Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, May 22, 1990                   TAG: 9005220101
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: E1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: PETER MATHEWS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

KEEPERS OF THE TURTLES ARE LIVING IN THEIR OWN LITTLE SHELL

Walt Disney Co., another moviemaker and leader in the kid industry, has close to 50,000.

Behind the scenes at the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle studios are Jim and Cheryl Prindle, some phones and a fax machine.

That's about it.

"When Ralston Purina showed up, they absolutely could not believe that two people in 900 square feet were running the entire turtle empire," Cheryl Prindle, 30, said of the company whose cereal features the reptilian crimefighters. "It's unbelievable."

Riding the wave of popularity - and being a good bit richer - doesn't seem to have changed the Prindles.

Cheryl and Jim met about a decade ago as students at tiny Alice Lloyd College in Pippa Passes, Ky. When they returned to school after the summer break of 1980, they found that campus visitation rules had become more strict; even handholding was threatened. So they decided they would get married - the next day.

They borrowed money for the blood test and bought dime-store rings that cost about $5. The Prindles spent their wedding night in their respective dorms, and the next day found a trailer to rent two feet from Caney Creek.

The Prindles have come a long way. They are getting ready to buy a condominium on a golf course in Northampton, Mass.

At about the time the Prindles left Alice Lloyd, the turtles were being hatched. Ken Eastman, 27, and Peter Laird, 36, created their mutant comic-book characters in 1983. By February 1987, the business end of their operation, Mirage Studios in Northampton, was getting out of hand, so they hired Cheryl Prindle as executive director.

Mirage is not just turtles - the studio also produces comic books featuring the characters Gizmo and Bade Biker. But it was the TV cartoon based on the turtles comics that sparked the growth of Mirage and led to the movie.

The turtles will sell about $1 billion in merchandise this year. That's more than the gross national products of Laos, Chad or at least a dozen other small countries. The movie has exceeded $110 million in ticket sales.

So Mirage has hired more help. The Prindles have an administrative assistant, Paul Jenkins, and a temporary employee to answer the phones. And their New York-based licensing agent, Mark Freedman, helps them cope with the flood of companies eager to put the turtles on their merchandise. Eight artists, who have considerable freedom, also work for Mirage.

"They need more phone lines," says Lori Koonin of New Line Cinema, the movie's distributor. But she says the Prindles "have handled the flow well for two people."

And they definitely do things differently. Koonin says she doesn't have a single written document from Mirage; Jim Prindle, Mirage's 34-year-old licensing director, never writes anything down.

Besides all the 4-year-olds out there shouting, "Cowabunga," Mirage has one big advantage over its competitors: These turtles move fast. At Warner Bros., it takes weeks to go through the bureaucracy to get a merchandising tie-in approved. Jim Prindle says Mirage can do that in a couple of days.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are everywhere - on sipper cups and kids' pajamas, on wristwatches and three-ring binders. And the movie is still playing strong in theaters across the country.

Can it last?

Mirage has contracts that don't take effect until 1993, and a sequel to the movie has a tentative release date of spring 1991. Moreover, Jim Prindle says, the turtles have a built-in merchandising base - something other moviemakers have to create. You may be taking the family to a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle theme park one of these days.

Cheryl Prindle's favorite Turtle item is an illegal one - TMNT yarmulkes. "A little old lady in Manhattan" who didn't obtain a licensing agreement made about two dozen for boys about to have their bar mitzvahs, she said. Mirage has taken a few manufacturers to court and won, but the little old lady won't be prosecuted.

The movie's success has been, in one sense, a mixed blessing. Eastman and Laird have grown tired of the limelight, and Freedman no longer talks to newspapers.

The Prindles have been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and on plenty of morning radio shows. They're still having fun.

Jim Prindle thinks it will be four or five years before the turtle craze can attain the status of a classic - "so big it will leave a definite imprint on history."

"Bigger than Batman," the Boston Herald proclaimed in its lead paragraph when the movie came out.

We'll see.