http://turtlesoupshow.com/episode-194-josh-gropin-and-the-black-hole-boys/
Episode 194 of Turtle Soup is immediately one of my favorite episodes of the show! Not like the previous number of episodes were subpar, but this was just raised to the top so quickly for me! I’m pretty sure my enjoyment of the episode all comes from Eric and Ryan reviewing proper issues of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (47 and 48) which it has been a minute since they reviewed issue 45 and 46 back on April 3, 2017!
http://turtlesoupshow.com/episode-149-ninjara-and-dem-demon-ass-darlins/
Took some searching but I found the episode! Well, that explains that! Almost two years ago! They reviewed several specials and miniseries but not the proper series. Episode 150 is the episode they review Movie III.
I’m such a huge fan of Chris Allan and Stephen Murphy’s (Dean Clarrian) run of Adventures, from issues 23 through 70. My second favorite run would have to be Gary Carlson and Frank Fosco’s run of Image Comics Ninja Turtles, 1 through 23. I’m so happy that IDW is reprinting the Image run and going to give the series a proper conclusion. I want to get those trades once they come out! The first one is out in August!
I might have to put $30 aside for it! It comes with the first 13 issues, which I love the concept of that, so the second volume will be the second half of the series and then it will follow up with a cheaper three issue volume (which ideally comes with all of other TMNT Image appearances) and then I can have the entire Image run on my shelf in three books. I did add all of the TMNT Adventures to my wishlist but that is from Volume 7 to the latest and final Volume 16, so it is all out there now. They don’t seem overly expensive with 16 being only $14.
So ten volumes, so that adds up pretty quickly! Maybe next year.
. . .
Eric and Ryan cover a lot of topics over the course of the 2 hour and 15 minute episode (and 15 seconds!)
They stopped short their run of Mirage titles as these were the last proper issues of Archie in 1993 so the next few episodes are going to finish the Black Hole Trilogy and a couple other issues. So I’m super excited!
I can’t stress enough how great being a Patreon supporter for the podcast.
https://www.patreon.com/turtlesoupshow
We just got our rewards too!
Eric really outdid himself this time!
Ryan’s face is a coaster and the other picture is a sweet arse magnet!
One day, I want to be on the ten dollar tier but we just moved into a house and bought a 2017 Suburu Forrester so fun expenses have to be cut back a tad.
They put a callout for all of their correspondents to reach out so I’m hoping typing this article gets me to record a voicemail as there is a story I really want to tell for the show.
The episode is just chock full of side content and quick moments of hilarious comments.
There are references to John Mayer’s Room for Squares and a fun story about how Mayer arranges his concerts which seems very smart for a guy who such a songbook like his.
There is a fun moment where Ryan’s microphone is causing him troubles as they have to pause the show. I like when Ryan starts trying to explain to those who can’t see him and then he realizes no one besides his co-host gets to see him, which has happen on a few occasions.
Ryan tells this story about Josh Groban that gives the episode its title. I’ve never tried to pretend to be someone else, even jokingly, to try to get some loving but neither has Ryan but maybe it might be a fun experience. I kept thinking of how Bryan Johnson of Vulgar, Tell ‘Em Steve Dave, and Comic Book Men fame had a long standing and one sided feud with Josh Groban. That’s really all I now of Groban.
Ryan makes a fun Spinal Tap reference and modifies it for Cyclops, who gets no sex or drugs, though Cyclops has rarely had trouble getting sex.
I like how Ryan was thinking of Juggernaut’s origin but got it confused with the Summers boys but Eric got that sorted out and even remembered Vulcan!
Great email question about appreciating the Turtles in a different light than when they started the show so many years ago. That’s how I feel about my love for Leonardo as I always go for the leader types but the Image run really put Raphael in the front seat for me. That run such a great ride!
Eric’s birthday was coming up (it has since passed) and besides milestone years, birthdays are just not the same thing once you are in your 30s.
Eric first brings up the topic of wet t-shirt contests but the episode ends on a killer discussion about it. I’ve never attended one and it just seemed like a thing movies did but I want to say I barely remember it from any movies. Like it was a concept that I heard about, got a mental picture of, and that’s been good enough.
Then they finally get to reviewing issue 47 and Ryan butchers inker John D’Agostino and he apologizes for being a dumb English speaker and then has to correct himself again as he’s a dumb American speaker. The episode is just full of quick asides like that that really punch up the episode with comedy.
That quickly gets a brief mention how they are alright but not alt right that made me laugh harder than I was expecting. By then, I was lock in on the show and was already thinking of relistening to it (which I rarely do with any podcast these days) and if I was going to relisten to it, I’ll write a long article about my adventures back into the episode.
There is a panel in 47 where it looks like cops are fighting straight at Sarnath’s butt. Now that we have moved into a proper house, I have my comic book question within arm’s reach but the closet has boxes in front of it so for the time being, they are still denied to me. I want to be able to start following along as I wasn’t able to really do that with Uncanny X-Cast but I can do that with the turtles.
There is a camera man name Squint in the issue that Ryan glosses as Squint-antino, which is almost as funny as Eric’s Don’t Peek-at-choo joke from earlier in the show’s run.
The color choice to make Sarnath so black that he’s blue like Clark Kent’s hair, which was a real thing back in the 90s!
I love whenever the guys can work in “Did you say Clang?” It is up there with whenever they reference “that’s what they told me/her/us,” “Movie III,” and “that’s a little too Raph” which that final one gets played with a bit this episode too.
