Tag Archives: scratch

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.

The gang’s all here.

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.

It’s like getting two figures in one!

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.

Well that doesn’t look right.

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.

This will not end well for you, punk.

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.

Told ya!

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.

The rough and tough female of the gang.

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

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…

Keep reading
by Joe

NECA Cartoon TMNT Accessory Set

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…

Keep reading
by Joe

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Television, toys

November 1, 2022

Super7 TMNT Ultimates! Scratch

By Joe
Nothing to see here, folks. Just a couple of fellas in striped pajamas minding their own business.

Ask a casual fan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles who Scratch is and it’s possible they’ll have no idea who you’re talking about. Ask a collector of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures who Scratch is and their eyes will shift to one of longing. Scratch the cat was a late entrant in the classic line of Playmates action figures. He was originally released in 1993 when the basic assortment of TMNT figures had shrunk to just 7. In their place were figures based on a new movie, the toon subline, cave turtles, mutating turtles, and a bunch of other gimmicks. Kids had basically grown bored with the franchise, so Playmates was throwing a bunch of different tricks at them to try to cling to a demographic that had been obsessed with their product for a few years at this point. And a few years for a children’s toyline can sometimes feel like an eternity.

So it was that Scratch, Halfcourt, Hot Spot, and the other figures from ’93 went somewhat ignored. They were also produced in fewer numbers compared with the basic assortment of the prior years, and the people who were buying them were kids which meant they’d get beat up, broken, donated, etc. As a result, they’re even harder to find today and if you have a mint, carded, Scratch or one of those other guys from ’93 then you have yourself a decent little payday in front of you, should you wish to sell. And for whatever reason, Scratch has become “the one” from that assortment and for collectors of the line he’s become a bit of a grail piece, despite the fact that there are other figures more rare in the line. Because of his infamy, it’s not surprising that Super7 would turn to the character that went unloved nearly 30 years ago, but so many are after today.

In 1993, I was barely clinging to my TMNT fandom. I saw the third film and liked it enough and would get it on VHS later that year. I had Cave Turtle Leonardo from the prior year and was very smitten with that year’s Turtle Trolls. It was also the year I bought my final TMNT figure until 2003, a Ninja-flipping Raphael. Otherwise, I was really into X-Men and the offerings from ToyBiz. Plus, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers debuted that summer and set the toy world on fire as well. And I can remember encountering that basic assortment like Hot Spot, Mona Lisa, and yes, Scratch, and my take then was “Wow, these look stupid.” And they kind of were. Mona Lisa is fine, but Hot Spot? He’s a mutant dalmatian that is a fire fighter – how creative? Scratch is a mutant cat burglar who….wait for it…is a cat! They’re two of the laziest designs put out by Playmates and are totally unremarkable as characters and as action figures. If that’s the case, why did I bother with this updated version of a character that I think is kind of lame? The answer is: I don’t know! When the solicitation went up, I didn’t give it much thought. I guess I liked the idea of a figure with a ball and chain and I was intrigued by the presence of a diaphragm joint and what looked like a fairly ambitious paint job, by Super7 standards. I don’t know if that should have been enough to get me to drop $55 on the figure, but it did so here we are.

It’s starting to feel like a rarity to get a non-turtle in this line that isn’t massive.

Scratch is one of those figures that can best be described as “what you see, is what you get.” He stands about 6.5″ in height and comes in a standard sized box. He’s sporting an old timey jailbird outfit, so white jumpsuit with black stripes. He’s got a cat burglar mask and a little hat too. Like many, many, figures from Playmates, he has one foot sporting a boot and one that’s bare. The booted foot is also shackled and a bluish-grayish ball is attached to the shackle via an actual chain. Around his neck is a piece of black thread with a small nail file attached for busting out of jail. His clothing is mostly in tatters as he’s either gotten into some scrums in prison or his escape act left him a bit worse for ware. It was a pretty bland design in 1993, and it’s really no better in 2022. I suppose the thinking here is that the large scale of this line can improve the sculpt and the added paint can elevate it. And I suppose it does. Kind of. His face is very expressive and every piece of exposed flesh is nicely textured to simulate fur. There’s no texture to the clothing, but there are numerous rips and the folds of which are sculpted on. I like that his prison uniform was apparently custom made because it continues onto his tail, though it’s pretty torn. The end of his tail is wrapped as well, like many a cartoon cat. The shackle on the left ankle is a bit odd though. It’s part of the sculpt, which was true of the original toy, but it feels like this is something Super7 could have improved upon by making it removable. The area between the curved bar of the lock and the actual lock itself is also filled in with plastic so it doesn’t look as good as it could. The actual ball portion can be removed since it’s just affixed via a small, weak, chain, so if you wish you can simply bend the last link and slide it off, though each time you do you likely risk the link just breaking all together.

