Tag Archives: secret of the ooze

April 28, 2026

NECA TMNT Toon Robo Tokka and Robo Rahzar

By Joe
It’s the duo you know, but not how you expected.

The vintage Playmates toy line for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had no shortage of variants. There were beach turtles, police turtles, hockey turtles, and so on. We even had something akin to Operation: Desert Storm turtles. In looking back, it seems like few stones were left unturned unless you want to get into the weeds of licensed collaborations (the TMNT x Star Wars collab was just never meant to be, unfortunately), but don’t tell that to the fans of today still brainstorming and coming up with concepts never before explored by Playmates or anyone else. People like Sylvain Plantier, a self-described toy designer and illustrator who had a dream of robotic versions of the duo Tokka and Rahzar from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze. The duo was inserted into that film pretty much because TMNT co-creators Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird wanted nothing to do with the dimwitted duo of Bebop and Rocksteady, not that it stopped the writers of the film from making Tokka and Rahzar giant, literal, babies. At least they looked scary? Due to the popularity of the characters and film, the two made their way into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon where they were quite different as characters, but visually were identical to the Playmates interpretations of the two created to promote the movie as toys. And since their TV counterparts, Bebop and Rocksteady, appear in both the toy line and the show as robots, why not extend the same to Tokka and Rahzar?

I love the design of Tokka’s shell. Rahzar’s backside isn’t very interesting, but I didn’t want him to feel left out.

Plantier at least seemed to think that was warranted and he created and shared designs for what that might look like. His concept got the attention of NECA’s Trevor Zammit who liked it so much that he proposed making figures based on Plantier’s work and incorporate them into NECA’s long-running toy line based on the vintage cartoon. And now here we are. A deal was struck and the designs were handed off to NECA sculptor Tomasz Rozejowski and a pair of what-if characters now exist in the NECA toon line. These concept figures have increased in numbers over the past few years as the line gets a bit long in the tooth. Robo Tokka and Rahzar join the likes of Wyrm, Panda Khan, Dark Leo, Samurai Mikey, and others which is a fair direction to take the line in these days as the number of characters who appeared in that show that have yet to see plastic gets rather small. This is the line that gave us the spare parts of Bebop and Rocksteady’s gang which is pretty incredible, all things considered, so while it’s fair to wonder where someone like Tempestra is, I don’t think we’re missing anyone at the expense of these fantasy creations. Besides, who really gave a shit about Tempestra when this line started?

With their flesh and blood counterparts.

Robo Tokka and Rahzar follow in the same sort of look as the robotic Bebop and Rocksteady. Plantier did a great job of creating some all new characters, but also ones that if seen by someone unfamiliar would cause them to start searching their memories for such an episode of the show. Both characters utilize some blocky components and hard edges, but also plenty of curves like one would expect to see in the show. The two are predominantly a light gray and slate gray, but they also each incorporate their own unique color to the design. Like Bebop featured red and Rocksteady yellow, Tokka has some green accents via the knee pads and pauldrons while Rahzar has some striking blue parts most prominently featured in his pauldrons and knee pads. I like how Plantier apparently gave consideration to the Playmates figures as well as both characters feature a red dome on the top of their head which I assume is to mimic the light-piping feature of the vintage toys. It would have been cool if NECA could have provided an alternate head with such a feature, but this works fine.

They display well with robotic Bebop and Rocksteady.

Let’s get more into the nuts and bolts of each one starting with Tokka. He stands at approximately 5.375″ to the top of his head. The little spike on his shell atually sits higher than his head. He’s a little shorter than the standard Tokka, but is pretty much just as stocky. He’s got these Bowser-like pauldrons that are a nice combination of green and yellow and the shell on the back of the figure mostly recalls the Playmates figure, but with fewer spikes. There are some sculpted cables about his shell and also around his neck that line up with the two rockets positioned at the top of his shell. They can come off, but they’re a little tight so I’m loathe to force it, especially since there is little reason to remove them. I like the updated “tech” Foot logo on his belt buckle as well as the attempts at creating the illusion of robotic joints, in particular the ankle area. There’s more of the light gray with this figure as compared to Bebop and Rocksteady and I think it looks better. It allows the darker gray to enhance it and provide more of an outline. I appreciate the little studs and rivets found in the design which are just numerous enough to break up the design, but not look out of place in a toy line based on an 80s cartoon. Paint for both figures was handled by Mike Puzzo and Geoff Trapp and it’s as clean and crisp as usual. The black line work on the yellow spikes is especially impressive and I remain impressed with how consistent these little details are applied by NECA’s workers.

There is a couple of weapons in the set.

