World Turtle Day 2022!

 In honor of #WorldTurtleDay I would like to show off a few of my favorite books featuring those boys in green, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!!!

TMNT Flash

 Always wanted one, now I've got one!

New Additions to the TMNT Collection VI

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are probably my favorite characters from my childhood. Close by are the Masters of the Universe, Thundercats and Ghostbusters, but none of those stand up to my passion for collecting all things TMNT. Recently, I've been scouring the internets for any great deals I could find on merchandise featuring the Mean, Green Machine in an attempt to recoup some of my childhood collection. I did find some more cool stuff that I would like to share with you. Hopefully it brings back some great memories from that time in life where animals in bandanas were everything to us. Here we go!

Culture Fly Meltz Michelangelo Ice Cream Vinyl (2021)

I had been wanting one of these collectible ice cream vinyl figures for quite a while. I thought it was the perfect way to display one of my favorite childhood frozen treats without any of the mess! These were on sale at the Culture Fly website and I had wanted to get the vinyl of my favorite Turtle, Donatello, but they were sold out!

I ultimately decided on getting a Mikey since he was the last TMNT frozen treat that I had ingested. Pretty close resemblance to the real thing, huh?

Henry Gordy International TMNT Watergun (1988)

Here is another one of those rack toys I have talked about. I wasn't actively seeking this water gun out, but it came with the TMNT Flash Gun I had wanted. Not a bad throw in though! Still love the crude, early TMNT artwork on the packaging. I like the looks of the Shredder on this one!

Henry Gordy TMNT "Puffy Stickers" (1988)

These stickers may be one of my favorite items in my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles collection. Me and my brother would beg my Mom for any spare quarters she may have had in her pocket book any time we went to the local A&P supermarket. Usually she would break us each off a quarter if our behaviors were good enough during the shopping trip. It was a great way to make sure we were on our best behavior and while she was checking out, we were checking out the machines at the front of the store. More often than not, we would spend those quarters on globs, mini football helmets or those tiny, translucent Masters of the Universe figures. Then Turtlemania hit and we pumped quarters into those machines for the chance to get a complete set of these very TMNT stickers! So many great memories are attached to these pieces of sticky perfection!

Playmates TMNT Donatello Transforming Playset (2016)

I never had any of these Mighty max style playsets from the Nickelodeon show, but I saw this in a bin at my local Goodwill for $2 and since it was a depiction of my favorite member of the Green Machine, I picked him up. He now sits on one of the desks in my office as a proud member of my TMNT collection.

IDW Usagi Yojimbo Comic #20

This was a book that I had wanted, but my local comic shop didn't order any shelf copies. I searched ebay for copies, but most were out of my price range. Finally, while purchasing some My Little Pony comics off the IDW website, I saw this book for sale at the shelf price of $3.99. The reason I wanted this book is because it introduces a new recurring character to the Usagi Yojimbo story by the name of Yukichi Yamamoto. Yes, it is the second print, but I'm glad to have this book in my collection. I know it's not technically a TMNT book, but Usagi is a friend of the TMNT and that makes him part of the family to me!

Thanks for checking out some more great Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles items from my collection. I hope you enjoyed it.

Kevin Eastman Studios Order: Part 1

Every now and then I like to peruse the "Shop" section on the Kevin Eastman Studios website. Once in a while there is something there that I would like to add to my collection and that is within my spending range. I've gotten some pretty cool stuff from the site and just last week, I placed another order. One of the items I purchased was this set of enamel pins. They come in this cool little pizza box container and I received the "Team Eastman" pin...

in addition to this magnificent looking "First Turtle" pin based on the very first drawing of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle by Kevin Eastman in 1984.

Another item I picked up was this set of 5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle greeting cards that were released by Nexoft Corporation in 1989! I love the look of the artwork on these and it reminds me of the early days of Turtlemania!

I picked a grouping of 5 that would include each of the four turtles and I'm hoping to get these framed and hung sometime in the near future...along with a million other TMNT items in my collection!

The final item I picked up was what they call a "Cowabundle". It's a lot of comics that are related by a theme. The "Cowabundle" I chose was the "Vintage Mirage Bundle". Each one of these lots comes with 15 comics from the personal collection of Kevin Eastman with one of these comics signed by one of the creators. I will show off what I received in next Friday's post, but as a special bonus for buying this bundle, the studio threw in an autographed print! Once again these prints would be signed by the artist and you did not know which one you would get. I lucked out and got one signed by TMNT co-creator Kevin Eastman! Pretty cool stuff!

