I am a fan of the Funko Pop figures. They are inexpensive and feature some amazing characters. if you are a fan of any show or movie, Funko has probably made a Pop of it! That being said, I really don't collect Pops, but if I do see one of a character I absolutely love, I will pick it up. My collection is not huge, but it is selective and here's one that I would like to share with you...
Casey Jones from the TMNT Movie (1990)
The summer of 1990 brought my favorite Heroes In A Half-Shell to the big screen. My Dad took my brother and me to the theater to see this movie and our minds were blown! The movie was gritty & dark, but it still had the humor and action that we loved from the TMNT cartoon show. It was the perfect balance of the Mirage comics and Fred Wolf cartoon. Of course one of the highlights was the appearance of Casey Jones. He had some of the best scenes in the movie and of course I needed a Casey Jones to go along with my TMNT Funko Pops.
Over the last few months I have succumbed to the addiction that is on-line shopping. Seriously, once you start you find so many other cool things and you just can't stop...that is until your wife reminds you that you have children and bills to pay. This realization led me to be pretty selective of what I've purchased recently and as a huge fan of the Green Machine there are a ton of options. So without wasting anymore time, here is part 3 of the newest additions to my TMNT collection!
TMNT: The Incredible Shrinking Turtles Book
I had some of these books as a kid, but never this one. This book came as a gift in a package from the ultra-cool Hoju Koolander! If you want to check out some of his radical retro flavored articles or videos you can check them out at RetroDaze.org or on the WIZARDS! Podcast on Youtube.
TMNT II: The Secret of the Ooze VHS Tape
I have extremely fond memories of owning this VHS tape as a youngster. Me and my brother would watch this movie daily. This copy is a special one though. It comes from the Mirage Studios Archives and was in the collection of TMNT Co-Creator Peter Laird! Don't believe me?
I bought it off the Mirage Studios website and it came with this sweet Certificate of Authenticity! It only cost me about $10 and I love it! If you would like to own a piece from Mirage Studios, they typically hold weekly ebay auctions. You can view the items available by clicking HERE.
TMNT Party Wagon: Hot Wheels
I kept seeing this mini version of the Turtles' Party Wagon pop up in my Twitter feed. People were finding it everywhere. I searched my local Walmarts, Targets and Dollar Tree stores, but had no success. Instead of continuing the trend of disappointment, I decided to buy this off ebay for $5. After I made that purchase, I began finding these all over the place. I picked up a few extras and gave my son one, Ieven sent one to a collector in Canada who was having trouble locking one down. I really like the details and for $1 or less, you can't beat the usual Hot Wheels quality of this toy!
Funko Pops!
My wife scored me the Target exclusive Metalhead figure for Christmas. This was a big surprise for me and she was really proud of herself for tracking him down. She's a keeper. The Casey Jones, I found in a clearance section at Walmart. This was odd to me since they had just recently came out. I didn't have a Casey in my Pop! collection yet, so I took advantage of the possibly mislabeled figure and now he stands proud next to my Turtles on the shelf in the basement!
TMNT Valentines
I found the vintage looking TMNT Valentines on clearance for around $1 and my wife found the other 2 boxes for me. Of course the kids wanted to use some of these for my friends and I let them go to town. I remember what a thrill it was to receive a Ninja Turtles Valentine. I received a card featuring something I loved on the biggest love day of them all and it was AWESOME! Who am I to keep another child from experiencing that same thrill?
Thanks for bearing with me and checking out some of the latest additions to my TMNT collection. I gotta say, I'm running out of room and may have to expand my basement collection area because I'm sure there is more to come for this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fanatic! COWABUNGA!!!!
Now that I am a parent Christmas is mostly all about making the kids happy and helping Santa get them the toys that were on their list. There is nothing like seeing their little faces light up on that special December morning...even if it's at 4am. I guess that's karma, but every year I still look forward to unwrapping my own gifts from my kids & wife. They typically do a great job of getting me some sweet presents and this year they did not disappoint. I know it's a little late, but lets look behind the wrapping paper and see what TMNT goodies were under the tree for me this year!