Rahzar is a much bigger beast when compared with his box-mate coming in right around the 7″ mark. Like Tokka, he’s a touch shorter than the standard Rahzar, but this one is definitely bulkier by comparison. I like how his design incorporates a lot of what we associate with the character like the rounded pauldrons, the spikes on the thighs, and, of course, the grill on the abdomen. There’s a bit more of the dark gray incorporated into the design as a result of those thigh pieces, but it looks good and helps to contrast him with Tokka. I really like how the blue was incorporated as it was only a small part of the original Rahzar look in the toon and toy line, but it’s well enhanced here. I also like the asymmetrical look of the forearms since that’s a true Playmates callback if I ever did see one. Tokka did the same, but in a less obvious manner. Here Rahzar has a boxy right gauntlet and a round, spiked, left. And because NECA was apparently so committed to making these two have a large size discrepency between them, there are almost no shared parts between the two. They both use the same hands, but as far as I can tell everything else is unique. The paint on Rahzar seems a little sloppier than Tokka’s, but not to an alarming degree. There’s a tiny bit of gray on the blue part of the chin on mine as well as a light, gray, dot in the midst of the dark gray on the back of the head. The detail work is still quite impressive and overall it’s a striking figure for the shelf.

Mostly, I think of the toon Tokka and Rahzar as food monsters so I appreciate these inclusions.

The accessory load-out on these guys is a bit sparse, but perhaps that’s the result of two, unique, sculpts with little reuse potential. Each figure has three sets of hands: fists, gripping, and an open gesture. As mentioned above, the hands are the same between the two, but NECA did include a set of each for each figure so you don’t have to share any between the two which is appreciated. Each character also appears to have an intended weapon, but since these are fantasy creations, do with them as you will. For Tokka, he has a chunky sword with a spiked handguard. The inner part of the handle is blue so if you think it fits Rahzar better then go for it. The rear of the blade is serrated and the handle is black with a red diode or button on it. For Rahzar, there’s a big, spiked, mace which also features a gold spike at the end and a little white tape at the base of the handle. There’s a red button sculpted onto it as well as some red trim near the base which doesn’t really correspond with either character. The spikes on this thing are quite sharp though so do be careful. I do like both weapons, but it would have been cool to callback to Rahzar’s skull staff the old toy came with. They’re also both really hard to get into the gripping hands and I would advise not even trying out of the box. Heat them up, slot them in, and then never remove them. Lastly, we have two food items which is appropriate for the pair since it seems to be the only thing the toon versions of Tokka and Rahzar cared about (besides each other, they are the best of friends). We get a bowl of nuts, as in metal nuts, which has a sculpted spoon handle sticking out of it. It’s a fun design and may be mandatory for a display. There’s also a circuit board with a bite taken out of it. The sculpt and paint on this thing is really impressive considering it’s just this little throwaway accessory. The characters can hold that one with either a gripping hand or even the fist as the thumb is spearate from the rest of the fingers and it slides in pretty painlessly. The bowl is best held with the open hand unless you want to wedge the spoon into the fist or gripping hand, but that’s it for accessories. No blast effects are a shame as Rahzar has two guns mounted to his shoulders and Tokka the two rockets. I wonder if something was considered as there’s a small hole in the right barrel on Rahzar, though not on the left.

“Hey! Give me a bite!”

If you looked at these two and concluded that these designs would not lend themselves well to articulation then you would be correct. Articulation is never NECA’s strong suit, and much like the Usagi Yojimbo figures we looked at recently, the articulation here is going to be rather poor. Somewhat to my surprise, the better of the pair is Tokka. Both figures feature the same points of articulation: head, jaw, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips, knees, ankles. For both, the elbows and knees are single-hinged and they do swivel which is to make up for the lack of a bicep joint in the arm. Tokka’s pauldrons are on hinges and can get out of the way to an extant. Curiosly, the fixture on my figure’s right shoulder sits higher than the left. I assume this is not by design and is just variation at the factory. The waist is basically useless on both figures as Tokka’s turtle body severely restricts it while Rahzar has that grill in place. Neighter figure can do splits or kick forward very far. Rahzar’s head is limited by that giant chin he has which also prevents his jaw from opening unless he’s looking up. His shoulder pauldrons also have no mechanism in place to help get them out of the way. Raising his arms out to the side for the old “T” pose is not happening. The two little canons on his shoulders might swivel, or might not. The right one on mine is not budging while the left came out of the box orientated incorrectly with the sight at 3 o’clock. That was my only hint that it could even move as I was able to swivel it back into place. To NECA’s credit here, nothing was stuck on my figures out of the box nor was anything loose. It might have helped that they were delivered by mail and the box sat in the sun for about an hour before I could get to it. Are we done with frozen figures until the fall? One can only hope.

