ComingSoon Senior Editor Brandon Schreur virtually spoke with Cam Clarke, Townsend Coleman, Barry Gordon, and Rob Paulsen about the classic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series that debuted in 1987. Over email, the four voice actors discussed their love for TMNT, the recently released DVD collection of the series, and more.
“Cowabunga! Experience the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle saga in this totally tubular 23-disc set of the original animated series, featuring all 10 seasons in one complete collection! From their origins on the comic book page to the depths of Dimension X and beyond, the pizza-loving, shell-busting Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo, with the guidance of their Sensei Master Splinter, have been delighting fans for decades with their turtle power. Whether it’s facing fierce enemies Krang, Shredder, and Lord Dregg, saving humanity from near extinction, or battling against life-altering mutations, the half-shell heroes are always ready for heart-stopping, time-bending, straight outta the sewer action!”
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Complete Classic Series Collection is now available to purchase on DVD.
Brandon Schreur: Can each of you tell me a little bit about what it’s like, looking back on the series, all these years later? TMNT was around before then, but I feel like this show is kind of a defining moment for the Turtles for a whole lot of people. Looking at the legacy this show has left on the world, did you know how huge of a cultural imprint it was going to have on the world when you were working on it?
Cam Clarke: No. Without a crystal ball, no one knows anything. You never know what’s going to be a hit and what isn’t. If anybody thinks they do, then they don’t know what they’re talking about. It isn’t until afterwards. There are some roles I’ve done that have excited me because they were existing characters. Like taking over for Simba and playing Snoopy. Snoopy is a character from my childhood, so it’s the same as a kid today with the Turtles. When you create a character all you can do is hope people like it!
Townsend Coleman: Well, the first thing that pops into my mind is just how surreal this TMNT journey has been since 1987!! Of course, when I was first cast in the original cartoon series I had no conception what the franchise would explode into over the years… as a voice-actor, it was essentially just another gig for me, one I hoped would have legs and give us a few seasons of work. It wasn’t until a few seasons in that we all began to realize how huge the show had become and how popular the toys and figures had become… it was a bit of a whirlwind.
Barry Gordon: I had absolutely no idea. In fact, I hadn’t heard of the comic book series until I auditioned for the show. We started with a five-episode pilot on a syndicated station and moved to CBS Saturday morning about a year later. I guess I knew it was having some success, but as to what it’s become, there was no way any of us could foresee that.
Rob Paulsen: You could have a script written by Jesus, and 25 million bucks of someone else’s money, but if nobody watches it doesn’t matter. I have been impossibly fortunate. There is something cool about being the original on anything that becomes big.
The whole series is now available to watch on this DVD collection, which is super exciting! I know other collections have been out of print for a while; I’ll be honest, there are still some VHS copies of certain episodes at my grandma’s house that I watch whenever I want to revisit the show up until now. With the show suddenly becoming a lot more accessible to people, what are you excited for them to see and experience? Are you hoping this will appeal to people who maybe aren’t familiar with TMNT or the show as well as the long-time fans?
Clarke: First of all, there is no one on the planet that is unaware of the turtle franchise. Well, I don’t know, maybe in the Himalayas? But whether they’re hearing it in English or when it’s translated into French or German or whatever it is, it’s pretty hard to not know that this is a thing. We get people all the time that come to the show and they’ve got their kids or their grandkids. It’s almost like learning The Pledge of Allegiance- you have to watch the original! When I was growing up, my parents didn’t care what I watched, nor did we watch cartoons as a family. Again, I can’t wrap my head around the why, but this comes back to collecting. I think that’s who it will appeal to.
Coleman: With so many different iterations of TMNT that have come out since our original series, the thing I’m most excited about is the chance this set will give younger fans of later versions to experience the very beginning of the animated Ninja Turtle franchise. I understand they have their fave versions for a reason, but I’ve been discovering at comic-con appearances that parents who grew up on our show are introducing their kids to our original version and kids are totally digging it!
Gordon: I guess I’m excited for a new generation of kids who may have been introduced to the Turtles by the recent film or the new animated series to see how it all started. The tone of our show is very different from the comic series or any of the movies. It will be interesting to see how it holds up almost forty years later. According to the fans we meet at comic cons, they still seem to enjoy our version after all this time.
Paulsen: Obviously as a participant in this impossibly wonderful experiment, I want as many people as possible to see it and experience joy. We live in a time in which, immediately, you can have access to all the knowledge that has been gleaned from anyone, anywhere in the world—which itself is difficult to comprehend. Any opportunity to spread this joy, love, excitement, creativity—there will never be too much of it. Having thousands of people around the world who love Turtles, I don’t think anyone of them are willing to say “I don’t want to watch any more of it.” They’re all excited about what comes next. I get asked that all the time. “Are you ever going to do another Turtles?” I don’t know. I got 50% of them done now, if I live to be a hundred, I can knock them all out. Regardless, the interest is there. If I’ve met thousands, there are tens of millions who feel that way.
