- One of the main villains for the
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is the infamous Shredder.
Notorious leader of the foot clan
and all around pointy person.
But the real life inspiration for this character is
actually a little cheesy.
(dramatic music)
Hello, everyone, my name is Ricky and Scott is
unfortunately trapped somewhere in Dimension X, I assume,
so I will be bringing you the real origins of Shredder.
Now it's no secret that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird
created the Ninja Turtles as kind of a joke
to parody a lot of the comics that were out at the time,
like X-Men and Daredevil.
They came up with most of the ideas for the comic,
essentially trying to come up with the most ridiculous
ideas that they could and Shredder was no exception.
So the legend has been told a few ways but essentially,
Keven Eastman was washing his dishes one day
and had one of those cheese graters, it was, think a cowbell
but with little divots, he had cut his hand or something,
but either way, he put his hand through the cheese grater,
grabbed it by the handle, and said, "Could you imagine
"a guy with weapons on his arms like this?
"This guy would be lethal."
Reportedly almost named The Grater, which is just
a laughable villain name, Peter Laird suggested,
The Shredder, and thus a legendary villain was born.
Well, almost.
You see, although Shredder is depicted as the main
antagonist in the Ninja Turtles franchise, it was actually
never really Eastman or Laird's intention in the original
Mirage comics.
"In truth, though many TMNT fans who became fans via
"the first animated series see Shredder as a really
"important part of an on-going, long-running battle
"with the Turtles, I don't think Kevin or I ever did.
"Yes, he was an important part of their history
"and they probably would not have come to an existence
"without his involvement in their world,
"or more accurately, Splinter's world, but that's about it.
"Other than bringing Shredder back for the
"'Return to New York', and the few issues preceding it
"setting that arc up, I never missed him in any other
"TMNT books I worked on."
You see, Shredder, in the original comics at the time
had only really made two major appearances.
One was in the first issue where he, spoiler alert,
straight up got "murdercated" by the Ninja Turtles.
And then in the aforementioned "Return to New York" story
where they brought him back.
In fact, Peter Laird said there's a reason for killing off
Shredder in the first issue is because, well,
he didn't really plan on making a second one.
- [Peter] And the reason is that we never really thought
we'd be doing a second one.
- But when the comic book had become wildly successful
and was being adapted into a cartoon series,
Shredder was the obvious choice for a villain.
Animation writer David Wise, who worked on Godzilla,
Transformers, and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe,
drew from the comics and his experience as an animation
writer to develop the framework for the five episode
miniseries that the Turtles was going to launch with.
Inside the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Ultimate Visual History, David Wise says,
"My input initially was to take the basic concept
"from the comics and find something I could latch on to.
"There was a character in the comic called Shredder,
"who had a direct connection with Hamato Yoshi,
"the owner of the rat that became Splinter.
"My first thought was that he looks great,
"half Darth Vader, half Toshiro Mifune.
"He's got a direct connection to the Turtles,
"so let's make him the uber-villain of the series."
And since then Shredder has become a prominent figure
in every single incarnation of the Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles, including The Next Mutation,
the one that we try to forget.
But this shouldn't come as a surprise since the
Ninja Turtles' cartoon show became enormously important
in developing the entire Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles universe.
What do you think?
Are you glad that Shredder became the big, baddy
in the TMNT universe?
Will you forever see cheese graters as a sign of
"grate" evil?
Let's talk about it in the comments.
And if you like this video, head on over to my channel
where I have a whole playlist of Ninja Turtles goodness.
I made some Ninja Turtle cos-play that turned out comical.
That's a favorite of mine.
And if you haven't seen it already, check out the
comic misconceptions video where Daredevil
definitely played a hand in creating the Ninja Turtles,
it's just factual.
So watch the video to their abide.
This is Ricky encouraging you to read between the panels
and grow smarter through comics.
Again, I'm Ricky, thanks for listening to my voice
at the end of this thing.
- Hello?
(loud growling)
Ricky?