Tag Archives: bebop and rocksteady

March 14, 2023

NECA Cartoon TMNT Tall Thug and Short Gangster

By Joe

It’s time to look at another NECA two-pack that’s been released during this year’s Haulathon event at Target. And for today, it’s the Tall Thug and Short Gangster two-pack, who are better known as Dopey and Dumbo. I say “better known” as that’s a relative term since these are some pretty deep pulls from the cartoon series Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles which premiered with a five episode mini series in 1987. Like the previous two-pack of Grunt and Jersey Red, these guys hail from Bebop and Rocksteady’s seldom referenced street gang which was in the very first episode. I went into all of the details in that review, and if you want a refresh it’s linked at the bottom of this entry, but to make things short these guys appeared briefly, were mutated offscreen by Shredder, showed up in a couple of quick shots, and then were never heard from again. None of them had a speaking role or were even named in the show. We only know their names thanks to production art and only the most involved TMNT fans even know that much. And it probably goes without saying, but NECA couldn’t use their “real” names on the box for legal reasons since there’s a mouse out there that’s pretty protective of its copyrights.

I’m digging this meat hook accessory which is probably the type of weapon that was okay for the initial mini series, but deemed too violent for the seasons to follow.

The Tall Thug, who is Dopey, is perhaps the oddest of the bunch from a style standpoint. If there was a narc in the gang, I’m putting my money on this guy. He’s got a big, floppy, hat that covers most of his face and this jacket that makes him look like he just came from a Janet Jackson show during the Rhythm Nation tour. His boots almost look like platform shoes and this is just an all-together odd design for a purported gangster. Dumbo, the short guy, is dressed far more practically with a simple gray tank top with black vest combo to go with some blue pants and black boots. Aside from some wristbands, he’s got nothing going on as far as jewelry or even fancy weaponry. This is a thug who is clearly saving his earnings and must have a retirement goal in mind and I respect that. He’s also very short, like shortest in the line short. We might as well make it official and do a measurement which places him at approximately 4.75″ which is shorter than Baxter Stockman but pretty close to Splinter and Screwloose. He’s got bragging rights with Kala and Kerma and that’s about it. As for the so-called tall thug, he’s around 6″, maybe a tick over as it’s hard to tell where the head ends and the hat (which isn’t removable) begins with this guy, which really only makes him tall relative to Dumbo here. Compared with the rest of the gang, he’s fairly average.

This Looney Tunes type mallet is definitely more the show’s style.

Because these guys were little more than background characters, there’s not much to their designs. Dopey’s face is barely visible on the show due to the hat which sits low and his bulbous nose that dominates his face. NECA did give him eyes with pupils, so that’s good, and there’s probably elements to this guy that had to just be guessed by the designers. The jacket is a gray overlay with the cel-shading on the rear of the figure while the arms are separately molded. There’s some linework for pockets and such and he has two stripes near each shoulder, but there’s not much too it. He has the NECA double-elbows which is a swivel and hinge at the top of the joint and bottom which can look odd on some figures, but here it’s fine. He’s wearing blue pants which might be more like work pants as opposed to denim, but this was a low detail cartoon so it’s hard to know what the model was going for. There’s some sloppy paint on his belt, but otherwise the paint seems sharp. I like all of the detail on the face as this guy has a somewhat lumpy appearance and it adds character. The rest is done well enough, it’s just not a very exciting character design.

“Hey Leonardo, I think I’d feel kind of bad beating these two up.” “I know what you mean, Michelangelo.”

For articulation, Dopey should feel fairly familiar. He’s very much in-line with someone like Vernon and Grunt. The head is on a double ball and he can rotate, look down, and gets some fairly solid tilt and nuance posing. He can’t really look up due to both his hair and the collar on his coat, but he’s the “tall” thug so he shouldn’t look up to anyone! The shoulders peg in and hinge and they can rotate, but at a slight angle since his coat is designed to look like it has shoulder pads. They hinge out almost to horizontal. At the elbow, you get rotation at the top of the joint which is essentially your biceps swivel. The bend goes past 90 degrees, but it results in a squared-off “U” shape to the joint which does look odd, but it’s more than functional. You also get rotation past it for the forearm and the wrists swivel and hinge. In the diaphragm, there is a joint, but like Vernon and so many others in this line, it’s useless due to the overlay. There’s another joint at the waist that’s mostly for rotation. You do get a little tilt in all directions, but it’s minor. The legs are ball and socket joints and you can hit some pretty solid splits. He kicks forward to just about horizontal before the diaper piece gets in the way. There’s some rotation at the thigh and he can kick back a little bit and off to the side. The knees are standard double joints that bend past 90 and you get a boot cut below that. The ankle hinges are fairly useless due to the shape of the boot, but you get a decent ankle rocker. He’s going to be able to do enough and I’m happy to say nothing was overly tight or loose. The elbow swivels are a little stubborn, but it’s more due to the shape of the cut and they’re still usable and didn’t require any heat. The gripping hands have the wrong hinge, which is an issue on just about every figure from NECA these days save for REX-1.

