If you’re anything like me or I imagine most of the readers of Sick Chirpse then you probably spent at least some of your childhood watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on TV. And on the big screen. And playing the vide0 games. And collecting action figures of them and little medals of them and trading cards and stickers and all manner of crap. Basically if you grew up in the 90’s (the early 90’s at least, although I’m pretty sure that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were pretty big throughout the whole decade) then I’m pretty sure the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would have been a fairly staple part of your childhood. I’m pretty sure that you probably used to jump around the playground shouting Cowabunga – which as we all know is their most famous catchphrase – throughout most of your youth too.
I’m pretty sure that they’ve been on TV recently in some kind of new animated form although I’m not sure if it’s anywhere near as popular is it used to be. Probably not? In any case, Nickelodeon somehow have the rights to the show now and have rebooted it, only without the Cowabunga catchphrase. Instead, they’ve replaced it with BOYAKASHA. No, this isn’t a joke. The new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are going to be using Ali G’s catchphrase instead of the iconic Cowabunga.
Does that even make sense? Boyakasha is more of a ‘brap brap brap’ kinda thing rather than a ‘Hey we’re diving into the unknown to fight Krang and Shredder again guys, Cowabunga!’ Like Cowabunga is more a Geronimo kinda battle cry because the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were fun loving rogues, whereas Boyakasha is the kind of thing an idiot North London rudeboy might have said in 2005. It just doesn’t add up. Why take that away from the turtles? I mean next they’ll probably be eating burritos instead of pizza, or living in a cool New York penthouse rather than the sewers. If you’re gonna ‘reboot’ something for a new audience you have to keep the core elements of it the same otherwise what’s the point? You might as well just create a new idea rather than say you’re ‘rebooting’ something when you actually change most of the stuff about it. Everyone knows that reboots are never as good as the original anyway.
If you’re wondering how this change came around you can read this statement from the executive in charge of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot, who is bizarelly named Ciro Nieli. He was probably handgroomed for this job from the day he was born with a name like that. Anyway, here’s what he had to say:
‘There was a lot of talk about what the new ‘cowabunga’ was, or whether it should even remain ‘cowabunga.’ We hadn’t initially come up with anything yet because we didn’t really necessarily need it [at the time]. But then when we were at the record, one of the actors – Greg Cipes, who actually plays Michelangelo – just kind of went for it. When he said it in the room, there were a lot of executives there. I think it was our first record. And it was that moment when he said it – I think he just really pulled it off and kind of won everybody over in the room. And it stuck’
Yeah, we’ll see how long it sticks Ciro. I doubt many people who read Sick Chirpse were actually planning on watching the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – and I would like to think that if anyone was planning to watch it that there’s definitely no chance of it happening now – but it’s great to know that your childhood is being slowly erased/destroyed/altered isn’t it? Boyakasha!
If you’re upset about the 90’s being destroyed/rebooted maybe these links will cheer you up:
90’s footballers who look like your dad
Top 10 90’s B-movies that were shit but completely awesome at the same time
90’s trends that seemed like a good idea at the time
