Author: Tom Reimann
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The first thing you need to know about Out for Justice is that Steven Seagal allegedly shit his pants on set.
In addition to being a Katamari Damaci of sexual misconduct allegations from the moment he arrived in Hollywood, Seagal is also notorious for intentionally hitting stuntpeople, including famed Jason Vorhees performer Kane Hodder and famed mixed martial artist Gene LeBell. This is because Seagal is a nuclear shithead, and he enjoys hitting people when they arenât allowed to hit him back. If youâre a stuntperson on a blockbuster film headlined by Steven Seagal in 1991, Seagal can punch you in the face as hard as he wants, and if you react in any way except to whistle about how powerful he is, youâre going home without a job. As it happens, LeBell was the stunt coordinator on Out for Justice in 1991, and as the story goes, Seagal announced to the crew that because he was an Aikido master, it was physically impossible to choke him out. He wasnât bragging that he could escape any hold, mind you â he was arguing that it simply could not be done.
You may recognize this as a thing that isnât true, and so did Gene LeBell, because heâs a person with actual fight training instead of a dossier of lies he collected from G.I. Joe profile cards. You can choke out an elephant if your arms are thick enough, because itâs all about applying pressure in the correct places. No amount of âAikido trainingâ can trick your circulatory system into suddenly working differently. So, LeBell (allegedly) said, âIâll test that out for you,â and proceeded to strangle Seagal into unconsciousness. Seagal, his (alleged) Aikido training having failed him, (allegedly) passed out, (allegedly) evacuating his bowels like his colon just received a bomb threat. He also sprayed himself down with piss from his frightened baby dick for good measure. Allegedly.
This story is like a sourcebook for the Steven Seagal roleplaying game. The information it contains is necessary to fully understand and enjoy his cinematic adventures, particularly Out for Justice. The 1991 action thriller stars Seagal as Detective Gino Felino, because he asked the writers to give him the most Italian name possible without using an actual slur. Like every other Seagal film released during the turquoise supernova of his stardom, itâs the story of a toxic asshole threatening to sue everyone in his personal orbit if they donât pretend heâs the toughest dude in the world. Itâs extremely presidential! This is the essence of Seagal â heâs a bully and a fabulist who lucked into a position of power, and now he gets to make movies about being a karate special forces mob detective even though Iâm positive he doesnât know karate. I am pretty sure he knows the mob, though. Steven Seagal is such a bully and is so obviously insecure about his âfighting abilityâ that he refuses to ever have his character be in any danger or be at a disadvantage in his films. This isnât necessarily a bad idea for an action movie; see John Wick. But Seagal is also an imploding food truck of anti-charisma who never does anything fun or impressive in his action sequences. A Steven Seagal action sequence is a man moving as little as possible, followed by a bunch of people talking about how badass he is in defiance of reality itself. Itâs like watching someone bribe the judges at a talent show. A childâs yellow belt ceremony would genuinely be more impressive. In fact, despite being the fourth film of Seagalâs career as a martial arts action star, there is not one frame of martial arts in this movie. Seagalâs âAikido masteryâ is a lot of shoving and wristlocks, mostly unleashed against people making no effort to defend themselves. He moves his feet as little as possible. He doesnât throw a kick until the final reel, unless you count half a middle school dance move performed during a billiards melee, which would increase the total number of kicks in this action film to a generous 4. Itâs like a musical where every song is exactly 30 seconds of Shatnering. Let me stress to readers who arenât old enough to remember 1991 that Steven Seagal was pitched to action fans as another Bruce Lee – a guy who was pure lethal in real life, lending his mesmerizing talent to the world of cinematic storytelling. He also became popular at the tail end of an era when everyone on the planet was lying about being a mystical martial arts warrior, because the internet hadnât been invented yet, so that kind of stuff couldnât be instantly disproven the way it is today. Keep this context in mind as you continue reading.
The film starts with a title card featuring an Arthur Miller quote about neighborhoods.
Get right the fuck out of my face, Iâm not looking at a book today. Iâm specifically watching Out for Justice, the most anti-reading behavior you can engage in next to burning down a library. Weâre then introduced to Seagalâs Gino Felino, and the moment he opens his mouth to make the sound he thinks an Italian cop from New York would make is like listening to a school shooting. I wouldâve been less shocked if a cat spoke. My life will never be the same. He and his partner Bobby âThe Snitchâ Stoolini are staking something out for some reason, I wasnât paying attention, when Gino notices a pimp punching the absolute shit out of a woman across the street. Gino bursts out of the stakeout van with his ponytail blowing in the wind like a bicycle streamer, juggling his gun in front of him like itâs a card trick he canât wait to fucking ruin.
Heâs gonna lowball the birthday boyâs parents and get rabbit hair in the ice cream. Better hope Grandma saved a gift receipt, because Undercover Detective Magician Gino Felino is going to set that Nintendo 64 on fire with half of a disappearing bird illusion. The rest of the cops are pissed, because Gino refused to ignore a felony assault in broad daylight and stick to the stakeout. Thereâs definitely some nuance to be played with here, in deciding whether to remain undercover and catch the more dangerous criminal or intervene and risk blowing the entire operation, but Steven Seagal doesnât know that, and neither does Out For Justice. He just wants to shove a pimp while nerds cry about âprocedure.â Gino spends exactly 8 seconds checking on the woman and then we are treated to our first fight scene. A Seagal fight scene is a repellent and formidable beast, like an extremely fat rat defending a hoard of garbage. As I mentioned earlier, Seagalâs goal is to completely humiliate his opponent while moving as little as possible, like Thwomp if Thwomp could somehow do its job without gravity. This is hard to accomplish without giving Seagalâs character the explicit power of telekinesis, so instead of making him look cool, it makes him look like a stationary object deflecting airborne debris in a windstorm. Heâs a piece of gymnastics equipment for his stunt team to practice their flips. He doesnât do a single martial art that doesnât involve his opponent doing 98% of the work. Iâd say this makes him the Hulk Hogan of action movies, but at least the Hulkster took some chair shots. Out for Justiceâs inaugural pimpfight is no different. Ginoâs first big maneuver is to clumsily throw the guy into some barrels, nearly losing his own balance in the process.
