With all the press (negative and otherwise) surrounding the potential origin change in the upcoming TMNT movie, fans are holding tight to the original story of the beloved turtles. They were an accident, and that’s the way it should be. But what about the person responsible for that accident? If he hadn’t been involved, then they never would have mutated, and the world wouldn’t have the heroes in green. This is the story of the Chester Manley – the young boy who would change the world.
Chester “Chet” Manley was involved in the origin of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in several of their incarnations. In the original story, young Chet just bought four baby turtles and was happily on his way home when a pedestrian was forced to dodge a speeding truck. In the chaos, a canister fell off of the truck and knocked the glass bowl and turtles from Chet’s hands, and the whole kit and caboodle went tumbling into the sewers of NYC, lost forever (or so he thought). From then on, Chet would have strange dreams about his lost pets returning to him as mutants. When he was an adult, Chet worked as a sanitation engineer in the NYC sewers, and one fateful day he ran into those little turtles, fully grown and kicking butt. Happy they had survived and lived good lives, Chet was never heard from again.
In the IDW comic series, Chet was once again a party to the turtles’ mutation. Named Chet Allen, the man was a friend of April O’Neil and assistant to Baxter Stockman. Working with Stockman on the mutagen project, Chet was also a Foot Clan spy, helping the shadow organization to create a mutant army. When the Foot’s plan came to fruition, the robbery went wrong, and the mutagen spilled on four baby turtles and a lab rat. (As an interesting twist, this Chet was also the Fugitoid Dr. Honeycutt, who joined the Foot to stop Krang’s nefarious plots.)
Chet Manley was animated as well, and while never mentioned by name, he did appear in both the 1987 and 2003 series. In both versions, Chet went back to his roots, having purchased four baby turtles from a local pet store before suffering an unfortunate mishap that caused all four and their bowl to go tumbling into the sewers. Other than brief appearances in flashbacks, Chet had no other role in either series. He was simply a means to a fateful end.
So what does all this mean for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? For starters, if responsibility can be doled out, then Chet Manley is as responsible for their accident as anyone (let’s hope that, whatever the ultimate story for their origin in the film, he’s a part of it). In most versions, Chet made a choice to go get some pets, and was in the wrong place at the wrong time. However, it’s important to remember that even though they have always been an accident, there are still times when the origin has been different than what most fans remember and are calling for. The entire premise of the IDW comic series is that the turtles and Splinter were lab animals that got caught in a break-in-gone-bad, a marked deviation from the traditional (and, some would argue, canon) origin story that has the boys being dropped down a sewer drain during a traffic incident.
No two stories are ever going to be exactly the same, even for the world’s beloved turtles. But that doesn’t mean that one story is better than the others. They’re all different, and can add value if written properly. Tradition is worthwhile, and when something is established and following tradition won’t hurt anything or anybody, then those established aspects should be respected and maintained. But personal twist is okay, and valuable for continued creative growth. Good or bad, accidental or intentional, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles will be loved no less, and what they do for their world and ours will always be respected. Let’s just hope that if things do change that at least there’s a clumsy lab assistant named Chet Manley handling the ooze.