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Old 01-02-2019, 05:42 PM   #21
MikeandRaph87
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I guess they did not consider those of us who are kids playing with the action figures act out episodes and did not need imaginative disguises on the Turtles to do that. I do not believe successor cartoons suffered such over the top concepts, correct?


Did you all like the fact toys were made of characters that did not appear in the 1987 cartoon or other media? I never quite understood the point of that, not knocking it, it was just odd. I thought I was gstting a preview that may show up in Archie' TMNT Adventures or the 1987 cartoon. Sgt. Bannanas, Dr. Eel, King Lionheart, Panada Khan (alongside
Usagi) were begging to go beyond a toy.
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Old 01-02-2019, 06:48 PM   #22
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Did you all like the fact toys were made of characters that did not appear in the 1987 cartoon or other media? I never quite understood the point of that, not knocking it, it was just odd.
As a kid, I honestly never registered that a bad guy in the toy aisle never showed up on the cartoon. I just saw an amazing looking character, and had to have him! Ray Fillet was the coolest thing I'd ever seen! It's what made those early years of the TMNT toyline so incredible to me: it was packed with amazing characters that got my 4 year old imagination working in overdrive.

But go figure, I was so particular about my Turtles looking EXACTLY like they did in the show that I asked for the Wacky Action Turtles, because the regular ones didn't have pupils!

-JJ
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Old 01-02-2019, 09:45 PM   #23
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J.C. Penny in had an N64 for kids to take turns to play when it first came out. That was my first experience with the system and was blown away. Little did I realize that was the end of what I knew of video games (side scroll beat 'em ups). Aside from that up to the late 90s' my local Blockbuster Video had at least two game systems and a key game to play. I remember Super Nintendo with Super Mario World and Sega Genesis Sonic 3 being available. Good memories!

I bought anything I could get TMNT figures related. I mean I am 3-12 in the 90s' collecting these so I did not get sets, but bought and received what I could. I did however prefer the main line opposed to the sub sets like Star Trek, Universal, Farm, Warriors, Mutations, etc. When I played I needed basic line figures not side sets. The flipping turtles(what was that set called?) were replacements for the basic turtles if I could not find a turtle. I think the Ninja Turtles line went wild with side sets because of the variant Batman figures and trying to keep up with Kenner. As a kid who played with the figures I did not care for that.
When N64 came out, I do remember seeing demos set up everywhere. This is how Goldeneye got so much hype. It was a sad day for the side-scroller beat 'em up games. I love those. Countless hours playing Final Fight and Battletoads.
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Old 01-02-2019, 09:51 PM   #24
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As a kid, I honestly never registered that a bad guy in the toy aisle never showed up on the cartoon. I just saw an amazing looking character, and had to have him! Ray Fillet was the coolest thing I'd ever seen! It's what made those early years of the TMNT toyline so incredible to me: it was packed with amazing characters that got my 4 year old imagination working in overdrive.

But go figure, I was so particular about my Turtles looking EXACTLY like they did in the show that I asked for the Wacky Action Turtles, because the regular ones didn't have pupils!

-JJ
The regular Turtles didn't have pupils because they looked more like the comic book adaptions, which was fine with me. I do remember in 1991 and 1992, they had some really cool bad guys on store shelves with cool artwork and bright colors: Antrax, Ground Chuck, Scale Tail, Chrome Dome, etc.
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Old 01-02-2019, 11:59 PM   #25
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I was not a child at the time, but I feel the original toy line went downhill when it became a parody of the more successful boys and girls toylines before it. I seem to remember hearing about a cousin of mine groaning at the sight of the first series of Mutant Military and Sewer Sports All-Stars at Toys “R” Us in the fall of 1991. There were too many to collect for him. Like I imagine, everyone his age wanted the characters that appeared in the Fred Wolf cartoon only. So, it was a big letdown for my cousin because he had a ‘gut feeling’ the basic assortment figures were going to be buried under numerous and unnecessary variants on standard cards from that point onwards until the end of toyline’s history. Sadly, the original toyline never recovered.
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Old 01-03-2019, 12:09 AM   #26
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I don't even remember turtle toys being on shelves when I was younger. The last one I got as a kid was a movie Raphael and that wasn't even bought in my state. I only remember Batman toys being everywhere and then in 93 Power Rangers took over.
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Old 01-03-2019, 12:57 AM   #27
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Originally Posted by MikeandRaph87 View Post
I guess they did not consider those of us who are kids playing with the action figures act out episodes and did not need imaginative disguises on the Turtles to do that. I do not believe successor cartoons suffered such over the top concepts, correct?