Then he plants his feet like a sweaty redwood and waits for the guy to blindly charge into a back body drop. Itâs the kind of move you whip out when youâre playing with your nephews in a swimming pool, but Seagal isnât allowed near children because he keeps filling out his Big Brother application with a list of moves heâd like to demonstrate on âthe pupil,â so he has to wrestle pimps instead. We linger on a pair of fancy shoes amid the destruction, because fancy shoes are always funny.
Gino, having achieved his goal of beating someoneâs entire ass while remaining mostly immobile, struts off as the opening titles explode onscreen. Heâs Out for Justice, assholes!
A few scenes later, William Forsythe, the Magic: The Gathering avatar of getting picked up late from detention, marches up to Ginoâs partner Bobby and blasts him 400 times in front of a bodega in the middle of the day.
He then drives 50 feet away to smoke a pile of crack and shoot a random woman in the face after she honks at him in traffic.
Forsythe is playing a gangster named Richie Madano, who is spiraling in a drug-fueled homicidal meltdown. This is not entirely his fault. Heâs the villain in a Steven Seagal movie, which means he has to be more violent and impulsive than Steven Seagal. This is a tall task, so William Forsythe is trying to hit the ground running. Running is an activity Seagal hates, thus adding to Forsytheâs list of offenses as the filmâs antagonist. Gino shows up to the murder scene in thirty percent Street Fighter cosplay, plus some medallions he got from a Food Lion vending machine. He looks like he was created by a six-year-oldâs wish to be tough, which means that Seagal dressed himself for this scene.
I could write several hundred words on each piece of his outfit, so I will attempt to close some of that distance now. Heâs pitching a sequel to Demolition Man called Jumping Jacks Man. Heâs playing the detective in the dinner theater mystery hosted by your Pilates class. He ran out of throwing stars so he cut the sleeves off his bathrobe to go resupply at the mall. He looks like the assistant coach of the NYPD. He was the winner of a costume contest attended solely by January 6th rioters. Anyway, he shows up at his partnerâs murder scene wearing a sleeveless shirt and a beret and nobody says a word. Not even Jerry Orbach.
Seagal tries to cry in this scene. He digs deep and expresses the agony of a man whose meatball sandwich is too wet to hold.
Itâs a true test of his ability as an actor, because in reality no sandwich is too wet for the Aikido master. Gino goes to visit some mafiosos in an embarrassing scene reminiscent of a group of high school students reenacting The Sopranos for a senior project. His Brooklyn accent shifts between Sleepy Steven Seagal and an open mic comic doing a gangster impression, frequently in the same sentence. As he drives away from the meeting, furiously on the hunt for Richie, a random maniac tosses a sack full of puppy into the street.
We are 16 minutes into the film and already Gino has rescued a woman and a puppy. The city, itâs just so full of CRIME! (See âSteven Seagal is insecure,â above.) Immediately after nearly running over the puppy he buys a six pack of seltzer from a kid sitting on the corner. He stops and talks to the kid about his (the kidâs) mother, because Gino is both a man of the people and a hero of the neighborhood. Heâs going to cartoonishly break this childâs neck in three years.
Gino drives around until he spots Richie, who freaks out and orders his men to scatter. Richie is in the middle of a murderous bender and has several gangsters with him, so you would be forgiven for wondering why they donât simply blow Gino away. But this is Steven Seagalâs Out for Justice, which means the bad guys are required to behave as though theyâre being pursued by a tomb curse, rather than force the self-described Aikido legend with the muscle definition of a Stretch Armstrong to perform an action sequence. So instead of a thrilling display of Seagalâs (alleged) martial arts skills, we get a brief car chase during which Gino slides a Chevy Caprice through pedestrian traffic like a horse he canât decide whether to impregnate or shoot. At one point an elderly couple turns their heads to wonder where heâs going in kind of a hurry.
A few scenes later, Gino strolls into a crooked butcher shop to squeeze them for information about Richie. 1-900-HOTDOG has already devoted many words and countless ounces of chi to describing Steven Seagalâs unique way of moving, so I think itâs worth evaluating his gait clinically and objectively, like weâre grading him for a dog show. When Seagal walks, it is the motion of a man challenging himself to keep his neck completely still while swinging his arms using only his shoulders. Itâs truly remarkable.
Just for fun, hereâs a collection of thrilling walks from throughout the film:
The butcher shop fight is an excellent showcase of Seagalâs Aikido mastery, which, were we to distill it down to a single phrase, would probably be âshoving people.â Gino is instantly attacked with a meat cleaver and, in an electrifying display of skill, slap-shoves the assailantâs cleaver into his own leg. A second hoodlum attacks Gino by running at him and yelling.
Most of Aikido is designed around countering this specific technique, so the hoodlum was doomed from the moment he picked up the proverbial sword, but not the literal sword because that wouldâve taken time and money better spent on assembling Seagalâs wardrobe accessories. Gino deftly steps out of the way and shoves him into a deli counter. Then, for the coup de grace, Gino shoves the guy again, in the opposite direction. The hoodlum trips and falls onto the floor, utterly defeated. The rest of the deliâs employees spring into action with wild haymakers. Gino easily deflects these blows and slaps one man into submission before cleaving his useless haymaker-throwing hand to the wall.
This is the thrust of any Steven Seagal fight scene – he skips all the impressive technique and choreography to get right to the maiming. He fast-forwards every action scene he watches to the tablesaw faceplant or the uppercut into the piranha enclosure. Seagal doesnât actually like fighting, or fight scenes, or martial arts, or choreography – he just likes violence. Which is ironic considering his late-stage identity as a Buddhist Llama, an honor he bribed and bullied his way into receiving. This is all laid out in detail in the sourcebook Future Seagal: The Glimmer Man and Beyond. His idea of choreography is doing a Samurai Showdown win animation to strike you in the balls after pinning you to the wall with culinary equipment. Two more assailants appear, and Gino gets into his fighting stance, which looks like he is taking a shit in a haunted house.
