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Thursday, February 25, 2010

TMNT Flashback: Movie Storybooks With Read-along Cassette



Back in the '90s, Random House released a series of TMNT books and read-along cassette tapes. Three of these sets included a cassette that narrated and performed an included comic book (reprints from the Archie series). The set pictured at left here included two brand new mini storybooks based on the first movie.

The interesting thing about these books is that while they are most obviously based on the movie, all of the artwork reflects the cartoon Turtles of the time. But the thing I love most here is the included cassette.

I remember listening to the cassette using my awesomely hip Sony Walkman while riding in the back seat of my parents' car on a family vacation... and realizing that the same guy who was narrating the story was also doing all of the voices of the different character. Oh, how I LOLed.

Now, it's not unusual for one person to read an audiobook and also do all of the voices, but I do think it is a bit more unusual for a children's tape. But really, in this case it just sounds ridiculous and silly. However, I shall leave it to you to judge for yourself.

For a limited time, I'm making both audio stories available for download here.

I'll also note that each side of the cassette features one of the two stories, read twice. Once without page turn signals and once with page turn signals. I never understood that much, either. Why not put both stories on each side of the cassette and only put the page turn signals on one side? The way it's set up you're stuck either listening to the same story twice in a row or playing the fast-forward game to find the version you want to listen to (ah, the joy of cassette players).

22 comments:

  1. Hey, Rose, thanks for sharing! I really like the first movie in the old cartoon style!

    Is it possible you could briefly put the download links up on Rapidshare or Megaupload? My network filer blocks the download link. :-(

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  2. If you shoot me an email I can hook you up.

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  3. Thank you! That's awesome... Is the narrator credited on there, by any chance? I'm curious to see who it is.

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  4. Hmm, no mention of the narrator from what I can see. Good question, though.

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  5. I had two audio comics the first one was the reprint of the first five episode of the old school series and the other one was those issues in between Archie issues where the turtles meet Leatherhead, do the galactic wrestling and they return back to earth to meet Wingnut and Screwlose.

    I felt the voice acting made my experience really enjoyable.

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  6. Yeah, I really liked those, too. Stay tuned, because those will definitely be featured in the near future. :)

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  7. -->> Hi, Jessica ..

    what kind of douche bag leaves a comment like that ?!

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  8. Is there any news on what Nick is going to do with the Turtles other then that the new show is going to be CGI?

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  9. Nope, nothing yet. If I come across any solid info you can be sure I'll be posting it here, though!

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  10. One thing I heard on a Youtube video that Nick might combine elements of both series which sounds like the Turtles from the Archie universe. I truly believe fans shouldn't worry about the turtles regressing for two reasons one "Avatar" and two "Wolverine and the X-Men"

    They would want the turtles series be able to bring in pre teen or teenage males so the turtles being over the top silly would drive them away.

    Quick question what is that "Dawn of the Ninja" site I know they're talking about a TMNT movie. Are they're suggesting what TMNT movie should be or are they actually trying to make a fan movie?

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  11. I wish, and it sounds really hard, that nick could pick up where the last toon left.

    I am not interested in seeing another dark or more mature version of the turtles when we had the one from 4kids these last years.

    If they say they want to do something like the archie comics or a new version like the old toon, that would be ok.

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  12. Yeah, YouTube is guaranteed to NOT be a good source of TMNT info for what may come in the future. Pretty much everything about what Nickelodeon will do is speculation. It has been stated by people at Mirage that they're interested in going the route of the old cartoon, but that is more likely to be in tone and not as a direct continuation of. I think TMNT fans should be very prepared for Nick to do something completely new that doesn't make any effort to borrow directly from any genre of Turtles.

    And "Dawn of the Ninja" is nothing more than a couple so-called fans with a lot of big words and little substance behind them. I would recommend you read this over on the Technodrome to get a better feel for who they really are:
    http://forums.thetechnodrome.com/showthread.php?t=29200

    A lot of posts have been removed from that conversation, unfortunately. Bottom line, though, is that these guys do not deserve your attention as TMNT fans.

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  13. I'm prepared for whatever Nick does to them, I just hope they follow the trend that "Avatar" and "Wolverine and the X-Men" have gone down. They can be silly but serious when moments call for it.

    I'm hoping Nick is going to drop some news at comic con this year, heck I would even settle for concept art.

    As for Dawn of the Ninja I gotta admit I had them saved on my PS3 web browser I couldn't get if they were making a movie or a graphic novel because it was like it was one thing then change to another.

    With them I'm like whatever dudes show me something other than cool pics of the turtles..

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  14. The Dawn of the Ninja people started out by trying to sell themselves as WANTING to be the OFFICIAL movie, while at the same time trying to make it seem like they already were the OFFICIAL movie. Being the OFFICIAL movie was actually the one and only plan they ever had in mind (because they are not movie makers and obviously don't even have the talent/resources to make a fan movie), but when people, including myself, started telling them they were full of BS, they backed off that a bit. Then they went onto the idea that they would make their idea into a graphic novel that they would then SELL IN STORES. They insisted they had the right to do this without Nickelodeon's permission. Well, that was even more BS, so they've slowly backed away from that. But they're still moving forward with the graphic novel thing, and they are still quite delusional about being able to publish it with Nickelodeon's permission.

    They are simply fools who think they are awesome, but they really are just fools.

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  15. Now they could sell whatever they're going to call the graphic novel off their site but Viacom would still probably go after them because of the rights issue.

    As for the legal owners of TMNT I hope Nick drops some kind of news at comic-con.

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  16. They can't sell anything anywhere without permission from Viacom.

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  17. -->> ..i do like the artwork associated with the project ..

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  18. I tried to give the art a chance, but the more I see the more I seriously dislike it. Ray has good technical skills, but he does not have good Ninja Turtles skills. His Turtles are too stylized in a way that is not flattering to them. He draws the plastons completely wrong, gives Raph too many muscles, insists that Mike should be fat because all he does is eat pizza, and Leo and Don are far too skinny. Given that they've tried to get away with describing their project as the "Batman Begins" of Ninja Turtles, Baxter the fly and Bebop and Rocksteady should not even be present. "Bebop" is the wrong race (and only has three fingers on his right hand) and he, "Rocksteady," and "Baxter" suffer from the same over-muscleage as Raph (with extra over-exaggeration on "Baxter"), which is too stereotypical of comic books in the first place. When the April art was first posted, her last name was spelled "O'Neal" (and it was also Tweeted with that spelling, so it wasn't a one-time mistake), so that's how well they know the source material. And "Oroku Saki" just looks weird and misconstrued, and I don't mean the obvious and intentional deformity, which in and of its own is way too over the top.

    No, I don't like the art.

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  19. -->> Ho boi - - well and as usual .. i ama fine one to talk about stylized art, huh.

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  20. Stylized art has its place. But the style presented here is not fit for the "'Batman Begins' story of TMNT" that this whole thing is being presented as, and it is not practiced enough to be worthy of being a published TMNT product even if the story that went with it was (and it most definitely isn't).

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  21. -->> ..yeh but i also buy pseudo - retro style guide TMNT art products.

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  22. The art work is nice I just don't like they have the matching color elbow and knee pads like the '87 cartoon. You're right about Raph tho dude looks like he can bench press 750 but April is hot you gotta give him that.

    As for the other turtles,I'm not going to flip out over Don and Leo but Mike all he does is eat pizza is old. out of the four he's the most gifted in terms of being a pure athlete. And him and Leo should have the same sort of built.

    The artwork I'm worried about is how the Turtles going to look like in Nick's CG, their CG shows range from average to Fanboy and what his name ugly.

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