“Michelangelo, I’d just like to say I really hate your plan.” “Shut up, Leonardo…”

These robotic versions of Tokka and Rahzar from Sylvain Plantier and NECA are probably what you would expect of them. The design is terrific and the sculpt and paint really bring them to life. The size and aesthetics mean they don’t slot into your vintage toy collection, but they look right at home in a NECA toon display despite never appearing in the show. I do wish we got some effect parts, but I do wonder if that’s something Nickelodeon frowns upon. It seems JoyToy can get away with such, but maybe not toys for the US market? The articulation is what it is. I don’t think anyone expects much out of NECA in that regard and at this stage of the toy line’s life it’s not something that’s going to change. If you like the design then that’s what you should base your purchasing decision on. And as for that decision, the unique tooling in place here certainly seems to have impacted the price tag. These guys are exclusive to Target in the US where they retail for $70. This two-pack is more expensive than the movie versions two-pack. These are basically priced like two NECA Ultimates, or something a little lesser since those seem to be trending towards the $40 mark. Gone are the days of the $52 two-pack, especially when it’s a set that doesn’t feature much opportunity for parts reuse. I’m not going to tell you how to spend your money, but we’re definitely at that point where I’m passing on sets because of the price. At $52 I was willing to buy just about anything, but at $70 I’m definitely selective which is why I never reviewed the Creepy Eddie and Shibano-Sama two-pack – they just didn’t seem worth it to me. This set did because I really like the designs and I think it works well for the line. Who knows what will come next for me with this line as we don’t have much confirmed past this. Each turtle is getting a unique disguise later this year and there may be a Tempestra coming, though the figure was not on display at New York Yor Fair for some reason. And then there’s the question of whether or not the line continues past 2026? The San Diego exclusive is already out and available for purchase and it’s just a black and white set of the 2012 turtles with an accessory pack. I don’t need another set of those and if the toon line is coming to an end then at least I can look forward to saving some money!

For more NECA and Tokka and Rahzar goodness, check out these:

NECA Cartoon TMNT Tokka and Rahzar

There is certainly a lot of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles product flying around these days, but I would guess collectors and fans of the property are paying the most attention to two toy makers in particular: NECA and Super7. One search for “NECA” on this blog will reveal that the company has produced a ton…

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NECA TMNT Secret of the Ooze Tokka and Rahzar

Merry Boxing Day every one! I hope you enjoyed the Christmas content this year, but it’s time to go back to our usual programming. Which in 2020 means toys. And I just could not wait any longer to talk about what was probably my most anticipated release of 2020: NECA’s Tokka and Rahzar based on…

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NECA TMNT Cartoon Super Bebop and Mighty Rocksteady

2021 introduced a lot of good things for collectors of NECA’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles line of action figures based on the classic cartoon. The toy maker still kept the line a Target exclusive when it came to brick and mortar, but it also started selling a lot of it online to coincide with each…

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July 2, 2024

NECA TMNT Secret of the Ooze Keno and Foot Soldier

By Joe
Coming this fall to FOX, it’s Keno and the Fat Man!

I’ve been spending parts of the past month or so ducking in and out of any Walmart I come across in search of the Masters of the Universe Origins Turtles of Grayskull Krang. You see, it’s a store exclusive and if you know anything about toy collecting it’s that toy collectors hate store exclusives. Especially Walmart exclusives. I don’t particularly care for Walmart in general and will go out of my way to not shop there, but sometimes they use their capital advantage to make that a challenge. When you keep going into and out of stores leaving empty-handed each time it gets old which can sometimes lead to bad purchasing decisions. Or perhaps “bad” is the wrong word in this case, let’s instead say that it can lead to making unplanned purchases. And that is how I ended up with the NECA Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II – The Secret of the Ooze Keno (Foot Training) and Foot Soldier set.

Ever since NECA received permission from Viacom to sell its TMNT products at brick and mortar it has separated the cartoon and movie toy lines giving one to Target and one to Walmart. I have been fortunate in that most of the movie figures I have wanted have been made available by other means, usually via NECA direct in the form of a comic con exclusive or just a direct sale. I haven’t had to stake out Walmarts in search of product really since the Casey Jones and Raphael in Disguise two-pack from 2020. I did purchase the Shadow Warriors two-pack from Walmart, but that was a fairly low demand set. I could have bought the Casey Jones and April Farm two-pack on numerous occasions, but I didn’t see that one as being particularly essential.

I don’t know if that height is correct. Keno is 6.3″ which is fine, while the turtles are 6.5″ which maybe is a touch short?

