BURNE THOMPSON PROJECT #484 CLASSIFICATION: KITBASH MATERIALS USED: HOBBY KNIFE, SUPER GLUE, SCULPEY MODELING COMPOUND, ACRYLIC PAINTS FIRST APPEARANCE: "TURTLE TRACKS" "It's a slow news day, April.  You know what good reporters do at times like these?  They go out and make news!" Preamble:  Burne Thompson has been an adversary of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles since the beginning.  He's not a bad person, by any means, but he does suffer from a significant misunderstanding of the Turtles and their role in local affairs.  (He's J. Jonah Jameson with a pot belly.) Perhaps it's only a natural extension of his drive and passion for constantly seeking out newsworthy events—conflict draws more viewers, after all, so it's to his perrsonal benefit to believe that the Turtles are criminals, not heroes.  Then again, maybe it bothers him how frequently his star reporter ends up getting entangled in their affairs, despite the fact that it was largely due to them that she was propelled to a top-tier status to begin with.   In any event, Burne Thompson was a supporting character who was conceived for the cartoon series, and was not part of the toy line until several years later, by which point he had been firmly established as a series regular.  Now, the fine folks at Playmates Toys were never the type to simply sculpt a regular ol' action figure and be done with it.  Since he's the boss on the show, I suppose it's only natural that the sculptors felt the need to make him an object of ridicule—subliminally poking fun at their own employers, perhaps.  Like Vernon, the action figure version of Burne was permanently stuck holding an accessory—a sandwich, in this case, to go along with a huge mouthful of food that he's got stuffed into one side of his cheek, like a squirrel hoarding goodies for the winter.  Burne was never really a compulsive eater on the show, but I guess since he's overweight, the logical conclusion must be that this is 'coz he's constantly scarfing down a ham and cheese on rye, right?  He's also got a nice, big mayonnaise splotch on his shirt, along with a leaking pen in his pocket.  Ho, ho, let's hear it for office humor!  But wait, there's more!  He's got his shirt halfway unbuttoned with his enormous gut hanging out; his belt is unfastened; one of his pant legs is rolled up; but by far the crowning achievement is the piece of toilet paper that's stuck to his shoe.  Certainly not anywhere near approaching the most disgusting of the TMNT toys, but it's nevertheless an undignified travesty that required my prompt attention (where "prompt" is defined here for our purposes as "within 20 years or so"). Construction:  I already had a Toon Burne toy all set to go, but I wanted a pristine one so I could take some before-and-after shots (and because I'm a compulsive freak who doesn't like to modify toys in my collection, only extras that I bought specifically to hack up) so I had to track down another one.  (He tends to go for ludicrous amounts on the secondary market, I suspect because all the kids who passed up on him in 1992 are adult collectors now who realize he will fill a hole in their collections.  A very large hole.)  I got rid of his sandwich, whittling the rest of his hand as best I could to make it look like the sandwich was never there.  I did the same thing with the ridiculous toilet paper on his right foot, carving the plastic underneath to conform to the shape of the rest of his foot, and I sculpted a new cuff for his right pant leg.  I also had to whittle down his overstuffed cheek and fix his left ear, which was protruding more than his right because of the pencil tucked behind it.  I got rid of his messy necktie and gave him a new, straightened one, complete with tie clip, and I rebuilt his shirt collar and belt buckle, getting rid of his visible pot belly.  Burne always wore a blue-collared shirt in the cartoon (yellow was April O'Neil's signature color), so I repainted him in the interest of accuracy.  I had to put several layers of paint on his face to hide the work I did on his cheek, so I ended up repainting all of his skin to ensure a good color match. Comments:  I had a lot of difficulty deciding on an accessory for Burne, because he really doesn't have a signature accessory like, say, April and her Turtlecom.  Playmates Toys must have had the same problem, since the official accessories they gave him are so completely laughable.  He got a gigantic hoagie, of course, just in case that sandwich wasn't enough, along with a bullhorn and a ridiculously clunky typewriter.  Since we know that most TMNT action figures come with weapons as their accessories, we can only conclude that Burne Thompson was intended to fight with these items.  (Maybe he could type up a scathingly negative editorial?) This Page Created 10/16/2010 Last Update: 2/18/2012 ©2012 Inspiration Studios Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles® is a trademark of Nickelodeon Keep watching the skies, and don't trust anyone with sideburns!