Dumbo is definitely not described as a tall man.

With Dumbo, we have a very basic design. I already talked about it a little, but we have bare arms, a bald head, and clothing that just hits blue, black, and gray as far as the colors go. The pants feature the cel-shading, but the black vest does not and since the shirt is barely visible on the rear of the figure it would seem NECA declined to apply it there. The linework is done well on both the shirt and the flesh parts. There’s some on the pants but it’s fairly limited in application. He does appear to be all new tooling though. Dopey likely is as well, which is a surprise for such minor characters. They could have reused the Burns/Human Rocksteady mold again, but he was noticeably shorter than Rocksteady so NECA must have decided they needed to capture the same. I wish they had instead put more money into that human Rocksteady since I think his proportions are off, but oh well. I thought he might share arms with Jersey Red, but his are ever so slightly larger. He’s just very plain, but the paint on him is mostly fine. There’s a blemish on his left arm, but nothing too extreme.

That’s right, these two mutated! Into what I’m not quite sure.

A little chunk like Dumbo probably isn’t going to articulate very well, and that’s pretty much true here. The head is set very low on the body as he’s one of those no-neck characters. He gets enough movement side-to-side and can look up, but he can’t look down and there’s very little tilt available. The shoulders can rotate fine and they hinge out past horizontal, so that’s good. The elbows are just single-hinged and a little awkward looking as you can see the sculpt of the point of the elbow past the joint, but at least here they didn’t paint any lines onto the elbow like they did with human Rocksteady so it’s not as weird looking. He can bend to about 90 degrees there and it swivels in place of a biceps swivel and on a thick-armed guy like this I like the approach. With Grunt, who had defined biceps, I was critical of the choice to forego the biceps swivel. The wrists swivel and hinge horizontally, per usual. At the waist, we get a swivel point that’s probably a ball-peg, but it doesn’t do a whole lot. The overlay for the shirt gets in the way so he can only rotate a few degrees to either side and gets virtually no tilt in any direction. The ball-socketed hips will allow the little guy to nearly hit a full split and you get a little swivel at the joint as well. He can’t really kick forward as his legs want to go off to the side, but if you accept that you can get them to go fairly far. He actually can do the same backwards just as well which is rare. The knees are just single joints and his default posing has them bent slightly. They can’t bend much farther than that either, but they do swivel. The feet can’t do much due to the cuffs of the pants. You basically just get a little tilt out of the ankle rocker and the hinge is fairly useless.

You’re probably familiar with the phrase “A face only a mother could love.” I’m not sure even a mother could love this one.

Dumbo is a guy who isn’t going to move much. You’re going to set him on a shelf and pose his arms with some accessories. As for those accessories, we get a few. Dumbo and Dopey both come with fists in the box and have a set of gripping hands. Dopey has an additional left gripping hand with a gap between the middle and ring finger. That gap is for use with the meat hook accessory which fits in the hand with the metal portion slotting between the fingers. It has a wood handle and gray hook and looks fine. It’s nice to get a unique weapon as the rest are less interesting. Dumbo was seen wielding a chain in the episode so we get another one of those. It’s an actual chain and it’s different from the one that came in the Premonition of a Premutation set. It’s a bit longer and the links are more rounded. I like the length, but I prefer the shape of the links on the first one we got. There’s also a short baseball bat they must have swiped from a Little League field or something. It’s painted brown and has some linework to give it a wood appearance so that’s cool. Lastly, there’s a mallet, like a cartoon, Itchy & Scratchy, mallet. It’s amusing to me to think of street gangs running around with mallets, but it’s from the show. It’s a very pale brown, almost a yellow-brown, with some black detail on each end of the head to give it a wood appearance. It’s fine, though almost too silly to use even for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

You’re going to want to display this one from the front.

That’s not all as we also have to talk about the mutations. Just like with Grunt and Scrag before him, Dopey and Dumbo come with extra parts to mutate them. In the case of Dopey, he was mutated into a shrew or something. He basically ended up with an even bigger nose. He was always positioned to the rear of the brief shots we got so it was hard to make out much and I’m guessing NECA had to use a lot of artistic license in sculpting this. He gets the extra head though with the massive nose and he’s quite ugly. We never saw his hands, but NECA decided to give him an extra right hand that was mutated into this monstrous shape. It’s affixed to a new forearm so you separate it below the second hinge to peg it in. Both swaps are easy and they don’t really affect articulation in any way. I will say, there’s no linework on the middle finger of the monstrous hand and that does distract me a bit as it’s present on all of the other fingers, but otherwise it looks fine. It’s not the most interesting mutation, but NECA did it about as well as they could.

