While most adults in the country have declared the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as mutants non grata, two local children have become the most popular kids in their church, school and neighborhood thanks to the popular movie and cartoon series.
Leonardo and Miguel Angel Sanabria, named after renaissance painters Leonardo DaVinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti, are more than a symbol of the green beasts. They are Ninja Turtle trendsetters.Leonardo and Miguel Angel (the Spanish version of Michelangelo) even dress to resemble the baby turtles, who were dropped into radioactive material, grew to be six feet tall and were trained by a ninja rat. Both boys often wear bandanas around their heads and have fake toy swords, even though "Michaelangelo"is only 1 and a pint-size copy of his 10-year-old brother.
The children became popular after the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie became the nation's No. 1 film in April.
Like the Ninja Turtles, Leonardo is interested in the martial arts. He is designing two half-shell turtle costumes for himself and his brother.
"We have lived for a very short time here in the United States," said their father Eduardo Sanabria. "But the kids have already learned very American things, like the turtles."
"The children at school always tell me I'm named after the Ninja (turtle). I have my own Ninjas and they are beautiful," said Leonardo, who attends Rose Park Elementary School. "I have a Ninja rat, but I still don't have the cards," he said, referring to the toys spawned by the movie.
Leonardo said he and his baby brother love the turtles because of the way they fight and communicate with each other. Leonardo said he's even started teaching his baby brother how to scream like a real Ninja. "I scream and he screams after me."
The only thing the brothers are missing is a rat to teach them martial arts. Leonardo is confident, however, that his father will send him to martial arts school in the fall.
"They all want to learn martial arts. They love those things. They want to do everything they see during the program," Lilia Sanabria said.
"Sometimes we have all 17 cousins in the house playing with Ninja Turtle toys and eating pizza. That's their favorite thing to eat," Lilia Sanabria said.