eenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Coming Out Of Their Shells is a live musical tour that occurred in 1990 starting August 17. It was endorsed and sponsred by Pizza Hut. A VHS recording of one of the tour's stops was made available, as was a soundtrack. The tour is generally lambasted for its terrible costumes and wafer-thin plot. The band featured Donatello on keys, Leonardo on bass guitar, Michaelangelo on guitar/lead vocals & Raphael on drums/percussion/tenor saxophone/vocals. Guest vocalist include Master Splinter, April O'Neil, and The Shredder.
A spin-off from this concert lead to a smaller concert set called "Getting Down In Your Town".
face. singing songs they wrote such as "Coming Out of Our Shells", "Pizza Power", "Skippin Stones", "Walk Straight", and "Tubin'". Though while the Turtles are enjoying their time singing and dancing for the fans, Shredder decides to make an attempt to stop the Turtles from making people happy. Shredder, with the help of Baxter Stockman comes forth with his De-Harmonic Convergence Converter. Using this device they will steal all the music in the world, and it also weakens the Turtles if they stand in front of it. Once Shredder arrives on stage with the De-Marmonic Controller the Turtles have to retreat and come up with a plan to save the day. As the fans are tortured by Shredder's bad jokes and singing.
There was a single released, and extremely hard to find. Some dine-in Pizza Huts that had a jukebox might have had the single to promote the soundtrack and tour.
"Coming Out Of Our Shells" (Rock Version) performed by Rapheal
"Count On Us" (Dance Mix) performed by all four turtles
(Shredder says what everybody in the audience wishes they could to Baxter)
[NOTE: The following exchange appears exclusively on the VHS Tape]
Shredder:*pointing to kid in audience* What's your name?
Kid: Peter!
Shredder: ....is that your sister?
Kid: Cousin!
Shredder:Cousin? What's the matter, couldn't get a date?
(Shredder is not above taunting children in the audience.)
Shredder (out of character talking to the kids standing on the seats): ''Get off the seats! Thats made out of velvet - get off the seat!!..... God....
[Note: The following exchange appears exclusively on the "Getting Down in Your Town" version of the show.]
Casey Jones: Mom and Dads, dudes and dudettes, feast your eyes on the criminal mastermind of all ages, Shreddaaaaaaah....
Michelangelo: Shredder?! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!
Donatello: No! LOOK AWAY!
Raphael: Check it out, it's Edwards Scissorsface!
(CaseyJones and the Turtles attempt to pump up the audience....and fail miserably at it. Perhaps they're lampshading how hideous his costume looks?) [See the Trivia section below.]
There was a special behind-the-scenes VHS made of this show called "The Making of: The Coming Out of Their Shells Tour." In addition to showing how this production came to be, it also had the dubious honor of making the tour's numerous errors in production even more obvious (see below).
Most of the songs were lip-synced but on occassion the normal voice actors would speak during the song.
Shredder's mouthpiece is actually below his mouth, making it quite visible. This might have been intentional as the audience mightn't understand him talking through a closed mouthpiece, but it looks very odd. Moreso when it makes the fact that the actor playing him is trying not to laugh that much more apparent.
There are black spot splatters all over the Turtles' stage costumes. Not only is this a continuity error with the smooth green costumes we see in the behind the scenes footage, but it looks less organic, and more like somebody sprayed ink all over their heads.
The backstage costumes don't fare much better. While the stage costumes have their problems, at least they were limber enough to move around freely. This set, on the other hand, is stiff, cause the actors to lean awkwardly to one side, and have a problem where the Turtles' mouths continue to hang open.
There were times when the Turtles would appear on stage, and the music would begin before the Turtles started to play their instruments.
There are way too many times where a Turtle would talk or sing, but his mouth would either stay shut, move completely out of sync with the words, or remain completely open.
The colours of Mike and Raph's bandannas made it difficult for some people to tell them apart. Luckily, they wear big, black armbands with their initials on them during the show.
Shredder sings a song called "I Hate Music". Wrap your head around that one. (On another note, it's one of the songs not featured on the soundtrack album.)
Whose bright idea was it to make Baxter Stockman perform an extremely loud, shrill laugh during a music concert?
When Michelangelo tells Leonardo that "There's no need to be buggin'!" he strums his microphone on his guitar, producing some notes. However, the way he's rubbing it can't possibly produce those chords (or any at all, since he's basically moving the microphone along the string.)
Leonardo plays a one-string bass, which makes no sense in shell...
For a show that's regarded as pretty awful, the "Coming Out of Their Shells" tour has at least one crowning moment of awesome. This tour gave the world the song "Pizza Power", which was used as the title theme in the Arcade version of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time"
There was a second tour in continuity with this called "Getting Down in Your Town", which was featured in amusement parks. A new character featured was good old Casey Jones. Who rides around on a scooter. And needs to shave his armpits. Ew.
On that note, on the VHS tape of that tour, it occasionally flashes to reactions from the crowd to the shenanigans on stage. And by reactions, we mean none. Absolutely none.
The VHS tape has the concert at Radio City Music Hall. In the middle of the show, a reporter (not April) interviewed kids asking about the Turtles' whereabouts. David Ruphrect of Supermarket Sweep (1990) played the reporter.
It's called "Coming Out of Their Shells" because the stage performers have no shells! Get it? That's the joke.
There were apparently two sets of Turtle costumes made for this production. One was used for the behind the scenes footage (the ones that leaned awkwardly) and the other set (the ones without the shells) was used for the show.
Splinter is the one who sings "Skipping Stones" during the concert. Unfortunately, he ends up sounding a bit constipated during the song (especially during the "AH! AH OOOOH YEAH!" parts.)
"Tubin'" features alligators with coconut bras and long grass Hawaiian skirts. As they have no further relevance to the rest of the show and are never referred to again, you have literally seen show's Big Lipped Alligator Moment.
Shredder's voice is strangely distorted for this production.
Leonardo's voice is the same actor from the 1987 cartoon series.
Kip, is actor and gameshow host David Ruprecht, known for hosting "Supermarket Sweep" (1990–1995, 2000–2003)
Splinter's right ear is partically missing as homage to the Splinter from the first two live action movies.
In the song "No Treaties" Raph starts the song using Shredder's voice.
Shredder mentions "Krang" and "Technodrome" as key words from the 1987 cartoon series.
There are two studio versions of Coming Out Of Their Shells. one is slow version, the other a rock version.
During "Tubin", one of the gator's tail gets caught in the elevated sewer on the stage as they come up and right when they walk.
The second set of the turtle costumes (the backstage costumes) was also used in the action figures commercials.
Raphael played both the drums and the sax. Recording the studio soundtrack, it's possible for him to play both instruments in a same song using split-track recording, or track dubbing. How was he able to pull this off if the tracking is supposed to be considered live. If the backtracks was pre-recorded, than it there would be no purpose for them to use instruments on stage.
Added by Halfshell