Looking back at the show, which ran for a long time, do the four of you have any favorite moments involving the character you voiced? Is there a Leo/Mikey/Raph/Donnie moment that jumps out to you when you think about some of your favorite times from working on the show or seeing the completed episode?
Clarke: For me, I liked a couple of episodes where Leonardo gave up. He said, “I’m not gonna be the leader anymore.” He said, “You guys can do whatever you want. I’m going to sit in the lair and eat pizzas and watch TV.” It was fun to get to change him up a little bit. We’ve had personal experiences, and because we’re older and things are so much more poignant, for example, we did some holiday commercials a couple of years ago for Honda. The campaign was our little action figures, and we voiced them, and they’re jumping around the car. The advertising folks decided campaign basically was “Get that (childhood) Christmas morning feeling again.” What is that? They say the best Christmas morning is when you got your Ninja Turtles. So, we walk into this session to record together, which was amazing, having been apart. You got these execs in there who were like wiping tears out of their eyes because it is their childhood sitting in front of them. So that is pretty humbling. And pretty amazing to get to be back in the studio together.
Coleman: Certainly one of the biggest thrills early on was discovering just how quickly the characters were becoming so wildly popular around the world! I remember going back to my hometown of Cleveland, Ohio in 1989 and visiting with family who had kids who were big fans of the show, and being blown away that the kids (and adults!) wanted to hear me do Mikey’s voice… it was crazy to me! And there seemed to be no end to the toys and action figures this series produced… honestly, it was a bit mind-boggling.
Gordon: That’s a good question and a difficult one to answer. There isn’t one moment or episode that jumps out because my memory isn’t that good at 76 years old. What I can say is that while we all auditioned for all four Turtles, I really wanted to be hired for Donatello because in many ways I identified with him. We’re both nerds, although Donnie is a more muscular one than yours truly. Also, they wanted me to just use my own voice without going for a “character.” What was a surprise was getting to voice Bebop. Now that was a little more of a stretch!
Paulsen: There’s a young fellow who got a hold of me 35 years ago. He has cerebral palsy. He is now 40. He lived in the same hometown I’m from, a little town called Grand Blanc, Michigan, just south of Flint. We were corresponding by mail. He had called me about a comic bookstore that he frequented back in Michigan, that wanted to maybe have me come and meet people. It was before we started doing conventions. I said sure, it’ll be great. I went to meet him at his home.
Hearing him and his mother tell me what Ninja Turtles meant to this sweet boy. He enjoyed the life that he could create himself via the Turtles. He could be the hero, the bad guy, the good guy… The four of us got to know him. We were all pretty taken by him. Just last year, he graduated with his master’s in Astrophysics. He’s going back to school to get his PhD. He comes to visit us at conventions all over. He and his mother, to this day, say Ninja Turtles is the only reason he had the confidence to move on with his life. Who am I to argue with that?
The series has been over for a while, now, but I’m curious how much of an impact voicing the turtles has left on you. What does having voiced the turtles for so long mean to you now, in 2024? Are Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael still a part of your lives?
Clarke: One of the many great things about the convention circuit is we get to spend so much time together again. We really get along. Not every show can say “we’re like a family” but it’s true for us. So, the conventions have added this. Our relationships keep deepening because we get together regularly spend time together It has changed our lives, at least speaking for myself, in that I have this third act career going via meeting fans. I knew I’d be in “the history book” of cartoons but I never would have known the intimate nature of the relationship between fans and the series. For us, it is just a fortunate way to spend your third act.
Coleman: One of the greatest benefits of having worked together for so long is the family that we’ve been able to build and become over the years. And with the added joy of being able to appear at comic-cons around the globe together for the past 11 or 12 years, we’re tighter now than ever before. It’s been a huge gift from that standpoint! And from a strictly personal standpoint, getting to voice Michelangelo and be so inseparably tied to the word ‘Cowabunga!’ is just about the coolest thing ever! 😉
Gordon: Out of the blue, about ten years ago, Rob got us all together after many years for a Turtles reunion on his podcast “Talking Toons.” It felt like we’d never been apart. After that, the four of us started to appear at comic cons, so now we see each other several times a year and have become a family of brothers again (and Renae is the sister). So, yes, the Turtles are again a very important part of my life.
