As the Turtles grew in popularity, their outside media presence also increased, as TV reports and newspaper stories began to run about the influence the franchise was having on children – both good and bad. “Some other Southern California day-care centers and preschools also are waging war against the reptiles, concerned that Turtle play is sparking violence and aggression,” Kathleen Doheny wrote in an LA Times article dated August 27th 1990. “Some day-care centers and schools have banned Turtle wear and toys. Others forbid Turtle weapons, but allow children to wear shirts and other gear. Some ration Turtle power, allowing children to show off their favorite Turtle toys one or two days a week at ‘share’ time. And anti-war activist Jerry Rubin, director of the Los Angeles Alliance for Survival, is offering Teddy bears to kids who turn in their Turtles.”
Across the pond, the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and UK government had decreed that the word ‘ninja’ was too violent and demanded a name change as well as the removal of Michelangelo’s nunchaku. “It was disappointing really,” Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles director Steve Barron said of the censorship of the first movie. “It came out in the States how it was and how we made it, but I think the BBFC were under pressure for other reasons at the time and they changed the title. It was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles everywhere as a brand, but over here [in the UK] it was Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles. It was a real compromise. I thought it was completely unnecessary and frustrating. I didn’t generally deal with them directly, it was just something they were passing the law on.” Kevin Eastman notes, “There was some criticism against the first movie, that it was too violent for the younger audience it was intended for. But we always took the position that it was never intended for a younger audience, it was intended for all audiences. You have to include the parents who take the kids to see the movie as well as the kids themselves. The old Bugs Bunny cartoons had jokes that were intended for an older audience, but they had the antics for the younger audience.”
Langen’s original script for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze reflected the tone of the first movie which Eastman and Laird had signed off on, but the outside pressures forced the writer to re-draft. “The studio decided, despite what the original script read, they wanted to really lean it towards a live action cartoon,” Eastman recalls. “So there were a lot of things that were softened even further. The Turtles barely used their weapons. It took it a step too far in a direction we didn’t think was necessary or needed to be done. But that was the way it was directed.” Barron adds: “[It was] lighter, and all the instructions that had gone on from the first film were coming from the producers about keeping the colour and lightness and getting away from the dark edge in number two… For me it was poppy, and that wasn’t my sensibility.” Donatello suit actor Leif Tilden agrees saying, “The script was disappointing. Even less dark [than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles] but I understood why. I still believe kids can and want dark material. There’s nothing wrong with the shadow.”
Taking Barron’s place as director was Michael Pressman, who had helmed over a dozen made-for-TV movies, and was chosen by Gray as he could deliver feature films quickly and on budget. Because of the rushed schedule to get the movie out, several members of the cast would not be able to return including Corey Feldman as the voice of Donatello, but also Elias Koteas and Judith Hoag who were never approached to return as Casey Jones and April O’Neill respectively. While it’s never been clarified, Koteas has been quoted as saying his negative thoughts on the first movie led to him not returning, and Hoag’s complaints about a six-day shooting week led to her re-casting. “Everybody was beating everybody up,” Hoag told Variety in 2014. “I thought the movie suffered because of that. It was something I spoke to the producers about, I think they thought I was too demanding, and moved on.” She added: “It was a really challenging shoot. They had all these stunt people who came in from Hong Kong, who had no union protections. They were getting hurt. As soon as they were injured, they were shipped out of there. It was not the safest set to be on. That’s a little distressing. People are doing the movie, doing the best they can on the budget and I think producers lose sight sometimes there are actual human beings involved.” Koteas told Yahoo! in 2014, “Quite honestly, my life at that time was in such turmoil. That’s really what I remember. The job was a reprieve from that: going and playing with Turtles and pretending I’m this swashbuckling, tree-swinging, rooftop vigilante guy.”
Brought into the cast were Paige Turco as the new April O’Neill, British thespian David Warner as Professor Jordon Perry and Ernie Reyes Jr., who had originally been a stunt performer for Donatello in the first movie and was promoted by Gray to the new character Keno. “I got to know the producers from Golden Harvest really well and they were really happy with the work I did on the first movie,” Reyes Jr. told Chicago Now in 2012. “So the very next summer I got a call from my agent saying they were sending over a script and they made a role specifically for me. I read it and I was like this is a dream come true and the movie was becoming a huge success. Another positive was I didn’t have to wear the costume and dying of heat exhaustion.” Tilden adds: “We were all happy for Ernie because that is what his dream was, to be a fighter like Bruce lee. Ernie is amazing.”
Released on March 22nd 1991, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze opened at number one to $20 million, a slight dip from the previous film’s debut. However the film did stay at the top of the box office for the next three weeks, finally being dethroned by Steve Segal’s Out for Justice. Reviews for the film were again unkind with Desmond Ryan of Philadelphia Inquirer saying “The plot of Turtles II hinges on toxic waste and that turns out to be a pretty accurate description of the film” and Siskel and Ebert once again dismissed the movie. “Today’s kids are learning from the Turtles that the world is a sinkhole of radioactive waste,” Siskel wrote, “that it’s more reassuring to huddle together in sewers than take your chances competing at street level, and that individuality is dangerous. Cowabunga.” Eberts added, “I don’t think my negative reaction is a case of a parent forgetting the sort of mindless entertainment that he himself enjoyed as a child; rather the turtle fights are more depressing than joyful.” Ironically, many of the bad reviews wanted the film to return to the darker tones of the first movie, something it was criticised for a year earlier.
For Tom Gray however, the bad reviews were not the issue with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. “We went out and did $84 million [in total] with the second picture,” he recalls. “I thought it was pretty shocking to drop that much, and the budget had gone from $11 million to $16 million.” He adds: “We didn’t put a lot of thought in the writing of the second film. We grabbed Todd Langen and said, ‘hey let’s go, we got to get another picture in a year’. We just started throwing things together, and then the music guys come in and say, ‘hey we’ve got Vanilla Ice, we’ve got to have a dance number’. And then it became really merchandising and video chasing a storyline. And that’s what’s what almost always happens when you get into the sequel. You try and stay true to what makes it work, but you have to move it along. And we thought with the coming of MTV that’s the direction we should go – and that’s why the film is the way it is.”
While the decision to not include Bebop and Rocksteady was an annoyance for Kevin Eastman, the actual depiction of their replacements was an even bigger disappointment. “The intention of those characters were that they would be vicious wild animals that were uncontrollable bad guys,” he says of Tokka and Rahzar. “The spin in the movie, however, was that they weren’t bad at all. They were just jokes. I wasn’t very happy with the end result.”
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze was not the blockbuster hit Golden Harvest or New Line were hoping for, and rather than rush out another picture the following year, they decided to wait and formulate a better story for their third outing.
My thanks to Tom Gray, Leif Tilden and Kevin Eastman for their time contributing to this article. Steve Barron’s quotes are taken from this interview I conducted with him in 2014.
Next week, Luke Owen sits down with Tom Gray, Kevin Eastman and Stuart Gillard to discuss Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III…
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth and the co-host of The Flickering Myth Podcast and Scooperhero News. You can follow him on Twitter @ThisisLukeOwen and read his weekly feature The Week in Star Wars.
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