He shoves these two jokers to death, wearing the facial expression of a man trying desperately to hold a pose until the director says âcut.â A butcher in a Mets cap comes rushing out to defend his coworkers, and Gino executes him with a bat to the back of the skull. Because we forgot to spend any money on choreography, the guy in the Mets cap just stands there motionlessly and waits for his brain to get whacked out of his nose.
Gino grabs a final thug in the same awkward arm lock youâd use to steal lunch money and beats him with a sausage.
Finally, he steals the shop ownerâs gun with a teleporting wristlock, which as you know is a bulletproof maneuver so it wouldâve been useless to try and shoot Seagal at that moment anyway.
He takes the gun apart and tosses it aside with disgust, although he will personally use guns to disfigure and execute several people later on in the film. Ginoâs quest for justice eventually brings him to a gangster bar where he is nearly forced to do actual karate. Thinking quickly, he falls back on the reliable technique of shoving spring-loaded henchmen as they lunge at him one at a time, bonking each of them with a towel. The towel is wrapped around a billiard ball, so this is a Power Bonk. It is during the Power Bonk that Seagalâs foot actually leaves the ground for the first time, to deliver a reverse spinning heel stomp. Itâs as impressive as watching somebody catch their earbud by accident.
The Power Bonk is the stuff of skull-crushing legend. (For a better example, watch the billiard ball sequence in The Night Comes For Us.) But here it is a sad ghost of its former self, like it got stuck haunting a pizza oven because Sbarroâs paved over the 18th century courthouse where it was executed. Even while wielding a cruelly makeshift nunchaku, like Michelangelo reneging on a bet, Seagal miserably drains the excitement from every fight scene like a colander that has literally never been washed. After the Power Bonk, Gino gets into a stick fight with a man named Sticks, because what Seagal thinks is cool and the contents of a Double Dragon comic book are exactly the same. Now, I know what youâre thinking â Double Dragon, stick fights, and Double Dragon stick fights are all totally bitchinâ, and I agree with you. The problem occurs when you inject Steven Seagal like a tube of expired cake frosting. The high-octane sequence cuts between Seagal flailing his sticks wildly like a man tanking his Benihana interview and a profile shot of the two combatants putting on a Highlander: The Series stunt show for everyone at the family reunion who isnât drunk yet.
Gino gets tired of spinning his sticks almost instantly and wristlocks his opponent to death. Then he plants his feet and the rest of the bar runs at him to receive their wristlocks.
One guy does a kick, and this display of foot mobility is so enraging that Gino uppercuts the manâs nutsack into his skull and breaks his leg with a triangle rack.
The movie is almost anti-martial arts. It punishes this henchman with a dickercut for trying to do something interesting, as though Seagal is arguing all that fairy kicking ainât nothing compared to a couple of slaps and a shot to the nuts. Incidentally, the bar scene begins and ends with Seagal shoving an unprepared noncombatant (see âSeagal is an insecure bully,â throughout).
In the universe of Out for Justice, we are asked to believe that Gina Gershon is William Forsytheâs sister, Patti. We accept this because it is far from the most outlandish claim the film makes. Gino goes to Pattiâs nightclub to harass her, and harass her he does! He drags her into her office, repeatedly calls her a whore like heâs trying to use the word as many times as he can in a minute to win a substantial cash prize, and completely destroys the room to terrify her into telling him what he wants to know.
It is easily the most chilling sequence in any Steven Seagal film, including the ones that are supposed to be scary. He also shoves a bouncer over a railing and down a staircase before he drags Patti to jail for no reason.
Gino falsely charges her with prostitution and throws her into lockup while he and the rest of the police station take turns calling her âa $10 whore.â Remember, Seagal thinks this behavior makes him look cool. Anyway, we never see Patti again. Gino leaves the police station to visit his estranged wife and son, bringing the puppy he rescued earlier. At one point during the drive, he promises the puppy that he will make sure it has sex with another puppy before the night is through. Note that he even pets the dog like a creep. He yanks the dog into his lap like heâs wrestling with a hoagie. In the manner in which a creep might pet a dog while driving alone at night.
He arrives at his wifeâs apartment, where she invites him inside for espresso. Seagalâs New York voice must be contagious, because the way Ginoâs wife says âespressoâ sounds like someone trying to get thrown out of a formal event by overindulging their pronunciation of âGuy Fieri.â They kiss. Itâs hideous. Even Seagal wants another take, and not just for pervert reasons.
Mobsters attack the apartment, and if you think Gino doesnât kill all of these dudes instantly with Shove Karateâ˘, youâve got another thing coming. A shove, most likely. One thug tries to blast him with a shotgun, but Gino expertly slaps the barrel aside so that it nearly kills his wife and son instead.
He then shoves a defenseless man out of the window to his death. If youâre keeping track, we are now four fight scenes down (five if you count him assaulting Patti), and Seagal has briefly lifted one foot, once. I want to be this good at karate.
Gino finally learns that Richie is hiding out in Juliana Marguliesâ apartment thanks to a tip phoned in by the seltzer kid from earlier. He arrives on the scene to dismantle the rest of Richieâs thugs, including completely severing one dudeâs leg with a shotgun blast, which rules, but is still not technically a martial art.
We never check back in on that guy, although we can hear him shouting in pained outrage for most of the finale. Thatâs not a joke. I kept thinking someone was caught in a trap outside my window. It is during the final showdown, right around the 80-minute mark of this martial arts action film, that Seagal throws his first true kick. He ponderously lifts his foot thirty full inches off the ground to stomp a goonâs balls so hard that the goon flies against a brick wall and dies instantly.
