Critics said 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' would flop. They underestimated Turtle Power

Iwon't lie to you: as a child in the early '90s, I was too young to fully appreciate the Darwinian wonders of chemically-mutated turtles who roamed the sewers of New York City under the guidance of a human-sized rat. I certainly couldn't have spelled out "bodacious," either. And yet, I never once questioned the appeal of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ( TMNT ).

A cartoon about four anthropomorphic reptile brothers who shared the names of Italian renaissance artists — Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and my personal favorite, Michelangelo — while on a quest to defeat an armor-bedecked villain named The Shredder and his Foot Clan henchmen, it's all my older brother and I watched. For years, these turtles who survived on a pizza-only diet, practiced the art of ninjutsu, and skateboarded became