Elvis

Title: Elvis
Year: 2022
Director: Baz Luhrmann
Actors: Tom Hanks, Austin Butler, Olivia DeJonge, Helen Thomson, Richard Roxburgh, Kelvin Harrison Jr., David Wenham, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Luke Bracey, Dacre Montgomery, Leon Ford, Gary Clark Jr., Yola, Natasha Bassett
Genre: Biographical, Drama, Music
Country: Australia, USA

Why in Database: Turtle appears in this film only as mention in dialogue, the following line is spoken by Elvis.

Dr. King was shot eight miles from Graceland while I was out here singing to turtles.

Author: XYuriTT

Seinfeld

Title: Seinfeld
Year: 1989-1998
Actors: Jerry Seinfeld, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards, Jason Alexander, Ruth Cohen, Wayne Knight, Norman Brenner, Heidi Swedberg, Estelle Harris, Jerry Stiller
Genre: Comedy
Country: USA
Viewing method: Selected episodes

Why in Database: Turtle elements in this series appeared only in the form of verbal mentions.

The first two references we found are in season five’s fourteen episode (The Marine Biologist), it is about the Galápagos tortoises:

– I just got back from a trip to the Galapagos Islands. I was living with turtles.

– You got me in the Galapagos Islands living with the turtles.

The next two references are identical, the following first appears in the twenty-first episode of season five (The Hamptons), in episode fourteen of season six (Highlights of a Hundred) it is repeated because this is a clip show episode. The dialogue is about a certain part of the male body that shrinks upon contact with cold water.

– Do women know about shrinkage?
– What do you mean, like laundry?
– No.
– Like when a man goes swimming, afterwards….
– It shrinks?
– Like a frightened turtle.
– Why does it shrink?
– It just does.

In the second episode of season eight (The Soul Mate), there is a mention of a tortoiseshell:

– She’s got really nice hair.
– Oh, it’s incredible.
– Although, I might replace her tortoise clip… with one of those velvet scrunchies.
– I love those.

In the eighth episode of the eighth season (The Chicken Roaster) the turtle is mentioned again:

– Well, I gotta meet Newman at the pet store. I’m helping him pick out a turtle.

The last reference we found is in the eleventh episode of the ninth season (The Dealership):

– They stick you with the undercoating, rustproofing, dealer prep. Suddenly you’re on your back like a turtle.

Author: XYuriTT

Blue Bloods

Title: Blue Bloods
Year: 2010-Ongoing
Actors: Donnie Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan, Will Estes, Len Cariou, Tom Selleck, Andrew Terraciano, Abigail Hawk, Gregory Jbara, Marisa Ramirez, Sami Gayle, Robert Clohessy, Vanessa Ray, Tony Terraciano
Genre: Criminal, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Viewing method: Selected episodes

Why in Database: In the fifteenth episode of the first season (Dedication), during the meal scene, the classic joke is told about a turtle who was attacked by a gang of snails.

A turtle. A turtle’s taking a walk in Central Park… Oh. Yeah. late one night. Uh-huh. And he gets mugged by a gang of snails.
Uh-oh.
Now… the investigating detective asks the turtle, “What-what can you recall?” And the turtle thinks, looks confused, and he says, “I don’t know. It happened so fast.”
Y-you know, Walter, it’s great that your jokes are always clean. Be nice if they were funny, too.
WALTER: What is not funny about that?
Everything. I’d say the set up, the punch line, the delivery: the whole thing. (laughter)
Walt. It’s a turtle!

Author: XYuriTT

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always

Title: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always
Year: 2023
Director: Charlie Haskell
Actors: Walter Jones, Steve Cardenas, Catherine Sutherland, Charlie Kersh, Karan Ashley, Johnny Yong Bosch, David Yost, Benny Joy Smith, Howard Cyster, Richard Steven Horvitz, Barbara Goodson
Genre: Action, Adventure, Family, SF
Country: USA

Why in Database: Turtles appear in this film in two forms. The first is the name “Turtle Cove” displayed on the screen – this is the name of the place where another team of Power Rangers resides, from the series Wild Force.
In the end, one of the classic monsters from the first series, Shellshock, is also mentioned.

