So, first of all as a caveat: I'm really glad there's so much product out there that's available to purchase. I would much rather that there be *too much* to choose from than not enough. I've always said it's better to have the choice to buy something than to have no choice at all (because it doesn't exist).

With that said, I just wonder what's going through their minds over at Super7 sometimes. By the way, this does become Transformers-related after about ten paragraphs.

I thought it was cute when they started doing ReAction figures, and all those movie licenses from the 1970's and 1980's that didn't get toys could finally have a little mini-toyline. Hey, look, toys from Aliens! Hey, look, toys from Back to the Future! That sort of thing. Moving into Transformers characters didn't make a lick of sense, because Transformers already had a toy line in the 1980's, and it didn't look like badly-sculpted, badly-painted Star Wars action figures.

(I realized recently that if they had done the characters in 1990's Action Masters style format I probably would have bought all of them. But, that's neither here nor there.)

So now Super7 is producing two toy lines I actually collect: Ninja Turtles Ultimates and Transformers Ultimates. (The Transformers ones haven't actually come out yet, of course, but I've pre-ordered three waves of the things now.) The Ninja Turtles are essentially upscaled versions of the old Playmates figures (so very different from what NECA is offering) with better paint and articulation. But recently it's taken a dip into a super weird, obscure direction.

Like, we're paying $50 for these things. Obiously you have to be a pretty big fan to want to drop that kind of cash. Also, they originally said they were only doing like five waves, with four toys in each wave, and if you asked me who were the most important 20 TMNT characters, that list would almost write itself. Now that they've said "just kidding, we're doing these basically forever" it seems like they jettisoned that Really Obvious List and went for the most obscure characters they could think of.

Like, wave five was announced today. There's a version of Donatello as a punk rocker. They've already done regular versions of all four Turtles, so they're paying homage to the various Turtles in costume now. There's also a Triceraton. Those are probably the ones you've heard of. Then there's a robot version of Bebop, based on a late 1991 action figure that appeared in one 1989 cartoon episode. There's also a robot version of Michaelangelo, specifically the Metalhead toy that got a shiny green redeco in 1995. Nobody bought that toy, so it goes for many hundreds of dollars on the secondary market, which I think is why Super7 is paying tribute to it (well, and so they can do a cheap and easy Metalhead redeco).

Finally, as for the last character: have you ever heard of Sergeant Bananas? Well, that's irrelevant. This guy is actually based on an entirely different military monkey who appeared in one issue of TMNT Magazine from 1991 called Guerilla Gorilla. Now, I had never even HEARD of this guy until today. I had no idea he existed. And yet they're thinking people will spend $50 on him. No, wait. He's a bigger-than-normal action figure so he sells for $75! Seventy-five American dollars for a character nobody knows even exists.

I'm trying to think of what the Transformers equivalent to this would be. It would be like if TakaraTomy came out with a $500 Masterpiece toy of Dezsaras' wife. It's ABSURD.

I really want to deconstruct this. I'm a huge fan of TMNT and collecting the action figures was a big part of that original experience. So, new adult collectibles that have the same look and feel of those toys is really enjoyable for me. But, Guerilla Gorilla didn't even exist back then. Not as a toy, anyway. It's like they wanted to do Sgt. Bananas but they couldn't get the rights, and then somebody remembered there was another private primate in existence. It's baffling that they think people will spend $75 on this.

So, their Transformers character selection also bears scrutiny. I mean, this toy line doesn't exist in a vacuum. Anybody who buys the Ultimates line is already going to own other legit Hasbro-issue toys that can actually transform into things. If there's anybody in the world whose only Transformers are the Super7 Ultimates, I'd honestly love to meet them. And then cut their skull open and poke around a bit, because I need to know what's going on inside there.

I'll say as an aside that Brian Flynn over at Super7 has said flat out that Hasbro didn't disclose that they were going to release Transformers R.E.D. when they granted Super7 the license to do Transformers, and Hasbro also doesn't tell Super7 which characters they're planning to release. So Super7 has to play this weird guessing game, balancing marketability with not wanting to inadvertantly recreate something at the $50 price point that Hasbro is already selling for twenty bucks.

So, it makes sense to do heavy hitters like Optimus Prime and Megatron, regardless of what else is out there. Starscream, too (but at least they're mixing it up and doing the ghost version of him first, an idea that I love, and I can't wait to put him on a shelf somewhere). But after that, they took another hard turn down Obscuria Blvd. and they're throttling along at top speed.

The alligaticon is great. We've never gotten a toy of it before and I seriously want one. So, if Super7 does nothing else good for the rest of existence, at least they will have given us that.

But I honestly think Action Master Bombshell was another "hey, this toy sells a lot on the secondary market" sort of realization. I mean, it's desirable because it's rare and it was only available in Europe and a lot of American fans probably didn't even know it existed until they got the Internet. Making a facsimile of it doesn't automatically make it equally desirable. (And I thought Tracks was going to be the Action Master version too. It's weird that he's not.)

And Wreck-Gar seems like an attempt to fill the existing hole in the Studio Series collection... but now that the actual Studio Series Wreck-Gar is out, he's totally superfluous. I can't make up my mind whether I even want to own this one or not. Recently I canceled my pre-order (I de-pre-ordered him?), and then the next day I re-pre-ordered him again. I know, I'm awful..

I'm just trying to figure out who they think their target audience is. They seem to be assuming that fans are sufficiently well-versed in the lore, because otherwise there's just no explaining alligaticon and Guerilla Gorilla. So if that's the case, then I feel like they should be producing toys that can be added to an existing collection. Characters we've never really gotten in any form before. Alpha Trion, Beta, Ariel, B.O.T., Botanica... really, there's a bunch of them.

Obviously I don't run a toy company and I'm just slinging ideas around like they were Frisbees. I don't have to worry about making money like Super7 does. At the same time, though, I just don't get what they're doing. I want to love the Ultimates toy line, but they're taking such a weird approach with it that I don't even know what to do with it.

Zob (I mean, I pre-ordered Ninja Turtles wave five, not gonna lie, but...)

Guerilla Gorilla and Sgt Bananas are the same character. Guerilla
Gorilla was the original name and I guess Playmates couldn't clear the
name back in the day. IIRC, there were several other TMNT characters
like this that debuted with one name in the comic and had a different
name when the toy would come out. The only other one I remember is Man
Ray became Ray Fillet.

On Thursday, March 3, 2022 at 10:39:04 PM UTC-7, Travoltron wrote:

> Guerilla Gorilla and Sgt Bananas are the same character.

I guess it's possible that they're iterations of the same idea, but they don't share a character design. They're similar in broad strokes (both wear military gear and helmets) but Guerilla has an open jacket and he doesn't have yellow camouflage, and is missing the little lemur sidekick. Their weapons are also totally different. The Super7 Guerilla Gorilla toy isn't designed to look like the vintage Sgt. Bananas toy. It's sculpted specifically to capture the look of the Guerilla character as he appears in TMNT magazine.

My hope is that they'll do a partial retool and actually produce a Sgt. Bananas toy later. I'm not even attached to the character on any level, but at least I recognize him when I see him. I would accept him as part of my Super7 collection. It's hard to accept this guy.

> IIRC, there were several other TMNT characters like this that debuted with one
name in the comic and had a different name when the toy would come out.
The only other one I remember is Man Ray became Ray Fillet.

I think the problem with Ray Fillet was that Ryan Brown created the character and had some say over how he was used. In the cartoon, they wanted to make him a villain character, but when Ryan Brown wouldn't allow it, they just substituted a different-looking fish creature and called him Ray. I didn't read the Archie Comics so I have no idea why he was called Man Ray in the comics instead of Ray Fillet.

Zob (there's a Super7 version of Ray Fillet coming, too)

The vintage Sgt Bananas toy even still has the "Guerilla" name written
on his uniform, which make me think it was a very late name change.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RtvNFSKjDHY/UJMaFI2btLI/AAAAAAAAPZA/3HKBd_5xinM/s1600/Sergeant+Bananas+2.jpg

As to why they look somewhat different, Playmates often liked to change
stuff for no sensible reason. Usually to make things "wackier", but
sometimes I have no idea what they were thinking. (Like what they did to
Napolean Bonafrog.)

On Saturday, March 5, 2022 at 5:35:42 PM UTC-7, Travoltron wrote:

> The vintage Sgt Bananas toy even still has the "Guerilla" name written
> on his uniform, which make me think it was a very late name change.

That's certainly one possibility. I definitely don't know about the history of Sgt. Bananas enough to say for sure. They even marketed him as the "Guerilla Gorilla Good Guy!" on his packaging, so maybe it was a joke that somebody liked so much that they still wanted to include it, despite not passing trademark or whatever the reason was. (Maybe it was too similar to the character from the Great Space Coaster.)

> As to why they look somewhat different, Playmates often liked to change
> stuff for no sensible reason. Usually to make things "wackier", but
> sometimes I have no idea what they were thinking. (Like what they did to
> Napolean Bonafrog.)

