We have a terrific treat for you today. We lined up an interview with Randall Lobb, the writer and director (and one of three producers) behind Turtle Power: The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, now available on DVD and VOD. Long in production, this initially independent documentary won the respect of the Turtle creators, caught the attention of Paramount and Galen Walker (producer of the 2014 Turtles film as well as 2007’s TMNT), and became more or less official in the process.
You can read my review here, but suffice it to say that I was extremely pleased with this very well-put-together film and I wasn’t shy letting its director know that. Sorry if it comes across as amateurish or overly affirmative, but he totally earned it.
Despite its short length, the interview covers some great stuff, and fans will definitely take particular interest in Randall’s thoughts on the plausibility of a director’s cut of the original 1990 film, which we have long clamored for.
I had planned to provide the audio version of this, but the party call (with other interviewers in queue) had pretty significant background noise so that didn’t work out.
(Moderator introduces us)
Randall Lobb: Hey Austin, we’ve been through Twitter with each other a few times.
Austin Vashaw: Yeah, that’s correct! I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. If you don’t mind, I’m recording this, so — I’m gonna kind of go into my radio announcer voice for the duration.
RL: OK, I will too, then!
AV: We are talking to Mr. Randall Lobb; he’s the director, writer, and producer of the documentary entitled Turtle Power: The Definitive History of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Randall, I have seen the film and it’s phenomenal.
RL: Nice. Thank you so much, that’s great to hear. I appreciate it.
AV: I remember reading on Peter (Laird)’s blog — and this must’ve been a couple years ago, at least — that there were some filmmakers working on a Turtles documentary. And I remember thinking at the time, “God, I hope that they don’t screw this up. I hope these aren’t amateurs.”
(RL laughs)
AV: Because it’s something that’s so close to my heart. And ya know, you absolutely blew away my expectations.
RL: Oh boy, I am so glad to hear that because you are the trickiest audience for us to satisfy. I mean, my wife can watch it, and it’s a very — hopefully it’s a very human story, it has a lot of heart and it gives her information she didn’t know before. But you guys — you lifers — you’re gonna look at it and say, “Hey, where’s Robbie Rist? Hey, how come [there’s] not enough on the 4Kids thing?”, you know. You’ve got so much you could point out that’s wrong with it that I’m really gratified to hear your response.
AV: Sure, and yeah, it’s the overall package that really matters. So, the blog mentioned — Peter Laird’s blog — that was a couple years ago, so the film must’ve been in production for quite awhile?
RL: Well, we started our discussion with the three partners — Isaac Elliott-Fisher, Mark Hussey, and myself — in Thanksgiving. Canadian Thanksgiving — no, American Thanksgiving of 2008. So in November of ’08 we talked about it. And we started working it around Christmas of 2008. And now here we are in, you know, it’s gotta be almost 2010 by now, look at us — wait a minute, what year is it? How long have I spent on this?
(both laugh)
AV: 2014.
RL: Yeah! Yeah, see what happens? So much has gone by. In fact, it’s unbelievable. It has been a real mountain climb, that’s for sure. But it’s been fun. Every time, every time you take another step, it’s awesome.
AV: So how did the, uh — what was the genesis of this? How did the idea for a Turtles documentary actually come about?
RL: Right, so this young guy — he’s half my age. His name is Isaac Elliott-Fisher. He’s a DP, and a very talented, very energetic, and very pervasive-minded kid. He approached my business partner and myself. We have a — Mark Hussey and I have a company called FauxPop Media, and we are a very grassroots production company, and we normally have been doing documentaries that were very theory, very socially active about, you know, issues. And Isaac said, “I’d like you to help me do this documentary, we could be partners in it, on the history of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.” And I said, “No way” and my partner at the same time said “Yes”. And I looked at him, you know, like “What are you doing?” and he looked back at me and just made this face. And I somehow knew exactly what he meant, which was: twenty-five minutes earlier he and I had had a conversation about the importance of niche. The niche market. That you satisfy a core group of fans and they reward you by buying something, and then you could make a kind of a life out of that if you get it right. And I wasn’t trying to make a life out of this documentary, but I thought, “OK, we’ll spend $10 Thousand, let’s say, and we’ll make a fan doc and we’ll sell it and maybe we’ll make $20 Thousand, and we’ll have doubled our money. That’d be amazing.” And it turned out that as we went down the rabbit hole to make this thing, we went all the way down the rabbit hole, and then deeper down in the hole in the rabbit hole, and the hole in the hole in the rabbit hole…
(both laugh)
AV: Right on.
RL: And we Incepted into the documentary so deep that we felt like I think we’re a part of the inside of the story now. And that’s kind of what you see there as the documentary goes into the characters of the people themselves, not the characters of the Turtles. I hope it’s interesting in that regard.
