April O'Neil (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
بواسطة ari webb-bryantApril O'Neil is a fictional character from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comics. She is the first human ally of the Ninja Turtles.
April made her first appearance in the Mirage comic series in 1984 as a computer programmer. She was later portrayed as a strong-willed news reporter in the Turtles' first animated series, as a warrior in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures comic produced by Archie Comics, and various other personas in different TMNT media.
While depicted as a red-haired adult woman in the comic series and the 1987 and 2003 animated series, she is depicted as being a teenager in the 2012 and 2018 animated series, 2022 film, and the 2023 film Mutant Mayhem. Her love interests have varied, though she is typically paired with the vigilante Casey Jones.
April was voiced by Renae Jacobs in the 1987 animated series, Veronica Taylor in the 2003 animated series, Sarah Michelle Gellar in the 2007 film TMNT, Mae Whitman in the 2012 animated series, Kat Graham in the 2018 animated series and its 2022 film, and Ayo Edebiri in the 2023 film Mutant Mayhem. In film, she has been portrayed by Judith Hoag (1990), Paige Turco (1991 and 1993), Megan Fox (2014 and 2016), and by Malina Weissman as the younger version of the character in the 2014 film.
In the 1987 cartoon series, April Harriet O'Neil was altered from her Mirage Studios character and instead was introduced as a television reporter for Channel 6 News. She had a strong nature and passion for her work, frequently expressing disagreement with her employer Burne Thompson's assignments. She also fell out repeatedly with Vernon Fenwick, the director/camera operator whose enormous ego compelled him to scoop April on her stories whenever possible. April was friends with Irma Langinstein, the receptionist at Channel 6. She lived in an apartment in New York City, though during the course of the series she was forced to relocate several times due to a variety of Turtle-related mishaps.[3]
April was reporting on a series of high-tech equipment thefts when she came under attack by a gang of street punks. Thinking quickly, she managed to squeeze into a storm drain and ran from the mob until she hit a dead end. The Turtles were nearby and defeated the punks. She was taken back to their sewer lair, where they explained their origins to her. At first, she believed them to be responsible for the equipment thefts, but they agreed to help find the true culprits if she kept quiet about the Turtles' existence. April quickly became their major link to the outside world since their unusual appearance effectively precluded them from functioning above ground without some sort of disguise.[3] To communicate with the Turtles, she used a Turtlecom, a device that functioned as a two way audio-video communications system.
April's friendship with the Turtles resulted in the opportunity to record exclusive footage of their encounters with Shredder, but despite her intimate knowledge of the details of their lives, she tended to keep her professional news reports about them impersonal and mysterious. She was a vocal champion of their cause, despite Burne Thompson's opinion that the Turtles were a menace to the city, and most episodes generally showed her attempting to convince Burne and the New Yorkers that the Turtles were not criminals. By the episode "Doomquest", she finally succeeded in this by publicly exposing Lord Dregg's plans to take over the Earth via propaganda campaigns. April was frequently kidnapped by Shredder and used as bait in order to lure the Turtles out of hiding and destroy them.[3]
April revealed her age in the Season 3 episode "Leather Head - Terror of The Swamp". In Florida on vacation, she and the Turtles found a body of water contaminated with a mutagen that made mutants feel youthful, while physically de-aging humans into four-year-old versions of themselves. Donatello did not allow April to enter the water, to which she lamented, "Oh, great! I'm doomed to be a decrepit twenty-eight-year-old hag!"[3] Her Aunt Agatha ("Aggie"), who appeared in the episodes "Case of the Hot Kimono" and "Sleuth on the Loose", was a detective.[3]
April was normally portrayed as a capable and independent woman. Her most important contribution to the Turtles was her access to research via the Channel 6 computers; using this information she could alert the Turtles to trouble and possible case leads. Her blue news van had classic headlights and the Channel 6 News logo on each side. April could usually be found wearing a distinctive yellow jumpsuit — modeled on that of Fujiko Mine in Lupin III Part 2 — with white boots. By the ninth season, April worked freelance for reasons never specified, and exchanged her yellow jumpsuit for a brown leather jacket. She continued to help the Turtles even after the defeat of Shredder and his subsequent exile to Dimension X.[3]
Portrayal
April was voiced by Renae Jacobs. In the 25th Anniversary crossover TV special Turtles Forever, she was voiced by Rebecca Soler. Renae Jacobs auditioned for the role in Los Angeles in 1986. She developed her initial personification of O'Neil while preparing for the audition, having not read the comics.[4] Her first day on set voice director Stu Rosen made it clear he did not approve of her for the role, and had waited to show her audition last, saying to her, "Every one I played, the producers said 'No, no, no, that's not April,' and finally I was out of people to show them, so I pulled your audition out and played it for them and they said 'That's April!'"[4]
