Pizzaface

Still more sanitary than Papa John's. Pizzaface - Shredder's crazed culinary creator - had a plan to become the most powerful pizza chef ever. So he zapped himself in his Retromutagen oven, hoping the energy would bake him with badness. But the hungry Turtle Teens burst into the parlor and pulled Pizzaface out. Now this half-baked bozo wants to get even with the Turtles for foiling his formula. All the Turtles wanted was a large pepperoni to go - but instead they got part pizza and part Pizzaface! Possessing the power of the pizza pie, Pizzaface is the ultimate Turtle nightmare: traveling from parlor to parlor, he terrorizes the Turtles, trying to turn them into tasty teen topping. Armed with flying piping pizzas and a Pizza Box Shield, this peg-legged pizza piper follows the Foot, even though he's only got one good leg. And what's worse? He delivers. Pizzaface was introduced in the 1990 series of the vintage toyline, but never appeared in the comics or on the cartoon. How do you squander that opportunity? It would be like creating a spinach-themed villain for Popeye and then never using them. His sole appearance anywhere other than as this toy was a single Jim Lawson pin-up in the newspaper comic strip, which isn't really much to brag about. Like most of the Playmates toys, Pizzaface's creation was a collaborative effort: like, a lot of the conceptualization for the character, as well as the actual sculpt, was done by unsung hero of the toyline David Arshawsky of Anaglyph Sculpture, but the final approved design was drawn by Playmates artist Errol McCarthy. Pizzaface is a squat, slovenly mess of a character, a mostly-human guy who is indeed dressed like a pizza chef: tank top, apron, chef's hat, all you'd expect. He only has one leg, and is missing the pinky finger on his left hand - we'll discuss that more later. Judging by the bio printed on the back of the card and copied up above like we always do, he's suppsed to be half-pizza, which may be an excuse for why he's so doughy; like, he's literally partially made of pizza dough. I never thought about that as a kid, I just thought that's they way they chose to make him look. His gaping mouth only has eight teeth (three top, five bottom), he's got a curly black mustache, and an unpainted ponytail at the back of his scalp. Of course it's unpainted. No matter how much work the sculptors put into their part of the job, Playmates would throw it all out the window by failing to pay for adequate paint apps. Before his death in May of 2025, Arshawsky would sometimes sell customized versions of figures he sculpted, fully painting them to bring out all the details that otherwise get lost. Of course, those also got airbrushing and paint washes that would never have even been considered, but even looking at the original prototype reveals just how much we missed out on: hair on his arms and chest, a heart tattoo on his right arm, various scars and splotches of ingredients all over him, the knife stuck in his apron, and more. The production figure isn't bad, but it's not great either. Pizzaface has less articultion than average for the line. There are no wrists or elbows, the hip isn't a balljoint... his head, shoulders, and left hip are all plain swivels, and that's it. The prosthetic right leg - a pizza cutter that's sliced its way into a box (to provide a larger contact surface with the ground to keep the toy stable) - can turn, but there's really only one position where the angled bottom of the box contacts the ground properly, so that barely counts. It's possible this figure was designed with an action feature in mind: the way the right hand is shaped makes it look as if it was intended to throw things, like the right shoulder was going to be spring-loaded. Also supporting this idea? He comes with two pizzas as accessories, and the cardback refers to them as Propelling Pizzas, a name that doesn't make any sense if all he's doing is holding them. The cardback even says "Slip the Propelling Pizzas onto Pizzaface's right hand, then fling his arm forward and serve 'em up hot!", moving the responsibility from a theoretical bilt-in action feature onto you, the consumer. Both pizzas are red (the card showed one red and one yellow), and have their own unique toppings: one has a rat, three fish skeletons, and two throwing stars, while the other has pepperoni and a baby turtle. If that one seems a bit empty, comparatively, there's a reason for it. Remember what we said earlier about Pizzaface missing his pinky? When David Arshawsky sculpted the piece, the missing finger was on the pizza! Gross! Playmates took it out, which is why there's such a conspicuous empty spot on that one. Either pizza can fit in the right hand, which has the fingers shaped to pinch it securely. His other accessories include a Pizza Box Shield ("The pizza box that's built for mutant party protection!") and his Clever Cleaver ("Turns into a pizza party peg leg! Walking has never been this sharp!"). If you want to change up your figure's style, the meat cleaver can swap with his Pizza Peg Leg, allowing him to walk on that and use the leaking, bug-covered pizza box like a club. ("Fresh from the oven and ready to walk on - and what's more, it's delectably detatchable!") The shield, apparently from a place called "Ninja Pizza," has a sword sticking through it diagonally and sauce spurting out the sides, and we can make out the weird toppings someone ordered: a ninja star, a grenade, a Foot Clan logo, and more. The pizzas and the shield are solid, unpainted red, but at least the cleaver and peg leg get enough apps to make them look good. Pizzaface really feels like a character who should have at least been on the cartoon: he's just too goofy and oddball to be overlooked the way he was! If Super7 were still doing TMNT Ultimates he'd be a perfect choice for them to tackle: there are already tons of details in the sculpt to be updated, and painting them would make them visible for the first time. Add in some cancelled accessories, and that's a recipe for a figure that would at last be as good as the original creators intended. -- 02/19/26 Should they have stuck with the more mutated version of Pizzaface? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.