Napoleon was probably a deliberate attempt to make him look distinct and different from Genghis Frog, so kids wouldn't feel like they were just buying the same toy over again. And then of course nobody wanted Napoleon because he was so ugly, which might have been the reason we never got the other two frogs.

I also think that "Napoleon Bonafrog: Colossus of the Swamps" (in which Napoleon turns into an Incredible Hulk like monster) was an attempt to sell the uglied-up Napoleon toy, even though the hulked out Napoleon still didn't look anything like his action figure.

Back to Sgt. Bananas, though, it bothers me so much that Super7 would pay tribute to THAT version of the character instead of the vintage Sgt. Bananas action figure, which is what a lot more people would be familiar with. Neither of the monkeys is particularly important, of course, but this is a pretty big divergence for the TMNT Ultimate series, which up until now has been "bigger, better versions of Playmates sculpts."

So do I support the line and spend $75 on this character I've never heard of? Or do I start cherry-picking (and probably not bother with Metalhead Michaelangelo, because that's a pretty obvious cash grab) and risk support for the line plummeting and possibly the line as a whole getting canceled? I mean, my purchasing habits aren't going to make or break the series, but if enough people are as dissatisfied as I am...

Zob (has never needed a good reason to spend money on toys, tbh)

On Saturday, March 5, 2022 at 8:45:56 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
> On Saturday, March 5, 2022 at 5:35:42 PM UTC-7, Travoltron wrote:
>
> > The vintage Sgt Bananas toy even still has the "Guerilla" name written
> > on his uniform, which make me think it was a very late name change.

> That's certainly one possibility. I definitely don't know about the history of Sgt. Bananas enough to say for sure. They even marketed him as the "Guerilla Gorilla Good Guy!" on his packaging, so maybe it was a joke that somebody liked so much that they still wanted to include it, despite not passing trademark or whatever the reason was. (Maybe it was too similar to the character from the Great Space Coaster.)

Maybe naming a figure "Guerilla Gorilla" would have gotten Playmates into trouble given the socio-political climate of the late 80s. The Nicaraguan Contra war was constantly in the news and I remember being a kid hearing reporters describing the Contras as guerilla fighters and wondering if that meant exactly how it sounded. That war got really ugly near the end, which coincided with the original Sgt. Bananas' release. With the Contras' human rights violations and terrorist tactics on eneryone's minds maybe Playmates thought it would seem like the company was suggesting the Turtles were aligned with guerrilla fighters and thus pro-Contra terrorists. (Which was the side the U.S. was on anyway in that proxy war so maybe it didn't matter.) But like you say the GG name's all over the vintage Sgt. Bananas' packaging so maybe as long as they weren't overtly naming it that they figured everything was okay. Then again, if the Guerilla Gorilla joke name was as offensive as I think it was back then it would be like Hasbro today nicknaming Airachnid the "Al-Qaeda Spider". People would probably riot. So maybe the Contra war wasn't the reason.

I did read the following comment on https://toynewsi.com/news.php?itemid=42039 :

>PlasticMemories said:
>Pixel Dan stated on Twitter that Super7 encountered some type of roadblock in trying to create Sgt. Bananas, hence why we're getting Guerilla Gorilla instead. He plans to ask them about it in an interview, but he's unsure if they'll be able to delve into it any further.

So it looks like the intention was for this Super7 Ultimates figure to indeed be Sgt. Bananas. I guess in some Pixel Dan interview somewhere this is going to be clarified.

Damn all of you for dragging me into this bizarre turtle toy drama I knew nothing about 10 minutes ago.

On Sunday, March 6, 2022 at 5:18:20 PM UTC-7, evil.king.m...@gmail.com wrote:

> Maybe naming a figure "Guerilla Gorilla" would have gotten Playmates into trouble given the socio-political climate of the late 80s.
Possible. Like, obviously as a Transformers fan I'm totally familiar with the need to change up names and trademarks sometimes. But, when they change, say, Trailbreaker to Trailcutter or change Jazz to Meister, they don't lowkey redesign the character. It's using the totally different look that irks me. I would be fine with a solid Sgt. Bananas tribute even if they slapped a different name on the box. I don't care about the box. I throw away the box!

> Damn all of you for dragging me into this bizarre turtle toy drama I knew nothing about 10 minutes ago.

That's what we're here for!

Zob (throwing away boxes has become remarkably cathartic for me)

On 3/6/2022 4:18 PM, Evil King Macrocranios wrote:
> The Nicaraguan Contra war was constantly in the news

It is possible. The NES game Super Contra had to be retitled Super C
when released in the USA.