The mutant punks! Sadly, Shredder seems to have had them all put down.

For Dumbo, he got mutated into some sort of dog-sloth thing. He’s always been referred to as a dog mutation by the fanbase, but I’m getting a sloth vibe. Especially with the tiny hands that seem to feature long claws. Whatever he is, he had better exposure than Dopey in the show so this one was easier to do as far as the design goes, but in terms of engineering it’s more involved since Dumbo’s look is sleeveless. He gets a new head that’s wide enough that it hides the flesh around the collar of his shirt from head-on, but does lock the head down even more so than before to the point where he can’t really do much there. Unfortunately, it doesn’t sit as low as I’d like though as from the side you can clearly see the flesh parts. It almost would be better if the double ball peg for the head stayed on the head when you pull it off (and it’s a little tough getting that off) so the mutated head could sit even lower. The arms are an easy swap and they look fine. They’re darker than the head, but that’s in keeping with the show. The biceps piece appears to be the same as the standard arms, but the forearms had to be resculpted to include fur. The hands are tiny and sharp and you do lose the hinge joint. They don’t really do much though. He can still hold his chain, but that’s probably it. Overall, it’s okay. His mutation is more interesting than Dopey’s, though I wish they did a better job hiding the neck. Just a floating piece to slot over that would have been nice.

This two-pack is another one where if you have the other gang members then you probably want this one, and if you don’t, then you probably won’t see much of a need for it. These are of two of the least interesting designs in the group. I kind of like Dopey just because he looks so stupid as a “gang” member given his attire while Dumbo is just a very bland design that wasn’t supposed to receive this much attention or scrutiny. With the mutated forms, it’s the opposite as I think Dumbo’s is a bit more interesting while Dopey looks, well, dopey. He’s definitely the one to position towards the back if you’re going with a mutated display. And that’s the dilemma present. I like Scrag and Grunt’s mutant looks while Dumbo’s isn’t great, but his un-mutated look is boring. However, they pair better with human Bebop and Rocksteady so that’s probably how I’ll display them. At least for now, maybe I’ll change it up at some point, but I’ve had Scrag in his human form since getting him as well so I don’t know when that change will happen. They’re able to better make use of their weapons in human form so there’s that too.

This set is exclusive to Target stores and retails for $60. It’s a lot, but it’s the going rate. Again, if you have the other characters then you might as well get this one. The designs may not be the most exciting, but they are executed well. If you don’t have those other sets or don’t feel like you need to add to the old gang, then I don’t think you’ll miss this one. The accessories are about as exciting as the characters themselves so there’s little incentive to buy them unless you just want to collect them all.

Need more obscure Turtle characters in your life? Look no further!

NECA Cartoon TMNT Grunt and Jersey Red

Collectors my age who watched the original mini series for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles over and over likely all wondered the same thing at some point: what happened to the rest of Bebop and Rocksteady’s gang? When we first meet the dim-witted duo, they’re humans and part of a street gang harassing the people of…

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NECA Cartoon TMNT Premonition of a Premutation SDCC 4-Pack

It was a little over a month ago that San Diego Comic Con occurred, in person, for the first time since 2019. This was cause for a celebration, even if for those of us who take in the convention from the comfort of our homes saw little change. Even without the event taking place the…

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TMNT Loot Crate Series 2 Vol. 4 – Donnie Batman and the Bat Guy (Bats!)

It’s been a little more than 3 months since our last dance with Loot Crate. If you’re new to the experience, it has been quite a drag. Crates that were supposed to ship a year ago are still outstanding, communication has been poor, rumors have painted a dire picture of the company’s finances, and the…

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Leave a comment | tags: action figures, bebop and rocksteady, dopey, dumbo, haulathon, neca, scrag, teenage mutant ninja turtles | posted in Television, toys

March 7, 2023

NECA Cartoon TMNT Grunt and Jersey Red

By Joe

We got ourselves a couple of bad apples, here.

