“Apollo 11″

On the 25th anniversary of their historic moon landing, the astronauts of Apollo 11 finally got the ultimate recognition for their incredible feat—namely, four anthropomorphic turtle toys aping arguably the most impressive technological feat of the 20th century while denigrating it by reducing it to an inane search for lunar pizza ingredients. I’ll let the Turtles speak for themselves:

Why is Lunar Leonardo going to search the moon’s poles? “Because of the temperature shifts in the polar regions of the moon, it may be cold enough there for cheese to exist. And that would translate to out-of-this-world pizza!” What delusion is Moon Landin’ Michaelangelo suffering under? “This space boy’s diggin’ the dirt, searchin’ for lunar sauce. That’s right! He’s got a hero hunch that beneath the surface lies a space pool of the richest, ripest tomato sauce in the Milky Way.” Has Touchdown Donatello untethered himself from reality? “…he’s heard rumors about there bein’ pepperoni ‘round the polar parts of the moon.”

These three dimwits aside, Retro Rocket Raph seems to have a good turtle head on his shell… at first:

He’s studied the space missions of history – and the one that he’s most inspired by is that hallmark of American scientific conquest: July 20, 1969 – Apollo 11’s awesome moon landing. Hey, this masterful mission was about a lot more than just bringing back moondust to the Earth. This was a time of overcoming seemingly insurmountable obstacles, of conquering a dream that man dreamt of for centuries. This was a time of heroism and national pride. And now, Retro Rocket Raphael is ready to take off his super circulating space helmet and salute those courageous guys who risked their very lives for nothing more than a week’s pay and a little glory. Ever since that momentous moment, Retro Rocket Raphael has always wondered, in those craters, somewhere, perhaps under some common chunk of moon rock, maybe there’s an anchovy or two. An anchovy unlike any other more earthly anchovies. A big anchovy! Ripe and ready for pizza topping!

As a taxpayer, this is not where I want my money going.