Finally, blessedly, mercifully, it is time for the ultimate battle between Steven Seagal and William Forsythe. In a real fight I would give Forsythe the edge, because he looks like the type of person who has bled at a restaurant while a frustrated woman yells at him. If he were issuing Pit Fighter challenges, I would avoid his gaze. Conversely, Steven Seagal is a man pretending to know karate professionally. But this is Out for Justice, which means Gino is an invincible badass even though he appears to be less mobile than a discontinued appliance. He defeats Richie by watching him flip around the room while skillfully stepping out of the way. âAikidoâ might literally mean âjust shove them.â
Gino winds up pummeling Richie with an entire kitchen, like the pilot episode of a cooking show Steven Seagal pitched to a cornered female executive. Heâs putting together a recipe for a night out⌠a night Out for Justice! First he seasons Richie with a pepper shaker:
Then he whomps Richie with a frying pan:
He uses a deadly lighting-fist combination to tenderize Richie a little more, I bet he goes for some breadcrumbs next:
Finally he kills Richie with a corkscrew to the eye, so I guess we may be staying In for Justice after all.
During the filmâs epilogue, Gino takes his wife for a stroll on the boardwalk with their new puppy. He spots the dog maniac from earlier and delivers his final kick of the film, directly into the maniacâs dog-hating balls. The puppy pees on the maniacâs head, then joins Gino as he shambles into the sunset with his wife. His son was not invited, though is presumably still alive.
The end credits roll over a montage of unused footage from the film. Not outtakes, mind you â extended versions of scenes we already saw. Seagal wanted to do the Jackie Chan thing, but doesnât understand what the Jackie Chan thing is, or why Jackie Chan does it.
Finally the montage freezes on Seagalâs face, looking offscreen with a steely-eyed gaze that says, âThereâs an extra wet meatball sub over there, and itâs about to get fucked. By me.â
Somehow, Out for Justice managed to achieve modest box office success despite being an embarrassing monument to the ego of a notorious bullfrog turd. That said, it was the beginning of the end for Seagal as a major star, even though his biggest hit, Under Siege, was yet to come. Out for Justice didnât perform as well as his previous film Marked for Death, and three different Warner Bros. employees filed sexual harassment complaints against him during its production. (This is in addition to the alleged abusive treatment of the filmâs stunt performers I mentioned earlier.) Furthermore, his notorious appearance on Saturday Night Live, in which he treated the cast so horribly that Lorne Michaels banned him from ever returning, was in promotion of this film. So in retrospect, Out for Justice is the perfect showcase for Steven Seagal â a terrible actor who does boring action sequences and mistreats everyone around him to the tune of diminishing box office returns. Here he is eating a carrot with the dictator of Belarus (see âSteven Seagal is presidential,â throughout).
Tom Reimann is the co-founder of the podcast and streaming network Gamefully Unemployed, where he is trying to wage a one-man war against crime without bending his elbows. Check out their Supernatural watchalong Him-Boos, and their improv mockumentary BADICAL, about the raddest fighting game (n)ever made.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Leesa, who had a pet seagull named steven a long time ago. It, too, claimed to be an aikido master and choked to death on seven corn dogs.
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Nerding Day: The TMNT RPGđ
Iâm not a huge fan of Kevin Eastman and Peter Lairdâs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the black-and-white comic they drew in the 1980s. Iâve never felt âdark and grittyâ was the right tone for the Ninja Turtles; I donât want to see Raphael blind a mugger with street glass, or Michelangelo get hooked on the lumpy cocaine Karen Hill flushed down the toilet. It hits my brain in the exact same way that a dark and gritty Rainbow Brite would – I have no need for that interpretation, please take back your extremely sweaty brochure.
Like everyone my age, I was a fan of the TMNT cartoon show Playmates Toys developed in 1987 to support the action figure license theyâd acquired from Eastman and Laird. Beyond it being right there in the title (the characters are canonically 15 years old), thereâs something inherently childish about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the property has objectively been its most successful when it maintains a certain level of innocence. Even the âgrittyâ comics were never all that hard. But I did love the weirdness and self-parody in Eastman and Lairdâs version, which are two elements the cartoon show preserved, along with the charactersâ names and general appearance. Uh, except for April and Baxter, who were made white. For some reason the cartoon about mutant combat frogs decided Black people were too unbelievable. Thatâs why they transmogrify Bebop in the second episode. Speaking of transmogrifying, tabletop gaming publishers / professional ink maniacs Palladium Press recently reprinted their beloved Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles roleplaying game in a special 2025 Redux Edition, and I bought it, because I am your champion:
Palladium acquired the rights to produce a TMNT roleplaying game in the mid-1980s, which is to say their game is firmly based on the Turtlesâ edgier origin comics, and definitely NOT that lame cartoon that everyone loves and has made millions of dollars for forty years. The book constantly reminds you of this fact as you flip through its feverish prose, which is written as a single unbroken thought with occasional section headings, like it was laid out by John Doe the day he signed the lease for the Sloth apartment.
The layout has been tidied up for 2025, which is a phrase here meaning âthey put digital makeup on a run-on sentence.â
Palladium is owned and operated by recurring 1-900-HOTDOG character Kevin Siembieda, who is also responsible for the RIFTS gaming system and its dozens of sourcebooks. He remains one of the most compelling pieces of physical evidence that Faustian bargains are both real and affordable. Heâs so prolific it borders on harassment. Despite the massive success of TMNT as a property, Kevin Siembieda decided not to renew the game license, mostly out of spite for the cartoon. So, Palladiumâs TMNT roleplaying books drifted out of print in the 1990s, and remained dormant ever since, floating endlessly in Mediocre Purgatory like a TV Guide stuck in the negative zone from Poltergeist 2. Improbably, Palladium Press reacquired the TMNT license from Nickelodeon in the year of his infernal dominion 2025 (see âMephistophe-lease,â above), and re-released them with updated rules and artwork for the 21st century. And beyond! Thereâs a whole book of rules about time travel, and I wonât lie, it looks sick as shit.
I donât have a joke, some things are just fucking rad.
The layout has been updated as well, to clean up some of the resolution lost to the grape juice stains on the Palladium copy machine. The whole 2025 Redux Edition package is extremely readable, which is a good quality for books to have. But Kevin Siembieda canât hide from us, or indeed from himself, so he stuffed this special edition with thousands of words of âbonus materialâ from his personal grievance diaries. He begins by stamping 100% of his crazy on the very first page:
Weâre greeted with an extended disclaimer about WITCHCRAFT and ILLEGAL DRUG USE, followed by a drawing of ritualistic animal abuse that looks like a haunted woodcut youâd find in a specially marked box of Ninja Turtles cereal. This is a frenzied illustration of anthropomorphic creatures about to wishbone a terrified rodent for their cannibal orgy. Itâs a pregnant Sonic meme drawn in blood and semen. It looks like Ring Cam footage from the Island of Dr. Moreau. Itâs an illustration by TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman from the bookâs 1985 printing, and thereâs no way he wasnât rock hard while drawing it. But in 1985 they stuck it waaaay in the back of the book, long past where bored parents wouldâve stopped flipping. In the 2025 Redux Edition itâs been moved to the first page and colorized, like Ted Turner revisiting his favorite cursed pornography. This is the image Kevin Siembieda selected to convince parents he isnât a magical pervert. Let me say that again with more words – this remastered 2025 sourcebook reprinted the same 40-year-old disclaimer Palladium used in 1985 to assure parents and the CIA alike that they donât endorse dark magic. Or heroin! Because theyâre nerds. The book also contains dozens of eulogies for the gameâs original author and designer Erick Wujcik – some of which begin on the very next page – which drives home how much time has passed since this bookâs last printing, and how much older we all are. So do all the rules about ninjas.
Grief is complicated, and like grief, some of these tributes are heartfelt and sweet, while others are a little strange and self-serving. For example, Wujcikâs birth and death year are included after each of his reprinted dedications, like a bunch of headstones scattered throughout the book.
Itâs archaic formatting for a quote, but not formatting that has ever been used for an authorâs dedication page. Itâs like adding Steve Irwinâs death date to every copy of The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course. Itâs a bizarre tone to strike for your game of mutant ninja animals. I donât want to stomp the Foot Clan any more, I want to go take photographs with my family. Well, both, ideally. Speaking of editorial choices, Kevin Siembiedaâs original rants remain preserved in time, like insects frozen in amber, incubating the DNA of his crazy until it could be revived by 21st century science. His dedication for the Turtles Go Hollywood! adventure sourcebook is a 50-word manifesto about the scourge of illegal drugs, because Kevinâs three greatest loves are ninjas, robots, and Death Wish 3.
Siembieda spends pages of boldly-titled âbonus materialâ taking partial credit for creating the Ninja Turtles. He repeatedly congratulates himself for being the first person to license TMNT, like the guy who took the first picture of the Beatles. He credits one wifeâs help and support in the gameâs creation, then dedicates the book to a different (deceased) wife. He cannot be stopped. They did increase the suggested reader age from 12 to 14, so thatâs one compromise Kevin Siembieda was willing to make. No he wasnât, what am I saying? He 100% views it as a bold declaration his Turtle game isnât for babies, or the baby-of-heart. Also, this book tells me to play Randy Newman to get players in the mood. Thatâs the literary equivalent of backmasking. I might have to destroy it.
Erick Wujcikâs fingerprints are still here too, from his clearly personal grudge with $50 katanas to his irritation over the existence of so many goddamn fucking birds.
The 1985 version was rigid, like Kevin-Eastman-drawing-a-blood-orgy rigid, and scolded the reader with several thrilling examples of âbad roleplayingâ that seemed drawn from the authorâs own life. It was like playing Ninja Turtles with Young Sheldon – one way or another, youâre going home early from the sleepover. Most of Wujcikâs prickliness has been cleaned up for the 2025 Redux Edition in the interest of being welcoming to new players. But they definitely didnât purge all of it.
ââŚ*sigh*âŚyeah Mom, can you come pick me up? Erickâs doing it again.â
Despite the obvious lunacy of its publisher, TMNT remains a beloved game thanks to its absurd character-creation system, and because the rules are dirt simple and perfectly designed to be played during lunch period. You can condescend to me all you want, as long as I get to be Donatello. To take this Redux Edition on a test drive, Iâm going to create my own team of mutant ninja heroes and play through one of the bookâs introductory adventures, Terror on Rural Route 5.
Apart from some character stats, this adventure is entirely unchanged from 1985, which is why it has you thwarting a school shooting perpetrated by the cast of Animal Farm. In the interest of my deadline, which I have already shattered like Chuck Yeager fearlessly helicoptering his dong at the sound barrier, Iâll have to play the whole thing myself rather than assemble a group of improv comedians and charming guest stars for a podcast miniseries, which is the way people normally play roleplaying games. Youâll have to trust me to run the game as impartially as possible, although I will occasionally bend the rules to save my characters from themselves. Iâll include that stuff in the Bonus Material, along with selections from my personal grievance diary. Now, I spent half of my single-digits inventing teams of mutants inspired by the heroes in a halfshell. I hardly need a bookâs help. But today we are going to let Teenage Mutant Ninja Jesus take the wheel and use the 2025 Redux Edition sourcebook to randomly generate our animal heroes. Time to crack this big bastard open like Shredder splittinâ some turtle backs for his soup. Uh, that kind of sounds like heâs fucking them. Lemme try again – letâs crack this big bastard open like Shredder impregnating Sonic the Hedgehog.
Image unrelated.
We start by rolling 3 six-sided dice to determine our attribute scores in 8 categories, because this game is already too friggin busy.