Looks like they messed up Scratch’s missing tooth. That white indent is probably supposed to be painted black.

Excepting the shackle, I think the sculpt looks pretty good from a technical standpoint. Whether or not you like the character design is certainly subjective. The paint though is a bit of a mixed bag. The fur is the standout. Scratch is basically a light brown with a red-brown overcoat. The hands, the feet, the face – all look good. The teeth and the mask are especially clean, though the factory screwed up Scratch’s missing tooth by basically painting the gap as if a tooth were there which just looks strange. It also looks like they missed the black outline for his right fang as it’s present on the left side. The jail suit is a little less impressive. Scratch appears to be mostly cast in white plastic so the black lines and the exposed fur are all painted effects. This is a sound strategy, but may have been a little too much for Super7 to handle. There are numerous places where the paint doesn’t go far enough to the edge of the clothing and doesn’t look great. It’s especially noticeable on the wrappings on his tail. The rip around his right shoulder also looks weird because the arm is cast in white, but it looks like the rip should result in an exposed armpit, but doesn’t. There’s also a scuff on one of the black lines on my figure’s left leg. Interestingly enough, some of the spots that look hard to paint turned out very well. There’s a thin rip at the base of his rib cage on his left side that’s nice and clean and the little slashes on his left thigh all look great. “Mixed bag” is probably the best way to describe this one when you’re talking paint.

My best attempt at tip-toes.

Scratch, being one of the more generic character designs in this line, should be one of the best articulated as a result. There’s no shell to work around, he’s not super chunky, or an alligator, he’s basically a humanoid character that just happens to be covered in fur and features a tail. Again, you would think that would bode well for Scratch, but eh, more mixed bag. It starts at the head where Scratch is surprisingly locked down. He basically can’t look up at all and only down a little because his head sits so low on the neck, which is unarticulated. He does get a little tilt to each side and can rotate, but the lack of up and down is disappointing. At the shoulder, he can just hit horizontal and rotates all the way, of course. There is no biceps swivel once again, and instead we get an elbow swivel that can at least go all the way around. The hinge there can’t hit a 90 degree bend which continues to be a disappointment. Yeah, there’s little different between 90 and almost 90, but the goal here is to be able to go past 90 degrees. The wrists swivel and hinge and Scratch does have a vertical hinge for his trigger hand, so that’s a plus. In the torso we have a new joint not featured on other figures in the line which is at the diaphragm. It feels like a ball joint, and it allows Scratch to rotate a little bit and he seems to have more range rotating to his right. He can’t really bend back far, but he does crunch forward a bit. You also get some nuance posing which I like. It’s not amazing, but being able to break-up the torso like this adds more than you think. At the waist we have a twist that is surprisingly tight. He can’t go all the way around, or at least he doesn’t want to and I’m not going to force it. The hips can go out to the side to almost a full split and he kicks forward well and there’s a bit of a thigh swivel. At the knee, we have the standard single hinge and swivel which rotates all the way around on the right leg, but does more of a pivot on the left. The right leg can hit a 90 degree bend, or close to one, while the left knee barely does anything because of it’s shape. It’s a poor design as there’s nothing unique about this guy preventing better range. The ankle hinges and can rock to the side, and just like the knee, the right foot is far more functional than the left though the ankle rocker is more like a swivel on the right foot than a true pivot. Lastly, the tail is on a ball peg and doesn’t do much of anything save for swivel around. Trying to pose it any other way is likely to just result in it popping off.

At least he has the right hinge for his trigger hand!

The articulation continues to be a weak spot for this line and Scratch is, in some ways, more disappointing than most. As I said before, there’s nothing about this character’s design that should make the articulation hard to implement, but it still comes up short. With the knees and elbows, they’re just not allowing for enough room to add in the necessary range. Don’t do double-hinges if you don’t like them, but single-hinged joints should work better than this. A double-ball peg approach to the waist would add a lot of nuance as well, and Super7 needs to allow for more clearance at the head. I should also add, the joints on the knees are painted so you’ll want to be careful there. The right calf is actually cast in clear plastic, so it’s not too unsightly if some of that paint rubs off of the hinge. The left calf is in white and part of the stripe by his knee is painted onto it. The knee barely moves as it is so most should be okay, but it’s something to be mindful of. As far as tolerance goes, Scratch is definitely more in-line with Slash than he is with the Wave 5 releases. Most of the figure moves fine, though that diaphragm joint is a bit loose. It will flop a bit if you shake the figure, but otherwise seems to hold its pose okay. The hips are fine and so are the wrist hinges and waist.

This is definitely intentional. Image on the left is from the excellent Rad Plastic.

