TMNT Classic Collection

Yes, I’m reviewing all four of them at once.

DON’T JUDGE ME.

As a nerd, I have always had a deep, loving appreciation for Ninja Turtles. One may even call me a fan. As a very yound child, I remember my brain being rotted out by the mindless violence and poor nutrition habits of the Saturday morning adventures of these anthropomorphic antiheroes. In fact, I had a fairly neat collection of the action figures that were released around the same time. As a kid, I didn’t really care about “articulation” or “decent sculpts” or even “good toys”. I just wanted plastic that I could smash around with my hands and eat pizza with. Now that I am slightly older, I look back at those toys and see how pretty terrible they were. But that nostalgia made me wish that maybe one day we would receive action figures that I could smash around with my hands and eat pizza with, and also pose like ballerinas.

That day is today. Or sometime last month when they hit store shelves (at the time of this writing).

Playmates Toys have seemingly come out of hibernation to reveal several new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toy lines, one of which happens to be the TMNT CLASSIC COLLECTION. The Classic Collection is all about bringing modern toy engineering to the Ninja Turtles as they appeared in the cartoon. Of course, there are some discrepencies that make me believe that they went with a hybrid approach between the show and the original toys, but more on that later! I should also point out that these are the fun-loving light-hearted goofs from the cartoon and not the violent, dark turtles from the original comic.

You guys may be wondering why I’m reviewing all four of them at once instead of one at a time. Well, my babies, that is because they are all the same mold except for the heads, weapons, and belts. While each turtle is basically the same, they did cast them in different colors of plastic. So… that’s something, I guess. I can hardly complain though because the turtles from the cartoon looked the same anyway. The original toys cast each character in a different color to help make them unique. Plus, the added straps on Donatello and Leonardo were something that wasn’t in the show, either. That’s one reason why I say these designs are hybrids between the show and toys. 

So, I guess I’ll start with the elephant in the room. GET OUT OF HERE, CHARLIE! YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN MY ROOM WHEN I’M REVIEWING TOYS! YOU’RE AN ELEPHANT. YOU DON’T EVEN HAVE HANDS.

The articulation on these guys is spectacular. Each one is loaded up with over a bajillionty points of articulation. From a ball-jointed neck, ball-jointed shoulders, swiveling biceps, double elbow joints, rotating swiveling wrists, INDIVIDUALLY ARTICULATED FINGERS, ball-jointed chest, ball-jointed hips, thigh swivels, double-jointed knees, ankle joints, and TOE ARTICULATION, it’s mind-boggling how much articulation these guys have! I haven’t had a single problem getting them into any pose I could think of!

I do have a couple of gripes about their articulation, though. First off, the hands work amazingly well, but I can see how some people don’t like how they look. It kind of looks like they’re wearing gloves or something due to how the joints are cut. It doesn’t really bother me at all though, because I love the fact that they can hold or do anything with their hands. 

My real concern is with the ankles. They can swivel around and move up and down, but there’s no tilt. You can kind of work around it by repositioning the toes or something, so it’s not a complete failure. This complaint is fairly minor, but it would have made these figures really stand out more if they had ankle tilts. 

Next up is paint and color applications! Michelangelo has orange bands, Leonardo has blue bands, Donatello has purple bands, and Raphael has red bands. Honestly, the paint apps are gorgeous. I couldn’t find a single error on the coloring of these figures, except for one thing: the eyes. The eyes on these figures border from “acceptable” to “HOLY SHNERPLES, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE.”

My figures turned out alright, but there are several people out there who have found some SERIOUSLY derpy eyes. The biggest problem with this is that Playmates decided to give them pupils like in the show, whereas the toys only had white eyes. In my opinion, that made the toys look more like superheroes and I loved it. I would have really preferred if Playmates had decided to just use white for their eyes. It would have made everything SO MUCH BETTER. 

The accessories they come with are pretty self explanatory. Leonardo comes with two katanas, Donatello comes with his beat stick, Raphael comes with his twin sais, and Michelangelo comes with his nunchucks. One neat thing is that the chains of his nunchucks are actual metal chains. That made me so giddy I almost passed out!

CHARLIE! WHAT DID I TELL YOU!? GET OUT!

The weapons have minimal paint on them, but I’m glad that they had the decency to paint them at all. They are all color coded to whoever owns them (so you don’t get confused). Plus, every figure has a place for weapon storage! That was a big problem for me as a kid because I ALWAYS lost all the tiny pieces they came with. 

Also, they each come with a Manhole Cover stand embroidered with their names! And I TOTALLY took these pictures at the same time as the others. I mean, I would never forget to take pictures of something. Nope, not ever.

All in all, these guys are pretty excellent in my book. These are the definitive action figures for this incarnation of the Turtles. Just make sure to check the packaging for any quality control issues with the eyes. Whether you get all 4 of them will depend on how much of a fan you are, but I think you’d be selling yourself short if you didn’t get at least one of them. (You know, if you’re into them and stuff).

COWABUNGA, DUDES!