This is another nostalgia post similar to my one about Goosebumps books from a while back. Recently my mom dropped off a box of my childhood Teenage Mutal Ninja Turtles figurines that she had been storing in her basement. I'm not going to lie, I'm glad that she kept them all these years because I had a blast looking at them again and trying to match the figures up with all of their weapons. I went by memory and I know not all of them were matched correctly but it doesn't really matter. I had fun with it anyway.
Looking back I wish I had been one of those kids who never opened his toys, who had kept them preserved in their box to maintain their condition and their value. I have great respect for kids with such impossible willpower. Alas I was not one of them.
The funny thing is that I remember liking the toys but also having a really hard time playing with them, and often found them to be a bit boring. I didn't have the type of imagination that could invision them actually fighting each other so I didn't really know how to play with them. It's strange and a bit of a contradiction in that, I enjoyed having them and holding them, but I don't really think that I actually played with them. I could have easily just left them in the packaging and gotten the same enjoyment from them. That's not how an average kid thinks though, they are toys and what's done is done.
Here are some of figures from my collection, starting with a first generation Rocksteady.
And here is a much later generation of the same villian. He has a wind up spring that makes his fist smash up and down.
Next is a first generation splinter. He's missing his coat I think and some of his weapons.
Genghis Frog is next. Supposedly there are some color versions that are more rare than others and this figure with the correct color combo can be quite valuable if in mint condition. Mine is not.
This guy is called Dirtbag. I think he is supposed to be a mole but to me he looks more like a rat.
This next one is an Australian character named Walkabout. I have no recollection of him from the cartoon show.
Next is a stingray named Ray. Clever name or too obvious? You be the judge.
I have no idea who this character is or what he's supposed to be. A water villian of some sort. Maybe a squid or octopus?
Here's a random Raphael figure with incorrect weapons. His shell opens up in the back to hide extras.
My favorite Turtle was Donatello (not sure why) and this figure is quite unique compared to the others.
It's made of a softer more pliable material, perhaps rubber? It's more realistic than the others, which are made from a stiff plastic.
The Donatello figure above is pretty cool as well. They created a detective series of Turtles based on the movie where Raphael puts on a trench coat and heads into the city streets - a clever disguise...
Some of the figures in the series come with a cloth trench coat, though mine is plastic as you can see.
He carries a briefcase that opens up to reveal a gun and slice of pizza. Turtles love pizza.
The character above is Tokka, a snapping Turtle from the movie Secret of the Ooz. He was a baby with a lot of brute strength but was basically a bumbling idiot. I'm starting to feel like I need to rewatch the movies, just for old times sake.
They put out a sports series of toys also. This one has a springy arm that makes him throw the football.
I have another one that plays hockey and takes a slap shot but I'm not going to include it because I'm missing his hockey stick. You can see it in the second photo of the post if you're interested, along with a few others that I'm not going to bother highlighting.
This is a beach going Michaelangelo.
He has a rubbery guitar strapped to his back that fills up with water. When you squeeze it the water shoots out between his teeth. Its very low tech but a fun little feature.
This next one (above) is sort of interesting and funny in a way. He has this big contraption on his back that acts like a sort of voice box. He came with a long strip of plastic that looked like a smooth zip tie that you would insert into a slot and pull to make him speak. Of course I lost the strip so I have no idea how it worked and can't remember what the figure used to say. It's a funny sort of technology in that, today, or even years ago now, toys would just have a button to play a recorded message. I guess this technology pre-dates all that? For that reason alone I wish I could find the strip, but that will never happen. It's long gone for sure. This is why toys in mint condition become more valuable over time. They become more and more rare because the toys get damaged and/or pieces inevitably get lost or go missing.
The last two figures that I'll show off are from a Samurai series of toys that were based on the third movie. I believe it was called Turtles back in time. They have some neat detail work to them.
Ahhhh, sweet sweet nostalgia.