One of the attributes is PP, which rocks, but why arenât any of these figures grading our tubularity? Not sure how that got missed when the rules were updated. Speaking of which, while the rules have indeed been polished, grammatical errors await you like a Foot Clan ambush on every page, and the casual racism remains untouched. For instance, there are constant references to the âmysticismâ of the âFar East.â Luckily Palladium Press released a sourcebook called Mystic China that is STILL IN PRINT, so we can bone up on all that stuff later. Next we roll to see what kind of animal we are, and as Erick Wujcik (1951-2008) once wrote, there are indeed too many fucking birds.
This is the most fun part of the game – trying to reverse engineer a ninja hero out of whatever bullshit animal you happen to roll. Sure, thereâs cool stuff on there like sharks and horses, but youâre only ever going to roll some variation of a bird or rodent, because Erick Wujcik included dozens of them, and the table still has repeats. We got Otter, so thatâs something. We get to pick which kind of Otter, so Iâm going with River Otter, because you get more points to spend on your mutation, which is where you buy hands. And trust me – weâre gonna want hands. Next we figure out our heroesâ origin – they were accidentally mutated by a chance encounter with the ooze, and were raised by a sensei, just like the Turtles. Youâve got a pretty solid chance of being just like the Turtles, because there are only three possible background options, and we have twenty-eight minutes until the bell rings. OK, now itâs time to mutate our animal:
As you can see in the above example, if you were a dog mutant you could elect to have no human features whatsoever, or spend points to make yourself look vaguely like Jeff Fahey. Itâs also how you grow or shrink your animal and give them the ability to thrash (ride skateboards and subscribe to Thrasher magazine). The rules are careful to mention that real-life mutations typically donât give you special abilities, because Kevin Siembieda isnât getting sued when some dumb kid drinks paint thinner and crocodile shit to try and grow scales.
Using his guidance, Iâve created the Secret Violent River Otters. They were raised by a weebed-out goof who also taught them ninjitsu and some light pickpocketing. I dunno, Iâll make him up later. Let me introduce you to the team:
Karate, the just and brainy leader. His mastery of the flail knows no equal;
BMX, the burly hothead. His twin katana will slice through any foe;
and Space Shuttle, the psionic warrior and wielder of the deadly kusarigama.
This game is big on psychic powers, for some reason. If you thought TMNT was about whirling nunchaku and cowings bunga, go home to your frigginâ baby cartoon. THESE mutants need to shut peopleâs brains off with their minds. My heroes are river otters, so theyâre natural swimmers, and can see in the dark. Except for Space Shuttle, he traded his night vision for Bio-Manipulating Paralysis after demonstrating his suitability for the MK ULTRA program. I was going to make a fourth brother called Nintendo but I ran out of time. Heâs with them in spirit.
Our critters are hanging out in their skate dojo when they spy a news broadcast delivering them all the information we are going to receive for this adventure, which means we have to invent a skate dojo. Time for our imaginations to soar! What are the essentials of a rad sewer lair? Letâs make a list:
⌿ A Television (this is particularly important for this adventure)
⌿ Sick half pipes
⌿ Microwaveable italian food
⌿ Turds (human, rat)
⌿ Attitude
Where can we find all of these things in abundance? Thatâs right! The old abandoned Action Playset on the edge of town!
The Otters are shredding pipe with their reclaimed mobility devices when they hear an urgent news bulletin. A group of terrorists has taken over an elementary school and are holding 100 kids hostage. No demands have been made public, but local, state, and Federal law enforcement officials are on the scene. More details will follow at 5, because this adventure was written before 24-hour news networks existed.
Those kids need us, but we canât just rush out to the school and ask the police for the skinny, weâre four-foot otters. And BMX hates cops. How can we find out more about whatâs going on? In this game, your characters have a handful of skills you select based on your background, and beyond that, everything is based on a percentage roll. No matter what batshit thing you think of, you just roll and check the corresponding skill on your character sheet. Donât you DARE look anything up. Combat barely requires you to check an enemyâs stats, except to see whether theyâre still alive. This can make the game get irrevocably chaotic in short order, but it also keeps everything moving, which is great because we only have about ten more minutes until lunch ends. Letâs hear some suggestions, my River Otters!
I could use my electronics and radio knowledge to build a police scanner out of scrap so we can listen in on their frequency!
*grinds teeth*
We should hang ten right through the front door and get our slice on! When the blood settles, weâll be heroes! Slice, Slice, A New York Slice!
Slice, Slice, A New York Slice!
Letâs go with Karateâs plan. I feel like BMXâs suggestion, while bold, will doom our adventure to infamy. Karate is able to build a scanner pretty quickly out of all the junk here in the Action Playset, and we parkour down to the school to use it. Itâs a single school building on a rural highway, with a police perimeter set up near the road. We have to sneak pretty close to use our homemade junk box, but weâre fugginâ NINJA OTTERS so we did it. We just barely succeeded our Prowl check by the way, personally I blame BMX. Heâs a bit too bulky for ninja work. Listening in on police chatter, we learn that the school has been taken over by a group of half-human, half-animal mutants led by âthe Liberator.â The Liberator has made demands to the governor, but we donât know what they are. Letâs assume a helicopter will be involved; this is 1985, after all. The Liberator wants to give a press conference at 6pm, so the news media is gathering in preparation. Guns have been seen inside the building. The power and phone lines are still intact, and rations are going to be delivered to the front door shortly. Probably some baby food sandwiches, or whatever kids eat. What should we do, my Otters?
I see a number of possibilities, sensei. We can sneak in with the food delivery. We can wait for the press conference and use Space Shuttleâs power to paralyze the Liberator, although the Liberatorâs goons probably have instructions to harm the children if anything funny happens. We can sneak in during the press conference, while everyone is distracted. We can impersonate the police over the police scanner to try and trick the Liberator. Or, we can find another way inside the school.
Letâs gut these barfbags!