Collectors my age who watched the original mini series for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles over and over likely all wondered the same thing at some point: what happened to the rest of Bebop and Rocksteady’s gang? When we first meet the dim-witted duo, they’re humans and part of a street gang harassing the people of New York. When they turn their attention towards a reporter by the name of April O’Neil, they run afoul of some local vigilantes who happen to be mutated ninjas. Shredder, identifying that his new foes are not human, decides to create some mutants of his own. We see the transformation of Bebop and Rocksteady to a mutant warthog and rhino respectively, while the rest of the gang gets mutated offscreen. We get one glimpse at them post mutation on a monitor in the Technodrome and then a very brief glimpse in the fifth and final episode of said mini series where they’re all in a cell. One lucky mutant, who we’ve come to know as Scrag, got to demonstrate Shredder’s reverse mutation ray which returned him to his human form and then he and the rest of the gang were never heard from again. Did Shredder, seeing how moronic Bebop and Rocksteady turned out, decide to just cut his losses and exterminate the rest? Maybe he returned them all to human form and set them free in New York? Or, perhaps wanting to have a little fun, did he and Krang tell them they were going home, but they actually dumped them in Dimension X where they almost certainly met their end?

There’s no canon explanation for what happened to the rest of the street punks. In reality, the mini series was commissioned by Playmates Toys to sell, well, toys. And it did its job so they were all set. Producer Fred Wolf saw more potential in the show and wanted to continue producing it and so they did leading to a second season and then several more. In going from the mini series to season two, it was likely decided that Shredder didn’t need a whole gang of mutants at his disposal. Bebop and Rocksteady would be enough as recurring characters and they could bring in other “villains of the day” to add variety. And since it was a kid’s show, there likely wasn’t any consideration given to telling the audience what happened with these other characters. Adults often underestimate kids and their capacity for knowledge and memory because I certainly wanted to know what happened with those other guys, but the show never brought them back. Now that I’m an adult and immersed in the collector community, I know my thoughts were not unique to me. Most kids wondered what happened to those punks, but aside from very brief appearances in supplemental media and ephemera, they’ve been forgotten. It’s only through those items that we even know them by name: Scrag, Grunt, Dopey, and Dumbo.

When NECA and Loot Crate returned for another round of TMNT crates, the bonus figure for those who purchased all four crates ended up being the infamous Scrag. This basically signaled to the collector community that these long ignored characters were on NECA’s radar, and not being one to shy away from deep pulls, the prospect of completing Bebop and Rocksteady’s original gang suddenly seemed like a foregone conclusion. The only catch was that Scrag had a pretty significant barrier in front of him. If you only wanted that figure it was going to cost you $200 as you had to buy four $50 crates. NECA has insisted that any figure exclusive to Loot Crate would remain so which is why most of the first wave of crates were variants of popular characters. Wave 2 was more specialized and while a character like Danny Pennington from the first film, who was featured in the first crate of Wave 2, could get re-released at mass retail with a different look a character like Scrag only has one look. And his figure featured components to display him as a human or as his mutated bat form, so that possibility was out. Would NECA release the rest of the gang if there was no way for people who missed out on Scrag to get him? Well, we have our answer, and it’s “Yes!” For this round of Haulathon, NECA has unleashed the gang and for the first time ever we have them all in plastic form. And as a result, we essentially have all of the main characters from that inaugural mini series in plastic as well so that’s pretty cool. These guys have been more than 30 years in the making so now the question is, “Was it worth it?”

This guy has some interesting fashion sense. I feel like he tried out and was rejected be Demolition.

The other problem with NECA releasing Scrag solo is that it meant the four missing gang members were now reduced to three. NECA prefers to release these figures in packs of two so someone was going to have to be paired with a non-gang member. Or, there was the possibility of NECA doing another three-pack like it did with the Neutrinos, but it turns out that the company had a satisfactory replacement in mind: Jersey Red. Jersey Red is the canonical replacement for Bebop, or Rocksteady, in the gang they once ran with. She debuts in the episode “The Gang’s All Here” when Shredder orders the pair to reconnect with their old gang. If you’re wondering how that squares with my prior paragraphs talking about how we never heard from them again, it still does as the gang is composed of all new characters. Red, as far as we were shown, never actually ran with the likes of Grunt, Scrag, etc and instead was more like a replacement for those guys. She is joined by Lugnut and High-Five in her episodes so maybe they’re on NECA’s radar. For now, she’s a suitable inclusion as far as theming goes even if she wasn’t a figure I ever actively wanted.

Grunt and Jersey Red come in the standard window box we’re accustomed to at this point. Purchasing the pair will set you back $60 now, but $30 each for a pair of figures of new tooling is pretty much the going rate these days. We’ll talk about Grunt first. He stands at around 6.25″ to the top of his head and 6.75″ to the top of his mohawk. He is pretty absurd looking. Maybe to avoid doing anything that could be too realistic for a gang member, the design of Grunt looks more like a Judas Priest roadie or pro wrestler. He has a blond mohawk and sunglasses, but has declined to wear a shirt. Instead, he basically wears a harness that’s strapped to his chest with a big, gold, buckle in the center of his chest and back. He has an oversized gray belt with some pouches on it to pair with tight, black, pants and boots. I guess because he values some personal protection, he’s also got gray kneepads and a pair of bracelets to complete the look. He’s lean, but pretty muscular, and I don’t know if a guy looking like this approached me on the street if I’d laugh or be intimidated. It’s certainly a look though and NECA captured it well. Since he’s mostly black and fleshtone, there isn’t a ton of paint on this guy. Every spot of him is still painted, it’s just not a paint job that requires a ton of detail. The toon shading is only applied to the harness and the kneepads, but there’s still plenty of linework on the muscles and finer details. And what is there is very clean, there’s little or no blemishes on my figure and there’s no plastic look to the figure. The only thing I don’t like is that his eyes were left without pupils. They’re just white, but since they’re behind sunglasses I’m guessing NECA decided it didn’t need to paint them.

For accessories, Grunt has 3 sets of hands: fists, gripping, and a second set of gripping hands. That second set of gripping hands features claws on the fingers because they’re likely intended for his mutated form. Unfortunately, they’re cast and painted in his normal flesh tone so they’re useless. The hands are also on long, skinny, pegs and are quite challenging to remove. More so than they should be and the long peg just means more room for breaking so do exercise caution. As for what he has to wield with the gripping hands, he gets a sword. It’s a curved blade with a wrapped handle and I think this is a new sculpt. It looks fine and he was seen with a sword in the show. His main accessory though is his mutant form. Grunt was mutated into a green, lizard, creature, and since he declines to wear a shirt NECA needed to include more than just a head and some hands like it did with Scrag. The lizard form is an entirely new torso. The default torso separates at the waist and it’s pretty easy to do. The lizard part then just plugs in, and again, fairly painlessly. If you wanted to get a really good seal you may need to heat the lizard torso up, but it’s not necessary. He looks great and the paint and linework is all very clean. He has open, clawing, hands which thankfully look great since they’re the only hands he’s got. He’s got a long, flicking, tongue which is a nice touch and it’s going to be hard to settle on a display for this guy because this lizard creature looks so cool.

When it comes to articulation, Grunt is fairly basic for the line. The head is likely on a double ball peg so you get some up and down plus full rotation and some tilt for nuance posing. The shoulders are just pegged in on hinges so you get full rotation and they can come out to the side almost to a horizontal position. It might go further if you force it, but it’s probably not necessary. No biceps swivel on this guy which is a surprise. Instead, he gets a single hinged joint at the elbow that just pegs into the bicep so you get a swivel there. The elbow bends to about 90 so it’s functional, but a biceps swivel would look better, in my opinion. I’m guessing they didn’t want to break up the sculpt or were trying to save some money by tooling fewer parts. The wrists swivel and hinge and after being pleasantly surprised with the vertical-hinged REX-1 wrists, Grunt is back to just all horizontal hinges despite his lone weapon being a sword. In the torso, we have a ball-joint in the diaphragm. It will give the figure rotation with a decent amount of side-to-side tilt and very little forward and back. At the waist is a twist where the upper body pegs into the lower body so while it works it does tend to come apart slightly when twisting on it. The hips are the standard ball and socket joints and they go out to the side for full splits, kick forward all the way, and back slightly. There’s a thigh twist up there as well as double-jointed knees which go past 90 degrees. At the top of the boot we do get a swivel and at the ankle we get hinges and rockers. The hinges offer very little going forward and back, but the ankle rocker is pretty solid.

Grunt’s articulation is probably enough. I don’t like the elbows, but NECA doesn’t like doing double-joints on bare armed characters so I at least understand the thinking. I just wish he got to keep a biceps swivel. As for the lizard-man, the articulation is basically the same. His arms can’t quite get out to horizontal either and he lacks a biceps swivel. His diaphragm joint has less range and it’s partly because the straps on his chest sit lower and are on the part that wants to rotate. His head, which sits forward on his body, is also different. I think it’s still a double ball peg, but the orientation means that ball is pointing straight out so you get a head that can’t look up, can look down a touch, and doesn’t get a lot of side-to-side. You get plenty of tilt, but otherwise is limited and swapping to the mutant form is a downgrade in articulation.

Now let’s talk about Grunt’s box-mate: Jersey Red. Jersey Red is the rare female in this line, but I’m happy to say we actually have a couple more females to talk about from this wave of Haulathon releases. She was previously teased via a wanted poster included as a sticker in one of the Loot Crates and as a paper insert for the street diorama. She’s a heavy set woman in a halter top and jeans with a flock of red hair that reminds me of Guile from Street Fighter 2. She also has these red, cowboy, boots that will make her a challenge to stand in any pose that isn’t just straight up and down. The design is a bit understated compared with Grunt, but effective nonetheless. She’s not a character I ever needed in plastic, but what’s here looks good and true to the show. She does have the toon shading on her jeans and boots and the paint hits are all applied cleanly. As far as I can tell, nothing on this figure was reused from a previous one so she’s all new.

