Dimetrodon - Dino-Riders

I never had very many Dino-Riders, but I thought they were very cool. The figures looked a lot like MASK figures and actually came with some accessories. Each one of the dinosaurs were nicely sculpted. The Dimetrodon has a very neat looking fin on it's back and a small button on it's tail to make its mouth move.

 Each package included a little file card about the dinosaur

 

I always really liked the flip down guns built into the dino armor. It almost makes this dinosaur a walking bunker where the rider can hide behind the other side of the armored fin.

 

The Dimetrodon also included a Rider named Shado. He is packed away with my MASK figures somewhere. When I dig them out someday I'll post pictures of all the Dino-Riders I own.

My buddy Derek had all the heavy hitter Dino-Riders and I used to have a blast playing with his collection. I always thought the bad guy dinosaurs were cooler. The Brain Boxes they used to enslave their dinos made them look really cool.

Two-Face - Batman Forever

This Two-Face was released by Kenner in 1995 as part of the Batman Forever line. He came with a giant cannon and a good/evil coin which I do not have. I didn't see Batman Forever in the theatres and I skipped buying any of the toys. Later on I picked this guy up at a yard sale. I like his sculpt, but I'm not a huge fan of the paint. He is not accurate to the movie, and I don't like their changes. His "evil" side skin is crazy pink, but the hand on that side is normal. I also think the animal prints are rediculous for Two-Face. In the movie his hair is crazier on the "evil" side and his suit is all ripped up.

He has standard five point articulation and a gun sculpted into one of his hands. Even though I'm not a huge fan of their paint app selections, they are very detailed. Unfortunatly they didn't carry the paint apps to the back of his jacket which is all black. Kind of like missing painting the "evil" side's hand. You've got to be consistent.

At one point in time some of my friends and I were planning a large Batman stop motion animation project and we wanted to include Two-Face. This was the only figure of him I could readily find. So I picked up a second one and gave him a custom paint job that was more subtle. I took some of the design cues from Batman: the Animated Series.

 The "evil" side features a pale green skin tone on both his face and hand. His suit is half black and half gray. I always liked the way this custom Two-Face turned out. In the end we never did the animation project and he's just been hanging out in a shoe box with other Batman action figures.

Dr. Gangreen - Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

In the early '90 I was moslty playing with TMNT and GI Joes. I was pretty focused on only a couple of current toy lines, plus picking up vintage Star Wars figures at yard sales. My buddy Derek was always  finding the craziest new toys that I had never seen before. Things like Monsters in My Pocket and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. One year for Christmas his folks gave me two Killer Tomato figures. Each pack came with a monstrous Tomato and a PVC figure for them to eat. The little PVC people were the human characters from the Killer Tomato cartoon show. I never saw the cartoon, so based on the commercials for the line, I think Dr. Gangreen is the mad scientist who created the Killer Tomatoes.

He is from the Dr. Gangreen Vs. Ketchuck set. Ketchuck looked like the dumb tomato of the bunch. He has that dopey cartoon look to him. So this little guy can't do much, he has no articulation and not really very good paint apps. I'm not sure what happened to the other toys I had from this line.

I set Dr. Gangreen aside at one point to use as the Robot Chicken Mad Scientist if we ever did more episodes of our show Animation Creation. I wanted to do a scene where our characters were driving somewhere on a stormy night and run over a chicken. I'd have this guy come out of the bushes to grab the road kill and then fans of Robot Chicken would get it, that this would lead to the opening of Robot Chicken. Of course since having this ideas I now own an actual Robot Chicken Mad Scientist figure.

Thing - Super Hero Showdown

For all the action figures I own, the Thing is the only member of the Fantastic Four I have. A few years ago I picked up a Super Hero Showdown Starter Set from Small Joes.com. The set included an action figure of the Thing, Spider-Man in his blue and red suit, two spring-loaded missile launchers, two figure bases and some cards and rules for the game. The Super Hero Showdown figures were kind of like Marvel Universe toys before that line existed. They are well articulated and well painted, but they feel a little cheap. The joints pop a part a little to easily especially on the thin figures. He's got a real nice sculpt and great paint apps.

I honestly bought the set for the Spider-Man figure and never looked at the rules or how to play the games.

Zoloworld Case for Carded 3 3/4" figures

I don't consider my self to be a Mint on Card (MOC) collector. I open almost every action figure I buy. How else would I animate with them? I do think that the packaging art is really cool on toys and I always save the card backs. I can't pass up buying carded figures of vintage toys if I see them at a good price, and since I own so many loose figures usually I have no desire to open the carded version. So I have slowly built up a collection of carded toys. Then I started buy figures occasionally from modern lines to keep carded just as an example of the line. I never buy more than one or two figures from a modern line to keep carded.

at this point I needed to get some cases to protect and display these packaged sampled I have from the various lines. I've seen some of the  Zoloworld.com  cases before at one of their events, and have seen a few reviews of them online. Last weekend I called up Mike from Zoloworld to ask him a few questions and then ordered a handful of cases.

Bellow are pictures of some of the carded figures in their Zoloworld cases.

 Mail-Away Clone Wars and Mail-Away Vintage Collection

 25th Anniversary and Vintage Weapon Pack

 Episode 1 and Power of the Force (PotF2)

 Original (Vintage) and Direct to Consumer (DTC)

Funskool GI Joe made in India (my computer was giving me issues on rotating this one)

Slimer (Green Ghost) - Kenner Ghostbusters

This figure was released on a card back that called him Green Ghost. At the beginning of the toy line the Real Ghostbusters show was being developed based on the Ghostbusters movie. This guy was not given a name in the movie, and his name came about during the development of the show. Most people know him as Slimer even though he was not packaged that way. He was much meaner in the movie and pilot episode of the cartoon, than the actual series.

Slimer came with three pieces of food to eat, none of which I have. This ghost toy does not have feet or a base, so there is no way to stand him up. My fingers popped into the bottom photo while holding him up for the picture.

I really enjoyed the classic cartoon as a kid and had a lot of toys from the line. I never had Slimer as a kid, but picked him up at a yard sale.

Zoffy - Ultraman

This Ultraman Zoffy figure was given to me for Christmas one year by my buddy Derek. He has a huge collection of Japanese monster toys including Godzilla, Ultraman, and Gamera. We used his collection in our movie Godzilla Flick. That video starts with actual footage of me opening Godzilla and King Kong figures from Derek for my 6th Birthday. This Zoffy figure has a whole three points of articulation. He has a pivet joint at his shoulders and his waist. These guys where not very possible. You could never recreate any of their poses from the shows with these figures. Derek probably has 7 or 8 different Ultramen, but I has the Commander.

Psylocke - Marvel Universe

Psylocke, the X-Men's sexy ninja. She's telepathic, telekinetic, and can create psychic knife that incapacitate her enemies. Her back story is kind of crazy with he being a British girl with some special powers who is kidnapped, brainwashed, and physically altered to look Japanese and have incredible fighting abilities. Her powers have changed over the years several times, but she's always seemed cool to me. I kind of prefer her pony tail look, but by having her hair loose Hasbro got to reuse a head mold here. It's kind of a shame that she doesn't have straight hair if it wasn't going to be in a ponytail. This would help make her look more unique when displayed with other girls from the X-Men.

 

Psylocke is basically all parts we have seen before. She has a red belt, psychic katana, and and energy effect that could pass as her psychic knife, but is probably also a reused energy effect from another hero. She has a nice feminine sculpt and a great paint job. 

 Special thanks to my buddies Scott & Josh for getting me out of the house and to Toys R Us last night. It's been a long time. The end of October can't come soon enough... I'm really starting to miss my drivers license.

Catching up on Toy Hunters

Well, I just watched two episodes of Toy Hunters that i hadn't seen before. It's a decent show. I have more fun seeing the different collections than watching Jordan haggle with them. It seems that tv executives feel that the recipe for reality tv is to watch people fight over price.

 In the episodes I watched Jordan got to check out two awesome superhero collections. He got to wear a movie used Christoper Reeves Superman cape. He also go to see a framed Amazing Fantasy #15, the first appearance of Spider-Man.

They do a good job of showing off a lot of different types of toys. I'm not into Barbie or Board Games but they covered them along with Lunch Boxes and lot of action figures.

It was interesting that the guy with the garage man cave said his parents gave him the Luke Skywalker with a Double Telescoping Lightsaber when he had a medical procedure. He didn't mention the early bird certificate, and they didn't show any of the other figures that came in the set. Maybe his parents had sent away for the set for him and it arrived around that time. It was funny that he didn't know it was anything special, but then wanted a lot of money for it once Jordan explained to him what he had.

I'll keep watching for now... I wonder how long a show like this can go on before he has a hard time finding really neat stuff.

Starship Eternia - (NA) He-Man

(New Adventures) He-Man is a line I haven't mentioned on the blog yet. This update to the Masters of the Universe line was short lived, but still had some interesting things to offer like the Starship Etenria vehicle/playset. This particular example of the Starship is missing it's decals, battery cover, and elevators. (Maybe some other parts as well... not sure) It's an impressively large toy and incredible that it was included in such a short lived line of toys. Check out the animated review below.

Here are a couple of shots of the cockpit.

Here is a look inside the Starship

Box Art (sorry, someone wrote on it :P)

Here are some pictures of the images on the box that show how the pieces 

can be used to create 12 different configurations of  of the ship.

I think it is cool that they designed the ship so it could connect with other vehicles in the line. This shows a lot of planning went into the line and adds a lot of play value to the toys.