I sort of made a rule for myself that I only will collect TMNT if
they're made by Playmates in the original scale, and only if it's a
character I actually want. I was a completionist as a kid and I bought
so many of those dumb "dress-up" Turtles that I didn't even like that much.

On Tuesday, March 8, 2022 at 3:28:23 PM UTC-7, Travoltron wrote:

> I sort of made a rule for myself that I only will collect TMNT if
> they're made by Playmates in the original scale, and only if it's a
> character I actually want. I was a completionist as a kid and I bought
> so many of those dumb "dress-up" Turtles that I didn't even like that much.

I ignored most of them, but I did have a few. I got Don the Undercover Turtle, of course, because the trench coat disguises were in the cartoon. I also ended up with Leo the Sewer Samurai (a gift from my girlfriend) and Hotdoggin' Mike (I'm not sure what appealed to me about him specifically) and for some daft reason I did buy most of the Cyber Turtles.

What really bugs me is how Super7 is paying homage to the dumb disguise versions. I mean, yes, Samurai Leo is awesome. But does the world really need an expensive collector version of Sewer Surfin' Mike or Punker Don?

Zob (and the correct answer, by the way, is "no")

Trenchcoat Don was good and Samurai Leo was also great. (He had Miyamoto
Usagi's clan crest on his back, which was a nice touch.)
I also liked Astronaut Raph as the Turtles went into space in the Mirage
comics.

I regret passing on when they did ALL the Turtles in trenchcoats, and
also regret not getting those Supermutants and Metal Mutants toys that
appeared in the anime.

I also never got Scratch the cat, but apparently almost nobody did.
There's a guy Super 7 should do. Also would have liked those Diaclone
Turtles toys, but I don't even remember seeing those on the shelves.

I don't think most kids liked those wacky dress-up Turtles. I kind of
feel like the glut of those things are what killed the toyline.

On Tuesday, March 8, 2022 at 5:36:00 PM UTC-6, Travoltron wrote:
> Trenchcoat Don was good and Samurai Leo was also great. (He had Miyamoto
> Usagi's clan crest on his back, which was a nice touch.)
> I also liked Astronaut Raph as the Turtles went into space in the Mirage
> comics.
>

Samurai Leo shows up everywhere now, and kids weren't nice to him over the years. I had him, Surfin Mike, military Raph, Space suit Raph, all of the rock n roll turtles, all of the head-duckin turtles, all of the shell storage turtles, all of the really terrible talking turtles, Sergeant Leo, rappin Mike, basketball Donnie, Shell kickin Raph, Grand Slammin Raph, Hockey Leo, and it started to get silly even to me at 7 years old.

> I regret passing on when they did ALL the Turtles in trenchcoats, and
> also regret not getting those Supermutants and Metal Mutants toys that
> appeared in the anime.
>

I went through the same dilemma, the other turtles did appear in trench coats in the cartoon, but I already had Donnie, and ended up not getting them

> I also never got Scratch the cat, but apparently almost nobody did.
> There's a guy Super 7 should do. Also would have liked those Diaclone
> Turtles toys, but I don't even remember seeing those on the shelves.
>
> I don't think most kids liked those wacky dress-up Turtles. I kind of
> feel like the glut of those things are what killed the toyline.

I got out right as they came out with the road-ready turtles, and the Shredder that turned into the Foot drill. I often wonder if I had stuck around for the Universal Monsters turtles, people actually want those. Or the Village people turtles, or all the weird Star Trek turtles,

Super 7 might be crazy, if anything they should do regular, then the crossover Star Trek turtles. Nobody wants Surfin Mike, he's a $5 toy on the secondary market, maybe $15 on card.

I sometimes wish I had kept the blimp, but then I remember how crappy it really was, an I used the money to focus on TFs.

On Tuesday, March 8, 2022 at 4:36:00 PM UTC-7, Travoltron wrote:
> I regret passing on when they did ALL the Turtles in trenchcoats, and
> also regret not getting those Supermutants and Metal Mutants toys that
> appeared in the anime.

I got the soft goods trench coat versions of Raphael and Donatello at retail. I had always intended to get all of them, but I never saw the other two at the store. Some years ago, I ended up getting a loose Leonardo for like $30 (which seemed like a lot of money at the time) and I have Michaelangelo but he's missing the trench coat. For years I've been wanting to get some material and make one, but I don't have the sewing skills to create a good-looking facsimile.

I've even thought about getting trench coats from *other* action figures (there's a Fantastic Four version of the Thing that comes with one, for example) just so I could have a matching set. Now of course there are the disguised Turtles that NECA did. I need to check to see if their trench coats will fit on a Playmates figure.
> I also never got Scratch the cat, but apparently almost nobody did.
> There's a guy Super 7 should do.

