Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze turns 30 this year, which is much older than any of its mutant ninja heroes were ever intended to be. Look at the way they scarf down ‘za and zoom around on skateboards – there is no universe in which Splinter was not going to outlive all four of them. Michelangelo was for sure going to get really into heroin. The first film showed us that it’s only a matter of time until government scientists descend on Central Park to collect Raphael’s bullet-riddled corpse after he chases the wrong purse snatcher from a midnight screening of Dr. Giggles. Boy, the years, they do pass.
Anyway, the Green Machine’s second outing arguably represents the height of both TMNT’s cultural saturation and its popularity as a brand, which is another way of saying this movie is out of its fucking mind. Pizza is literally everywhere, spread across this movie’s version of New York like a bacterial infection. Michelangelo constantly name-drops Wrestlemania and Arnold Schwarzenegger (and, bizarrely, Casablanca). The only reason Bart Simpson doesn’t have a speaking role in this film is because it was cheaper to have David Warner awkwardly hold a Bart Simpson glass. Four skilled stuntmen desperately flail around in suffocating Muppet suits for 90 minutes, occasionally colliding with emerging pop culture monoliths such as mainstream hip hop, in service to the higher purpose of getting kids to spend money on shit. But nowhere is this mission statement more clearly on display than the film’s climactic nightclub fight, co-starring Vanilla Ice as himself, but in a universe where wolves make clothes out of garbage.
In the interest of the historical record, I have created a moment-by-moment breakdown of everything that happens during the nightclub scene in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze. Contained within these 8 minutes are some of the finest achievements of the creative arts, and none of it would’ve been possible had some bold visionary not asked, “Can we get Vanilla Ice?”
Raphael gets thrown through the doors into the Dockshore Club at exactly the 1:09 minute mark. There is a giant space already cleared out on the dance floor, which means the club either dramatically undersold tickets for tonight’s performance or there’s going to be a breakdancing competition later in the evening.
Vanilla Ice is in the midst of a stage-traversing hiphop strut when he spots the Ninja Turtles. Ever the professional, he immediately ceases all dance activity and notifies his backup dancers of the potential danger. I assume he is also scanning the crowd for available fire exits should he need to evacuate his fans. It is important to note that “Ninja Rap” is already playing when Raphael gets tossed into the club; Vanilla Ice is actively dancing to an instrumental stretch of the song. Also, Vanilla Ice is one of the most famous rappers in the world at this point, and he’s playing a small gig in a dockside club that looks like it hasn’t passed a building inspection since the previous owner was murdered by drug traffickers.
Raphael looks around like he is surprised to find himself in the middle of a slick urban dance floor. This is an appropriate reaction. Just ten seconds ago, he, his three mutant brothers, two demon hulks, and roughly 40 ninjas were fighting to the death in a multi-level concrete dungeon about 20 feet away from the club’s entrance. Now he is in a sea of future Cool as Ice apologists who seem to be completely unaware of the gang war taking place next door. Vanilla Ice’s performance is like a siren song that drowns out all other distractions.
Tokka and Rahzar and the rest of the Turtles spill into the club, and we see that the large open space they find themselves in also contains a wooden table adorned with exactly nine Dixie cups, two plastic bowls of popcorn, and a No Smoking sign. We can see in the background that there are several more tables here for guests to sit down when their dogs start barking and enjoy a relaxing nosh. Is there food service here, beyond the popcorn? We never learn the answer to this question. The Dockshore Club has apparently decided to clear out space for folding tables so that their thirsty patrons will have a place to set their drinks while getting busy, but few have taken advantage of this feature. We are nine seconds into the club scene.
