[YouTube] Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Toys (1988) & Other Products

https://youtu.be/5bnRGZNHZjA

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) were created in 1984 by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird as a black and white comic book. They named the turtles after Renaissance painters: Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, and Michelangelo. Drawing inspiration from Marvel's Daredevil, the original comic books were on the violent side but it was turned into a kid's property and went mainstream in 1988 as a cartoon (launched at the very end of 1987), comic book (Archie Comics), and toy line, plus a live action movie in 1990. Of course, 30 years later TMNT are still going strong with more live action movies, video games, toys and a Nickelodeon cartoon.

Playmates, which I wrote about when I posted video game ads here, made the action figures and accessories which have nice detail but many of the early figures are tough to balance with a lack of knee joints. I only own a handful of the figures and two small accessories so there aren't too many shown in the video or this post. Aside from the toys, I also show the fan club items, some food tie-ins, sticker albums, and VHS tapes with a clip from the concert tour video. Below are photos and scans for everything seen in the video as well as a few other items from the late '80s/early '90s. Michelangelo's nunchuks are broken but I used Photoshop to make them look complete.

Action Figures

Action Figure Packaging

Cheapskate Toy

Turtle Trooper Toy

Turtle Force Fan Club

Chaos Chronicles Vol. 1, April 1989

Chaos Chronicles Vol. 2, Fall/Winter 1989

Chaos Chronicles Vol. 3, September 1990

Cereal

Cookies

Pudding Pie, Ellio's Pizza, and Mask

1990 Christmas Catalog

Everything Else

Gaming Ads: STD Entertainment/Interact Accessories

STD Entertainment was based in Hunt Valley, Maryland and, possibly due to its unfortunate acronym, eventually changed its name to InterAct. I'm not sure what STD was short for but it appears to have been founded in 1991, made the name change in 1994, merged with Recoton in 1995, and went out of business in 2001. One ad also features the Performance name which must have been a brand of InterAct or its parent company Recoton. Quality Joysticks and Joyplus are other STD brands too. The company made a variety of controllers though it might be best known for its products that manipulated games or save files.

As STD the company released the Game Action Replay and as InterAct it made the GameShark. It refers to the products as video game enhancers which basically means you can us them to manipulate a game. Depending on the game and the device, users can make a character invincible, give them unlimited ammunition, jump to a specific level, or something else along those lines. Another one of its accessories is the DexDrive that can transfer N64 and PlayStation game saves to a computer to back them up or send them to a friend.

STD Entertainment/Interact Accessories albums: Facebook - Google Photos

Gaming Ads: Square Soft

Masafumi Miyamoto began developing games in 1983 with his company acting as a software division of his father's construction company before officially founding Square in 1986. It's first computer game was The Death Trap, a text-based adventure with graphics from Hironobu Sakaguchi. The company took off in 1987 with the release of Sakaguchi's Final Fantasy, the role-playing game that would spawn numerous sequels and spin-offs, and is still hugely popular today. All of Square's games were available on either home computers or Nintendo platforms only until the PlayStation released; Square never published games on Sega consoles.

In 1989 a North American office was opened that was called Square Soft (sometimes spelled as one word). The naming here is a bit confusing because Square also branded some game boxes with Squaresoft in Japan. Another publishing division opened in 1998 called Square Electronic Arts that, as the name suggests, was a collaboration between Square and Electronic Arts. As I previously posted for Enix America, Square and Dragon Quest developer Enix merged in 2003 to form Square Enix. Along with both Enix and Square's catalog of games, Square Enix also holds a number of former Eidos and Taito properties, such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and Space Invaders.

Square Soft albums: Facebook - Google Photos

Gaming Ads: Spinnaker Software and Sports Sciences

Spinnaker Software was founded in 1982 and based in Cambridge, MA. Initially it focused on educational software for computers, then adventure games in the mid '80s, and other games in the late '80s. Through a merger in 1994 it helped form SoftKey International which would go on to acquire The Learning Company and take its name. Of the five ads I've got for Spinnaker, it looks like one game was never released and The Lord of the Rings game appears to have been published by Konami instead.

Sports Sciences was based in Ohio and made one video game product as far as I can tell. That product was BatterUp, a baseball bat-shaped motion controller that released in 1994 for the Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and computers. While an interesting idea, the controller was, of course, only compatible with baseball games so it was a bit limited despite there being quite a few baseball games available in the '90s. The $69.99 price was rather high too.

Spinnaker Software albums: Facebook - Google Photos

Sports Sciences albums: Facebook - Google Photos

Year 3: June Update

I almost let June go by without a monthly update! Obviously not a big deal but I've been busy and haven't been getting as much done as I'd like which seems to be the case most months. June was rather quiet with E3 being the highlight. My E3 predictions were posted at the end of May and then I updated it a few times as the show was in progress. As I stated in the updates, it wasn't a show of big announcements which was expected. Microsoft did reveal that its next Xbox hits retail holiday 2020 but didn't provide many details. Something I didn't mention since I was focused on the big games and my predictions is that Konami is going to release a TurboGrafx-16 mini (aka PC Engine mini and PC Engine Core Grafx mini). This is surprising because the console was never very popular though I believe it did fare better outside of North America. While the system was originally from NEC, Konami now owns the rights to the console due to its acquisition of Hudson Soft. No price or release date were given.

I've not been playing too many games. I did post a Let's Play video of the LEGO Speed Champions add-on that released a couple weeks ago for Forza Horizon 4. Since posting that I realized there is a barn find (it's an achievement) but from what I've read the vehicle in it is not yet available, and there are only three LEGO cars in the game currently. While the add-on is cute and I've enjoyed it, more cars and LEGO buildings in the world would make it much better. You can drive the regular cars there too, it's not LEGO-only. Yesterday I started Judgment which is a M-rated game from the studio that makes the Yakuza titles. One of my Let's Play videos that got a ridiculous (for me) amount of views is Paw Patrol from Outright Games. If anyone is interested in more licensed kid games that publisher did recently unveil upcoming games based on Jumanji (second movie) and Ice Age.

I currently have a free month of Netflix which is one of the reasons I've been busy. Every year Netflix offers me a free month to try and get me to subscribe but I always cancel at the end of the free month. During last year's free month I recommended the Netflix exclusive The Toys That Made Us. There aren't any new seasons but it's worth mentioning again because it is great. However, as I stated last time the Barbie and Masters of the Universe episodes are not kid-friendly due to some images in the background of interviews and the language used by former and current Mattel employees. There are two seasons available with four episodes per season that also cover Star Wars, G.I. Joe, Star Trek, Transformers, LEGO, and Hello Kitty. Season three is in production and it is expected to include Power Rangers, wrestling toys, My Little Pony, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

That's about all I've got this month though I will say summer has definitely arrived as Southeast Michigan is quite warm this week. I'll try to get a Let's Play classic game video done next weekend. 

Thanks for reading,

Jonathan

Gaming Ads: Spectrum Holobyte

Founded in 1982, Spectrum Holobyte was originally based in Colorado before merging with Nexa and moving to California in 1987. Spectrum Holobyte only developed and published computer games until the early '90s at which time it began releasing console titles. It acquired MicroProse in 1993 and a few years later was only releasing its products under the MicroProse brand. After Hasbro Interactive purchased the company in 1998 the Spectrum Holobyte name disappeared, and then MicroProse ended in 2001 after Infogrames got involved.

Spectrum Holobyte is best known for publishing the first versions of Tetris in North America. Other well known games from the company include the jet fighter simulation series Falcon, some Tetris spin-offs, and a couple Star Trek: The Next Generation titles.

Spectrum Holobyte albums: Facebook - Google Photos