In the 80s cartoon series, he was a human turned into a rat-human by the ooze because rats were what he had come in contact with last.

Though the movies were heavily influenced by the cartoon series, they used the comic book origin for Splinter, and not the cartoon one. So movie-Splinter was always a rat.

For the purposes of this angry letter, Eric was right and Jeff was wrong. Everyone laugh at Jeff. Or laugh at me for knowing that bit of trivia… take your pick.

I wouldn’t, rather.

The link is for Google-bombing, not for actual clicking. But thanks for clicking anyway.

There are so many great zings that could be said in response to this statement…. In the interest of not offending Skizat, even for the sake of comedy, I will refrain.

I just want you to know that I feel your pain, Skizat. I often find myself enlightening people around me to the vast back stories of certain comic book characters that get neutered and/or completely disrespected by cartoon and movie makers.

Seth’s POV was/is likely influenced by one of three things:

1) inebriation
2) unhappiness from other parts of his life, leading to the need to send ad hominem attacks from an aggressive, hyperbolic email address (godowar? I think not – and don’t tell me it’s a game – that doesn’t matter) to a person he’s never met; or
3) internet, er, ehm, jerkwad theory. For a profane version of this one, please see http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 . But, I ask you, please do not click if you are offended by coarse language. The meat of it is: normal person + relative anonymity + audience = total jerkwad.

In the comics, Splinter was originally a pet rat of a martial arts master, who mimicked (no I’m not kidding) his master’s moves while he was in his cage. Then he got hit with the radioactive ooze, which turns animals human-ish. They used this plot in the movie, also.

In the cartoons, the ooze was supposed to turn you more like whatever you last touched. So, the turtles were pets of some boy, and he dropped them in the sewer accidentally, where they hit the ooze. Thus, they became like humans.
Splinter was this human martial arts master who lived in the sewers for some reason, so he was always playing with rats down there. When he touched the ooze, he turned more like a rat.

How do I know this? I was born in 1978, and I have man-parts. Thank you.

Basically the original story made as much sense as a story involving glowing goo which makes animals intelligent and massive possibly can. It is also worth noting that the whole thing started as a Daredevil parody and has never been “serious”.

In the early 90′s TV show, Splinter was first a man than a mutant rat.

In the movie, he was first a rat, than a mutant rat.

I’m not sure how they did it in the original comic strip, nor in today’s TV show. I’m not THAT big of a geek, you know.