Master Splinter comes off a little high or relaxed this issue with how all he can muster to what he’s witnessing is an “interesting” and later, an “indeed.” Which transitions into a story of Ryan seeing a possum that if he was high, would have freaked him out as it looked like a skull coming at him. I should write that Ryan reviews 47 and Eric gets 48, so the first hour is heavy on Ryan’s point of view but Eric peppers the show with comments too that are equally funny.
They even reference the Oans from Green Lantern comics.
Fun exchange and tribute about how Murphy goes all the way back to issue one, which adapted the Eyes of Sarnath episode into the comic’s first three issues to tell this latest adventure. Which is pretty great that he did that. Adventures was really great at keeping track of its own continuity. I like those first 22 issues of the series, but it didn’t get legendary status until Allan shows up for 23.
I like how they talk about how Sarnath has two missing eyes but has his third eye but he is still blind so stating he has one of his three eyes implies he has a third of his vision but he is still at zero vision.
A tad dark exchange occurs about fathers blinding children and at least those kids had a dad that shouldn’t have made me laugh but it did.
April tries to warn the Turtles about the cameras but Mikey keeps repeating that he’s a ninja.
Some fun discussion about how, without his bandana and elbow and knew pads, how naked and odd lucky Raphael looks.
What was Raphael going to ask Ninjara? I don’t think he was going to propose marriage but maybe just to say his first “I love you” to her or to try to put a label on what they are doing.
At roughly the hour and twenty three minute mark, we start reviewing issue 48!
Ninjara looks foxy, all day!
The above is the page they discuss how it is more words than art, which reminds them of a Bendis layout. Donatello really does know a lot about black holes.
Ryan explains what it means when we see oxygen masks in fighter jets, it means there is no life support systems. Like in Star Wars, with Tie fighters and x-wings, those ships don’t have force fields either, so the pilot fights harder in battle. They also can’t warp out of a fight either.
Some discussion about which side of the vehicle should the gas tank be on. I like it when it is on the driver’s side, so I just get out and start pumping instead of having to walk around the vehicle.
The guys really brought the comic book references in this episode as Eric was describing what aliens look like, he mentions Jim Lee’s X-Men and Dark Horse’s Concrete, which I hadn’t thought about Concrete in years!
Eric and Ryan’s love for Stump and Stick and Cudley the Cowlick always comes through whenever those characters show up.
I’m not sure to address them as “Eric and Ryan” or “Ryan and Eric,” I’ve been trying to track how others do it in voicemails and emails but I think most people simply go with “guys” or “Turtle Soup Boys” or names like that. It made sense with Rob and Brian of Uncanny X-Cast fame as it was the one syllable name followed by the two syllable name so I try to follow that with Eric and Ryan. Either way sounds fine though.
Both issues have a Mutanimals back up, issue 48’s features a new brand of mercenaries. One of them has the Punisher skull not on his shirt but on his dick. The 90s were an interesting time.
The episode starts to wrap up around the 1:53 mark with twenty more minutes of bonus content left.
The guys discuss Kevin Eastman’s latest project, Drawing Blood and Ragdolls.
https://www.newsarama.com/44114-kevin-eastman-studios-may-2019-solicitations.html
One comic is an fictional autobiographical story of a guy who earned success with a giant juggernaut of a hit franchise in the 80s and decades later, trying to create a new passion project. The other comic is about the actual giant juggernaut of a hit franchise, which is super meta. Which I like the idea of how he must have came up with the parody of his life comic, started having to draw images from the fictional comic, then realized he might as well just completely draw the fictional comic as well.
Ryan’s friend Jonathan posted on Facebook how he was inspired by Eastman’s project to create a side podcast where he reviews episodes of Turtle Soup. Which I had that exact idea to create The Uncanny X-Cast Legacy podcast where I review each episode of Uncanny X-Cast, and I actually started some work on the first episode but then I realized how silly that would have been but I still think about it from time to time.
After the sweet new song, we get into more about wet t-shirt contests. Growing up in hot Yuma, Arizona, I’m surprised wet t-shirt contests were not a thing but I can see why those were not a thing post-2000.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet_T-shirt_contest
Above is the page that they were reading off from.
Which I completely get the notion of reading a Wikipedia page and rabbit holing down and across so many different pages.
One such rabbit hole I went down was for Cetacean Stranding :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cetacean_stranding
Which is crazy how often it happens. I thought it was more of a once a year thing but it seems to be happening all of the time and not just one rogue whale but entire pods of whales.
Which led me to the concept of Whale Fall :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_fall
As I had never really given much thought to what happens to dead whales. They have so much oxygen in their lungs that by the time their carcass hits the ocean floor, entirely new ecosystems can be created!
Pretty much, I’m a big nerd for ocean life as our oceans are as unexplored as space! We just can’t get to so many locales still and so we’re still discovering things about our own billions year old planet, which is both impressive and frightening. What is out there!
I forget what reddit page I was on that introduced me to the concept of Danvers State Hospital :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danvers_State_Hospital
Which is a real mental institute that inspired Batman’s Arkham Asylum.
Danvers State Hospital was build according to the Kirkbride Plan :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkbride_Plan
Which actually had batwing inspired style floor plans that sprawled outward from the center. Which seems super smart as people associate bats with mental stability. Which I’m sure was super fine until Batman came along.
There are still some of these institutions that are in used today.
So yeah, these were all of the thoughts I had based off of Episode 194 of Turtle Soup!
I did leave a voicemail so we’ll see if we make it to Episode 195, I’ll let you know if I do.
Shadow and Flame with Magik 