10 Inside Movie Jokes You Probably Didn’t Get

6. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Sam Rockwell If you were a kid growing up in the late '80s/early '90s as I was, you couldn't escape the pop culture juggernaut that was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (or TMNT for short). It was a comic book, a cartoon series, a video game, a line of collectible toys, and finally, its inevitable incarnation as a live-action feature film. The movie's epilogue paid tribute to its humble graphic novel origins though when, after being interrogated by a ball-busting Chief Sterns, a random, nameless hood €” played by a then unknown Sam Rockwell€”explains, "Check out East Warehouse on Lairdman Island." True TMNT fans know that the titular creatures were created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, so this little line of dialogue actually swapped parts of their last names. Also, earlier in the movie, boxes in this warehouse near the skate half-pipe read "Mirage." Mirage Comics is the company that originally published the TMNT comics.
Contributor

Michael Perone has written for The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore City Paper, The Island Ear (now titled Long Island Press), and The Long Island Voice, a short-lived spinoff of The Village Voice. He currently works as an Editor in Manhattan. And he still thinks Michael Keaton was the best Batman.