– Okay. What else didn’t she tell me?
– That time Shellshock made her run, and she couldn’t stop.
– The weirdo with the traffic light on his back?
– A traffic-light man?
– No, it wasn’t a man. It was a turtle.
– A turtle?

Author: XYuriTT

13 Reasons Why

Title: 13 Reasons Why
Year: 2017-2020
Actors: Dylan Minnette, Katherine Langford, Christian Navarro, Alisha Boe, Brandon Flynn, Justin Prentice, Ross Butler, Devin Druid, Amy Hargreaves, Miles Heizer, Timothy Granaderos, Michael Sadler, Josh Hamilton
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Country: USA
Viewing method: Whole series

Why in Database: A four-season series, with a few turtle elements.
The first turtles we found was are the fifth episode of season one (Tape 3, Side A), one of the side characters is wearing a shirt with turtle decor.
The next two appearances are similar, in season three, episods three (The Good Person Is Indistinguishable from the Bad) and episode six (You Can Tell the Heart of a Man by How He Grieves) on a shelf in the house of one of the key characters, you can see an ornament that looks like a turtle shell.
The last appearance is also season three, episode seven (There Are a Number of Problems with Clay Jensen) in which the name “Turtlebot” is mentioned in dialogue as the name of a side series within the universe liked by the protagonist, Alien Killer Robots.

– Oh, come on. You’re quite deep into at least half a dozen different mythologies and universes, and you’re obsessive about what is and isn’t AKR canon.
– Turtlebot was a spin-off for kids and the creators disavowed it.

Author: XYuriTT

Pinocchio A True Story

Title: Pinocchio A True Story
Original title: Pinokkio. Pravdivaya istoriya
Year: 2021
Director: Vasiliy Rovenskiy
Original Dubbing: Philip Lebedev, Anton Eldarov, Diomid Vinogradov, Eliza Martirosova, Dmitriy Iosifov
English dubbing: Jon Heder, Pauly Shore, Tom Kenny
Genre: Animation, Fantasy, Family
Country: Russia, Hungary

Why in Database: In one scene, Geppetto wonder how to name a figurine he has created. He considers the name Leonardo, but states, among other things, that he doesn’t want him to become a pizza-obsessed turtle, which is an obvious reference to Ninja Turtles.

– Maybe Leonardo? That won’t do either. He’d grow up to be a selfish actor, or an artist, or a turtle who only cares about pizza.

Author: XYuriTT

Blood and Bone

Title: Blood and Bone
Author(s): Ian Cameron Esslemont
Release year: 2012
Publisher: Tor Books

Why in Database: This book is set in the Malazan Book of the Fallen universe, it is one of the side books. Contains one turtle fragment, one of the characters is referred to as “turtle-boy”.

‘We have them, turtle-boy! Got them both. You should’ve seen it. It was laughable. They walked right in. Ha!’ He raised the skin and poured another stream into his mouth.
Heng-lon — turtle-boy, apparently — laughed as well, though he obviously had no idea why.

Source: Mossar, Developed: XYuriTT

Chilly Scenes of Winter

Title: Chilly Scenes of Winter, also known as Head Over Heels
Year: 1979
Director: Joan Micklin Silver
Actors: John Heard, Mary Beth Hurt, Peter Riegert, Kenneth McMillan, Gloria Grahame, Nora Heflin, Jerry Hardin, Tarah Nutter, Mark Metcalf, Allen Joseph, Frances Bay, Griffin Dunne, Alex Johnson, Beverly Rowland, Oscar Rowland, Ann Beattie, Angela Phillips, Margaressa Peach Taylor
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Country: USA

Why in Database: The turtle product, “Turtle Wax”, appears here, first only in dialogue, then also the packaging is visible when the protagonist buys three cans and gives them as a gift.