So far I would categorize this review as merely okay, but Scratch has one last chance to impress and that’s with his accessories. Scratch is pretty well loaded with stuff and it starts with an assortment of hands. Scratch has a set of fists, gripping hands, style pose hands, and trigger finger hands. The gripping hands feature a different grip for each so one is tighter than other. His left trigger finger hand has a horizontal hinge, which is useless, but the right has a vertical hinge. I don’t know why they did it that way, but as long as we have one good trigger hand I’m content. Scratch also has an alternate portrait and this one features more of a closed mouth and side-eyed glance. I don’t normally like side-eye expressions, but something about this one works for me. It’s a little more toony in the eyes as there’s no exposed eyelid so I might settle on this one for my display. This expression also dates back to an uncovered clay sculpture for the original figure, which was done by Anaglyph, and was apparently considered for the final figure (image above is from the wonderful TMNT toy resource Rad Plastic). Getting the head and hands off is no problem, though seating the second head is a bit of a pain, but doable without heat.

I’ve seen Sylvester the cat have to settle for worse.

For those hands, Scratch has a few items he can wield. I already mentioned the small file dangling from a rope around his neck, but he also has a large one he can kind of hold in the tighter gripping hand. It’s cast in that same blue-gray as the smaller file and the steel ball and it looks fine. There’s a dead fish for Scratch to apparently snack on that’s also the same blue-gray color, which is weird, but has some yellow, painted-on, eyes. There’s a claw hammer for Scratch to smack stuff with and it’s fully painted and fits well on the other gripping hand. There’s a sack of money and it’s really well painted. It’s flat on the bottom so it’s designed to be placed on a surface and it’s sculpted to look like the gold coins inside are spilling out. You can put it in his hand if you want though, but it will look weird. My favorite accessory though is the cake gun. It’s a handgun with a slice of cake over it implying that Scratch snuck it into prison in an actual cake and pulled this sucker out. It’s goofy, but reflective of the vintage line. I’m left wishing Super7 gave us the rest of the cake. Lastly, Scratch comes with a buddy figure named Jailbird. Again, pretty weak design as he’s just a bird in a prison uniform, but who didn’t like getting a little buddy figure in the vintage line? Jailbird is well painted and in a casual pose where he looks like he’s flipping a coin. I think he’s supposed to be a hawk, though he’s purple. He doesn’t stand totally upright, which bugs me a little, and features zero articulation. At least he’s fully painted. There’s also a weapon sprue for Scratch and it’s cast in yellow like the vintage toy, though it appears to be a paler yellow. The ball and chain accessory makes up the outer part of the sprue, with the file, cake gun, fish, and hammer inside it. The shackle doesn’t open or anything so I don’t see how you could get it on the figure without removing a foot. It’s more for those who want Scratch to wield yellow weapons though, but still feels rather pointless. It’s no surprise then that these look like they’re going to be phased out in the next wave.

He’s going to need those tools if he wants to get that shackle off.

At the end of the day, Scratch was a fairly unremarkable figure in the vintage line, and he’s close to that in the Super7 line. He’s a little better than unremarkable and that’s mostly accomplished with the accessories. I love the cake gun and the money bag is one of the better painted items I’ve received from Super7. The hammer, file, and dead fish are done well, but aren’t particularly exciting. I do like the alternate head, and the ball and chain is basically an accessory too and one that’s pretty fun. The vintage figure did not have the actual ball and chain, but did have the shackle, so I guess it isn’t a terrible thing that the shackle isn’t removable. You can make this display like the vintage toy, though going the extra mile there would have been cool. The articulation is subpar though. He’s better than some of the other figures in the line in that regard, but those figures were poorly articulated so that makes Scratch just underwhelming by comparison. I think Super7 can do better and I’d like to see them try. The paint is at least more ambitious than some of the figures in the line, even if it isn’t exactly a homerun. He’ll look fine on a shelf, but closer scrutiny leaves something to be desired.

All right, who let the cat out?!

Your fondness for Scratch will likely come down to your subjective reaction to the character design, which I don’t hate, I just find boring. There’s enough here in the accessories and overall look to leave me content, but this figure will never enter my mind when I’m trying to pick my favorite from this line. That’s also true of the opposite though as he’s far from the worst and if anything collectors should feel okay about the quality of the product coming out of Wave 6 considering how shaky Wave 5 turned out. And even as I say all of this, I can’t deny that I had more fun than usual snapping pictures of this guy, utilizing my own cat’s carrier, and such. Scratch is a corny design that’s been elevated due to the scarcity of the original figure and for many longtime TMNT collectors this is as close as they’re going to get to that figure. If you have always desired Scratch the action figure, then this should “scratch” that itch. It’s unarguably a better, more enjoyable, figure than the vintage release and should look fine with the rest of your collection. On the other hand, if you see a figure of a literal cat burglar and it does nothing for you then you probably won’t miss this one. I give it a measured recommend for that reason.

“So…what are you in for?”

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in toys

%d bloggers like this: