‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II’s’ Vanilla Ice Dance Fight Still Slays

Think back to Avengers: Infinity War, specifically the scene early on in Scotland when Scarlet Witch and Vision were fleeing from Thanos’ hench-aliens. Remember the high drama of it all, Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen totally selling us on a witch/robot love story in that one bedroom scene and late night stroll? And then remember the awesome throw-down as two of the most powerful superheroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe took on some hella fierce extraterrestrial warriors? It was a thrilling scene, and I loved when the battle crashed into a warehouse concert for Post Malone! Who knew Bettany and Olsen could dance like that, let alone dance fight?! And the song! Trust and believe, Post Malone’s “Spellbound (Robot Rap)” was my summer 2018 jam!

Okay okay okay, that last bit did not happen. Vision and Scarlet Witch instead fled to a train station where we got a truly religious Captain America moment instead of a Post Malone cameo. But can you even imagine such a thing happening today? A cameo so gratuitous wouldn’t even work in the Deadpool franchise (although it came close with that Celine Dion music video). But back in 1991, our superhero movies had no such compunctions about mixing it up with pop music. The primo example of this is, of course, Vanilla Ice’s “Ninja Rap” in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze.

There’s a lot to love about TMNT 2. The emergence of Keno as a rad fighting force, the giant dandelions, that glamorous fixer upper subway abode, “A little too Raph,” Shredder bellowing “Babies! They’re… babies!”–okay, maybe I watched this movie a lot as a kid, so much that inconsequential quotes still ring through my head on the reg. But even if you don’t remember Michaelangelo using sausage links as nunchucks in that mall brawl, you definitely remember the infamous “Ninja Rap”–and now you can relive it since the film’s streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video.

At the 69 minute mark, the Turtles’ melee with monster babies Tokka and Rahzar crashes into a raging warehouse concert (apparently a thing that happened in pre-Giuliani NYC) for Vanilla Ice. The crowd does that thing that all civilians do in superhero comics: they rationalize the appearance of literal inhuman creatures as elaborate walking and talking special effects. One fly guy shouts, “Look at those costumes! I love this place!” This makes me wonder what kinda creature features have popped up at previous gigs?

While the Turtles continue to tango with Tokka and Rahzar, force-feeding them fire extinguishers in order to speed up the de-mutation pills they slipped them in the previous scene, the Ice-man notices that his DJ hasn’t stopped. In fact, he’s dropping a funky new groove, one that cannot go unremarked upon. It’s then that Vanilla Ice pulls off the greatest totally pre-written freestyle verse of all time, giving us “Ninja Rap.”

Look at how clear the Turtles’ branding is. Their look truly communicates a story, because all Vanilla has to do is give them one quick up and down and he already knows the score: they’re ninjas and they’re turtles and they will rock the town without being seen. We get some fight dancing, which, okay, let me take my tongue out of my cheek to say that the makeup and costuming and creature work in this movie is incredible. In. Cred. I. Ble. Just look at these heavy-ass rubber turtle costumes move! They were remarkable in the first film and doubly so in the sequel because not only do they have to kick ass, they have to shake ass as well!

There is nothing wrong with this. Okay, sure, this moment does go against everything the first movie stood for. Need I remind you that the first Ninja Turtles film has aged incredibly well and is also way darker than you remember it being? There’s nothing quite as campy as a Vanilla Ice dance break in the first Turtles movie. Partners in Kryme’s bangin’ “Turtle Power” was relegated to the credits. But I have to admit, as a kid whose first-ever concert was the TMNT Coming Out of Their Shells tour, I get chills anytime I see Shredder terrorize a concert stage. This movie moment still works!

Also you can’t call this a Jump the Shark moment, because that moment was clearly when the Turtles appeared on Oprah and tried to convince an audience of rowdy kindergartners that fighting actually wasn’t cool.

Whether or not this Vanilla Ice moment is peak Turtles, that’s up for debate. This was, however, definitely peak Vanilla Ice. The production on Secret of the Ooze was lightning fast, as it hit theaters just 51 weeks after the first movie. And in those 51 weeks, Vanilla Ice hit the scene and scored two top 10 hits; his signature single “Ice Ice Baby” hit #1 in November 1990, just a few months before the release of TMNT 2. And considering that his third single, “I Love You,” only peaked at #52 the weekend Secret of the Ooze hit, it is quite clear that Ice would never be as big as he was while he rapping for the turtles.

Stream Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze on Prime Video