Playmates responded to my e-mail!

[Nick Kell]

I'm quite surprised an actual person responded to my e-mail and not just a generated response, unfortunately they weren't super insightful. I asked why the Turtle toys don't look like the Turtles on the show. Her response was:

I don't know, I think the product development gang enhanced the muscles

[Jed]

I got 2 personal responses from Vivid Imaginations (the distributor of TMNT toys in the UK) about the release of toys over here. The first reply I was told none of the figures I asked about were in their database yet and to email back a month later. The second email was a response to the same question, but I was told to ring the customer careline. Seeing as I hate talking to strangers on the phone, I haven't bothered and probably won't.

[rayfillet101]

me and playmates are old friends! I asked them about the figures every chance i got, i havent e-mailed them in a few months tho, I should send them a christmas card!

[tmntman]

I asked why the Turtle toys don't look like the Turtles on the show

I believe that the reason why so many toys don't match up with the final licensed product has to do with the timeline involved in the developement of each. Most write-ups I have read indicate that it takes a company close to a year to design, sculpt, tool, produce and ship a figure. the Animation process doesn't seem to be quite as long. So if a toy company wants to have products on shelves in time to correspond with the show, they actually have to start months before the final designs are done.

[Nick Kell]

I don't think that reasoning explains why the Turtles are STILL off-model. Playmates has had more than enough time to make better bodies. I'm curious as to what the real reason is.

Plus all the supporting characters look exactly like their show counter parts. It just doesn't make sense why the Turtles themselves don't.

[BigThew]

i think tmnt man is correct
that is why we got dr. malignus and the monsters from notes from the underground so much later after the episode appeared
of course malignus was delayed but he was gonna show up a long time after the turtle titan episode appeard

[Triceraton]

I don't think that reasoning explains why the Turtles are STILL off-model. Playmates has had more than enough time to make better bodies. I'm curious as to what the real reason is.

Because they haven't bothered to change the sculpts yet. Notice that Turtle Titan is an entirely new sculpt, and looks closer to model than any of the other Turtles in the line so far. A resculpt of the regular Turtles would be great, but from Playmates point of view would make no sense. It's cheaper just to use the bodies they've already got, and since the Turtles are selling as it is, there's no reason to spend the time and money to make new Turtle sculpts.

[tOkKa]

-->> ..and how come some of them..like The Knight tmnts.. don't hold their weapons good!!??