Raphael, the only ninja turtle with the voice of a divorced cab driver, calls out Tokka, who turns with all of his spikey-shelled fury. This frightens the crowd, and also Ice and his dancers, who begin to retreat further offstage. However, they are such professionals that they have yet to completely abandon the gig. Ice does not want any of his fans to get injured, but it is equally important to him that they not go home disappointed. He and his backup dancers watch from the stage as Raphael begins to fight Tokka with clown karate, a fighting style consisting primarily of taunting and Three Stooges slapstick. Tokka is confused by this brand of violence, and it enchants the crowd. Specifically, an animated couple I will call Really Stoked Hat Dude and his date, Sarah Jessica Parker’s Laundry. (The year was 1991.)
Really Stoked Hat Dude comes to two major decisions in mere fractions of a second – first, that these demons are merely hype men in costumes, and second, that the club hired these costumed men to explode through the building’s staff entrance and delight the crowd with an elaborate stage-fighting show. I have been to many concerts and club shows, and even to shows at an actual dockside venue; this has never happened. Furthermore, concert promoters in 1991 would never book Vanilla Ice and a local costumed wrestling show on the same night, although that particular bill has probably become a more frequent occurrence at state fairs in the years since.
Leonardo, strategically ignoring the two swords he carries with him at all times, rams a table into Tokka’s stomach. The impact triggers a belch from deep within the monster, so heinous that literally the entire club can smell it. Someone should’ve stopped the fight and taken Tokka to the hospital. Seriously, either he has a belly full of stomach cancer or that belch bubbled all the way up from his asshole, and either scenario is a medical emergency.
Meanwhile, Rahzar comes stomping in through a stage entrance after presumably eating all of Ice’s cocaine and McDonald’s in the green room. Rahzar screams another haunted burp into the crowd. The stench is apparently foul enough for three hundred people standing in a rickety boathouse on the East River to actually notice it, and they react accordingly.
As the crowd reels from the werewolf’s halitosis, Donatello steals a man’s tie. Leaving his ninja weapon safely holstered on his back, Donatello wraps the necktie around Rahzar’s wrist and then just kind of stares at it. Rahzar immediately flips him into the floor as all of the Turtle fans in the theater begin to wonder exactly what it is that Donatello does with machines.
Vanilla Ice, suddenly noticing the song he was actively performing moments before and that has continued playing since the Turtles arrived, begins bobbing his head and snapping his fingers as if he is hearing it for the first time. He transmits this groove infection to his backup dancers. We are now one minute into the nightclub scene.
Michelangelo does a rodeo clown maneuver to distract Rahzar from eviscerating Donatello. This almost sends the armored werewolf directly into the crowd of innocent bystanders, many of whom just wanted to sit down and eat some popcorn and watch Vanilla Ice dance.
Onstage, Vanilla Ice breaks into a freestyle rap about Ninja Turtles, because he has deduced the Turtles’ identity and entire backstory by watching them cartwheel around the dance floor. Really Stoked Hat Dude and Sarah Jessica Parker’s Laundry are visibly confused, unsure of where to direct their attention. This is an understandable dilemma. Ultimately, they surrender to Vanilla Ice’s dope rhymes as the Turtles continue to taunt the enraged mutants by using ninjitsu to easily dodge their attacks. We watched Tokka and Rahzar flip cars and rip lightpoles out of the ground earlier in the film, so we have every reason to believe that Michelangelo will be instantly decapitated if a single one of these ponderous haymakers connects.
Professor Jordan Perry (Warner) suddenly runs into the crowd. It is unclear when he arrived at the nightclub or how he knew the Turtles were in there, because the sensational action began a mere 60 seconds ago and word simply does not pass through the five boroughs that fast. He briefly glances stageward and locks eyes on Vanilla Ice spitting the ultimate verse about unarmed turtle combat before locating Donatello. The two eggheads shout a brief conversation about the antimutagen being ineffective. The Professor inexplicably gestures towards Vanilla Ice and his crew when he says this, as if he believes the antimutagen backfired in such a way as to transform Tokka and Rahzar into the freshet hip hop act the world has ever seen. Also, he is giving the Turtles the extreme benefit of the doubt by walking into a nightclub melee in the middle of a Vanilla Ice concert and assuming this is a sign that the plan was a success. Donatello and the Professor scuttle nerdily off to type a new plan into their calculators. Meanwhile, the rest of the Turtles continue goading Tokka and Rahzar while Ice and the crowd excitedly chant the chorus to a song nobody has ever heard before.
