Nickelodeon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Series 12

What an incredibly busy and lucrative two months Playmates Toys has had! New product after new product has been hitting store shelves at a rapid pace as well as a healthy amount of repacks.

The hard to find, long announced Karai Serpent is finally hitting U.S. shores. Though she's not in abundance just yet, she is steadily streaming into stores. She comes one per case, so patience is a necessity with this one. Much like April, she's going to be a short pack, and relatively scarce.

Karai Serpent

Also finally hitting store shelves are the remaining Head Droppin' Turtles. For those of you that have Leonardo and Donatello which were released several months ago you can now round out your Turtles with Michelangelo and Raphael.

A problem we're noticing with these figures is the legs going missing. Because there's a large rectangular slot at the knees so that people can try out the features of the figure, the legs are either being removed from the toys, or falling out during production. Either way, we've seen quite a few figures sans legs.

Head Droppin' Michelangelo

Head Droppin' Raphael

Making its way from the West Coast to the East Coast are two new figures, Napoleon Bonafrog and Monkey Brains. These figures will most likely be easier to find within the next three to four weeks as they spread out across the U.S.

Napoleon Bonafrog

Monkey Brains

Admittedly, a disappointing aspect we're starting to see with this line is the cutting back of articulation. All the figures above are extremely limited in movements. While we suppose this is an aspect that is helping to keep prices relatively low on this line, we can't help but wish that Playmates Toys would put just a tad bit more effort into it. We won't even get started on the production paint jobs vs. final product ones - A gripe many fans have had since the series began in 2012.Okay, we will - They didn't even give Monkey Brains pants. The figure is pure brown and tan.

***UPDATE***

Here's an interesting one - A seller in the UK is claiming to have numerous Atilla the Frog figures in stock. His listing on ebay shows that he has sold over 10 of them to date, and that he still has more than ten in stock. That's an awful lot of this figure for one seller to have, let alone the fact that it's a brand new figure.

Red flags are certainly raising over this one, but if you absolutely can't wait to get this figure, you have an opportunity. It's relatively cheap in terms of secondary market prices for new figures - 11.99 GBP - Roughly $18.79 American. The shipping is also relatively cheap from the UK to US at just 7.00 GBP - or $10.97 American.

Buyer beware - We can't authenticate this figure as legit, nor if it was obtained through "legal" channels. All we know is that it feels sketchy.

Atilla the Frog

We received an Atilla in the mail, and if this is the legit thing, it's a really lame figure. One hunk of plastic with two movable arms, and a lever on the back for the tongue. Playmates Toys is really getting lazy with this line.

The new wave of Mix and Match Mutations figures has seen a mass release as of August. These all new Battle Shell figures only encompass the four Turtles so far, but pending popularity of the series could potentially spawn into new waves with other figures. At $12.99 a piece, it's not a bad selling price for a "deluxe" figure with large accessories.

Leonardo with Ariel Attack Battle Shell

Michelangelo with Stealth Battle Shell

Donatello with Recon Battle Shell

Raphael with Ground Pounder Battle Shell

Despite the large second wave of figures announced in the standard Mutations line, only three new figures have been released. Could this be a sign of the series failing to find a foothold with kids and collectors?

Casey Jones*Bebop*Rocksteady

Vehicles and playsets have been a strong component to the series, and it's great to see that Playmates Toys is continuing to release them in unison with the figures. While a lot of companies tend to shy away from bulkier items such as these, the TMNT lines have always ensured massive variations to incorporate in the various series over the years.

T-Rawket

Pizza Thrower

Mutations Turtle Turbo-Charger

Mutations Quad Rotor with Cloud Cruisin' Leo

Mutations Tri-Flyer with Jet Jammin' Raph

Mutations Giant Leonardo Playset

Secret Sewer Lair Playset with Dimension X Portal

In addition to all the new items above, Playmates Toys has been steadily producing all the old stuff on the new style 2015 packaging. This includes a multitude of figures and vehicles. The latest addition to this is;

Battle Shell Donatello

Battle Shell Leonardo

Battle Shell Michelangelo

Battle Shell Raphael

Baxter Stockman

Donnie the Wizard

Fishface

Foot Soldier

Kirby Bat

Leo the Knight

M.O.U.S.E.R.S.

Ninjas in Training Raphael and Michelangelo

Raph the Barbarian

Spider Bytez

Squirrelanoid

The Rat King

With the above batch of figures, and the prior ones re-released to date, that leaves us with only a handful of figures yet to be released on the new 2015 style packages; Snakeweed, Mikey the Elf, all four Stealth Tech Turtles and all four of the Mutagen Ooze Turtles. Hopefully we'll see those soon.