Did you all like the fact toys were made of characters that did not appear in the 1987 cartoon or other media? I never quite understood the point of that, not knocking it, it was just odd. I thought I was gstting a preview that may show up in Archie' TMNT Adventures or the 1987 cartoon. Sgt. Bannanas, Dr. Eel, King Lionheart, Panada Khan (alongside
Usagi) were begging to go beyond a toy.
I have seen Panda Khan in other media, maybe some of the TMNT story books. Usagi Yojimbo was not created by Eastman and Laird, but was heavily tied into TMNT roots, because the creators had close relation to Eastman and Laird. This case is similar with Panda Khan. I believe Usagi had a solo cartoon and comic book line as well.
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Old 01-03-2019, 08:19 AM   #28
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I was born in '82, so I grew up through the height of Turtlemania.

I loved most of the variants--rock n' roll, military, sports, Universal Monsters, etc--but felt like TMNT first started to suffer in 1993 when figures no longer had individualized art cards. And over the next year or two, the shelf space at stores began to decrease, more of the figures reused the same molds (Shogun turtles and Apollo 11 figures, for instance), and some of the figures, while kind of cool, felt pretty disconnected from the TMNT universe I grew up with (Metal Mutants, Super Mutants, Muta-Force, Cyber Samurai, Coil-Force, those Street Fighter rip-offs, etc). Power Rangers, which I disliked both then and now, also stole some of their thunder.

By 1996, very few of the characters Playmates released were of anyone but the four TMNT, and some of the concepts were real stretches (like the Dino Turtles, the ones that were actually dinosaurs themselves). I recall how the shelves at Toys R Us remained virtually unchanged from week to week, whereas a few years earlier there was something new every time I visited.

When the Next Mutation came out, I was a freshman in high school and tried to watch it, and really did want to like it, but it wasn't very good and reminded me too much of Power Rangers. The Next Mutation toys, some of which I bought for kicks, were actually really nice. But by then they were hard to find and most stores had a very small TMNT footprint.
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Old 01-03-2019, 08:21 AM   #29
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Originally Posted by colincollects85 View Post
I have seen Panda Khan in other media, maybe some of the TMNT story books. Usagi Yojimbo was not created by Eastman and Laird, but was heavily tied into TMNT roots, because the creators had close relation to Eastman and Laird. This case is similar with Panda Khan. I believe Usagi had a solo cartoon and comic book line as well.
Stan Sakai has been making Usagi comics for 30+ years. If you haven't read them, I highly recommend going back to the beginning, which is now pretty easy to do since there are these massive collections called Usagi Sagas.
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Old 01-03-2019, 09:06 AM   #30
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Stan Sakai has been making Usagi comics for 30+ years. If you haven't read them, I highly recommend going back to the beginning, which is now pretty easy to do since there are these massive collections called Usagi Sagas.

Do they collect all the individual prints? Any missing? I see some on the amazon site and if they are complete I may start to buy them to give them a try. I have read almost every TMNT comic and need some more to read

Are crossovers in this saga collection?
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Old 01-03-2019, 11:18 AM   #31
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I was born in '82, so I grew up through the height of Turtlemania.

I loved most of the variants--rock n' roll, military, sports, Universal Monsters, etc--but felt like TMNT first started to suffer in 1993 when figures no longer had individualized art cards. And over the next year or two, the shelf space at stores began to decrease, more of the figures reused the same molds (Shogun turtles and Apollo 11 figures, for instance), and some of the figures, while kind of cool, felt pretty disconnected from the TMNT universe I grew up with (Metal Mutants, Super Mutants, Muta-Force, Cyber Samurai, Coil-Force, those Street Fighter rip-offs, etc). Power Rangers, which I disliked both then and now, also stole some of their thunder.