Stocking Stuffers
I've said it a million times before, but I LOVE STOCKING STUFFERS!!! My parents would allow us to open our stockings every Christmas before they got up. I'm sure it was so we would let them sleep in for another hour or so. This year I got some cool TMNT Snapz, Topps Baseball cards and of course candy!
Vinyl Figures
I had been eyeing that weird "Pizza Venkman" figure for a long time at our local calendar store, but at $20, I was not willing to budge. This one was found in the clearance section for $3 and was gifted to me for my Ghostbusters collection. Of course I had to have a TMNT item in my gifts this year. My wife found this Target exclusive Metalhead Funko POP while she was doing her online Christmas shopping. She thought I would like it...and she was right! This is now on my shelf of Ninja Turtles coolness in my basement next to my other TMNT POPs!
Well, that's it for this past Christmas. I hope yours was merry, bright and full of good tidings. Merry Christmas!
I have a fairly big collection of loose figures from the 80s & 90s. I would like to share a few of my faves with you at this time and since I have deemed August 2019 "The Month of the Turtle", this is an all TMNT edition of My Faves!!! Here we go!
Nightwatcher Raphael (Playmates, 2006)
I really enjoyed the 2007 Imagi Productions TMNT movie! The cast was great and included Chris Evans, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Patrick Stewart. The animation was pretty good. The fight scene with Leo and Raph on top of the NYC buildings in the rain was a highlight for me. I also loved the way they were able to make this a standalone movie, but still tied it in to the original Ninja Turtles movie trilogy. Anyway, the Nightwatcher character was pretty cool and when I saw this figure at a second hand store for less than a dollar, I immediately made it part of my collection. Yes, he is missing his helmet, but Raph is still a cool piece in any collection!
Krang Mini-Vynl (Funko, 2014)
The look of these figures is pretty cool. They look cartoony, but that is the charm of this series from Funko. I picked up 4 or 5 of these blind boxes at Barnes and Noble for around $2 each. They were in their discount bin and I couldn't pass up that deal. Usually I don't like buying blind boxes, but for that price it was worth the gamble for these sweet TMNT figures. In addition to Krang I got Casey Jones, Michelangelo and April.
Venus De Milo (Playmates, 1997)
First off, I have to say that I absolutely do not care for the TMNT: Next Mutation series from Saban. It looks cheaply made, the stories are weak and the dialogue is extremely dated. That being said, I thought the idea of adding a new Turtle to the family was a cool idea. The way it was done was pretty awful though. This can be done well as we have recently seen with the mutation to Jennika in the latest issues of the IDW Ninja Turtles comic, it just wasn't done well in this series.
Donatello LEGO Key-chain (LEGO, 2013)
I went crazy when I heard that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were going to have their own LEGO sets! I loved LEGO as a kid and I still love them today. It was like a mash-up of two great things coming together to form one awesome toy! The first items I saw released were these TMNT keychains and so I bought my favorite Turtle Donatello when we were in the LEGO store while on vacation in Orlando, FL. I bought a few of the smaller sets and put them together with my kids. We had fun working together, but like most of our other sets they are now broken apart and in buckets with hundreds of other LEGOs waiting to be built again!
Tokka & Rahzar (Playmates, 1991)
The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie is one of my all time favorite flicks, but I would have to rank Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze a little higher. TMNT 2 was a little bit closer in tone to the cartoons I knew and loved, Vanilla Ice gave us "Ninja Rap" and it introduced us to 2 new mutant menaces, Tokka & Rahzar! These guys were freakin' AWESOME, but as a kid I always wondered why they didn't use Bebop and Rocksteady? It was years later that I found out it had to do something with the licensing rights of those characters. That turned out okay in the end though as we all grew to love these vicious, muscle bound, BABIES!!! I bought the Tokka action figure right off the rack in 1991, but Rahzar had to wait a few decades before I added him to my collection. I found him in a loose figure bargain bin at a vintage toy store for around $1.50! On a side note: Did we ever figure out which one was the ugly one?
This week the comic book I am most excited to read is...
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES FUNKO UNIVERSE #1
The Funko craze comes to TMNT! Funko-style TMNT get wind of a new Shredder-inspired cereal and go to the source to investigate the bad-guy based breakfast! An absurd and hilarious adventure awaits!
• Inspired by the Funko toys based off the original TMNT cartoon!
