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Critical Role's animated adaptations are replete with easter eggs - usually to each other. However, there are clever little moments worked into shows like The Mighty Nein by the (very dorky) writers and animators that have nothing to do with Exandria or even the show's previousTTRPG campaigns. Like, for example, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reference.

We learned about this snippet at Las Vegas's LVL UP EXPO 2026, where the Critical Role cast including Matt Mercer, Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Travis Willingham, Marisha Ray, Ashley Johnson, Liam O'Brien, and Sam Riegel gave fans some insider info on what was to come in their two respective animated shows. At one point, too, head of adaptations Riegel dove into what fans have already seen, but maybe didn't quite catch the significance of.

"Blink-and-you'll-miss-it," Riegel began, "There's a scene in Mighty Nein where there's some turtles racing. One of them has a purple bandana, because he's Donatello from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."

Naturally, reader, we couldn't just hear about that and not check for ourselves. We remembered that there seemed to be some turtles racing in the episode The Fletching & Moondrop Traveling Carnival of Curiosities, and as we should've already known, somebody on Reddit already spotted the easter egg. Courtesy of u/SocksnJocks96's keen eye, here's the turtle Riegel seems to be referring to:

"We stuck that in for no reason," The Legend of Vox Machina voice actor continued, "I mean, it's for me. It's my show. You guys can also watch, but it's for me mostly."

Far be it from us to speak for Riegel here, folks, but we think "no reason" might be a bit of a strong term. After all, Riegel himself was the voice of the TMNT's resident tech genius in the 2003 animated series. Or maybe the voice actor is just being humble here - that does seem like a very cowabunga thing for him to do.

The Mighty Nein is streaming on Prime Video now. 

With two animated series on Prime Video, Campaign 4 in full swing, and so much more Exandrian lore to come, Critical Role is showing no signs of slowing down. That's why the adventuring party at Popverse are here to bring you everything we can from those nerdy-ass voice actors & Bo., including:

• Critical Role release schedule
• Critical Role's Campaign 4 characters ranked
• How to watch Critical Role in order
• Ways for you to relive the Critical Role panel from ECCC '26
• Taliesin Jaffe on playing Mollymauk Tealeaf for Campaign 2 vs. playing him for Prime Video
• Matt Mercer's homebrew warrior class (created originally for Vin Diesel)

...and much, much more. Roll initiative, player. Magic awaits.