By 1996, very few of the characters Playmates released were of anyone but the four TMNT, and some of the concepts were real stretches (like the Dino Turtles, the ones that were actually dinosaurs themselves). I recall how the shelves at Toys R Us remained virtually unchanged from week to week, whereas a few years earlier there was something new every time I visited.

When the Next Mutation came out, I was a freshman in high school and tried to watch it, and really did want to like it, but it wasn't very good and reminded me too much of Power Rangers. The Next Mutation toys, some of which I bought for kicks, were actually really nice. But by then they were hard to find and most stores had a very small TMNT footprint.
There were a lot of great sculpts for the variants of the turtles in the early to mid 1990s, but there is clearly a line between the basic wave that Dirtbag was in and the assortments that figures like April, the Ravishing Reporter were a part of. Playmates really dropped the ball when the case with Make My Day Leo, Super Shredder, Tokka, and Rahzar were shipped to stores in the autumn of 1991. Children, today, that look at toys like Skateboardin’ Mike and Hose ‘Em Down Don were not around to see how well liked Barbie was in the early 1990s, after the 30th anniversary of the Mattel Barbie line in ‘89. I’m sorry to say this, but those selections of TMNT collectibles were ridiculous then as they are now.

And Super Shredder, Tokka, and Rhazar all should have been released with the Movie Star figures in early 1992. Instead, those three figures were shoed into the rest of the basic assortment for ‘91 in the fashion that Storage Shell Donatello was the year before. In other words, they were sneak preview figures. I thought the Storage Shell variants were a nice play on the Battle Armor Skeletor and He-Man figures from the early Reagan ‘80s. So, those toys were fine in my book.

The original TMNT toyline was transitioning in the early 1990s from how it was last in the very late 1980s to the way it would be at the start of the mid 1990s. Needless to say, there was a clear disconnect between the 1990 characters and the 1992 ones. Each figure came on an individualized art card in the early 90s, but the ‘92 molds were highly-stylized, glossier, cartoonier, colorful, and in some cases, heavier than those before them. I’ll be honest. I really liked the original Playmates toy line before Mike the Sewer Surfer and Raph, the Space Cadet were introduced. I would have taken those particular disguised turtles out of the lineup for the autumn of 1990. The other two were fine.

The original toyline, looking back, suffered a lot from an identity crisis. Again, it was better in the first three years before Playmates tried to capitalize on all of the new toy trends of the 1990s (i.e. - Polly Pocket) and the unforgettable toy fads of the 1980s (i.e.- Transformers). I think most fans and acquirers of the first toyline would agree me that it should have stayed a pseudo-Masters of the Universe toyline from beginning to end. If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. I’ll be curious to see the season 3 episode of The Toys That Made Us on Netflix when it airs. The original TMNT line went on longer than most of the best ‘80s action figure lines before it, but it does not stack up to those lines at all.

It’s rather ironic that the flaw with this toyline for the animated adaption of the hit comic book spoof was that it stopped taking itself seriously.

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Old 01-03-2019, 12:10 PM   #32
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Did you all like the fact toys were made of characters that did not appear in the 1987 cartoon or other media? I never quite understood the point of that, not knocking it, it was just odd. I thought I was gstting a preview that may show up in Archie' TMNT Adventures or the 1987 cartoon. Sgt. Bannanas, Dr. Eel, King Lionheart, Panada Khan (alongside
Usagi) were begging to go beyond a toy.
I always wanted characters and vehicles I recognized from the Fred Wolf cartoon and Archie comics. I thought those you mentioned (except Usagi, as I recognized him) all appeared in episodes and comic issues who hadn't come to Sweden yet.
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Old 01-03-2019, 12:43 PM   #33
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I grew up with the 2000s line and I appreciated that the line mostly reflected what was in the 2003 series, down to the variants. I guess it helped that there was a decent recurring cast of human, mutant, and alien characters as well.
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Old 01-03-2019, 02:08 PM   #34
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I don't even remember turtle toys being on shelves when I was younger. The last one I got as a kid was a movie Raphael and that wasn't even bought in my state. I only remember Batman toys being everywhere and then in 93 Power Rangers took over.
There were entire shelves filled with TMNT figures at Toys “R” Us, Walmart, and Children’s Palace in 1990. I, also, recall seeing large display tables dedicated to graphic novel adaptions of the movies, bookmarks, calendars, TMNT figures, and vehicles at Barnes & Noble from 1991 to 1993. As you can imagine, TMNT toys were in many drug store displays all throughout the early 90s. K-Mart, Family Dollar, and Target were good sources to get rare figures then, as well.

