Could be a jewish woman with a fro. Could be Tina Turner. Could be Tim Curry. Could be any woman (or man) in New York in the 1980s. I am a grown man. I am not offended if they cast April O'Neil as black nerdy woman. Or make the turtles look different. It's a show for my kids. And my kids are exposed to folks of every skin tone every day.
This guy wasted too much time investigating it. Doesn't seem like she was originally black but who cares....they just wing it with her character http://tmntentity.blogspot.com/2018/02/was-april-oneil-originally-black-in.html To summarize: April was conceived by Peter Laird as an Asian woman in the early concept stages, but ultimately developed as a white woman in her first appearance. She was named by Kevin Eastman after his then-girlfriend (and future-ex-wife), who was of mixed heritage, but if he had any ideas of April being black or mixed, he never implemented them on the page beyond a perm which she only had for a couple of years. April has been black in occasional comics and cartoons over the years, and for all we know, someday she may be Asian, Hispanic or Indian. But she was originally white in the Mirage comics.
Even as a child I thought Secret of the Ooze was over the top campy and lame. The original from 1990 was awesome and still the best TMNT movie ever made in my opinion.
Parents complained the first one was too violent so you had Michaelangelo using meat instead of nunchucks. My dad was also into TMNT and we both were like wtf
