This set still sells pretty affordably ( most of the time it seems ..) at most third party vendors and at auction .
Along with the “FLASHBACK SHREDDER” , this Michelangelo set may have been amoung the very last sets made available in late 2014 before LEGO relinquished the TMNT licence to Mattel’s MEGA BLOKS brand.
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ICYMI :: Way Post Toy Fair News & updates..
HSH USAGI !!
MB Blind Bag S. 6 ??
:Crimson Leader” T.C. in stores now !!
TMNT MONSTERS
S, 5 Samurai
MUCKMAN in stores now !!
God, so much on the aggregate agenda today. So guys’ ..doin’ the best we can with so much crazy shtuff goin’ on.. But hey, as season 5, the final season of the Nick show as we’ve known it blasts into new episodes – but yeah, #ICYMI Toy Fair revealed important sneek peeks to wet fans’ appetites ( Usagi Yojimbo & Muckman anyone ?! ). Both TMNT 2012 show & non – – – -there’s more than enough TMNT diversity in to & merch purchases to appease almost anyone !! Mark Hamill’s popular KAVAXAS ( aka HOTHEAD remains speculative, Tokka has not thrown his hopes out tho.). From what i could tell – Mattel’s Mega Bloksbrand did seem a little quiet on Ninja Turtles at Toy Fair but as we head into Spring and Summer – retailers tell a different story as harder to find product from earlier in the year is being re-released in some areas & the infamous **blindbag series 5 is due soon. We’ll see what the future holds for MEGA especially come SDCC 2017.
** Entertainment Earth 90 MOVIE LEO Preoder link ..
again, NECA currently holds license to distribute the in-demand Classic Movie Turtles in North America only. Leo is again up for PRE- next month. Mike’s preorder has yet to be announced, International orders must be processed thru’ other arrangements and third-party sadly. But check this out..
.. sidenote :: The baby Henson Turtles on display at Toy Fair apparently ( ? ) are a separate release.
–>> Listings for SIMPSONS and PRO ZONE MLB are included on the page. Apparently i did not save those pages with the photos from those lines. I guess Tokka was more obviously focused on preserving TMNT imagery when i culled the rest of the magazine, for whatever reason i did that. Musta been having some manic fit again. .. Mike Dooney’s designs !!
Alright .. the past is the past, and the PAST was’a blast ( for’sum o’ us anyways ) – -but let’s cut straight to the race, with PIXEL DAN’S famous NY T.F. Paper chase.
Let’s go head on in, kids !! Gracias, Dan !!
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Playsets at Toy Fair 2015 – Secret Sewer Lair 2.0 & 24″ Leonardo Lair
Playmates Toys Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Action Figures Walkthrough at Toy Fair 2015
Playmates Toys Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Vehicles at Toy Fair 2015 – Pizza Thrower and More!
I was alerted that the “Environmental Playsets” were part of a series of TOMB RAIDER, LAURA CROFT toys by Playmates – – so apparently they did see some kind of release.
–>> SDCC ’03 would be my first of the California Cons and Playmates had a nice medium-sized presence to help celebrate of the then, still very new 4kids TMNT T.V. show. Michael Dooney himself was on hand much of the time at Playmates’ booth to sign autographs and sketch. Toy giveaways were were done sporadically and this was my first “official” exposure to the TMNT at a convention post previous independent TURTLE MEDIA convention appearances. Most of my personal photos from this Con & particular were accidentally deleted. However this two page spread highlights the most interesting releases of the second wave of the TMNT-2k3 toy line that were on display. Of note are two deluxe boxed sets that were never sent into production. They were incredibly impressive in person. But they were not to see the manufactured time of day and have gone into the PLAYMATES archives for good. The figures however are merely “battle damaged” repaints.
–>> Two ill-fated publishing house markings linger on this mini poster version of one of the more “STAND-OUT” variant covers of DW’s short lived TMNT animated #1 book. Peter David and Lesean Thomas’s first book boasted at least a couple variants. This Lee illustrated / Sunga coloured piece also made it onto a print offered by comic shops luckily sans all the logos.
At the moment i cannot recall where else this image may have been printed aside from the variant cover. . However it has been one of the more popular wrap-arounds in the fandom for over a decade now. Hmm – I do have a comic-shop exclusive Print of this piece sans the logos i will have to locate.