She’s got a gun and a bottle of…Maalox? She’s ready to party!

For accessories, Red has an assortment of hands: fists, clenching, a right trigger finger hand, and a left, wide, gripping hand. The wide gripping hand is included so she can hold one of her accessories. The first is a white bottle of some sort. In her debut episode, Shredder was trying to spread some new mutation serum so that might be what this bottle is for, but otherwise I don’t know. For the trigger hand, she has a gun. It’s a big, white, blaster of some kind that certainly looks like it came from the show. I don’t know if Jersey Red was ever seen wielding this gun, but it looks like something Shredder might have passed out to the gang when they brought them onboard in her debut episode. It’s not a lot of stuff, I’m guessing most of the accessory budget went to Grunt’s lizard half, but I don’t think she really needed anything else. She’s a brawler, but she’s got a gun too and if you want to outfit her with melee weapons you probably have a bunch laying around at this point. I know I do.

I believe the kids would refer to her now as “thick.”

As for articulation, Jersey Red is a bit limited. She has the standard setup at the head which allows her to look up, down, all around, and she has some tilt. The shoulders rotate all around and hinge out to the side to just about horizontal. She basically has the same arm setup as Grunt since her arms are bare so no biceps swivel and a single-jointed elbow. She basically hits 90 degrees at the elbow bend and the wrists swivel and hinge. All of the hinges are of the horizontal variety. In the torso, she has a diaphragm joint that lets her rotate just below her bust and that’s basically all it does. She has a waist twist below that which is just okay. Since it’s not a ball joint, twisting her too far breaks up the sculpt at the waist so it’s of limited use. At the hips, we have the standard setup, but she has a rather large “diaper” covering her crotch so she can’t do splits like Grunt can nor can she kick forward very far and she can’t kick back at all. She does have a thigh twist up there, but her knees are single-jointed. They swivel there as well, but the bend doesn’t quite hit 90 degrees. She does have a boot cut so those swivel and the hinge and rocker combo at the ankle work well enough, but because her boots are heeled it’s not nearly as useful. You’re not going to do a whole lot with her feet, but if you keep it simple, she actually stands pretty well. There are peg holes on her heels if you feel a simple stand is warranted, but she’s stable. I should add, nothing on either figure was too tight or too loose. I didn’t have to heat any of the joints and the only heat recommended is maybe for connecting Grunt’s mutant half to his lower body or getting his hands out, and if you’re real concerned about paint rub with the white blaster, heating the trigger hand first would help there though I had no issues without it.

“What the hell are you doing down there?”

Grunt and Jersey Red is not a two-pack that is going to set the world on fire, but it’s executed fairly well. The only real bummer is the gaffe with the mutant gripping hands for Grunt. Some companies would attempt to fix this by offering replacements somehow, but I don’t expect that to happen here. My guess is if they ever do a second production run it will be corrected there. NECA has done this in the past and indicated that customers could get on a list for replacement parts, but I’ve never seen anyone actually receive said replacement parts. The last time something like that happened was with the Rat King who had a faulty crotch piece that flaked paint. If that matters to you then you may want to sit this one out. I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that this set ever gets another run. These are obscure characters and if you don’t have Scrag all ready then you probably won’t even bother. Unless you’re the rare Jersey Red fan. The rise in price also doesn’t help. If I were grading these separately, I’d say Grunt is fine and a pretty fun figure to mess around with. Jersey Red looks good, but isn’t particularly fun to handle as she’s too limited. If I could have passed on her I probably would have, but I’m also not looking to offload her or anything. If you want to complete the original gang then sure, go for it. If you don’t care or don’t have any of those previous releases (including human Bebop and Rocksteady) then you can probably pass on this one.

NECA Cartoon TMNT Premonition of a Premutation SDCC 4-Pack

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by Joe August 30, 2022August 26, 2022

TMNT Loot Crate Series 2 Vol. 4 – Donnie Batman and the Bat Guy (Bats!)

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We’re well into the cold of winter and spring feels like it’s just around the corner which means it must be time for another NECA Haulathon. Haulathon, if you don’t recall from last year, is basically a tandem promotion between NECA and Target which was just an excuse to get NECA some more visibility in…

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Leave a comment | tags: action figures, bebop and rocksteady, grunt, jersey red, neca, scratch, teenage mutant ninja turtles | posted in Television, toys

January 29, 2020

The NECA TMNT Wish List

By Joe

shredder vs raph The early months of the calendar year are generally among my least favorite. They’re cold, dark, and dull where I reside. About the only good thing on the calendar is the annual New York Toy Fair in which vendors roll out previews of the toys to come for the next fiscal year and sometimes beyond. These last few years have been particularly exciting for fans of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as easing of the master toy license by Nickelodeon and Playmates has allowed other companies to enter the mix. The company that has most taken advantage of this new frontier is NECA which currently has three toy lines based on the property hitting shelves. It’s a crazy fun time to be a Turtle toy collector as a result as NECA has taken a nostalgic approach to its figures which is something Playmates rarely does. And this year figures (pun intended) to be an exciting one as lots of figures are set for reveal.

