Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Classic Michelangelo Review

After buying Leo, I was tempted to round out the crew, but didn’t want to pay the $20 apiece my LCS was charging. I stayed strong. It paid off! My wonderful wife saw fit to bestow the Turtles on me for my birthday! She did well too, they were $15 each!

This is going to be a quick review; the second page will be a 25 picture gallery. The primary reason is because the four TMNT Classic turtles are all essentially the same figure. So, in case you missed it, or if you want to be refreshed on the particulars including basic articulation and scale, head back to the Leonardo review. This time around, I’m just going to cover a few things unique to Mikey and then let the Page 2 Gallery do most of the talking.

The first unique thing about Mikey is that he’s appropriately a deeper green than his turtle brothers. I’ve always liked that the guys weren’t all the same shade and I’m glad that, even though the figures have a heavy cartoon influence, the new figures kept their unique shades. I think it works best with Mikey because his dark green plays really well with the orange. Leo is my favorite, but Mikey really catches my eye when they’re all together.

While the basic construction is identical across all four figures, Mikey features a few non-standard pieces. There’s the back shell which is only different because it doesn’t feature the hole in the back for the bandolier strap like Leo’s, so he shares this shell with Raph like Leo shares his with Don.

Unique to Mikey are his head, bandana, and two belt pieces. The belt pieces feature his “M” on the front and four slots to store his nunchuks on his back. Mikey’s bandana is my favorite and you might think that odd, but it’s because he can be posed to look like he’s tying it. That was pretty damn cool.

While Leo’s head sculpt had a grimace that matched his original, that’s not the case here. Mikey is the one classic collection turtle that’s not showing off his pearly whites. The original had his mouth open on the right, but this Mikey is sealed up tight. It’s a fine sculpt and it’s a stern look that blends in with the others, but since he looks cartoon-inspired, the stern kinda misses the mark for him. I don’t know if I’d want him “being silly” on the shelf, but it might’ve been interesting.

Mikey includes the sewer stand and a pair of nunchuks. The nunchuks are a ton of fun because they feature a metal chain. That means they look cooler and I don’t have to worry about them breaking. Two pluses. In some of the pics on the gallery, you’ll see the nunchuks appearing to defy physics and gravity. This is actually something you can do at home. Simply snag a twist tie and strip it down the metal wire (or just go out and get some metal wire, if you’re not trying to take some impromptu pics for a review late at night) and then weave the wire through the chains with enough leftover to curve it around the handles at each end. Instant poseable nunchuks!

Anyway, these have skyrocketed to some of my favorite toys of late. I got some cool birthday swag, some much more expensive than these guys, but they’ve been a blast. All four have been taking up valuable space on my desk, just constantly getting into trouble with one another. They look awesome, pose great, and still possess that strange cool toy quality that TMNT exemplifies. The only things I don’t like are the pupils (which I’ll slowly white out after each review) and the fact that there are no TMNT villains!! Superposeable heroes need superposeable villains or they start turning on each other…

Continue to the Page 2 Gallery!

43 thoughts on “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Classic Michelangelo Review

  1. Bloody great pics on this one, Noisy!

    If I were going to collect any TMNT sub-line, it would be this one. But the point is moot, because 1) us damn foreigners aren’t allowed to have them, 2) I can’t spare the money or storage space even if I were allowed to order them — which I’m not*, 3) I can’t be bothered to invest in yet another new line anyway, and 4) I still don’t like that ludicrous mid-torso joint.

    * Still bitter as Hell about that one.

    1. Yeah, I don’t understand the international issue? Have they given any reason on that?

      I know there’s been some issue over the mid-torso, but it comes in really handy when posing. I agree Playmates could’ve made the front shell one piece and let the mid-torso be completely internal, but I think the posing wipes out any visual issue for me.

      1. We can buy these at retail in Canada, but we can’t import them. I don’t get it.
        The price is the same as the US this time, though. $10 for the little ones; $20 for the larger.

        1. That sounds like an excellent question to ask their consumer care hotline, Rich. Do they still put those on toy pacakges?

      2. I heard somewhere along the line that the reason cited for the Thundercats line being USA-only was that they had to iron out international copyright or somesuch.

        Nope. Still doesn’t make any sense to me.

        If Hasbro or Mattel ever try that crap, I’ll set their buildings on fire. (Strokes red Swingline stapler like a pet)

  2. Oh man, beautiful story through your pics. When Donnie asked Mike what was wrong with Leo, I could hear the original voice actor in my head saying it.

  3. so much for “you can only find them in specialty shops for a 33% markup” eh? man, i love it when sil proves me right! 😉

    either way, he looks like fun. i don’t know if he “looks color” as you say in the nunchuk paragraph, but he looks… fine? i think that’s the word i like… and yes, posing him like he’s tying on the rag, that’s money right there baby.

    and absolutely, we need villains in the tmntc line STAT!

    1. I need a cartoon accurate Rocksteady, Bebop and Shredder…and I will be happy forever.

      1. That’ll do for a start – but I’d need a post-transformation Baxter Stockman to feel truly complete!

        1. Leatherhead, Krang, Baxter Stockman, and Slash. Possibly Mondo Gecko. [Drawl]: And that’s all I have to say about that.

