Here in our UK office, we at GGM were fortunate enough to come into early possession of the first ever Megabloks TMNT Advent Calendar! From January this year onward, Megabloks have not failed to impress with their acquisition of the Ninja Turtles construction toy license. The brand seemingly delivered more in the space of 2 months than the previous holder Lego did in 2 years. Megabloks has covered almost every base of the Ninja Turtles property from the 2012 series, 1987 series, Mirage comics and so forth. Now Megabloks is looking to end its successful 2016 first year with an advent calendar for December.
First off, the advent calendar itself is in the same stylized shape as the packaging for other Megabloks TMNT products with the rounded off opening sides. The front is beautifully illustrated with CG stock images edited together of all the contents behind each door to give an idea what to do with all the attractive clutter. The main image as you’d expect is layered over with the numbers compositions over each door.
The back has an inventory of all the items against a plain background showing how you can swap all the Don, Mike, Leo and Raph items between the singular Turtle figure in the set.
And when I say singular Turtle, the box shows it plain and clear that only one Turtle is included within all the pieces, but can be interchanged with the Don/Leo/Raph/Mike items. This is a clever execution on Megabloks part and would have avoided making this calendar more expensive that it should be (The RRP is £25). The ‘interchangable Christmas sweattered’ Turtle is Leonardo by default and he crops up early in the set. The other bandanas which also come with stylized Christmas pizzas (repainted from the go kart sets) crop up in later doors.
What I don’t want to do is spoiler who/what is behind which number door, though I am sure a possible plethora of ‘unboxing’ videos on Youtube may do that deed later. The packaging already shows what is inside and this article is expanding on that with retaining the fun of what you may or may not receive during the Christmas countdown. The cardboard on this calendar is quite thin and tears very easily. I recommend using an exacto-knife if you are one of those who are not into mutilating toy packaging. Saying that, the calendar itself has no cut out and keep material or fold out play platform like the Lego Advent calendars do. However, a lot of these pieces are great add-ons for already existing sets like The Sewer Lair, Baxter’s Lab and Raphs Training Dojo. Like with the Lego calendars, there are brief assembly illustrations behind each easily tearable door. Be careful when opening!
Be back for part 2, when we showcase Casey, Shredder and other accessories. Stay tuned!