– Listen, if you need any wax for your car, let me recommend Turtle Wax.
– I’ll remember that.
– No, you won’t.
– Turtle Wax.

– Gift-wrapped, please.
– Gift wrap the Turtle Wax?
– Yeah.

Author: XYuriTT

The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands

Title: The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands
Author(s): Stephen King
Release year: 1991
Publisher: Donald M. Grant

Why in Database: The third volume of the eight-volume Dark Tower series, the first one with turtle elements, and it quite a lot of them!

Below we present all seventeen fragments with turtle mentions, some with a geographical name (Turtle Bay), some with another geographical name, The Street of the Turtle, the rest mostly concerns a turtle character important in the series, named Maturin, this name here, however, it is not used yet, he is referenced only as one of the “guardians”.

The first mention is in the context of the guardian:

He tapped the center of the circle.
”Here is the Dark Tower for which I’ve searched my whole life.”
The gunslinger resumed: ”At each of the twelve lesser portals the Great Old Ones set a Guardian. In my childhood I could have named them all in the rimes my nursemaid—and Hax the cook—taught to me… but my childhood was long ago. There was the Bear, of course, and the Fish… the Lion… the Bat. And the Turtle—he was an important one…”
The gunslinger looked up into the starry sky, his brow creased in deep thought. Then an amazingly sunny smile broke across his features and he recited:
”See the TURTLE of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth.
His thought is slow but always kind;
He holds us all within his mind.
On his back all vows are made;
He sees the truth but mayn’t aid.
He loves the land and loves the sea,
And even loves a child like me.”

The second is about Turtle Wax:

He cocked an eyebrow at her. ”Next carwash we come to, I’ll push you through myself. I’ll even Turtle-wax the goddamn thing. Okay?”

A reference to turtle slowness:

He dropped, and as he did, he saw the gunslinger’s left hand blur down to his side. My God, he thought, still falling, he can’t be that fast, no one can be that fast, I’m not bad but Susannah makes me look slow and he makes Susannah look like a turtle trying to walk uphill on a piece of glass—

The first mention in the context of the name Turtle Bay:

MILLS CONSTRUCTION AND SOMBRA REAL ESTATE
ASSOCIATES ARE CONTINUING TO REMAKE THE FACE OF
MANHATTAN!
COMING SOON TO THIS LOCATION:
TURTLE BAY LUXURY CONDOMINIUMS!
CALL 555-6712 FOR INFORMATION!
YOU WILL BE SO GLAD YOU DID!
Coming soon? Maybe . . . but Jake had his doubts. The letters on the sign were faded and it was sagging a little. At least one graffiti artist, BANCO SKANK by name, had left his mark across the artist’s drawing of the Turtle Bay Luxury Condominiums in bright blue spray-paint.

A poem about a turtle, a bit in the context of Turtle Bay and a bit in the context of a Guardian:

”See the TURTLE of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth
If you want to run and play,
Come along the BEAM today.”
Jake supposed the source of this strange little poem (if not its meaning) was clear enough. This part of Manhattan’s East Side was known, after all, as Turtle Bay. But that didn’t explain the gooseflesh which was now running up the center of his back in a rough stripe, or his clear sense that he had found another road-sign along some fabulous hidden highway.

Again, a piece of poem:

”See the TURTLE of enormous girth” Jake muttered. ”On his shell he holds the earth.” He shivered. ”What a day! Boy!”

And again, a piece of poem:

