megrymo

I had not heard of the Animal Planet Turtle Man! That Google Image search was VERY upsetting. This Turtle Man was definitely not that Turtle Man, which means that there are multiple Turtle Men out there, gathering turtles..

When I was a kid growing up in Asheville, North Carolina my brother spent a summer volunteering with an individual known as the "Turtle Man". This man had literally hundreds of turtles that lined the walls of his home in aquariums, as well as snakes, salamanders, and even three alligators in his pool. But the star of his collection was a 50 lb. alligator snapping turtle named Helga, who played the de-mutated version of Tokka in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. My entire elementary school class took a field trip once to meet Helga (a fine example of the early 90's Asheville City School educational agenda) and the Turtle Man even showed us the huge shell cover Helga had to wear for the role. Apparently the producers deemed her natural shell not scary enough and had her fitted for a gigantic spikier prosthetic shell for her few seconds of screen time. Although mutant Tokka is supposed to be a baby, I believe Helga was around 70 years old at the time of filming. Why did this movie need to import an elderly turtle from North Carolina to masquerade as a scary baby in the middle of a Vanilla Ice concert? Did Helga just really nail her audition?? I have no idea, but as a kid I fucking loved it. I saw "Out of their Shells" live and wore out my cassette tape of the concert. I was the worst. Sorry Mom & Dad!