Playmates has also begun releasing a slew of older vehicles in the new 2015 style package. What's interesting about this is that stores like Target and Walmart are clearancing out the smaller $9.99 vehicles, making them particularly difficult to obtain. Hopefully this tactic is in anticipation of the newer style packages going into full production to replace the older style. It would be awful if these were being discontinued altogether.

Grass Kicker
Hot Rod with Hot Rod Mikey

Michelangelo's Patrol Buggy

MMX Cycle

Ninja AT-3 with All-Terrain Leonardo

Ninja Stealth Bike with Stealth Ninja Raph

Shell Flyer

Turtle Sub with Diver Don

Last, but not least, we have an all new set of the Turtles as based on the original first series. These all-new updates now feature pupils in their eyes, letters on their belts, and colored arm and knee pads that match their bandanas.

With these new variations available, the question becomes, "Will Playmates Toys phase out the original designs in favor of these?" Time will tell, but as of now, we haven't been seeing the original versions released again since earlier this year when they debuted on the new 2015 cards.

 Leonardo

 Michelangelo

 Donatello

 Raphael

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Fantastic Four (Toy Biz)

Fantastic Four
Toy Biz
1994 - 1996


Stan Lee and Jack Kirby weren't playing around in the 1960's. They're the names behind some of the greatest of the greats; The Hulk, The X-Men, Spider-Man, Nick Fury, Daredevil, Silver Surfer, and so many more we could create a post ten miles long just listing them all. In addition to all of that, we also get from them The Fantastic Four - Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and The Thing. They were the superhero team that in conjunction pretty much had it all, to and include one of the coolest arch nemesis's in the Marvel Universe - Doctor Doom.

The Fantastic Four debuted in November of 1961 under their own comic book banner, and were one of the series credited with ushering in a new era of comic books - The super hero.

What set the FF aside from so many other comic book heroes was that they led relatively normal lives under one roof with each other. They often times squabbled about petty and deep things, which not only helped to build on each character, but also make them a relatable group to the average reader. They were also big on not hiding behind secret identities, but instead used their unique abilities to garner almost a celebrity status - Such as Tony Stark did.

Though it was never a bad thing during the 90's to hear about a new line of Marvel based super heroes being produced by Toy Biz, we can't help but think that Toy Biz was tricked - Shall we say - Into moving forward with this particular line.

1994 was an interesting year for The Fantastic Four. A film was announced to be in the works, and was even shot from beginning to end, edited into a final cut, and a trailer even released in theaters. However, the film itself was never actually produced with the intentions of releasing it. Instead, it was an effort on behalf of rights holder Bernd Eichinger of Constantin Films to simply maintain the rights to the film franchise - Rights which he had obtained in 1992.

With the hype wheel turning of a Fantastic Four movie coming to theaters in 2004, we think Toy Biz got a little more excited than they probably should have, and started churning out figures. Of course, all of this is speculation on our part - Though it is a little coincidental that Toy Biz would randomly throw a ton of efforts and resources into an FF based line in 1994.

***UPDATE***

Reader Chris Mapp wrote to inform us that 1994 was also the year that a Fantastic Four and Iron Man cartoon were being aired on television. This series is actually a plastic iteration of that show which ran for two seasons (26 episodes) between 1994 and 1996.

Regardless, as we said, it was never bad news to hear that Toy Biz was producing something new in the world of Marvel Comics based toys. As such, despite whatever reason they had for developing the massive series they produced, we'll happily take them.

We got a ton of great stuff from this release - Figures upon figures, awesome vehicles, and let's not forget that spectacular massive sized Galactus.

 Black Bolt*Dr. Doom*Mole Man

 Fantastic Four*Silver Surfer*Terrax

 The Thing

 Blastaar*Dragon Man*Firelord

 Gorgon*Human Torch (Flame on Sparking Action)*Human Torch (Glow in the Dark Flames)

 Invisible Woman*Invisible Woman (Transparent)*Thanos

 Annihilus*Atuuma*Namor

 Super Skrull*The Thing*Triton

 Human Torch (Red and Yellow Platform)*Human Torch (Orange and Red Platform)*Medusa

 Psycho Man*The Thing*Wizard

As was common during this particular era of Toy Biz related Marvel Comics lines, the company merged two together to create some fairly unique Walmart exclusive two packs. Each two pack features one Fantastic Four related character with one Iron Man related one. The packaging alone is worth grabbing these for. It's so much fun to look at - Though rather costly these days.

 Dr. Doom Vs. Iron Man*Mr. Fantastic Vs. Iron Man (Hydro Armor)

 Silver Surfer Vs. Mandarin*The Thing Vs. War Machine

 Galactus

Some consider the vehicles to be a little silly in terms of grounding them in the actual Marvel Universe. We say, "Check out all those launching missiles and features!" These toys are pure fun with so much built into them to make them interactive with the figures.