If you haven’t been involved with the lines up to now, here’s a refresher. NECA is currently hard at work packing Target with two-packs based on the 1987 cartoon. Figures released so far include all four turtles in both toon accurate colors and licensing material (i.e. bright green) colors, Shredder, Krang in his bubble walker, Bebop, Rocksteady, and the always serviceable Foot Soldier. Already unveiled and set for release this spring are figures of April O’Neil, Casey Jones, Leatherhead, Slash (in his cartoon outfit), and battle damaged Foot Soldiers. In addition to them, we’ve already seen previews for a Foot Alpha, Metalhead, Triceraton, Traag, Granitor, and Krang’s android body. That’s a lot to take in with much more likely in the can.

It’s a safe assumption we’ll soon be getting updated turtles to match their appearance in the famed sequel, as well as a few other choice figures.

At Gamestop, NECA is currently sending figures based on the 1990 film. They have thus far released the four turtles, Shredder, Foot, and Splinter. A special Loot Crate edition of Splinter is in production depicting him as a spirit from the camping sequence and with 2020 being the 30th anniversary of that film you know NECA has more on the way. We also know they intend to move onto The Secret of the Ooze so the movie line still has some legs.

At online and specialty shops, NECA is set to roll-out figures based on the popular arcade/SNES game Turtles in Time. The first of the four should be hitting retail soon and features Leonardo and Donatello complete with their weapons and surfboards from the Sewer Surfing level. There’s also a purple Foot Soldier who too packs a surfboard and Slash in his game-specific attire (which happens to match his comic look which the old Playmates toy was based on). All of the figures in this line feature a pixel-deco paintjob. Just revealed is wave two which includes Raph and Mikey as well as Shredder (the non Super version from the arcade) and Leatherhead. Considering a lot of the same players from the show were featured in that game, it stands to reason the cartoon and video game assortments will likely feature similar characters.

That’s a lot, and there’s already probably a lot more ready to be unveiled in a few weeks, but now feels like a good time to compile a wish list. I have collected all or parts of all three lines so far, but my main focus now is on the toon line. The 1990 film is my favorite anything related to TMNT, but there’s just not a lot left from that film NECA needs to touch. I have less fondness for the sequel, but wouldn’t mind some figures from it. The video game line is certainly cool, but not a huge priority right now. It may become one though if the Target two-packs continue to be extremely difficult to track down. Since the game figures are sold online and can even be pre-ordered, it makes acquiring them a lot easier. Plus they’re sold separately so there’s no danger of having to pay for a second, unwanted, figure in a two-pack (which so far hasn’t been an issue).

To sort of collect my thoughts in one place, I’ve decided to put together a little list of my most wanted from NECA. I suspect several of these will be unveiled at Toy Fair, but it would be a stretch to expect all of them. The cartoon actually featured far fewer characters than the old toyline, but many did make it into the show. NECA is thus far only doing characters that were in the cartoon, and if you’re nostalgia is just for the old Playmates line then maybe check out what Super7 is doing with its TMNT figures. Here is my list though, and I think number one is probably the same for many such lists:

Splinter (Cartoon) – We have the turtles, we have the main villains, and soon we’ll even have April and Casey, but what we don’t have yet is the beloved sensei to the turtles: Master Splinter. Playmates never did do a proper toon version of the character, but it can be assumed that NECA will and it will be spectacular. He’ll assuredly come with his walking stick, and hopefully some fun accessories like a mug of tea or maybe some sushi. Afterall, he never was all that fond of pizza.
There’s no way this guy smells pleasant.

The Rat King (Cartoon) – Possibly my favorite villain from the old show, speaking purely from a design standpoint. The turtles may have dwelled in the sewers, but the Rat King was really the only denizen that actually looked the part. If a cartoon character could have an odor, surely Rat King would have qualified. He would need to come with a few rats, though I’m blanking on additional accessories needed. It’s a long shot, but it would be rad if NECA could include a removable hat and duster to cover the redesign that came later in the toon’s life, but my guess is they’d rather hang onto that as a variant down the road.
I have an unexplainable fondness for this little guy.