We cut backstage for an introduction to the club’s promoter and his assistant, both of whom are sporting ponytails that can best be described as different degrees of the same felony. The promoter berates the assistant for hiring costumed ninja extras to come in and stage a clown fight in the middle of his Vanilla Ice rap show. The assistant, clearly flustered, stammers out that he didn’t hire any extras either. It is at this point that someone finally mentions calling the police. We are now two minutes into the nightclub scene.
Back on the dance floor, Rahzar rips another wet corpsefart of a belch into the crowd, who pause long enough in their extreme enjoyment of “Ninja Rap” to gasp as if a clumsy waiter just fumbled a banana cream pie into the face of the Duchess of Tingleberry. Donatello and the Professor hide beneath a staircase to whisper-shout science bullshit at each other, eventually coming to the realization that all the rancid burping is preventing Tokka and Rahzar from transforming back into regular animals. The Professor indicates that they must find some way to feed the beasts some carbon dioxide and spots a fire extinguisher on the opposite wall that is so tiny it technically qualifies as a novelty item. The two geniuses pause for several moments of self-congratulation as Donatello’s brothers continue frantically trying to prevent Tokka and Rahzar from murdering Vanilla Ice.
The film briefly cuts across town to Splinter and Keno (Ernie Reyes Jr.) meditating. Keno gets tired of this shit almost as quickly as we do and storms out. Splinter shakes his head and sighs, but we know deep down he is pleased with this newest addition to his army of child soldiers.
Back at the Dockshore Club, Donatello and Leonardo have rounded up two fire extinguishers and are prepared to feed them to their hideous foes. They corral Tokka and Rahzar on one end of the dance floor with the extinguishers in hand while Raphael and Michelangelo emerge from the crowd with two 55-gallon drums. It’s unclear where the drums came from, but judging by the Dockshore Club’s immediate surroundings, one of them almost certainly contains human remains. Meanwhile, a lone hero in slacks and a cardigan attempts to keep the crowd at a safe distance from all of this alleged ninjitsu.
Donatello indicates to Raphael that it is time to spring the trap. Michelangelo inexplicably shouts “Rock and Roll!” in the middle of the most iconic rap concert in recorded history and the two mutant ninja brothers roll the drums into Tokka and Rahzar, knocking them off their feet. Leonardo and Donatello straddle the downed monsters and inject the entire contents of a fire extinguisher down each of their throats. It is important to note that the state of New York considers this activity to be a double homicide, the presence of antimutagen notwithstanding. Indeed, brutally murdering Tokka and Rahzar may have been the Professor’s plan all along. Those antimutagen tablets might’ve just been hard candy.
Vanilla Ice pumps his fist in the air, cheering “Go ninja, go ninja, go!” as the majority of the crowd remains focused on his electric stage presence rather than the biblical prophecy currently unfolding on the dance floor. Tokka and Rahzar gradually stop struggling and slip into chemically-induced comas. The Turtles celebrate triumphantly over their limp bodies. We are now four minutes into the nightclub scene.
Backstage, the promoter’s assistant returns with the police on the phone and is once again berated for his hopeless idiocy. The promoter points out that the crowd is enjoying all of the crimes and tells his assistant to cancel the police, which he does.
Tatsu and the Foot Clan suddenly burst into the club, ready to fuck shit up. Someone blows a whistle from somewhere offscreen; neither the source of this sound nor its intended purpose is ever identified. At this point, both the Turtles and the crowd have decided to treat the Foot Clan, a bonafide terrorist organization, like the bad guys at a child’s birthday party. They spend the next 40 seconds beating the holy spirit out of various Foot ninjas with breakdance karate. The crowd eats it up. Vanilla Ice is still performing “Ninja Rap”; it’s entirely possible the song ended and he just started it over again because everyone was having such a good time.
