If there’s one thing that I was first truly obsessed with, it was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I had the toys. In fact, I still have a giant box of them at my parents’ house. And I can’t tell you how many sheets of paper I doodled the Turtles and their sewers in when I was a kid. I watched the cartoons, yes. And, of course, I loved the movies.

Here’s a couple pics of all my toys, all the ones that survived, anyway. All the classics. Some sort of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em rip off. Dracula Donatello. Magician Ralph. And, of course, a Leo who is both a firefighter AND a firetruck.

This one’s the Mikey from the third film.

The toys were just a way of life. I remember one time my mom just gave me one because she found it in her closet, having hidden it before Christmas and forgetting it was in there.

As always, we’re really here to talk about the films. There are six of them in total, from 1990’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to this year’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows. The first one is a classic. The second, The Secret of the Ooze (1991), known mostly for the fact that the turtles don’t use their actual weapons, is a lot goofier (Vanilla Ice cameo, anyone?). The third film, simply titled Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III (1993) is a different beast. It was all about them traveling back to feudal Japan, so it was very high concept compared to the first two.

I’m pretty sure I remember that first movie coming out back in 1990. I would have been six. I don’t actually remember seeing the first two movies in the theaters but I’m pretty confident that I saw the third film on the big screen. And I still see the new movies. Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve seen the last three in a theater. That’s right, I went to the theater for TMNT, the computer-animated installment from 2007 that was intended to be the first part of a trilogy.

Like many folks, I still have pretty strong opinions on the turtles. When the 2014 film was coming out, there was a big stink about how the turtles looked. The design was a bit off, but I had problems beyond the physical level. Johnny Knoxville is no Leonardo. Thankfully, he didn’t return for the latest film. The guy from Jackass doesn’t scream “leader” to me, even if he’s just leading giant turtles. And Megan Fox should not be playing April O’Neil. In fact, Jane Levy from Evil Dead and Don’t Breathe would make an excellent April.

In the latest movie, Out of the Shadows, the turtles are more like Spider-Man than their ‘90s counterparts for some reason. In fact, they literally fly around the city at times. Maybe they’re more like that in the comics (you may have noticed I didn’t mention those earlier – I never read them)? The real problem with these new live-action films is that I don’t really like any of the human heroes and characters. That should be fine, since it’s really about the Turtles, but the humans are in it so much.

Despite the mediocre live action films, I’m hoping for more Turtles action, and if they wind up in different hands, it’s probably all the more reason to be excited. I’ll keep watching them regardless.

Next up in the A.L.O. chronicles, life finds a way once more as we get obsessed with Spielberg all over again.