“10048” by Ashley Anderson, displayed as an 8x8-inch print. You might remember this provocative image, taken from the opening of TMNT 3: The Manhattan Project for NES, when we featured the original painting last year.

The painting plays on “the idea of how pre-September 11th games now carry an unintentional political charge if they contain any images at all of the Twin Towers.”

“I am intrigued by how that kind of worldwide trauma even finds its way into the most innocuous corners of our experience,” explained Anderson. “There’s a kind of echo that happens whenever we see images of the Twin Towers in old movies, photos, anything, even video games; it’s a kind of sad ‘well, there it is, we know what’s coming’.”

See also: More Ashley Anderson paintings

[Via Ashley Anderson]

tags / ashley anderson / tmnt / nes / fanart / 9-11 / gaming / ec

“Pizza Time” pause screen from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Back from the Sewers. As the wise Mare Odomo once said, “Girls come and go, but pizza is forever”.

Buy: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles junk

See also: More Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles posts

[Via Game & Graphics]

tags / pizza time / teenage mutant ninja turtles / tmnt / back from the sewers / game boy / pause screen / pizza is forever

Mystery skateboarding woman resurfaces in Contra ReBirth! Yesterday, we traded ghost stories around the camp fire, recounting the tale of the unnamed and unexplained lady that skated across the screen in 1991’s TMNT II: The Arcade Game, never to be seen again.

Just when you thought it was alright to head back to your tent and go to sleep, Konami hopped out of the bushes, a flashlight under its chin and an index finger curled into a menacing hook, to reveal that the hot pantsed woman also briefly appears in last year’s Contra game for WiiWare!

Kid Fenris comments, “I’m torn between admiring this cameo and being disturbed by Konami’s apparently decades-long efforts to frighten this woman. She just wants to ride her skateboard, you fiends.”

Buy: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles junk

See also: More Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles posts

[Via @PoisonMushroomO, Drexegar]

tags / contra / contra rebirth / ec / konami / nes / teenage mutant ninja turtles / tmnt / wiiware / m2

TMNT II: The Arcade Game’s mystery woman, skateboarding across the screen in the second level.

I knew this classic title featured characters that didn’t appear anywhere else in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles timeline, like the different foot soldier types, the tiger-wolf boss Tora, and the robotic samurai Shogun, but Kid Fenris points out that it also introduced this unexplained skateboarding woman (who’s surprisingly wearing a more risque outfit with hot pants in the 8-bit version):

“What’s strange is that players can strike at her. The Ninja Turtles, always portrayed as misunderstood and ceaselessly heroic, get to take a swing at an innocent woman in a prominent video game. This somehow made it to every version of The Arcade Game without anyone complaining. Disney objected to Mickey Mouse losing “lives” and didn’t want Uncle Scrooge eating hamburgers, but Mirage Studios didn’t care. Considering how bloodthirsty the old Ninja Turtles comics were, this random violence might’ve been their idea in the first place.

Many children went through Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game without thinking about the skateboarder, but a few surely wondered just what she was doing there. During my first playthrough of the game, I almost expected the ending to change if the woman were accosted. I thought that I’d see the Ninja Turtles condemned as hideous thugs who terrorized an unarmed bystander. But there’s nothing. They suffer no consequences for attacking her, and that taught us all a valuable lesson. Even in NES games, some crimes go unpunished.”

I think my friends and I were always too busy fighting over who got the pizza on that platform to really notice or think too much about the mystery woman.

Buy: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles junk

See also: More Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles posts

tags / teenage mutant ninja turtles / tmnt / nes / the arcade game / ec

tags / arcade / tmnt / justin whitlock / crafts / ec

An honest mistake.

For, uh, something weirder, here’s some “art” of Krang licking and tickling Princess Daisy’s feet. Wonderful things happen when these two franchises meet.

[Via Infendo]

tags / ec / mario / tmnt / krang / princess daisy / knismolagnia