Tatsu doesn’t appear to be enjoying the beat or these karate antics, so he steps in to crack some skulls. Despite being responsible for training an entire underground clan of ninja assassins, he walks right into the middle of the dance floor like he’s looking for his contact lens. The Turtles seize this opportunity to crush his inferior human body between their mighty shells. Tatsu staggers offscreen, his face a mask of agony. We never see him again, because he is dead. The Turtles immediately launch into a choreographed dance. Because their training begins and ends with Splinter, we have no choice but to assume that Splinter is the architect of these sick ass moves. The Professor does his own elderly white man dance in the crowd, and it’s clear this is where he’s wanted to be since the moment he entered the Dockshore Club.
With the crisis seemingly averted, the crowd moves back onto the dance floor. Michelangelo high-fives Really Stoked Hat Dude and immediately steals his girlfriend. They are 100% going to fuck later. We know it, the movie knows it, and Really Stoked Hat Dude knows it. The Turtles make their way onstage and begin dancing with Vanilla Ice while Michelangelo instructs the crowd to express their enthusiasm for both ninjas and turtles. The Turtles shimmy towards the front of the stage as Vanilla Ice and his dancers abruptly exit the building mid-chorus. Their work here is finished. We are now six minutes into the nightclub scene.
Sensing his cue, Shredder appears onstage from behind a speaker to threaten the Dockshore Club with a container of the titular ooze. We are given no clear indication when Shredder arrived or how long he’s been waiting back there. The crowd immediately falls silent, which is interesting - Vanilla Ice barely stopped rapping for a few seconds when a bunch of literal monsters started a brawl on the dance floor, but the entire building freezes when a man dressed like a knife takes the stage.
Shredder and the Turtles exchange heated words of destiny. It seems like another titanic battle is about to take place when Keno explodes through the Dockshore Club’s main entrance, shouting urgently for nobody to start fighting without him. He sprints all the way to the front of the club, flips effortlessly onto the stage, and knocks the ooze out of Shredder’s hand with a wheelkick so majestic it sends the loose fabrics of Shredder’s outfit backwards through time. The Professor, who has apparently shifted backstage during the commotion, snatches up the ooze and scurries off.
For some inexplicable reason the Turtles hold Keno back, even though he has just made it absolutely clear he could beat Shredder’s ass like an axe murderer. Shredder uses this sudden distraction to take Sarah Jessica Parker’s Laundry hostage, threatening to dose her with another vial of ooze he had tucked away in his wallet or something. An unnamed concertgoer in the background gestures towards Shredder in a manner that can only be translated as “More ooze? Can you believe this motherfucker?”
Michelangelo and Donatello hurry over to tinker with the sound equipment on stage while Raphael continues to foolishly prevent Keno from dismantling Shredder like an old refrigerator. Finally, Keno breaks free from Raphael and stumbles into Shredder, causing him to release his grip on Sarah Jessica Parker’s Closet. Michelangelo sees his opening and wails on a keytar at max volume, blowing out an entire wall of speakers and launching Shredder through a window and out into the harbor with a volley of pure sonic force. He will soon be transformed into Super Shredder by that tiny vial of ooze; we are led to believe he drank it all in a final rage-fueled bid for vengeance, but it is equally possible that he chugged it down in last-minute desperation after that keytar blast liquified his skeleton.
The Turtles make their way offstage towards the Dockshore Club’s exit to collect their kill. They spot Tokka and Rahzar, now mutated back to their less lethal animal forms, and Michelangelo makes a joke about selling the antimutagen tablets as weight loss pills while carefully sidestepping the fact that there is still a confused wolf trapped in this nightclub. This probably won’t be a problem for too long, because the promoter looks like the type of person who has laundered money for at least one exotic animal smuggler. The Turtles exit the club at the 1:17 mark, concluding the greatest 8 minutes of art in the history of human expression. Ninja Rap is born, and we are all its godparents.