 The Thing's Sky Cycle*Mr. Fantastic's Sky Shuttle

Fantasticar - Cosmo Modular Space Vehicle

Whether you love, hate, or could care a less about the Fantastic Four, one thing can't be denied - Toy Biz hit the mark with this particular line leaving little room for complaint - If any at all.

Join us next time when we take a look at Muhammad Ali!

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Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (Sababa Toys)

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids
Sababa Toys
2005

Hey, hey, hey! It's Fat Albert!

Awful name - Just awful. Can you imagine? People come up to you, "Hi, I'm Tim Drake." You respond, "Oh, hey, I'm Fat Albert!" Where do you go with a conversation from there? Because Tim's probably going to give an awkward, "Oh...Nice to meet you," then point somewhere behind you, and say, "I'm needed over there...ish."

Poor attempts at humor aside, Fat Albert is definitely a staple in the terms of iconic cartoon characters. The character and his gang are all the brain children of Bill Cosby - Though most of you probably already knew that. The original show premiered in 1972, and ran through 1985 for a whopping 110 episodes as well as four specials. As to why the show ended after it's eight season run, well, that's probably because by 1984 Mr. Cosby was gearing up season 2 of his instant success The Cosby show on NBC. Let's just assume he really didn't have a lot of free time at this point anymore.

Over the past several decades, Fat Albert and the gang have had their share of toys, but none were as fabulously designed as Sababa Toy's 2005 line. Unfortunately for the newly developed toy manufacturer, the general public didn't necessarily care about them.

Why create a line based on Fat Albert in 2005, when the show hadn't been produced since 1985, and though still in syndication was in few and far between blocks? That's answer is the 2004 Fat Albert movie starring Keenan Thompson - Which in truth wasn't terrible.

With an all new feature length film finding a fairly strong foothold in the box office, it kind of made sense to try and spark some interest in the original renditions of the characters. Again though - It didn't pay off. The end result was a very small line of just four figures - Far from FA's full cast of compadres.

 Dumb Donald

 Fat Albert

 Mushmouth

Weird Harold

These days Sababa Toys is still producing items here and there, but they tend to stay out of the action figure game. Their niche is more geared towards manufacturing wholesale licensed merchandise such as a Nintendo themed Uno set. Sadly, the majority of it isn't all that impressive.

Join us next time when we take a look at Fantastic Four!

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Thundercats Classics Minimates (Diamond Select)

Thundercats Classics Minimates
Diamond Select
2012 - 2013

Minimates are something we jumped on the bandwagon way to late for. By the time we realized they were something we were interested in, a vast amount of them had already come and gone, and were showing massive increases in value on secondary markets - In short, we didn't buy many, which is why you don't see to many posts around here on the subject. In fact, this is only the second post we've done on Minimates to date.

There's not much we can say about the Thundercats cartoon that we haven't already touched on in our original LJN series review. So, we'll just jump right into the toys.

Minimates are a block style action figure (or vehicle) which was originally produced by Art Asylum. Though Art Asylum handled the concept well, it wasn't until Diamond Select took over that development/production really ramped up to the point you have so many vast series today - One of which is Thundercats.

The Thundercats Classics Minimates line started in 2012 with the San Diego Comic Con exclusive set which featured Lion-O, Panthro, Spirit of Jaga, Mumm-Ra and Snarf. Disappointingly to fans, this would end up being the only way to obtain these particular figures as they were never released in retail stores.

 Set 1 - San Diego Comic Con 2012 Exclusive

Sets two through three were released as a retail sets, though most retailers, with the exception of Toys R' Us, didn't carry them. Instead, these could be found at specialty shops - Such as local comic book and hobby stores (that ordered them).

 Set 2

 Set 3

Set four was yet another San Diego Comic Con exclusive. It was if Diamond was telling people, "If you want Lion-O or Mumm-Ra, you better come to SDCC."

 Set 4 - San Diego Comic Con 2013

Thundercats Hooo! was the last set of Minimates released in the series. Much like sets two and three, it was released mainly at Toys R' Us and specialty shops.

Thundercats Hooo! Set

On average, the retail sets will set you back about twenty to thirty dollars. However, to nab the SDCC sets, you're going to pay around $70.00 for the 2013 set, and anywhere from $130.00 to $150.00 for the 2012 set - Ouch.

Join us next time when we take a look at Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids!

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The Phantom (Street Players)

The Phantom
Street Players
1996

The 1996 film, The Phantom, doesn't get the love it deserves. People pan it as one of the worst comic book adaptation films around, and laugh at the casting of B-Movie star Billy Zane as the leading role. Hogwash, we say!

The Phantom is probably one of the most truest renditions of comic book to screen movies out there. The visuals are beautiful, the acting superb, and Billy Zane...Well, he's just cool. If there's one fault the film has, it's that too much of it was left on the cutting room floor. See, the reason that most people don't like the film is because the actual full story never made it into the end result. Much of the character building between The Phantom and Diana Palmer was left out of the film in favor of a faster paced action based movie - Which it wasn't written in the style to be.

