Mythology Gag / Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

• As seen in the trailer, Donatello wears glasses, like he did in the Michael Bay live-action movies.
• Similarly, Raphael wears a full bandanna like he did in the Bay movies and Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in contrast to the headband mask of most other versions.
• Unlike the original comics, the 1990 movies, the 2003 show, the 2007 and 2012 CGI versions, this film shows the Turtles sporting color-coded elbow, knee guards and wrist bands to match their masks, like their 1987, The Next Mutation and Rise counterparts. Likewise, the return of the belt buckles initials, originating from the 1987 series.
• The initials on the Turtles belt-buckles are colored yellow, as they were in the original toy line.
• Akin to her incarnation in Rise, April is depicted as Black and wearing glasses, along with wearing yellow like in the 1987 series.
• One of the buildings showed off in the teaser is called The Laird, as in franchise co-creator Peter Laird. Similarly, a clip shows April attends Eastman High.
• Another building seen in the trailer has Mirage written in faint lettering.
• Leatherhead, Bebop and Rocksteady have their original designs from 1987, though Leatherhead is now wearing a shirt under her vest.
• The turtles' eyes become white when they get serious, an artistic trope taken from the 2012 cartoon to reconcile the turtles having pupils, like in the 1987 cartoon, and having plain white eyes, like in the original comics and 2003 cartoon.
• A Miyamoto Usagi sticker can be seen on a notebook, alluding to the regular crossovers between the two series.
• Just like in the 2012 show, the 1990 and the 2014 movies at least one of the Turtles develops a crush on April. It was Donatello in the previous show, Michelangelo in the previous movies, but it's Leonardo here. Similarly, April is again a teenager, instead of an employed adult.
• Vanilla Ice's Ninja Rap from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze returns, but is cut off before mentions of the turtles shows up.
• During the car chase sequence, Donatello rams Bebop's car into a parked U-Haul truck that has an illustration of an orange Triceratops on the side, referring the Triceratons, a race of alien dinosaurs and frequent adversaries of the Turtles.
• The turtles are mentioned to have sat in on a Knicks game recently.
• The pizza van that the turtles drive in the climax is a possible reference to the Turtle Van from previous iterations.
• In the climax, April ends up hijacking Channel 6's live news coverage to rally the public behind the turtles, alluding to her job as a reporter for Channel 6 in the 1987 cartoon.
• After Superfly is defeated, the news refers to the quartet as "Hero Turtles". The original 80s cartoon was retitled "Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles" in some countries.
• The Creative Closing Credits contains certain 1987 designs of characters in the film, such as Splinter and Genghis Frog.
• The franchise has an occasional history of naming powered up characters with the "Super" prefix, notably the mutagen ooze-powered Super Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. In the finale for this movie, Superfly who is already a mutant, further powers up after being drowned in a pool of ooze. He already has "Super" in his name, however. The name he chooses for his new powered up form? Superduperfly.
• Michelangelo writing his name on the school board as "Michael Angelo" refers to a common misspelling of his name as Michaelangelo (which was also the official spelling of the Turtle's name prior to the fourth volume of the Mirage comics and the 2003 animated series).
  • Perhaps unintentional, but in the Michaelangelo one shot micro-issue of the original Mirage comics, while playing with some toys Mike pretended to be a soldier named "Mike L. Angelo", like in this movie.
• Cynthia Utrom's outfit and color scheme give her a vague resemblance to Kraang's robotic body from the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon. Her purple hair and her being the head of TCRI is also similar to Mr. Mortu from the 2003 animated series, who used Sdrawkcab Name as his human guise's last name and was the Head of TCRI. Her being a bespectacled Mad Scientist, who wants to study the Turtles to make super soldiers is similar to the motivations of the character Agent Bishop from the same show.
• The Turtles sneak out of their sewer lair, defying Splinter, similar to the 2003 animated series episode The Lesson.
• One girl at Eastman High somewhat resembles the version of April from the 2012 series - her hair is roughly the same color and is worn in a ponytail, she wears a yellow top, and her pants are stained a darker color from the upper thighs downward, recalling 2012 April's jean shorts and tights.
• When Cynthia Utrom tells the Turtles her plan for domination, one of the models on her hologram is that of Scale Tail.