Paulsen: It is absolutely an enormous point of pride. Ultimately, I have the opportunity to reflect on this impossibly wonderful ride I’ve been on. And it’s not over. I can work until I can’t think, or I die. To know that I am part of that. I see Ninja Turtles stuff everywhere. Ninja Turtle balloons, Ninja Turtle Band-Aids, Ninja Turtle bracelets—everything. Every time I see it I stop and look at it. It’s just like “how did this happen?” And we all do. When Barry, Cam, Townsend and I are all together every May, we often get tearful. Because of our good fortune, but then we have these stories from every time we meet people. They are all incredibly sweet and complimentary. And there are always some like Ryan. All it does is remind us that we won the lottery of life. Not to take it for granted, none of us do. The opportunity to do something that ultimately results in millions of people to be happy and be able to share that with their children… it doesn’t get any better.
We all know that Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines, Raphael is cool but rude, and Michelangelo is the party dude. Would you say the turtle’s personalities are similar to the vibes you guys brought to the recording booth when you were working on the show? Who is the most like their respective character between the four of you?
Clarke: Well, we have a running joke that it is Barry because he pretty much uses his own voice, he’s kind of like his character as well. Barry is pretty much “This is me. Donatello and I are one in the same!”
Coleman: I think the casting was pretty spot-on in terms of each of our personalities, or at least key aspects of our personalities. But if I had to pick one of us who’s most like his on-screen persona, it would have to be Barry Gordon as Donatello, because Barry is very much the brainiac of the bunch. Good grief, he studied to get his law degree while literally recording our episodes, AND he was the President of the Screen Actors Guild, AND he ran for Congress! I did not do any of that… lol.
Gordon: I guess I answered this above. I have a great affinity for Donatello. The guys will probably tell you that. Only instead of being a science nerd, I’m a history/politics/musical theatre nerd.
Paulsen: Without question, on the original one, Barry. He’s a wonderful actor. He is now 75. He’s been working in show business since he was 5. Remember the Christmas song “I Ain’t Getting Nuttin for Christmas”? Barry Gordon sang that at 5-years-old. He was a regular on so many TV shows. Barry is without a doubt the most, not only in the way he sounds.
Donatello was the brains. While we were filming Ninja Turtles, Barry was studying law. He would bring his law books to work, and between breaks he was studying. Never missed a cue. He did pass the bar. He’s an attorney. Then he became the President of the Screen Actors Guild for seven years. This guy is the consummate overachiever. He’s run for congress of the United States, he is so involved in California politics, he is still an attorney, he taught acting for TV and movies at LA City College for seven years, and he’s writing a play. He’s 75. He continues to be the smartest of us, without question. And when he opens his mouth, it’s just Donny.
There’s been so much more TMNT that’s come out since this cartoon, too. Lots of different series, comics, movies, etc. There are now the Mutant Mayhem movies; I’m wondering if, since the show has ended, have you still kept up with the TMNT franchise? Is there a version of TMNT that’s come after the show that you feel totally nailed the characters and the vibe of the show you were involved with?
Coleman: Yeah, while I haven’t seen every iteration of the Turtles on screen, I’ve seen enough to say that I think the 2012 Nick series was pretty bodacious, not only because Rob Paulsen got the chance to do a turn as Donnie, but because Greg Cipes flat out IS Michelangelo! I *played* Mikey in the original, but Greg *is* Mikey, without question!!
Gordon: Again, a tough question, because in many ways every iteration of the Turtles has had its own vibe. I think that was intentional on Kevin and Peter’s part. They never wanted any version to be a copy of any other. And I think that incredible variety within one franchise has a lot to do with why Turtles has lasted so long and touched so many different people. Still, it’s exciting to have been fortunate enough to be the first to give these characters a voice.
Paulsen: Yes, I keep up. I haven’t seen every movie, but my son works in video games and has seen everything. At PAX East a couple of years ago in Boston, they released Shredder’s Revenge, a Ninja Turtles video game. All of us reprised our roles as the original Turtles. He called me and said, “Dad, everyone here is losing their shit. They recognize that it’s you!” It was very gratifying that those voices were powerful enough to make people get that excited. It was a good lesson. When it works, the character voices and the souls of the characters that are created by the actors are important. It blew folks’ minds, and it blew our minds when we all started getting invited to more and more conventions together. I get invited to a lot myself, but when we all go together it’s fantastic. We do probably seven or eight shows a year in which we are all together, and man is it great.
Mutant Mayhem, I love the look of it. It’s another cool vibe and it’s its own animal. It’s fantastic. There was a great movie in which Nolan North played Raphael. It was much more street-wise and tougher. That was cool too, Nolan is a spectacular actor.
