The origin story in the 1987 television series Splinter was formely human, an honorable ninja master named hamato yoshi who studied history as a hobby. He was banished by the foot clan (A japanese dynasty of ninjas by one of his distant ancestors) after one of his students, the power hungry Oroku saki (who resented Yoshi's leadership within the clan and aspired to upsurp him), set him up for an offense against a visiting master sensei. Disgraced, yoshi was forced to leave Japan and relocate New York City, where he began living in the sewers with the rats as his only friends. Meanwhile, Saki was given command of the foot clan, which corrupted and transformed into a criminal orginization. Sometime later, Yoshi adopted four turtles were accidentally dropped into the sewers by an unamed boy. He returned from his explorations around New York City one day to find the turtles covered with a strange glowing ooze. This substance caused the turtles, who most recently exposed to Yoshi, to become a humanoid rat, and was given the name 'splinter' by the turtles. Yoshi raised the four turtles as his sons and trains them in the art of ninjitsu. He names them Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo
