Giovanni (turtle)

⸺ by Charles Iliya Krempeaux

This is the story of Giovanni the hidden 5th turtle and lost brother.

TMNT At First Sight

I am a kid of the 1970s and 1980s. I grew up with a number of fictional universes, and their accompanying toy lines.

Some of these include: barbapapa, batman, battlestar galactica, beetlejuice, blackstar, boomerang, captain kangaroo, diaclone, galaxy warriors, gobots, g.i. joe, hulk, looney tunes, masters of the universe, mister rogers' neighborhood, mr. dressup, polka dot door, robotech, sesame street, scooby-doo, silverhawks, spider-man, star blazers, star trek, star wars, the flintstones, the simpsons, thundercats, tom and jerry, transformers, voltron, vytor (starfire champion), and much much more.

One (other) fiction that I was exposed to in my (late) childhood was: TMNT — short for teenage mutant ninja turtles.

By the time TMNT came out, I was not playing with toys anymore. But I did watch TMNT cartoon, did play the TMNT video-games, and did watch the TMNT movies.

I have fond memories of TMNT. And it (TMNT) has affect the lexicon of myself and my friends from or near my generation. For example — “gun it, April!”.

TMNT Again

My children are kids of the 2020s and 2030s. As I write this (in the year 2024) TMNT toys and other merchandise are in stores. As a result, my children have (also) been exposed to TMNT.

The first exposure was probably a TMNT t-shirt my son has. Later they (my children) would see TMNT toys in stores. Eventually they both got a number of TMNT toys and role-play sets. (I even got a TMNT role-play set for myself so I could play with them.)

Four Turtles

The TMNT turles has it that there are 4 turtles:

The 5th Turtle's Name

I wondered to myself — “what if there was a fifth turtle”.

For fun, I asked a large-language-model (LLM) chatbot:

Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael are brothers. If they had a fifth brother, what would his name be?

Its response was:

If Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello, and Raphael had a fifth brother, a fitting name could be "Giovanni." This name fits well with the Italian theme and complements the names of the existing brothers, as it shares a classic and timeless feel. Plus, it adds to the tradition of naming with a nod to Italian heritage.

"Giovanni" sounds like a good name for a 5th turtle. I also have a friend named Giovanni who is a TMNT fan — so (when I mentioned this to him), I am sure he will be happy about the name choice.

The 5th Turtle's Color

Donatello, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael all have colors associated with them. Donatello's color is purple. Leonardo's color is blue. Michelangelo's color is orange. Raphael's color is red.

So — what is Giovanni's color‽

Thinking in term of color mixing —

Blue is a primary color. Red is a primary color.

Purple is a secondary color. Orange is a secondary color.

Purple = Blue + Red.

Orange = Red + Yellow.

Yellow is the missing color with the turtles. So — Giovanni's color should be yellow.