He's totally in wave six! He's on the way. Probably the only way I'll ever own the character. (I remember seeing Hothead and Halfcourt at retail, but never Scratch.)

> Also would have liked those Diaclone Turtles toys, but I don't even remember seeing those
> on the shelves.

https://robotoybase.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=5562

> I don't think most kids liked those wacky dress-up Turtles. I kind of
> feel like the glut of those things are what killed the toyline.

I think there were two conflicting ideas at play. The first is that kids were mainly interested in the four turtle characters. Playmates wanted to keep them in circulation. (I remember going to a Kay-Bee Toys one time in 1988 and they had an entire endcap of nothing but April O'Neil. Every other character was sold out.) At the same time, though, parents wouldn't want to keep buying the same toys over and over, or even toys that *looked* like the same toys, so I think that was the reason for the parade of goofy costumes.

I would buy versions of the Turtles if they were naked. I had the Storage Shell Turtles, the Mutatin' Turtles, some of the Talkin' Turtles, etc. But, they weren't dressed up like clowns and farmers. They looked like the characters were supposed to look.

What they should have done, honestly, was created a stronger synergy between the action figures and the disguises the Turtles actually wore in the cartoon. The characters actually did wear a bunch of different outfits on the show (business suits, sanitation engineers, sailor suits, camping outfits, etc.) but almost none of them made it into the show. Midshipman Mike was pretty close to the sailor outfit from "Green With Jealousy," and Raph the Magnificent or whatever he was called was similar to Michaelangelo's magician outfit from "The Great Boldini."

The Turtles even wore punk rocker outfits in the pilot episode that seemed to be specifically orchestrated to sell action figures (think of how much product placement there was in those five episodes alone—the Turtle Van, the Turtle Blimp, the Technodrome and unproduced Techno Rover, etc.) but that never came to pass. We think of Transformers as suffering a lot from miscommunication (Rumble/Frenzy, Sideswipe/Sunstreaker, etc.) but the Turtles cartoon was like ten times worse.

Zob (how many times did Donatello invent the Retro Catapult? Like three?)

On 3/8/2022 6:50 PM, Zobovor wrote:
> He's totally in wave six! He's on the way. Probably the only way I'll ever own the character. (I remember seeing Hothead and Halfcourt at retail, but never Scratch.)

These are not in scale with the old toys, are they? If they were I would
totally buy.

On Wednesday, March 9, 2022 at 2:35:15 PM UTC-7, Travoltron wrote:

> These are not in scale with the old toys, are they? If they were I would
> totally buy.

No, they're a fair amount larger. Like, some of them (Rocksteady, Bebop, Muckman, Mutagen Man) are massive.

A while back, I saw that somebody was selling bootleg 3D-printed Scratch toys. Here we go:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/224382577125

Not a bad alternative if you want the character in your collection, but don't mind if it's not 100% authentic.

Zob (the rarity of the vintage Scratch is the only reason Super7 is doing him, I'm sure)

On 3/9/2022 2:43 PM, Zobovor wrote:
> A while back, I saw that somebody was selling bootleg 3D-printed Scratch toys. Here we go:
>
> https://www.ebay.com/itm/224382577125
>
> Not a bad alternative if you want the character in your collection, but don't mind if it's not 100% authentic.

It's depressing when even the KOs are out of my price range.

Somebody was asking for $600 for a KO Dinoking giftset on Facebook.
I actually have two of the Dino Force toys and I'm sad that I'll never
have the whole set.

On Wednesday, March 9, 2022 at 2:43:51 PM UTC-8, Zobovor wrote:
> A while back, I saw that somebody was selling bootleg 3D-printed Scratch toys. Here we go:
>
> https://www.ebay.com/itm/224382577125

Put me on the list of people who are impressed that this guy sold 65 units at 90 dollars a pop. Looks like they had the market cornered. And the craftsmanship is amazing. No telltale stairstepping effect visible on the surfaces as is usually the case with 3d printing. It looks just like a mass produced Playmates figure. The new Super7 one blows it away at a little over half the price so I guess the party's over.

What a fun looking figure, though. Really bad boy naughty in a silly way. I don't know if any Transformer design could ever pack this much character into their visual design. Or maybe I have lost my imagination. But looking at Scratch I can infer a lot about his story and I can't really do that with a robot that turns into a red onebox van. I guess that was the magic of Budiansky. He could look at any robot and tell us as much about it as we can surmise about TMNT figures from their appearances.