Eons ago in 2008, Nawal Qarooni of NJ.com posted the news that Rutgers students broke the Guiness World record for the largest public gathering of people dressed as Ninja Turtles. RU had mega turtle power that night with 748 students parading around as their favorite Ninja Turtle. The legion of students got together and ate pizza and exchanged Turtle talk. Up until April 2008, when the passionate Ninja Turtles fans of Rutgers gathered at the Piscataway NJ campus, the record was a paltry 200 people!
As much as it sounds like total silliness, it’s not. The rules for applying for a Guiness record are no joke! Rutgers had to pass thorough an intense application process and also had to have a representative from the Middlesex County jail system on site to verify that the signatures of participants were accurate. The event also had to last longer than 15 minutes and needed to be documented with video and photographs.
Even a huge surge of Jersey style Turtle Power couldn’t last forever. On March 17th, 2012, the Rutgers record was broken at the grand opening of the Shell Shock Ride at Nickelodeon Universe in Minnesota’s The Mall of America. This gathering brought together 836 people of all ages dressed as Ninja Turtles. For more on the new record holder visit Ninja Pizza at this link.