One of the coolest things about the 1988 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toy line is just how creative they got. There’s mutants of tons of animals — Turtles, of course, but also bulls, moles, kangaroos, and bugs! Including today’s subject, Baxter Stockman.
This guy was obviously inspired by the horror movie, The Fly, specifically the 1980s remake directed by body horror master, David Cronenberg, and starring Jeff Goldblum. But for the cartoon, he got to be kinda cute:
But flies aren’t cute! Or purple! They’re gross, ugly, hairy little flying beasts that vomit on things and spend their days hovering around animal shit.
If you study the sculpt for the Baxter Stockman toy, you can see that his mutation didn’t go very well — There’s pretty clearly just strands of flesh wrapped around exposed muscle sinew. That would have been WAY too gross for a children’s toy, so Playmates just painted him lavender.
But me? Well, if this creepy bastard is supposed to be all Cronenbergian, then let’s go all-out with that, shall we?
Baxter, before he was mutated into a fly, also created the Mouser robots. So I mucked up some 2003 TMNT line Mousers, and they follow him around. Gross.
I have a sudden craving for sugar.
Baxter Stockman, Mousers, TMNT, and all related characters are owned by Nickelodeon.