Last summer, right around this time, NECA put up for pre-sale not one, but two TMNT movie sets as San Diego Comic Con exclusives. One of those sets, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III four-pack, I purchased. The other, Keno (Pizza Delivery) and moped I did not. NECA wanted $100 for Keno and his scooter and that just felt like too much for me. I liked the second Turtles movie well enough as a kid, but as an adult I can see it for what it is -a cash grab with bland, slapstick, humor that barely qualifies as entertainment. Still, I do have a soft spot for Keno, played by Ernie Reyes Jr. in the movie, and wouldn’t mind having him in my collection. And his pizza boy attire is how I picture him so it was my preference, but again, not at a hundred bucks.

They just like him because he always brings pizza.

When NECA unveiled the Keno and Foot two-pack a month later at Comic Con, it wasn’t really on my radar. Like I said, I picture Keno in his pizza boy attire first and foremost and not as he is depicted in this set. And even though the Foot Soldier he was bundled with was different from the ones I had, it didn’t feel like a necessity. That is, until it had been staring me in the face one too many times. Missing out on that $25 Krang motivated me to spend $60 on this set and it’s honestly a solid set of figures. Is this the Keno I wanted? No, but maybe it’s the Keno that will make me happy.

In this house, we worship Teezus.

This set depicts Keno from the scene where he and Raph decide to infiltrate the Foot Clan by getting him admitted. He basically puts on his kickboxing gear and beats a bunch of other trainees up before having to submit to a final test which Raph helps him pass. It’s probably one of the better plotted elements of the movie and I suppose it’s better than Keno’s all-denim look from a bit later in the movie. For this release, Keno is sporting a tank top, black sweats, kickboxing gloves and shoes. Everything is well-sculpted and detailed. The shirt has a nice design to it and the likeness is on point. Keno is sporting an aggressive expression like he just spin-kicked some jerk in the face and it’s done well. He comes with another portrait and it features a toothy grin. I may have preferred a more neutral expression as a secondary option, but both look pretty good so I’m not exactly upset about it. He also has a set of non-gloved gripping hands, but I don’t see the point in them. This is kickboxing Keno, baby! Plus, I watched a review of this set and the reviewer had the wrist peg break when swapping hands and I don’t want to chance it. For what it’s worth, the stability of my figure seems fine. The heads are very snug and I had to use hot water to get the other portrait on, but nothing felt fragile or too stiff with this guy.

This bag rocks.

The one thing that does stand out with Keno vs a lot of other NECA figures is the lack of paint. NECA opted to leave his flesh basically bare plastic when normally NECA paints basically everything. There is a slight sheen to the skin as a result, but it almost imparts an illusion of sweat which works for the look. Is that by design? I don’t know, but it looks fine. There is a little paint slop around the ears of both portraits. For some reason, the right ear was apparently problematic and maybe it was whatever the factory used to hold the piece in place while it was painted as there’s a line of “flesh” connecting the ear to the hair which sucks. The hands and feet are nicely painted and you can even see the bottoms of his feet when turning him over which is pretty neat. If you like this look for Keno then you should be pleased with what NECA has done.

“Ahh hah!”

As for the Foot Soldier, he’s a mix of old and new. For the sequel, Golden Harvest and New Line Cinema wanted to get it out fast and cheap as basically everyone viewed TMNT as a fad destined to blow up unexpectedly and without warning. They also wanted to tone down the violence which meant they no longer needed a bunch of stunt guys and martial artists to play-fight the good guys. They mostly just wanted them to do pratfalls and get hit with sausages. As a result, the background extras were just random people which lead to some, how should we say, unathletic looking Foot ninja. This guy is reflective of that as he’s basically the plus-sized version of a Foot ninja. He has a new, bigger, head and a new, wider, torso. Both look fine, but the figure is reusing the old arms, hips, and legs from the standard Foot which makes him look pretty goofy. He really needs some meatier thighs, at least, because as-is he looks like a kit-bash of mismatched parts. He does have a gritty, dirty, brown, wash applied to him as the Foot were kind of dirty in that movie. Maybe it was because they were residing in a dusty junkyard? Or maybe it was just old, well-worn, costumes no one wanted to replace or wash.

What does he expect to do with those dinky little things?

