{"product_id":"vintage-1990-tmnt-leonardo-cartoon-pin","title":"Vintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Leonardo Cartoon Pin 🐢 — Blue Bandana Katana Pinback Button","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Leonardo's TMNT Cartoon Pin? 💙 Leonardo with His Katana, Cartoon Pin\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/j8Wh85HWuBk\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon pin with Leonardo on yellow, grinning under his blue mask and holding his katana up across the button, under the red TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA banner and green TURTLES® logo.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe back is white plastic with a pin and a molded diamond mark in the middle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📺 The Cartoon Turtles\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis button is from the cartoon side of Turtlemania, drawn the way kids knew the Turtles from the 1987 animated series that Playmates launched to sell its action figures: bright green, colored masks, and a big letter on every belt buckle so you could tell the brothers apart. The red TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA banner over big green TURTLES was the logo on the cartoon, the toys and the lunchboxes, and any kid in 1990 could draw it from memory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🐢 How Four Turtles Started as a Joke\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKevin Eastman and Peter Laird were two young comic artists sharing a place in Dover, New Hampshire, in 1983. One night that November, Eastman drew a masked turtle standing on its hind legs with nunchucks, just to make Laird laugh, and Laird wrote \"teenage mutant\" over it. The idea poked fun at the big comics of the day: the teenagers of the New Teen Titans, the mutants of the X-Men and the ninjas of Daredevil, with a little Howard the Duck thrown in. They thought about giving the turtles Japanese names and went with Italian Renaissance artists instead, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo, which Laird said \"felt just quirky enough to fit the concept.\" Even Splinter was a joke on Daredevil's teacher, Stick.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn March 1984 they started Mirage Studios in their home, paid for the first printing with a tax refund and a loan from Eastman's uncle, and ran an ad in the Comics Buyer's Guide. All 3,000 copies sold in a few weeks. In 1987 they licensed the Turtles to Playmates Toys, an animated series came along that same year to sell the figures, and it ran for almost a decade. About $1.1 billion worth of Turtles toys sold between 1988 and 1992, and by 1990 there was a Turtle on just about everything a kid could own, buttons included.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e💙 Leonardo Leads\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe's named for Leonardo da Vinci, the painter of the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, who filled notebooks with flying machines and inventions centuries ahead of their time. In Eastman and Laird's black-and-white comics all four Turtles wore red masks; it was the 1987 cartoon that gave each brother his own color and a letter on his belt, and Leonardo got blue and the job of leader. The theme song put it plainly: \"Leonardo leads.\" Cam Clarke voiced him through the whole original run, and he carries a pair of katanas. In the 1990 movie David Forman wore the Leonardo suit and Brian Tochi gave him his voice, and da Vinci himself, for the record, wrote his notebooks backwards in mirror script.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy the spring of 1990 the Turtles were movie stars too. The live-action film opened March 30, 1990, with suits built by Jim Henson's Creature Shop, and it made around $200 million worldwide, the biggest independent film anyone had made up to then. That's the year this pin comes from, when a blue mask on a backpack told everybody who your favorite was.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🍕 Cowabunga\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePin it on a jean jacket, a backpack or a hat the way we did in 1990, or frame it in a shadow box with the rest of your Turtles stuff. It's a perfect gift for anybody who always picked the blue one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-donatello-tmnt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Donatello Cartoon Pin 🐢 — Purple Bandana Bo Staff Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-leatherhead-1990-tmnt\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Leatherhead Cartoon Pin 🐢 — Mutant Alligator Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-leonardo-tmnt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Leonardo Movie Pin 🐢 — The Movie Photo Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":44352939360488,"sku":"VAG-8160368558312","price":5.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4758704761_i83h.jpg?v=1785359690","url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990-tmnt-leonardo-cartoon-pin","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}