As he told this part of his story for the second time, speaking very slowly now, Jake found that what the gunslinger had said was true: he could remember everything. His recall improved until he almost seemed to be reliving the experience. He told them of the sign which said that a building called Turtle Bay Condominiums was slated to stand on the spot where Tom and Gerry’s had once stood. He even remembered the little poem which had been spray-painted on the fence, and recited it for them:
”See the TURTLE of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth.
If you want to run and play,
Come along the BEAM today.”
Susannah murmured, ”His thought is slow but always kind; He holds us all within his mind . . . isn’t that how it went, Roland?”
”What?” Jake asked. ”How what went?”
”A poem I learned as a child,” Roland said. ”It’s another connection, one that really tells us something, although I’m not sure it’s anything we need to know . . . still, one never knows when a little understanding may come in handy.”
”Twelve portals connected by six Beams,” Eddie said. ”We started at the Bear. We’re only going as far as the middle—to the Tower—but if we went all the way to the other end, we’d come to the Portal of the Turtle, wouldn’t we?”
Roland nodded. ”I’m sure we would.”
”Portal of the Turtle,” Jake said thoughtfully, rolling the words in his mouth, seeming to taste them. Then he finished by telling them again about the gorgeous voice of the choir, his realization that there were faces and stories and histories everywhere, and his growing belief that he had stumbled on something very like the core of all existence. Last of all, he told them again about finding the key and seeing the rose. In the totality of his recall, Jake began to weep, although he seemed unaware of it.”

Again the poem, this time maliciously reworked:

”Yeah, and probably is,” Eddie said. His face was pale and solemn… and then he grinned like a lad. ”
‘See the TURTLE, ain’t he keen? All things serve the fuckin Beam.’

Turtle street and turtle statue, reference to the guardian:

Eddie glanced up at the darkening sky and easily picked out the path of the Beam in the rushing clouds. He looked back down and wasn’t much surprised to see that the entrance to the street corresponding most closely to the path of the Beam was guarded by a large stone turtle. Its reptilian head peered out from beneath the granite lip of its shell; its deepset eyes seemed to stare curiously at them. Eddie nodded toward it and managed a small dry smile. ”See the turtle of enormous girth?”
Susannah took a brief look of her own and nodded. He pushed her across the city square and into The Street of the Turtle. The corpses which lined it gave off a dry, cinnamony smell that made Eddie’s stomach clench . . . not because it was bad but because it was actually rather pleasant—the sugar-spicy aroma of something a kid would enjoy shaking onto his morning toast.
The Street of the Turtle was mercifully broad, and most of the corpses hanging from the speaker-poles were little more than mummies, but Susannah saw a few which were relatively fresh, with flies still crawling busily across the blackening skin of their swollen faces and maggots still squirming out of their decaying eyes.

The Voice of the Turtle, probably in a guardian context:

Then the war had ended and silence had fallen… for a while. But at some point, the speakers had begun broadcasting again. How long ago? A hundred years? Fifty? Did it matter? Susannah thought not. What mattered was that when the speakers were reactivated, the only thing they broadcast was a single tape-loop… the loop with the drum-track on it. And the descendents of the city’s original residents had taken it for… what? The Voice of the Turtle? The Will of the Beam?

The next three mentions are about the street:

Eddie continued to push her along The Street of the Turtle and the Path of the Beam, trying to look in all directions at once and trying not to smell the odor of putrefaction. Thank God for the wind, he thought.

For Eddie it was, as some wise man had once said, deja vu all over again: he was running with the wheelchair, racing time. The beach had been replaced by The Street of the Turtle, but somehow everything else was the same. Oh, there was one other relevant difference: now it was a railway station (or a cradle) he was looking for, not a free-standing door.

Up ahead, the arched entrance to a marble building stood at the intersection of The Street of the Turtle and another avenue.

Street and bas-relief:

Maud set a rapid pace along The Street of the Turtle. Jeeves trotted beside her. Eddie, who was pushing Susannah in the wheelchair, was soon panting and struggling to keep up. The palatial buildings which lined their way spread out until they resembled ivy-covered country houses on huge, run-to-riot lawns, and Eddie realized they had entered what had once been a very ritzy neighborhood indeed. Ahead of them, one building loomed above all others. It was a deceptively simple square construction of white stone blocks, its overhanging roof supported by many pillars. Eddie thought again of the gladiator movies he’d so enjoyed as a kid. Susannah, educated in more formal schools, was reminded of the Parthenon.
Both saw and marvelled at the gorgeously sculpted bestiary— Bear and Turtle, Fish and Rat, Horse and Dog—which ringed the top of the building in two-by-two parade, and understood it was the place they had come to find.
That uneasy sensation that they were being watched by many eyes— eyes filled equally with hate and wonder—never left them. Thunder boomed as they came in sight of the monorail track; like the storm, the track came sweeping in from the south, joined The Street of the Turtle, and ran straight on toward the Cradle of Lud. And as they neared it, ancient bodies began to twist and dance in the strengthening wind on either side of them.