The Foot doesn’t come with much, just extra hands and a set of weapons. The hands are fists, gripping, and these style posed hands. The fists and gripping hands are the same as what has been included with other Foot releases. The style posed hands are new to me. My Foot ninja came from the SDCC set from way back so I’m not sure if these were added for the two-pack releases, but I think they’re new. For “weapons,” he has two, black, sticks. The movie was looking to tone-down the violence so swords and axes were out. Instead, guys would have sticks be they long ones or these little, stubby, ones. Even Leonardo uses something similar at one point. It’s bizarre, but a fun inclusion. Like past Foot Soldiers, he has a soft goods, elastic, belt over the sculpted one which serves as weapon storage. There’s also another canister of ooze, maybe because it was a chubby Foot ninja who caught it during the showdown at the TGRI building? It’s the same canister most are likely used to at this point.

Looks like he passed.

As for Keno, in addition to the extra head and hands he has some pretty neat accessories. Well, one is neat. The one that isn’t is the handful of various bells that Raph helped him remove from a training dummy during his final test. It’s just a lump of painted, sculpted, plastic and it’s possible to get him to cradle them as he did in the movie even though his gloved hands are fisted. I kind of wish he had his “Is this enough?” expression to pair with it, but I doubt I’d use it anyway. The other, more impressive, accessory is the punching bag. It’s a big hunk of red plastic with a fake brand name stamped on it. It’s connected to real chain which can hang on the included stand, which is a metal hook with a plastic base. It works well, and the sculpt of the bag is very convincing both up close and from a distance to the point where it feels surreal to touch it and find it’s not a miniature punching bag.

They can handle the basics, but don’t go too crazy with the posing.

The articulation is usually secondary for NECA, and that’s mostly true here. We’ll do Keno first. He has a double-ball peg for a head which works pretty well. His mullet will get in the way a bit, but not as much as you may have thought. The shoulders are simple hinged pegs while the elbows are the same. There’s no biceps swivel, and instead the elbow pivots. Wrists rotate and hinge horizontally for all hands in the set. There is a diaphragm joint of some kind, but the overlay for the shirt makes it hard to utilize. You can force some posing out of it, and I suppose a really determined person could heat the shirt if they don’t care about warping it, but I wouldn’t advise doing so. The waist has a ball joint as well and the hips are ball and socket joints that can facilitate splits and kick forward a full 90 degrees. There is a thigh twist and the knees are double-jointed. The ankles hinge forward and back and possess a solid ankle rocker. He’ll be able to do some decent kicks and he can stand on one foot if you’re patient. I just wish the diaphragm joint worked better to get some really nice looking kicking poses. This is where I personally would prefer to see the torso sculpted with a joint in the middle rather than an overlay, but I get why NECA does what it does.

Shredder may need to start paying his guys better if he wants to attract better ninja.

The Foot ninja is basically the same as the other Foot. Even the hips still use the old peg and hinge engineering. There’s no added articulation, nor is any lost, with the new head and torso. I will say, while Keno’s joints are all nice and tight, the Foot ninja has some pretty loose ankles. Not terribly, at least not yet, but some simple stances were more troublesome than they should be as he’d just fall forward. Hopefully he doesn’t worsen over time.

The Secret of the Ooze section of my Detolf is pretty jam-packed. Thank goodness I passed on the third Super Shredder.

On an individual basis, this Keno figure and his included stuff is pretty damn nice. Yeah, I’d like a little more articulation out of him and it’s not my preferred look for the character, but the execution is plenty good and the punching bag is awesome. As a two-pack, it’s a little less spectacular because the Foot ninja is nothing special. NECA didn’t go all-in on making this guy look great by reusing too many old parts. It’s a bit of a bummer because people may have wanted a couple of stocky looking Foot Soldiers in their display if the figure were better. These parts have been used and reused so much that NECA surely has made plenty of money off of the tools that it’s a shame it didn’t spend to update them. They probably could have kept the arms, it’s the hips and thighs mainly. And since the figure essentially costs $30, it’s a tough sell. Basically, if you’re like me and skipped the SDCC Keno, then this is your only option to add the character to your TMNT II display. It’s not the Keno I wanted, but at least he’s damn good for what he is so I don’t regret my purchase and it’s still better than paying $100 for the character. Now, if say a $70 or $80 version of the Keno and bike two-pack shows up I may feel differently.

If it’s TMNT movies you like then we got you covered:

NECA TMNT Secret of the Ooze 4-Pack and Accessory Set

It’s that time of year when a lot of folks are reflecting on the past year and all of the things that happened. This usually coincides with list-making for favorites and worst of the year in basically every category you can dream of. And for action figure enthusiasts, there’s definitely a lot of list making.…

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NECA TMNT Secret of the Ooze Ultimate Shredder

For the first time in a long time we went a week without a blog entry here. That’s because I took a much needed vacation and didn’t schedule anything. I’ll probably be backing off a little bit as we dig deeper into 2022 since there’s a certain holiday I need to get crackin’ on if…

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