Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!!!

Holy Cow!!  Cowabunga!!!  I found them!

While my first few posts focused on Minimates, I want to try to incorporate as many toys that I can, if I find them interesting…

One of my favourite toylines as a kid, even toys were becoming unpopular for my age at the time, were the Ninja Turtles.  I didn’t have many, but at the very least, it seems I still have the essentials!

That’s right, these are the originals from when I had them in 1989-ish….  Donatello is even the soft head version (the others are the hard head ones).. as you can see, most of the accessories are long gone (darn kids playing with their toys), but the turtles themselves are still in pretty decent shape.

I remember I still had a few side characters, but not many.  I didn’t like them all the other character designs, and as a kid, I had to rely on others to give me these things as gifts.  I remember I had Rocksteady, Leatherhead, Krang (brain version), but not much else.  I really wish I had Splinter, Casey Jones, April and Shredder.  I also had the Party Wagon, the Turtle Blimp, the Foot Ski, and the Cheapskate…

So in 2003, there was a new TMNT cartoon, which was less slapsticky than the original version, and followed a bit more of the comics.. By then, I was an adult, but could afford my own toys, so ta-da, I gots them.

Lest ye be fooled, I have all the accessories for these guys, all nicely put into a baggie, so I don’t lose them again.  And the nice part this time, I was able to get more of the key characters, but still missing some important guys.. sigh..

 

 

 

Casey Jones, Splinter, Shredder, a Foot Soldier… but yet again, no April O’Neil.  And in the 2003 series, one of the more important characters I thought was Hun, but you know what?  Good enough.  I got the 4 turtles.

 

 

 

 

 

And even though you might not see it, each of the turtles are drastically different and updated.

And it seems, my favourite turtle was an influence on my current favourite colour (albeit not consciously)

And, lucky for me, back in 2009, it was the 25th Anniversary of TMNT (1984, the comic, not the cartoon start), and they re-released some figures.  I was able to snag the first wave, I have all of these still boxed up.  So, in the end, I did get a Splinter and April O’Neil… just no Shredder or Casey Jones.  Oh well, you can’t win them all.

Coming out later in 2012, there’s going to be a new cartoon reboot, with a new line of figures!  1 for the new cartoon, 1 with UPDATED looks from the 1989 cartoon, to match them.  You can check them out here.

http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/02/01/new-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-toys-playmates-2012/