Far out! *eye twitches*
Great input, team! We have some time until the press conference, so letâs do some Ninja Reconnaissance. BMX and Space Shuttle sneak closer to the school, where BMX uses his Advanced Smell to detect what kinds of animal mutants weâre dealing with. He sighs heavily but picks up the scent of a bull, a dog, and several pigs. Space Shuttle uses his Tracking ability to spot multiple footprints leading off to a run-down farm about a mile distant. Karate tries using the radio to listen in on the Liberator, but is having trouble finding a frequency. BMX and Space Shuttle find a basement window while Karate keeps fussing with his smelly radio. I guess he wants to prove to BMX it wasnât a waste of time.
I worked very hard on it, sensei, it was a nonviolent solution and you taught us to respect lifeâŚ
Karateâs big dumb egghead face finally gets the radio working but canât find the Liberator on any channel. The basement window is unlocked and hanging open, but Space Shuttle canât make anything out inside. Dropping all that government acid has affected his vision.
*massages brain in anticipation of unleashing psionic abilities*
Karate stealthily joins the others by the school, sneaking easily by the police. Weâve learned the Liberator and their group came from a nearby farm, and that we can sneak into the school through the basement. Itâs 5pm, the food is arriving right now and we are one hour from the press conference.
We can ambush whoever gets the food. We can sneak in through the basement. We can check out that farm. Or we can wait for the press conference to start and either sneak inside or paralyze the LIberator with Space Shuttleâs hideous thoughts.
Letâs pop their skulls open like a buncha Mountain Dewskies!
Wicked! *urinates*
Excellent suggestions, my otters! Letâs go check out the farm. Those kids can chill out for a minute, I trust the terrorists. We sprint the mile distance to the farm in 7.5 minutes exactly, because Erick Wujcik gave me all the tools I needed to calculate that. We find a small farm with a farmhouse, a barn, and a pig shack, and a foreclosure sign in the yard. Two mutant pigs are drag-racing tractors. Theyâre dressed like theyâre about to get blown up by Rambo. They have not noticed us and are unlikely to, because tractor races are loud and totally bitchinâ.
Iâll sneak to the farmhouse and listen in!
Karate sneaks to the farmhouse and listens in. He detects 3 different voices arguing about âthe planâ and whether âFerdâ really is going to get them all a new home. It sounds like theyâre watching the news broadcast about the ongoing hostage situation at the school. We also hear a commercial for New Coke. Space Shuttle sneaks over to the window with Karate but canât quite see inside.
You should consider LASEK, brother.
Can you see any burritos? *nose bleeds*
Karate and BMX sneak inside the farmhouse window but Space Shuttleâs big ass cracks the glass and he gets spotted! Space Shuttle uses his Impersonation skill (heâs a magnificent actor, he performed Henry V for my birthday) to bluff and say heâs part of the revolution, but he gets lost in the specifics and the pigs donât buy it.
*whispering* Iâll save you, Space Shuttle!
Karate sneak attacks the pigs. Itâs really easy to do, you just have to roll a 5 or higher on a 20-sided die. Kevin Siembieda and Erick Wujcik donât waste time worrying about hitting or missing when the only thing that matters is HOW MUCH DAMAGE YOU DO. We enter our first combat! Two of the pigs carry Uzis (itâs 1985, thatâs the law) and the third has a flamethrower.
Wh-
Space Shuttle uses his PSIONIC POWERS to paralyze another Pig, and the last one just gives up before BMX kills him.
Go Stream Machine! (Theyâre river otters.)
OK, as rad as that was, weâve hit my first major problem with the rules – theyâre extremely unclear on how to knock someone out. You either have to kill everyone you fight or pummel them into a coma. Combat assumes youâre applying lethal force in every fight, because weâre throttling the Shredder on notebook paper as fast as we can while the teacher goes on about chlorophyll or something. To Kevin Siembieda, ânuanceâ is a word formed only by the lips of the fearful. You can try to Pull Your Punch, which lets you reduce the damage by quarters, down to a single point or no damage at all, but that only stops you from killing someone instantly. Itâs also more difficult to do – you have to roll an 11 instead of a 5, because killing is second nature to a ninja. They put accidental Dim Maks on lightswitches and doughboys EVERY DAY. Consequently a lot of this game is beating your adversaries into savage comas and then immediately administering first aid, if you selected First Aid as a skill. If you didnât, they just lie there and bleed to death. Or succumb to brain damage! If you decide to use the optional Serious Injury tables. Weâll just have to rescue these kids without knocking anyone out.
BMX interrogates the last pig and learns there are 12 fellow swine at the farmhouse, 6 pigs at the school, plus a dog man named Buck and a bull man named Ferd, AKA the Liberator. Ferd promised to get them a new home after their owner, Farmer George, choked to death on obvious literary references and the bank showed up to foreclose on the house. Theyâre supposed to sit here and watch the news, then call Ferd at the school and use coded phrases over the telephone to give him any updates. BMX cuts the phone cord. Space Shuttle looks out the window and activates his mind powers to paralyze one of the two Racing Pigs, who crashes his tractor into the barn.
Ha ha ha ha!
The commotion attracts the rest of the pigs; seven (7) of them come out of the pig shack, lord knows what they were all doing in there but you can smell it from here. They gather at the barn, extremely puzzled. Racing Pig 1 is telling them he canât move. The pigs donât seem to know what to do, and theyâre all arguing with each other.
Space Shuttle stretches his improv legs again and convinces the pigs that we, as fellow mutant animals, are also part of the plan to help Ferd get a new farm.
But the cops are here! Everyone get inside the barn!
*ignites nozzle* Yeah, and lock the door.
We convince the pigs to barricade themselves inside the barn. Then BMX sets the barn on fire. Remember, he hates pigs.
Ha ha yeah! Yeah! Thatâs what I call a Hot Slice!
Slice, Slice, A New York Slice!
Radical!
We make haste back to the school in time for the 6pm press conference. Reporters are gathering at the front door. What shall we do?
Thank you for asking me first, sensei. BMX and I will climb inside the basement. Space Shuttle will keep watch for the news conference to start, and use his Psionic Abilites⢠on whomever comes out, which will likely be Ferd.
I donât kick anything in this plan.
Michael Dukakis!