            1. i just wanna know one thing… how did we get this far into the mentioning of must-have ‘toon characters, and no one has said casey freakin’ jones?!?!

              and personally, i know it’s just me… i want general traag and triceraton. bad.

              though that said, i actually don’t want a new muckman… that figure was perfect the first time. absolutely no way can they top it, and they’ll only piss me off if they try.

                1. Triceraton was indeed orange, with a belt that never fit and a tail that kept popping off. I believe the guy whose chest was full of liquid was Mutagen Man. I had one as a youth. Damn nifty, but they should’ve painted his organs a bit.

                  1. correct on both counts beedo! good on you. though i will say, i didn’t have any problems w/ mine’s tail, my brother eventually removed his tail and replaced it w/ the body of a headless gi joe, who’s neck post, as it turns out, it precisely the same diameter as the tail post for triceraton… so tric permanently appeared to have a man’s head up his ass. it was kind of glorious. the belt was a problem though on ours too, but tric’s big sell feature for us was the absolutely stupidly huge hand cannons he came w/. he was a dinosaur w/ giant ass guns, that’s cooler than tits on the pope.

                    traag was the rocky dude (who inexplicably has a gunshot wound bleeding red blood, but whatev) he remains one of the few turtle’s characters i still have, and he was just a huge load of fun. he’s had some epic knockdown, dragouts w/ secret wars magneto.

                    1. Traag bleeds lava. He’s that tough.

                      And now, thanks to DR, I will forever imagine Triceraton sounding like Jack Palance while talking to the other action figures. “I crap bigger’n you . . . here’s proof!” I think I sold mine back to the kid I bought it off in the first place, along with most of the other original TMNT figures I had. Except for Leatherhead, Slash, and Mondo Gecko. Still got those.

                      Speaking of sweet accessories: If you ever find yourselves down in Florida, and in a tacky souvenir shop, get yourself one of those “Authentic Florida Mosquito Traps.” A tiny, working metal bear-trap exactly in scale with Leatherhead. All it needs is a tiny metal chain to attach to it. Outstanding.

    2. LOL She got them for $15 because that same LCS (still the only place to get them here) mismarked the second case of figures $5 cheaper and she was right on top of it. 😉

      They’re still apples to MOTU’s oranges. 😀

  4. Goddammit, this really is the best toy-review site on the net… for the hilarious gallery sequences if nothing else.

    All these TMNT snaps of late have got me in quite a quandry as I definitely want to get all four of the guys for some desk porn, but even after all these reviews I am no closer to deciding whether I want the classics or the sweet looking Nick’ versions with the three toes and comic styling.

    Help!

        1. Cheers Sponge… that’s the way I was leaning.

          I guess it is a compliment to the purity and clean style of the original Eastman and Laird designs that the new ones still evoke all that is awesome about TMNT.

  5. Walked in to TRU today and found all 4 of the turtles but I passed on them. I love em, but I don’t have the money to spend on something like that. Plus they were a little bigger than I thought they would be. I wish they had this style in a smaller figure too.

    Oh, and for those of you who enjoy packaging errors, Donny had the Mikey insert in his package. Everything else, including the stand, was correct but it said Michaelangelo for the name haha.

    1. The size is the first thing you makes you go woah! But I love my Hellboy Comic series toys and those clock in at 8″, so I’m not put off by it. I spent $65 plus tax on my quartet and while I do want a handful of other characters, I think these four will be the lionshare of my investment in this line.

  6. His mouth is closed because it’s always full of pizza. You’d think Mikey would be a sloppy eater, but the one thing Splinter managed to impress upon him was to always chew with his mouth closed.

    Glad you’re enjoying these. It’s tough reading some of the reviews and posts around the web from people who are less than enthused about the line. Despite the size, pupils and finger articulation posing problems for many, I don’t understand why the reaction to these isn’t as overwhelmingly positive as it is for the Nick Turtles. I guess it’s another instance where my love of superposeability is at odds with the majority. That and Toon Turtle nostalgia isn’t as common as I thought. Those two factors and the ML-level quality trump all else for me.

    1. I think the finger articulation isn’t really a problem. I put the weapons in the crux of the fingers and roll them into the palm. I haven’t had any problem with them. If you try to put them in the palm and close the fingers though, it just doesn’t quite work.

      The size did throw me off at first, they’re 6″ tall, but really like 7″ scale or so, but I like them big and chunky.

      The pupils… well, I am painting over those. 😉

      The Nick turtles are pretty cool too, I think that line (at least the turtles) might better capture the essence of the original toys. Whereas the Classic are the modern update of the original toys. Style vs. Substance deal. It also harkens back to the difference between toy collectors and license collectors too, I think.

    1. I think it makes them look angrier and I kinda don’t like it, but I like it better than the googly eyes. I figure I can always go back with a sharpie if I change my mind. 🙂

    1. I’ve seen them at TRU, and others have reported finding them at their local comic shops.

  7. I just brought all 4 of them from TRU. Man these figures are massive. I’m trying to find my old TMNT toys I had from 1988–there probably in the trash. Glad to have these new classics upgrades.

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