Tokka cannot offer the best critique of these things, but off the cuff: Lee’s “Muscular” style; love it or hate it renders Splinter, Casey and the Teens really well.
Shredder’s ominous presence in the background is perfectly balanced on the fold-out, even a little creepy with the one striking pupil focused on the viewer behind a classic clenched fist like pose. Half the bladed gauntlet obscured showing in front of Saki’s/Ch’Rell’s masked face and Ramil’s digital, painterly “POP-OUT” colours are two of my favourite items in the piece. Interestingly Michelangelo kind of takes the lead on the cover in kind of a smirky but mighty pose. The NYC cityscape in the background looks more familiar in that old DW styling.
This may be one of coolest covers from that era. Defiantly one of the most memorable.
The Wizard and DW logos bothered the hell out of me tho’ on this particular format. But that’s how it goes with these posters books Wizard put out. The 40+ poster fold-out magazines were printed with the images back to back. If you had a favourite character / artist’s poster who you wanted to tack up on the wall and on the back of that poster was an equally fave Comic book character and artist you’d run into problems. Just short of buying a whole other “PosterMania! ” issue of the same book.
Again the books’ images were meant to be utilized and hung up to promote the years’ upcoming titles. You did have to lift the staples out of the center of the mag to remove all the posters, let alone one that had your favourite character on it buried under the other pages.. That was always was bloody murder on my finger-tips and nails just short of using a butter knife or stapler-remover
It appears in some cases, these books & the 2003 PM! book can be kind of pricey and hard to come by.
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Related notes :: The Mystic TURTLES from last weeks’ popular T.V. episode are magically and slowly showing up on pegs ( shown here are pix from a Walmart ).
The first real basic toy offerings for 2015 show us previews of figs you got to peek at last year like Dire & Dark Dream Beaver, Baxter Fly, and Mike as Tur-Flytle. But fresh sneak-peeks on characters new for season three including Napoleon Bonafrog, the first EVER Attila the Frog, and the New but NEUVO – CLASSIC styled MUCKMAN. New TMNT Collection pack-in Pamphlet caps provided by Instagram user TMNTLEATHERHEAD.
..while not entirely unique like the classic PLAYMATES TMNT cards ..
– – the UNIFIED PACKAGING takes a slight cue from the 2005 – 2006 card backs giving the Teens themselves more personalized packaging for specific Turtles. But also freshens up the secondary characters, villains and supporting cast cards for the new year.
I’ve just got back from the UK Toy Fair, and spent most of my time on the Flair stand, drooling over all the TMNT stuff…
There wasn’t nearly as much as last year (makes sense, since last year the focus was on the movie), and most of what was shown was either old, or non-figure related. Also, none of the people I spoke to were particularly knowledgeable about TMNT.
Basic Line:
Everything shown has already been released, apart from Wave 3 2015 (Due October in the UK, no doubt much earlier in the USA):
Head Droppin’ Turtles – yeah, they’re doing these in the smaller scale. Pretty crappy, the gimmick didn’t work all that well and the paint apps are reduced even further (the ankle & wrist wraps weren’t even painted). All 4 brothers are due, although Raph was missing for some reason…
Monkey Brains – I think we saw a pic of him at SDCC, the figure’s nice and big but has a very simple sculpt & paintjob. The figure I saw was a proto, I’m told the final figure will have some kind of action feature.
Dream Beaver – Fairly basic, barely articulated red beaver dude. Again, the paint apps have been cut – he’s didn’t even have the design on his stomach!
Attilla the Frog – Looked like a happy meal toy. Articulated at the shoulders only, he’s hollow to accommodate his action feature – flip a lever on his back, and his tongue sticks out.
Shredder Clones (?) – No one knew much about these, apparently they’ll come as a 2-pack. One was normal size, orange with lobster claws, the other was a smaller unarticulated neon pink dude with some kind of tendrils/tentacles coming off him. Both had metallic blue armour.
Non figure stuff:
Mutations – there’s a new line of Mutation figures where each Turtle turns into his signature weapon. Neither turtle nor weapon mode looked very good (unless you’re into half-arsed mecha turtles). I got to play around with Mikey, and he was very tricky to convert, and his weapon mode is basically 2 10″ sticks that are a bit floppy in the middle. Only Leo & Mike were on display, but all 4 will be made.
T-Machines – think TMNT Hot Wheels. Cars featuring the main cast (each car comes single-packed or in multipacks, and each has multiple colour schemes). There’s also a range of playsets, a sewer lair, streettop and Shredder attack. Admittedly, these looked quite fun.
Giant Leo Playset – this was by far the coolest thing I saw at TF. It’s a massive, 2′ tall articulated Leo figure that folds out into a massive playset, with several different areas. It’s not as tall as the Sewer Lair, but its footprint is about 4 times bigger. It’s scaled to the regular figures.
I’ll get some pictures of the catalogue up tomorrow, but there’s not a lot in there that we haven’t already seen.
–>> The “NINJA TURTLES” title on the cards reflects early design and production by Playmates before “TEENAGE MUTANT” was added back to the title of the reboot film. Cards and promo material had already been produced or were already moving forward in production by the time name change was made so i presume it was kind of too late to go back and change the first wave releases. That may change on cards in future releases later this year/ next year.
I believe this has happened to Playmates before, for example when they had the Peter Jackson “KING KONG” license. KING KONG related products and toys had “KONG : THE 8th WONDER OF THE WORLD” labeling, toys that rolled out at this time i think represented an earlier title to that film. Until just simply “KING KONG” became the film’s title. The early design and production by the toy companies had already had “8th WONDER – ” labels and cards. Playmates was not the only company effected by this. Tho’ i doubt the Film title changing issues really go into effecting the parallel product line’s sales. Other factors on the other hand do tho’.
I’m finding that the the basic Movie Foot is pretty creepy so i ‘ll have one AS-IS.. it’s doubtful that the FOOT are wearing translucent masks in the film. They might, but amoung the first real villains we were able to sneak-a-peek at fully last year was the standard “PARAMILITARY” – like Foot Soldiers. I tried to make one as movie accurate as i could, and it really wasn’t that hard and didn’t take too long. This is just what i did, you can do whatever you want or nothing at all, of coarse.
Using metallic silver, Krylon Fusion “hammered-look” COPPER spray paint for plastics ( on mask ), and some various washes and minor paint on his scarf & metallics on the boots – i think i did okay. The survival knife and firearms have just a metallic wash over them and weapons & figure are coated in a simple sealant even a glue-like substance like Modge Podge rubbed on the figure will work. That final step is not 100 % necessary, but if he’s gonna be handled allot for play and display, i do suggest it.
Since the Foot seem to be going all G.I.Joe in this movie, expanding the Soldier’s arsenal was just an obvious & easy option. For his cannon, battering ram, shield and bullhorn i easily customized/metalized the “stolen” weapons from one of the cheap DOLLAR TREE “MILITARY ACTION FIGURES” available in the toy isle of most of those stores. The weapons aren’t perfect, but add a fun display option. The one displayed on the right is the toy i cobbled these weapons from. The frogman looks like he has some cool weapons to RAVAGE as in the future !!
..maybe i did Ok ?! Or maybe the Foot looks more like DESTRO from G.I. Joe, or Michael Myers from HALLOWEEN. H’m.. you tell me.
• •
..More movie product is being released in more and more stores as you may have seen by now. Wal-marts are getting these pretty hefty palettes with tons of Movie figs: basic, DLX and large scale, april, and Raphael in Disguise. You will also find the newest of the standard Cartoon waves & re-releases in these palette displays ( i.e. Rahzar, Newtralizer, Slash, Dojo Splinter, and Cockroach T. reissue ).
Pixel DAN’S Movie toy reviews of the Teens and the Assault Van.
This set still sells pretty affordably ( most of the time it seems ..) at most third party vendors and at auction .
.. sidenote :: The baby Henson Turtles on display at Toy Fair apparently ( ? ) are a separate release.
**TOY ARK’s PLAYMASTES T.F. 2017 Gallery
Here’s the fun gallery, DIAMOND SELECT’s Showroom with 2015 TMNT MINIMATES offerings,a MUTAGEN DON and Bebop, a SHREDDER BUST BANK, and MIRAGE STYLE MINIMATES !! !!
Playmates has updated the main TMNT Toy site with peeks at new T-Machines, TMNT Basics, including the NEW Head-Droppin Teens, Mutations and Mutation Vehicles ..
