cost was $8.00 Minimum Donation, Proceeds Benefits Cystic Fibrosis. This was a bigger theater, though it felt great that we knew the answers to kids questions when they asked. We knew stuff that people didn't realize would be out already since we got to see the movie the Saturday before hand. So we did much better with this crowd, at least that's how we felt.
Before the movie started the radio company had a contest, to get free TMNT stuff. Miki got and gave to me, a TMNT 2 sample sound track type tape. With only one or two songs on it (heh what can I say I listened to the real sound track more than this tape
). We got to sit through the movie again, and once again had to miss the end to get into costume to say good bye to the kids as they were leaving the theater. It was a real honor to be there, and the feeling was great. This theater also gave away the goodies that the other one gave away, plus small TMNT 2 movie posters.
At both of these events we were giving away flyers for Bday parties and making sure our number got out to the public, and it was the beginning of the "Party Turtles" real career getting out there and meeting kids. No one can ever know the feelings that it gave me, inside. Seeing the smiles of others, feeling the warm and happy energy... there was no better feeling in the world than to make people happy. So that was the beginning of it.
Our next move to get the news about us, was to go around in the car to different places that we could put fliers from stores to schools. And where ever we went I was in costume, so we got a lot of attention. We also went and offered our services at Hospitals to see sick kids for free. I remember going to Little Ceasers and being able to eat in full costume in front of kids on one of these outings.
Well I wanna enter this before anything happens to the computer and I loose the post.
Though this is another review area where I'll have lots of stories and pictures to share. Going to tell ya know now that the main story of my memories is not near done as we're still in March 1991, and the parties last till August 1993. So I got a lot more stories to share, some may even be straight from my old Journal I kept in 1992 at school.
