Coincidentally, the Ninja Turtles theme song has come up twice this week in my day-to-day life. On Sunday I was hanging out on a friend's balcony and we reverted to our childhoods (t
his is very common for us). We watched an episode of "Where in the 
World is Carmen Sandiego?" and the opening theme of "Ghostbusters." We discussed "My Pet Monster" and just before we went back to being mature adults (this consisted of going inside and playing Mario Tennis on N64) we had a quick run-through of the theme song for "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." The run-through was flawless... or so we thought.
The lyrics to that song are embedded in the brains of countless children of the 80s and early 90s, and apprently taken for granted. A couple of days ago I posted a piece of info about the upcoming TMNT movie on my Facebook page and received a comment from a friend with a line from the theme. I thought the lyrics she wrote were wrong and made fun of her. She told me that she got the lyrics online. I have since researched the topic extensively (took 10 seconds to google the lyrics) and had my world turned upside down. Here are the lyrics to the theme from the official TMNT website:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Heroes in a half-shell
Turtle power!
They're the world's most fearsome fighting team (We're really hip!)
They're heroes in a half-shell and they're green (Hey - get a grip!)
When the evil Shredder attacks
These Turtle boys don't cut him no slack!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Splinter taught them to be ninja teens (He's a radical rat!)
Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines (That's a fact, Jack!)
Raphael is cool but crude (Gimme a break!)
Michaelangelo is a party dude (Party!)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Heroes in a half shell
Turtle power!
http://www.ninjaturtles.com/cartoon/theme.htm
Do you see what's wrong? Look at the third line of the second paragraph. Raphael is cool but CRUDE??? No chance. Everyone knows he's rude. How is this possible? At first I considered that maybe I had just missed something that everyone else already knew, but then I thought back to Sunday's chill on the balcony and distinctly remembered that we sang that Raphael is rude, not crude. There are few things I claim to know for certain. I know that Leonardo leads. I know that Donatello does machines. I know that Michelangelo is a party dude. And I sure as shit know that Raphael is cool but rude!
I YouTubed the song. The lyric in question is about 40 seconds in. What do you think?
He's plain old rude, making sarcastic comments and such. If any one of the TMNT were crude, it would be Michelangelo. I stick to my guns on this one. RUDE!!!
ReplyDeleteWell if you listen to the whole song there is more than just that one inconsistency.
ReplyDelete1) The lyrics say 'they're heroes in A half-shell" whereas the song itself clearly says "they're heroes in THE half-shell"
2) The lyrics say "Michaelangelo is a party dude (PARTY!)" whereas the song says "Michaelangelo is a party dude (TADA!)"
So I think that while those might be the official lyrics the people who actually sang the song just plain didn't stick to the lyrics when they recorded the song