WELL HERE WE FUCKIN’ GO: I Guess I’m A Turtles Guy Now?

 OK, fine, Neca.

Been talking / loosely alluding to this for a few posts now, but I did finally get my set of Turtles. It was kind of a pain in the ass.

First, I had to wait for NECA to release a set. Luckily, this year’s Haulathon included a set of individually-sold “Pizza Club” cartoon Turtles. I wasn’t sure I wanted cartoon Turtles, but we’ll get to that.

Haulathon is an event where, ostensibly, for five consecutive Fridays, a handful of Target-exclusive NECA toys show up on the Haulathon website, Target’s website, and Target’s special Haulathon endcap.

Not ostensibly, it’s an event where a bunch of NECA figures sell out on the NECA site immediately, may or may not show up on Target’s website, may or may not be out of stock on Target’s website, may show up on a marked Haulathon endcap, an unmarked endcap, in the Fancy Toys section near the DVD’s, somewhere else randomly, not at all, or some combination of the above. And may or may not show up in or around the week they’re supposed to. 

This is complicated further by the fact that there are four Turtles, and if you don’t get all four, there’s no point in keeping any of them. So I found Raphael by himself in one Target about half a week after they dropped on NECA’s website. Got notified one morning that Michaelangelo and Leonardo were on Target’s app one morning nad snagged those. Started hunting Donatello. Found everyone except Donatello at a (by this point) third Target, found Donatello (and in fact all four in large quantities) at my normal Target two weeks after the website drop, then had to wait another week for Target to ship Mikey and Leo. But three weeks start to finish, I had the set.

(Remember what I’ve said about Haulathon - it’ll come in handy in a couple of days).

Anyway, they are VERY nice. What I like best about them, compared to previous releases of cartoon Turtles I’ve seen in comparison version, is the dark green and heavy lines lets you set them up as “serious” Turtles as in the above photos. But the accessories and alternate facial expressions also let you do goofy:

Tables and table-loth came from me, everything else and then some came with the Turtles. 

Articulation is good-not-great, with single elbows and knees. Not a huge surprise given their stature and muculature, but usable poses are limited. Accessories game is absolutely fantastic, with lots of sculpted, painted accessories that tie into a variety of obscure cartoon moments. I did have to do some heating on some joints like with Casey Jones, but given NECA’s past reputation for shit breaking and falling off, I’m happy to work with their tighter tolerances.

Oh, and here’s a pic of them with the deep-clearance Turtle Tots (from the Mutant Mayhem toys) we also picked up on a whim:

Anyway, here we go. This is in for the penny. In for the pound is coming soon.