1980's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Pt 1.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started as a comic book in 1984. During the success of the comic series, Kevin Eastman & Peter Laird were contacted by Mark Freedman. Freedman, who was a licensing agent, wanted to make a toy line based on the comic. Due to the dark nature of the comic, all but one company passed on the idea of turtle toys. The company that decided to take a risk was Playmates Toys. They decided that to make the toys successful, a children's cartoon should be made to generate interest. On December 14th 1987, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon aired. The first season had five episodes and ran for five straight days. Before the second season aired the show was already a success and all the merchandise was ready to be released. This post will be a quick review of the first ten action figures released in 1988.

Original 10

The figures boasted 7 points of articulation and came with multiple weapons. The turtles had different color headbands and belts with their first initial on them. The different color bands and the belts made it easy for kids to tell the difference between the four turtles.

 Leonardo

Donatello

Donatello was the inventor of the group. This would help with the cartoon and toy series due to the fact that Donatello could create new gadgets and weapons and therefore Playmates could create more toys.

Michaelangelo

Raphael

Even though the toys are based off of the cartoon, the design of the turtle figures looked to be more influenced from the comic series than the cartoon. No pupils and bulging muscles with large veins. As you can see, the packaging artwork is also closer to the comic than the cartoon.

Splinter

April O'Neil

In the cartoon April is a news reporter for channel 6 news. Also, The first wave of toys had April with three different outfit colors. An all yellow jumpsuit, yellow with blue stripes and yellow with orange as seen above.

Shredder

The Shredder figure comes in a pose that resembles artwork from the 1984 comic.

Foot Soldier

Unlike the comic, the Foot Soldiers were robots in the cartoon.

Bebop and Rocksteady

 

Bebop and Rocksteady were created for the cartoon and were The Shredder's henchmen. They were common thugs who were cross mutated with a wild boar and a rhinoceros.

The sculpting for this line was highly detailed for it's time and the packaging also stood out. The artwork on the front of the card combined with character bios on the back gave kids a reason to hold on to the packaging. There were also pizza points on the back of the card that could be cut out and redeemed for other merchandise. The first 10 figures were a huge success and would spark one of the biggest merchandising runs in toy history. The toy line would last 10 years and develop a legacy within the toy collecting world.
Part 2 of this post will focus on the next 10 action figures to be released in the series.

-Jay