Now back in the 90s, The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toyline by Playmates was doing as it had always done. Put our titular heroes in a variety (read: anywhere from weird to awesome) of situations you aren't likely to actually find them in. Among them was the all the dinosaur/cave turtle figures. Pretty much a really cool subset of the main line. These dinosaurs came in much larger figures to be ridden by standard figures. I had the Pteranodon (Raphael) and the Triceratops (Leonardo) in full size. Always wanted the T.rex the most obviously though. Who didn't? The above figures came from some mini, Mighty Max style sets they had started producing. I had a few of these (including the Tokka as the Technodrome set), as miniature playsets have always been awesome for me. The top two came from a playset. The spotted Brachiosaur is meant to be ridden by one of the TMNT, while the slightly more evil one was for Rocksteady. The molds are identical, with the only difference being paint apps. The "evil" one has the it's skull necklace painted white, while the good one has his painted over in skin tone. As for the Dontello Tyrannosaur, I'm not actually 100% sure if he came with a separate playset, or if he was in a supplementary pack that was filled with minifigures and a vehicle (as I still have a mini sewer copter that came from such a set). Overall neat toys considering the line. I know the last TMNT line had their own dinosaur spin off set. I regret not being able to find them, because they looked pretty neat! P.S. Someone please stop Micheal Bay.
RAGE!
More awesome from the 90s. Primal Rage was an arcade dinosaur fighting game by Atari, akin to Mortal Kombat. With bloody animation, stop motion animated characters, and even fatalities, Primal Rage became a hit and produced a toyline (why don't we see this now a days? We used to have a toyline of Xenomorphs and Predators. Come on!). I spent many quarters on this game at our local arcade. The above characters are from a mini playset, on the left is Sauron. Sauron is a "good" god who's immortality comes from feasting on human flesh (yeah, hes listed as a good guy). On the right is Diablo, who wants to set Earth (now called Urth after the apocalyptic meteor strike, that has re-arranged the continents into the shape of a T.rex skull breathing fire. I can live with this ) in an eternal fire and torture all of it's living beings for eternity. Little bit of a toss up there for who you want to win in a fight to the finish. I had many of the larger figures (except the apes) from this line as well. Primal Rage would look great with a modern day update done right. I suggest Netherealm do it. Anyhow, these came with a clamshell playset, one half being Sauron's domain, and Diablo's being the other half. Definitely a cool set, shame the Vertigo vs Blizzard set was never produced.
Wut?
I got these from some vending machine once for 25 cents each. I don't know why though. These aren't from childhood either. I bought these within the past couple years. Whyyyyyy? I need to learn how to control my impulses when it comes to vending machines sometimes. This is low even for me. Also, I've seen these EXACT ONES in vending machines for 50 cents a piece. Avoid that machine.
You know hes awesome.
If it wasn't obvious, both of these are Reptar from Rugrats. The show's Godzilla parody, who being a dinosaur was one of my favorite parts of the whole show. Both are identical in sculpt, but the one on the right is glow in the dark. I would of used him in the glow in the dark post, but I thought he'd be better seen next to his non glowing counterpart. Each came from separate Rugrats Tommy figures. And quite honestly, each was the reason I bought each toy. What more can I say? I'm a sucker for this kind of thing.
Some sequels should remain on ice.
These are figures from the second Ice Age film. While the first is still well done, everything afterwards just feels like milking (especially after considering the gap between the first and second). As they continue to dish out films without much thought put into them other than what they can parody with prehistoric animals, I did manage to like one thing. Make that two. The designs of both these creatures. The purple "Icthyosaur" named Cretaceous (creative.) and the green "Pliosaur" named Maelstrom (thats better at least). Cretaceous has a rather neat design, more of a hybrid of Icthyosaur and a Tylosaur of some kind. For being the villians of the second film they hardly get any screen time, and only through supplementary material (my siblings had a coloring book that went through the films plot and actually fills in the gaps they didn't bother to animate despite making parts of the film much more clear. A COLORING BOOK explains things better than the actual film.) These figures came in containers of blue ooze shaped like icicles like the one they are leaning on. Very neat idea for a toy, There was also a Scrat and a few other characters, but these two were the only ones that caught my interest. Also fun fact! Apparently there was to be a 3rd character to compliment the sea monsters above, an axolotl like creature. No idea what his role would of been, but here is a sculpture of him among the other two. Maybe if the film wasn't cobbled together for a quick profit things could of been better.
Touche Pokemon. Touche.
Anorith is a Pokemon from the 3rd generation. A fossil Pokemon akin to Kabutops and such from the prior two gens. Even though I quit after 2nd gen, Anorith has my attention for being an Anamalocaris. An awesome creature from the Cambrian era. Anamalocaris was a super predator in it's time period reaching somewhere around 3ft lon... Know what, just wiki it. I'm only here to tell you that this guy is awesome. And totally worth buying that bird Pokemon that came with him in the two pack. I don't even know that thing's name, just that it came with Anorith! There isn't a lot of Anamalocaris figures out there, so I jumped on this one. I know Safari LTD recently released a tube with one in it, so I need to track one of them down..
Ooooo, teaser-y!
And to close off this article I'm just going to leave this teaser for something that will develop over the next couple weeks. I'll let you speculate as to what the hell you are looking at. Later!
Totally agreed about Netherealm making a Primal Rage game. That would be boss.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I'm curious, do you know if those are supposed to be growths of some kind on the TMNT Brachiosaurs, or is it armor?
As for the teaser capsule, looks like it's either got lint or a cloth in it, haha.
Oh its armor, the red one on the good one makes it look like rocks, while the evil one is painted the same color as turtle shells. Come to think of it, they would be pretty neat osteoderms too lol.
DeleteI don't remember having any TMNT dinosaur toys, but that T-Rex looks vaguely familiar...
ReplyDeletePRIMAL RAGE! I forgot about those playsets! I had one of the city, I think it came with Talon...But I was OBSESSED with Primal Rage. I even tried writing a screenplay for a movie adaptation*! I probably shouldn't have been playing the game as a kindergartener, but oh well...I think the Primal Rage toys was like the first time I wanted toys of my own free will (as opposed to my parents just getting me things when I was like toddler-age), they were the best. Still have one or two of them...
*in case you're wondering, the plot was that a team of commando/soldiers from our world would be sent to Urth, either by time travel or by going to an alternate reality. They basically travel across the world - introducing all the monsters, seeing some of them fight - in an effort to prevent the cataclysm or to get back to their own world. Also, the guy that became Chaos was a scientist from the soldiers' world.
Primal Rage certainly was awesome! Wish I still had some of the larger figures.
DeleteSounds neat! Would of been an interesting take on the story for sure!