That's it for the first part of this delivery. Next week I'll show off the comics I got in my "Cowabundle"! Until then be green and keep it clean! COWABUNGA!

Classic Playmates Ninja Turtles

 

Back in 1988 I was 7 years old and had my first experience with what would become one of my all-time favorite cartoons, toys & comics...the TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES! That's right, my first exposure to the TMNT was via the Playmates Toys action figures. Myself and my older brother were drug along on another boring shopping trip to Kmart with my Mom. It seemed like those trips with her to the local stores like Ames and Shelby's in Newton, NJ took forever, but at least when we went out there was always the possibility that we would get a new toy based on behaviors. If we were good, didn't fight and kept from complaining, the chances of getting a toy were doubled. Also, Kmart was our favorite because it meant that there was also the chance we could grab lunch at the Kmart Cafe! Remember them? I loved their bacon cheeseburgers and hot dogs!!!

Anyway, on this one trip to Kmart, my brother and I bolted to the toy section as usual, but this time there was something news on the pegs that really caught our eye and piqued our imagination. They were green, they were ninjas and they had AWESOME weapons! I grabbed a Donatello and my brother picked Raphael and we ran to my Mom. We hoped she would let us get these toys and after some persuading, she did!

A few trips later, Kmart had all of their Ninja Turtles toys on sale and my Mom in a moment of weakness bought us almost the entire first wave of figures. This time I got Leonardo, Rocksteady & a Foot Soldier and my brother was able to add Michelangelo, Shredder, Splinter and Bebop! He got one extra figure, I guess he was the favorite son. Below is a photo of those very Ninja Turtle toys! I still have them today and they hold a special place in my heart & collection almost 33 years later!

Now our collection was growing and we would bring our action figures over to our friends house and have epic battles of good versus evil in the backyard. A short time later we were introduced to the cartoon at a friends house and I was hooked for life!

These figures and characters were a huge part of my childhood and I was super excited to see that Playmates was returning these original figures to Walmart shelves this year. Yes, Playmates has re-released these figures multiple times, but for some reason they never did with the original backer card art. Luckily for me, I was able to fairly easily acquire a full set of the four Turtles and a Party Wagon after only about 5 or 6 visits. I know to some people it may seem silly, but having these figures in my hands again really brings me a lot of joy. The same joy I had as a 7 year old who held this wild looking, purple clad Ninja Turtle in his hands all those years ago. Here are some shots of those Turtles.

Thanks for taking this journey back in time with me. I hope you enjoyed it and it brought back some great memories from your childhood. TURTLE POWER!

Game Player's Magazine: December 1989

Back in the day, before the fancy interweb was a common household appliance, we had to get our video game tips from our friends on the schoolyard. Most of the time these so called "tips" were complete BS. If you really wanted to take your game to the next level you had to pony up some scratch and purchase a magazine like Nintendo Power, Game Pro and even to a lesser extent Game Player's Magazine. I picked up the issue above all the way back in the golden ages of December 1989. Obviously, the main reason I grabbed this specific magazine was to get tips on how to beat one of the hottest games at the time, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the Nintendo Entertainment System. This issue did not disappoint! It gave us 10 whole pages of coverage on this blockbuster game that I am about to share with you....NOW!

Hopefully this extensive guide gave you the tips and tricks you needed to defeat The Shredder and save your beloved sensei, Master Splinter! I know it didn't help me much, the farthest I ever got was to the giant Mouser! Anyway, Game Player's Magazine didn't just cover games, but it gave us an in depth look at how some of Hollywood's biggest stars enjoy their games.

Wow! That's some great info about Married With Children star David Faustino! Who knew his favorite game was Double Dragon and his biggest thrill as an actor was being on the cover of TV Guide? What's that you say? You want more tips? Game Player's Magazine has your questions answered!

Great stuff! Even though the game content is exquisite, I can't in good conscience finish this post without showing off some of those classic advertisements!

I could do a whole month of posts on the ads! So chock full of greatness! Thank you for going on this journey with me through a 30 year old magazine about retro video games. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did! What was your favorite gaming magazine from back in the day/ Let me know in the comments below!