Baxter Stockman/Baxter the Fly (Cartoon, Game) – I’m cheating a little by including both at number three, but my dream is for Baxter to come in a two-pack with his mutated fly persona. Toss in some mousers, and that’s quite a set! Baxter the Fly is also a figure I’m prepared to double-dip on should he get a video game release as well (and you know he will) because it will likely come with that outrageous gun he wields. And in case you’re not familiar with the game, I speak of the gun that could shoot fists and hand slaps.
Raph is probably about to make a joke about them being right behind him.

Pizza/Sewer Monster (Cartoon) – The Xenomorph inspired Pizza Monsters seem like a solid option for NECA’s Ultimate figures based on the cartoon. The Ultimates are for deluxe figures that will be sold individually as opposed to in two-packs. We don’t know where they’ll be sold, but we do know the Foot Alpha, Metalhead, and Krang’s android body are ticketed for such a release. The Pizza Monster makes for a nice fit because it could feature a fully grown version as well as smaller ones representing the larval forms and such. It’s a classic and well-remembered episode, so much so that NECA even did a Sewer Alien based on the film franchise Alien as a convention exclusive designed to mimic the TMNT version.
Groundchuck (right) was pretty cool. Dirt Bag (left) I could take or leave.

Groundchuck (Cartoon) – Groundchuck was one of my favorites of the Playmates toys. The bright red fur with blue attire and steel leg just looked cool to me at the time and I think it would look great as a NECA figure today. In the cartoon, he was paired with Dirt Bag whom I’m less enamored with, but it would certainly make sense to package the two together. He did not appear in Turtles in Time though so he might be a low priority figure since he doesn’t easily fit into that line (he did, however, appear in other games).
I know some people are still mad we got these two instead of Bebop and Rocksteady, but it’s hard to deny they’d make awesome figures.

Tokka and Rahzar (Film, Cartoon) – I’m not super into The Secret of the Ooze, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t think its featured dim-witted duo wouldn’t look great in plastic. Tokka especially would likely look awesome, while Rahzar would be a bit tricky given all of the fur. My guess is NECA would sculpt the fur in plastic as it did with Splinter, but who know? If they continued in their quarter-scale line maybe fur would be a feature there. Regardless, I think they would look awesome and I would also be interested in cartoon versions of the characters. It remains to be seen if NECA could create a sculpt that works for both mediums though as the cartoon versions basically looked like the Playmates figures. The two also appeared in the game so NECA could have possibly triple-dip here, though it might be safer for them to just make the film and cartoon/game versions separate.
Mondo Gecko was a character we were supposed to think is cool, and we all did.

Mondo Gecko (Cartoon)- Seemingly everyone’s favorite non-turtle character was Mondo Gecko. He had a skateboard, bright colors, and was named Mondo – what’s there not to like? He’s likely a high priority figure as a result for NECA and it would surprise me a little if we don’t see him in a couple weeks. NECA will likely try to make him screen accurate which is a bit unfortunate because the figure was so much cooler. I still think he’ll turn out fine though.
The heroes we truly need.

Rhino Man and Mighty Hog (Cartoon) – Yeah, I’m cheating again with another two character entry, but what are ya gonna do? I’m mostly avoiding variants of already released figures for this list, but I do love Bebop and Rocksteady and those figures NECA did are so damn awesome that I want to see more of them from the company. While the robots Super Bebop and Mighty Rocksteady are quite tempting, I think I’d actually prefer the super hero versions of the characters: Rhino Man and Mighty Hog. Even though this is the preferred variant for me, my guess is we actually get SNES versions of the two in pirate attire before anything else.
It helps that NECA won’t need to make a licensing deal with Kevin Nash thanks to the giant helmet.

Super Shredder (Film, Game) – Now you can’t have figures based on The Secret of the Ooze without including the big baddie from the end: Super Shredder. Given how quickly he was dispatched, Super Shredder was certainly more bark than bite, but man was he intense looking. NECA would have some fun sculpting all of those spikes. This bad boy would have to be big too, unlike the puny version Playmates gave us many years ago. And unlike Tokka and Rahzar, it wouldn’t be too difficult to turn that film-based figure into a video game one as he basically looked the same. He’d just need to have cool fireball effects and maybe a little screaming turtle.
Cooler than Batman. There, I said it.

Dark Turtle (Cartoon) – For my last entry, how about a deep cut? We’ll undoubtedly see figures of the Punk Frogs, Mukman, and maybe even Bug Man before we see a Dark Turtle, but he’s worth remembering. Dark Turtle, in case you forgot, was a one-episode appearance and is the alter-ego of Donatello. He basically looks like Batman, and what’s not to like about a turtle dressed as Batman? I’m not super interested in variants of the turtles, as I think I’m still fatigued by the many Playmates flooded the market with 30 years ago, but this one I’d go for.