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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 12, 1991                   TAG: 9104120668
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHRIS GLADDEN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ALL IN ALL, A SHOW WORTH SHELLING OUT FOR

To pick on the ubiquitous Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles may not be entirely fair because every rock show and sporting event to land in an area coliseum comes with its own aggressive campaign to sell merchandise at many times the normal retail rate.

But the Turtles have a large and captive bunch of consumers - parents.

The occasion was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Coming Out of Their Shells tour at the Salem Civic Center, an extravagant stage production spun off the Turtles' movies, cartoons, comic books and record album that drew a crowd of 3,727.

I took 4-year-old Will and 8-year-old Sean, two dedicated Turtles enthusiasts who were both pleased with the production. It is an obviously expensive and elaborate affair, a mock rock concert combined with some forced dramatics.

The Turtles have continued their miraculous mutation from little sewer dwellers into music superstars. The nefarious Shredder - a Darth Vader-type customized with some fins on his head and a lot of chrome - wants to deprive the world of music. And the karate-kicking, pizza-chomping green guys are out to stop him. They're New Kids on the Block in Halloween Suits.

The music isn't bad - antiseptic pop and funk. The staging's OK, though somewhat static. The use of 16-sectioned television screens to advance the story on each side of the stage was the most impressive technical achievement.

The Turtles - all named for Renaissance artists - demonstrated some commendable agility in their Arnold Schwarzenegger suits as they fake the peppy tunes. To their credit, they don't pretend to actually sing like a couple of androgynous guys we won't name. They extoll the pleasures of pizza, skateboarding and doing the right thing in a show that lasted about two hours.

I detected some restlessness in the audience coming from both parents and children. But my two seemed to be satisfied - ready to leave but more than willing to come back for a sequel.

However, I suspect much of their enthusiasm was derived from the purchase of two pairs of plastic nunchucks, replicas of martial-arts weapons that look like skillet handles joined by a chain and which cost a bargain $7 each. They're ideal devices for enabling children to hit themselves in the head when there are no other kids around to do it for them. A bargain by any parent's measure!