AV: Yeah, and speaking of FauxPop, I only just recently noticed that you’ve been video blogging and sharing snippets and things for actually quite awhile now.
RL: Yeah!
AV: And so that’s pretty cool. I only just became aware of that. With that in mind, do you have any favorite moments that didn’t make the cut? I understand you’ve shot a staggering amount of footage.
RL: Over 220 hours.
AV: Any favorite moments from that that are worth sharing?
RL: Yeah, you’ve seen that we’ve interviewed a lot of people. There are some people who, when we interviewed them, they said really funny stuff. And we interviewed two comedians that I just love, Michael Ian Black and Robert Ben-Garant, who are both very talented; they’re from the States. And we had amazing conversations with them. But we had one, I don’t know, a moment with Michael Ian Black that was hilarious. His wife came down the stars — we interviewed him at his house — and she walked down the stairs and saw us, and just looked at us, and looked at him, and I don’t remember them saying anything, and she just turned around and walked away. And then he turned back and looked at me with this face — at that moment we were just two husbands who knew exactly what it meant to disappoint a woman on almost every level. And we have that, you know, on video. And that, to me, was really funny.
And we have, you know, interviews — and, not just interviews, but moments with Kevin and moments with Peter that are really excellent. And you see in the moments where they’re talking in — you’ve seen the doc, right? Yeah, you’ve seen it. At the end of the doc when they’re together at the Dover site, the Dover house, you know what I mean?
AV: Mm-hmm.
RL: That scene, in our notes, what we have of it — is 90 minutes long, and there’s a lot of really funny stuff there, and really sweet stuff, and… Kevin’s wife is crying, and Peter’s daughter is there and Peter’s brother is there, and… we’re just all really privileged to be a part of this moment that they’re coming back together and you know, reminiscing. A lot of their reminiscences are very funny and some of them are not suitable for an audience, you know? Because, you know… it’s private stuff, or it’s funny stuff, or it’s ridiculous stuff and there’s no place for it but those were great, very human, very funny moments.
AV: And I may or may not have cried a little bit watching that as well. (laughs)
RL: I thought it was super touching, I love that song so much, that Matt Hussey, Mark’s brother, he — it’s such a beautiful piano part. I’m so glad you said that. I just love that music. I think it’s so sad.
AV: One thing I have to ask you… In the film we see what appears to be some cut footage from the 1990 film. Is that right?
RL: Mm-hmm. It is, indeed!
AV: Did you get access to quite a bit of that? Do you have any idea if maybe a director’s cut is ever, in the future, in the cards?
RL: Well, let me tell ya. I said that out loud at the 2013 Stan Lee Comikaze event in Los Angeles. Down at LA Live. And it kind of went around different Turtle circles in the web, and people were frustrated because we never came out with it. At the time we didn’t know where the rights resided. And we’ve since, you know, made contact with the rights holders. And they’re a Chinese company, and… they don’t really care too much whether somebody makes a documentary or not. They’re more interested in getting money out of the properties that they own, right?
AV: Mm-hmm.
RL: So we had to, you know, do a lot of negotiating to get what few moments we have in the doc. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to get the entire director’s cut put together. But I will say this: I would imagine if a big company got interested and, you know, found a way to get the rights and created sort of an event around it? If the [new] Turtles movies are big hits and everything’s exciting, I know that Steve Barron wants to do it, and has ideas for it. I know that we have a lot more behind the scenes stuff that we haven’t used, so… it’s all there. And I’m not making a veiled hint that [Paramount rep] Brian’s gonna have to write down and take back the president of Paramount, but I do mean that there are many, many minutes available but it could be onerous to get it all. Let’s put it that way.
(The phone moderator tells us that our time’s almost up)
AV: One of the themes that I think kind of came across in the film was um, the fragile chain of events which sort of led to this lightning-in-a-bottle success.
RL: Mm-hmm.
AV: And there’s a lot of unsung heroes on the way that kinda helped piece that puzzle together. And so that’s, I guess not really much of a question but just an observation, and I really appreciated that aspect that you brought to the film.
RL: Oh, thanks Austin. Your opinion is really important to me. I didn’t make this for myself and neither did Isaac, and neither did Mark. We made it for people like you to see it. So the fact that you have something positive to say about it at all is awesome. I really appreciate it.
AV: And I appreciate your time. Thank you very much, and thank you for crafting a film that I think fans can really embrace.
RL: Oh, that’s great. That’s great to hear. Cheers, man! Take care.
AV: Alrighty, take care. Thank you!
Turtle-powered thanks to Randall Lobb for granting this interview opportunity, and to Paramount for setting it up and providing a preview screener of the film.
Turtle Power hits DVD and VOD on August 12.
A/V Out.
Get it at Amazon:
TURTLE POWER: The Definitive History Of The TMNT — [DVD] | [VOD]