Fortunately for fans who want the whole story, a novelization of the film was written by Rob MacGregor - The man behind a series of Indiana Jones novels. MacGregor not only included an origin story for The Phantom in his adaptation, but also the numerous arcs that were cut from the film.

The now defunct Street Players also released a very small line of action figures based on the film which quickly went from isle pegs to clearance bins. Featuring only one carded figure, and a horse/rider pack, the series seemed destined to fail from the get go. Street Players didn't seem interested in supporting the line, and showed this by not bothering to produce any villains for The Phantom to go toe to toe with. In combination with the film being labeled a flop, the toy line fizzle almost instantaneously.

 The Phantom

Phantom Rider

Time has been much kinder to the series of toys than the original movie going crowd of the 90's was. These days you're not going to get either of these items for less than $25.00 to $30.00 each - Not bad for a toy that was condemned to the clearance bin for no more than two bucks within its first year of being released.

Though a sequel was rumored to occur, that rumor was squashed in 2008 with the announcement of a reboot of the franchise - Which of course has not come to fruition either. Will we see more big screen adventures of The Phantom? We suppose time will tell.

Join us next time when we take a look at Thundercats Minimates!

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Print Putty (AKA Secret Print Putty) (Colorforms)

Print Putty (AKA Secret Print Putty)
Colorforms
1966

We don't touch on the Colorforms brand as often as we could here at The Toy Box, but one thing is for certain, the toys that they made were a lot of fun - If not simply for the fact that so many were odd and obscure.

Much mystery surrounds who actually invented Silly Putty first, but according to Crayola, the owner of the patent, it was invented in 1943 by James Wright during World War II. Since then, it has been produced numerous times over with Crayola's own patented Silly Putty name, Imperial's Play Putty, Durham's Fun Putty, Colorform's Print Putty, and so many other various iterations. It's a toy that has lasted on shelves for over fifty years, and show no signs of stumbling in popularity any time soon.

But, what is it about this intriguing putty that makes kids young and old so attracted to it? Plain and simply - It's multifunctional. It can be shaped into a ball, and bounced about. It can be stretched out and used to mold various shapes. However, what most kids absolutely loved about it is its ability to transfer ink from comic book pages onto its surface simply by pushing it down on the comic strip, then lifting it back up.

As we said above, numerous companies have released some form of Silly Putty. Today, we're going to be looking at the 1966 era from Coloforms known as Print Putty - AKA Secret Print Putty.

Coloforms released numerous packages onto the market all at once which included; Batman, Superman, Green Hornet, Monster, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Respectively, Green Hornet and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. were released under the banner, "Secret Print Putty", while the others were just called Print Putty.

Each ball of putty came packed on its own unique card, and included a small "Secret Print Book" which contained "Magic Print Paper" - Though in truth, there was nothing magical about the paper at all as one could use the putty to pull the image off of any printed comic book or strip. Each putty ball was also packed into its own unique container, such as the skull for the Monster Print Putty and / or planet Krypton for Superman.

Most of these particular brands of putty can still be found today on secondary markets, but they're going to set you back anywhere from $40.00 to $400.00 - The cheapest being The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (which is fairly common on markets), and the most valuable being the Monster Print Putty (which is rarely found on markets).

Those looking to track these items down should be careful, especially with the Monster Print Putty as reproductions have been known to surface and sell. As of now, we have not heard of anyone trying to pass the reproductions off as original releases, but needless to say, there's always a chance this could happen. Even then, reproductions are still going to set you back about $150.00.

Of course, there's really no sure way to know if you're getting the original putty in an opened version, and as such most buyers looking for these items typically seek out only sealed in package versions. Again though, you need to be careful as a lot of the reproductions being produced are also sealed in the package.

For as simple as (Silly) Putty is, it's amazing how it has managed to stand the test of time while other more complex toy lines come and go - Sometimes in what seems like a blink of an eye. We suppose that it comes down to the tried and true statement - Simple is better.

***Honorable Mention***

Colorforms continued to produce a format of putty after its (Secret) Print Putty line. However, latter releases tweaked the title on the cardback to be more specific to the item inside. A perfect example of this is the Space Putty package to the right.

Unfortunately the package was so simplified in terms of what was inside that it only included a ball of putty in a shaped container. Gone was the fantastic print book with wonderful artwork to transfer to the putty - Though it still had some wonderful illustrations on the package.

Though we tried desperately to find one to include in this post, we simply could not put our hands on the Spooky Putty. This particular package was a Mickey Mouse and Pluto themed release which featured a glow in the dark skull container reminiscent (if not identical) to the original Monster Print Putty container. If we ever come across one, we'll update this post with it.

Join us next time when we take a look at The Phantom!

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