The next two fragments are again about turtle street:

A wide red strip had been painted across the pavement at the point where The Street of the Turtle emptied into The Plaza of the Cradle. Maud and the fellow Eddie called Jeeves the Butler stopped a prudent distance from the red mark.

When they were out of the downpour, Eddie paused and they looked back. The Plaza of the Cradle, The Street of the Turtle, and all the city beyond was rapidly disappearing into a shifting gray curtain. Eddie wasn’t a bit sorry.

Turtles as a comparison:

The mono was now flying through the mountain-range they had seen on the horizon: iron-gray peaks rushed toward them at suicidal speed, then fell away to disclose sterile valleys where gigantic beetles crawled about like landlocked turtles.

Author: XYuriTT

30 Rock

Title: 30 Rock
Year: 2006-2013
Actors: Tina Fey, Alec Baldwin, Tracy Morgan, Jack McBrayer, Scott Adsit, Judah Friedlander, Jane Krakowski, Keith Powell
Genre: Comedy
Country: USA
Viewing method: Selected episodes

Why in Database: We found turtle elements, mainly in form of verbal references, in nine episodes of this series:
Season two, episode fifteen (Cooter) – turtle is mentioned in the dialogue, one character says that part of his nickname, cooter, he got because he looks like a turtle (and the word is the name of one species of turtle). In another scene, on the door behind one of the characters, you can see a drawing of a turtle.

– He gave you two nicknames?
– “Cooter” because I look like a turtle and “berger” because he saw me eating a hamburger one time.


Season four, episode six (Sun Tea) – mentioned in the dialogue, comparison to a turtle that has lost its shell.

– Don’t talk to me like that. You look like a turtle who lost its shell.


Season five, episode six (Gentleman’s Intermission) – A turtle is mentioned during the end credits, a character pretending to be someone else says she saw a turtle.

– Hi, I’m Daphne Donaghy. I saw a turtle!


Season five, episode thirteen (Qué Sorpresa!) – a turtle is mentioned.

– One time, I saw a turtle…


Season six, episode three (Idiots Are People Three!) – A verbal reference to the Entourage series is made and the name/ nickname of one of the characters is chanted.

– Because of you, there may be an entourage movie.
– Hug it off, ma’am!
– Turtle, turtle, turtle!


Season six, episode five (Today You Are a Man No) – there is a reference to the Wonder Pets series and the turtle from this show.

– You watch the Wonder Pets on Nick Jr.? I represent the turtle that tuck is based on.


Season six, episode nine (Leap Day) – a turtle is mentioned in the dialogue.

– Thad’s been in his little nerd world for so long and now he’s peeping out of his shell like a… um, oh, what’s that animal? You know, the one that crosses so slowly across the road and then you swerve to make sure you hit it and then a car coming the other way swerves to avoid you and goes off a cliff. And then that night you and your companion have the greatest sex of your lives because you’re both sharing a secret.
– It’s a turtle, Jenna.
– Yes, he’s a turtle. And he’s coming out of his shell for the first time. And when he does, he’s gonna see this.


Season seven, episode three (Stride of Pride) – Squirtle, one of the Turtle Pokemon is mentioned.

I have to break it off with a woman I’m seeing. I found out I’m just an aging Squirtle in her Pokemon.


Season seven, episode twelve (Hogcock!) – “Turtle meat” is mentioned and what appears to be a turtle shell is visible.

– Well, can I get you anything… Chickpeas, moonshine, turtle meat? I’m good.


Author: XYuriTT