Letâs do it, gang! The news conference starts a few minutes late, Ferd pokes his head out at 6:18 with six schoolchildren. Space Shuttle fires his paralyzing brain lasers but Ferd resists; he makes an extreme look like he shit in several pairs of pants, but doesnât otherwise react. He continues with his press conference undaunted, and says heâs going to start killing kids in the morning unless his demands are met. He wants two helicopters. Six million dollars. And transport to a remote northern location, maybe Canada. I guess heâs going to ask the helicopter pilots for their opinion. Space Shuttle joins the others in the basement, relaying the shame of his failure.
Sorry bros, I couldnât slice his brain. *ear burps*
(supportive) Slice, Slice, A New York Slice!
Thereâs a furnace and a door at the top of the stairs. Karate listens at the door and hears nothing. Space Shuttle picks the lock, he saw how to do it on MacGuyver. We open the door a crack and scan the hall. BMX sniffs for danger, but he canât smell anything over the flamethrower fuel. Space Shuttle straight up canât see anything.
The cost of your powers is great, brother.
I saw a patrol of 3 figures walking by the windows earlier. We can wait here to ambush them, or we can go look for them. We can search for the kids and see if we can free them quietly. Or, we can try to find Ferd.
Whatever we decide, I would like to use the flamethrower again.
Huey Lewis!
Letâs wait here to ambush the patrol. The patrol shows up. Itâs Buck the dog-man and two pigs. Space Shuttle paralyzes Buck. The 2 pigs instantly drop their guns and run. I donât blame them, thatâs some freaky shit. Buck calls after them, âCome back! I meant to do that! Iâm doing this on purpose to confuse our oppressors!â BMX hops out into the hallway and rolls a natural 20 to set the fleeing pigs on fire with his new flamethrower. Karate jump kicks them. Space Shuttle tries to jump kick them too but he misses. We seriously need to get him some glasses. Buck, still paralyzed by Space Shuttleâs mind shackles, shouts, âDonât spill the beans, my hoggy brothers!â BMX stabs one of the pigs so hard they die instantly, so I guess that means they exploded. Bacon bits, if you will. BMX knocks the other pig out with a punch. Heâs so cool.
*smokes*
We interrogate Buck and he spills the beans easy because of everything he just witnessed. The kids are in the gym, guarded by 3 pigs. Ferd is in the office with 1 pig and 4 other kids. I guess those are the problem kids. We disarm Buck, tie him up with Space Shuttleâs old Vuarnet sweatshirt, and stuff him in the basement. We teach him a song before we leave, so he doesnât get bored. BMX gags him with a chunk of pig, so he doesnât get lonely. BMX easily guides us to the office by picking up Ferdâs scent with his advanced smell. Itâs a very nice office but it doesnât have a window, so we canât see inside. We listen at the door and hear a voice ranting about destroying the system. It could be a meeting of the debate club, but it is probably Ferd. We check to see if we can climb into the ceiling, but it isnât a drop ceiling, which are those cool crawlspace ceilings that aliens and John McClane use for travel.
Space Shuttle wishes to atone for his cursed eyes with more of his Groundlings teachings. He impersonates one of the pigs and says, âHey boss! Buck needs ya, he says Aerosmith is here! Theyâre pulling up out front!â Ferd says, âOoh our luck is finally changing! Our message is being heard!â He comes out into the hall, RIGHT INTO OUR NINJA AMBUSH.
One stuffed crust, COMING UP!
Slice, Slice, A New York Slice!
We beat Ferd into a coma while Melissa the pig barricades the office door and starts shooting through it with a submachine gun, demanding to know what Aerosmith is doing to the boss. BMX chops the door down and we stomp Melissa into the earth. Karate and Space Shuttle stabilize Ferd and Melissa respectively, because I had them both enroll in the same CPR course at the YMCA. BMX tells the kids in the office to âscrape up your sweaties and book it, dudes!â
Itâs how us kids talk, Gramps!
We direct the kids to sneak out of the basement window, and to ignore the dog man with the ragged pig arm in his mouth. We have no time to teach them the song. We make our way to the gym and peek through the door. There are three pigs in there – Hank, Roy, and Angie – standing guard over a hundred kids gathered around them on the gym floor. It must be the whole school. Except for those four turds in the office. Space Shuttle paralyzes Angie with his government brain. The other two pigs, Hank and Roy, tell the kids to stop crying, sheâs breakdancing.
The liars! Let me burn âem, Karate!
No, Beams! Youâll burn the children!
*weeps*
Space Shuttle tries to impersonate Ferd and trick them, but he doesnât get the voice right. I guess he didnât hear Ferd speak enough. The pigs say, âNice try coppers! This is on you!â As punishment, they loudly tell the children that Santa Claus isnât real.
(grim) Well ainât that a real slice oâ pie.
(determined) Slice, Slice, A New York Slice!
Hank the Pig throws a grenade that blows up the gym door and seriously injures Karate, like Kyle Reese at the end of The Terminator, the hit film from last summer. Karate is bleeding out, because there are rules for that, and not for knocking anyone out.
(enraged) WHEREâS THE BEEF?
Space Shuttle leaps over the sitting kids and instantly kills Hank and Roy with a flying critical strike from his KUSARIGAMA. Karate stabilizes himself. Heâs so brave.
*cough*…papaâŚpapa, tell me you liked my radioâŚ
We have done it, my Otters! These children will never forget the heroism they witnessed here today. The city will worship us as sub-dieties, and feed us its cash. Letâs return to the Action Playset and see if Karate survives the night!
*Play âI Love L.A.â by Randy Newman (Trouble in Paradise album).
Tom Reimann is the co-founder of the podcast and streaming network Gamefully Unemployed, where he is busy designing the TIMECOP tabletop roleplaying experience. Check out their new show BADICAL, about the raddest fighting game (n)ever made.
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Rhia, who keeps pouring radioactive waste on all of their pets but just keeps ending up with huge vet bills.