There were more pegs reserved for the Kenner Batman Returns line by the end of ‘92 at places like Caldors than space for the TMNT stuff. Still, the first Mutations line was on end-caps at Toys “R” Us for quite a while in the spring of 1993. The turtles were not taking up the full aisle in the spring of ‘93 at Toys “R” Us like they did in 1990 though. Like you brought up, the Bandai Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers line took over completely in 1994 and made the turtle line look like relics from a different time period.

I’m going to say, also, that the birth of Turtlemania in 1990 ruined the toyline. There was more of a demand for new turtle products from children and retailers alike after the 1990 holiday season. The first wave versions of the turtles and Shredder were hard to find until the fall of ‘91. By then, anyone that wanted the four turtles had three other chances to get them (Storage Shell Donatello, the Wacky Action figures, and disguised turtles). So, children of the early 1990s moved on to other toys like the Super Nintendo, Super Soakers, and Hasbro WWF action figures from 1991 onward. To this day, the turtles are thought of as a 1990 thing. Toy scalpers in 1990 thought the figures would be worth a fortune in the future, at the time, but the figures were extremely mass produced.
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Old 01-03-2019, 02:25 PM   #35
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Like you brought up, the Bandai Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers line took over completely in 1994 and made the turtle line look like relics from a different time period.
There was room enough for both for me. I ALWAYS put TMNT first and then something else second. MMPR was my second favorite and I bought both toy lines and watched both shows. I never understood how MMPR contributed to the end of Turtlemania since I was a fan of both and preferred TMNT of the two. Was I a minority that invested in both and always preferred TMNT?
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Old 01-03-2019, 03:03 PM   #36
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There was room enough for both for me. I ALWAYS put TMNT first and then something else second. MMPR was my second favorite and I bought both toy lines and watched both shows. I never understood how MMPR contributed to the end of Turtlemania since I was a fan of both and preferred TMNT of the two. Was I a minority that invested in both and always preferred TMNT?
Younger children, who were too young to remember the Turtlemania peaking 1989–1990, were more likely to become directly hooked on the Power Rangers when it debuted in August 1993. It was new, cool and marketed everywhere back then.
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Old 01-03-2019, 03:28 PM   #37
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Younger children, who were too young to remember the Turtlemania peaking 1989–1990, were more likely to become directly hooked on the Power Rangers when it debuted in August 1993. It was new, cool and marketed everywhere back then.
I was born in '85, so got to experience both. I lost interest in the Power Rangers fairly quickly, maybe around 1995 after the first movie. The Turtles were always more important to me than the Power Rangers, as the toys were way cooler to me. The only thing the Power Rangers toy line had going for it were the Zords. I do agree that the Turtles had become to seem like sort of a relic of the past by the mid-nineties, like a lot of other things from the 80s.
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Old 01-03-2019, 03:34 PM   #38
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I was born in '85, so got to experience both. I lost interest in the Power Rangers fairly quickly, maybe around 1995 after the first movie. The Turtles were always more important to me than the Power Rangers, as the toys were way cooler to me. The only thing the Power Rangers toy line had going for it were the Zords. I do agree that the Turtles had become to seem like sort of a relic of the past by the mid-nineties, like a lot of other things from the 80s.
Also, in some countries the Fred Wolf TMNT cartoon had been taken off air when the Power Rangers debuted.
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Old 01-03-2019, 03:56 PM   #39
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There was room enough for both for me. I ALWAYS put TMNT first and then something else second. MMPR was my second favorite and I bought both toy lines and watched both shows. I never understood how MMPR contributed to the end of Turtlemania since I was a fan of both and preferred TMNT of the two. Was I a minority that invested in both and always preferred TMNT?
The console wars, Super Soakers, Toy Biz X-Men line, and Hasbro WWF figures all brought an end to Turtlemania in the latter half of the early 1990s.
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Old 01-03-2019, 04:03 PM   #40
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what you guys talking bout, I am living in turtle mania right now. just go my turtle room and get on eBay for more haha

great thread btw
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