A is for Animated Animals in Amniotic Afterbirth!

I may be over-egging it slightly, but it's still a rather odd thing for anyone to think might make a toy, even a toy for older kids, as one presumes these were aimed at? They literally come in a rubber amniotic sack!

 

Made of stretchy-rubber, probably a silicon, and various colours, designed to produce a sort of limited-colour rainbow effect, with the 'smoked' bicolour eggs, which are a hard propylene, or flexible hybrid-styrene, the amniotic sack IS what constitutes the afterbirth, isn't it, I'm not making this shit up?

 

These were a charity-shop purchase back in 2018, who have been sitting in Picasa while I tried to find an angle on them, but I'm not sure if I have, really? Anyway, we're going to run through them quickly as a box-ticker!

 

There are two parallel lines, one more Dinosaur recognisable, the other more Monster'ish, and both had five models in the first tranche, although I don't know if there was a second wave, and they were issued by Canadian Mega Brands (of Mega Bloks), and may have been designed to enhance that companies little Lego-like 'minis', which at the time (2006) included fantasy stuff, and - if memory serves - rather overblown Vikings.

 

Plasma Dinosaurs

 

The two Dino'types, a steggi' and a tricerah', they are well-made and decorated for what they are - pocket-money'ish, plug-together fantasy toys. Made of a dense but softish PVC substitute, and dry-brush weathered over a two-colour, basic scheme.

 

They plug together from seven parts, remarkably like the Blue Box Gormiti we saw here;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2014/03/n-is-for-new-finds-pt4-sci-fi-and.html

 

And may well be manufactured in one of the Tai Sang plants, for Mega, who knows, they are certainly the same material, as well as having the same plug-in construction?

 

An eighth part takes the two dinosaurs off to the realms of pure fantasy, being sets of wings which plug-onto the back, at the shoulder joint area. But to get the wings you have to have the full-on dragon-monsters too!

 

Plasma Dragons

 

Construction of the two monsters is similar, and if you studied the scanned ephemera on the way down the post, you'll see the idea is to collect all ten, and then twin them; one each, dino'monster, with it's dedicated full-fantasy monster, to create even larger monsters, through mix-and-match of the various parts!

They all came with a collecting card too, and I'm sure if I dug deeper, I'd find there's more to them, I have a tin of Orks (Tolkien not Kremlin) somewhere (their own tin, illustrated like the paperwork here), from Mega Bloks, which are far more adult-oriented toy figures, than even the current Lego stuff, yet they are similar age (20-odd years old, or thereabouts), and there may have been gaming elements or rules, to, or between the two lines, in an attempt to muscle-in on the Nottingham Mafia's action, but I don't know?

R is for Rack-Toy Round-up - New York

Brian B has sent us a sample of what's hanging on the hooks in New York's Bodegas and Trading Posts this festive season, and there are some past names to check again, with soldiers, frogs and, err, well, we'll get on to Brain Rot in a minute!

 

A nice set of tropical frogs from JPW International, probably seen before in different packaging, possibly available elsewhere for more 'geld' under a bigger name (K&M, CollectA or one of the Japanese moulders?), but with 8-10 in the bag, around the 30-cents mark, per frog!

 

Hunson's current 'Army Men' offering is a mix of two armies of figures, being later sub-piracies of Matchbox and other figures, it's better than nothing in a landscape which has so few army toys beyond the big-box, generic, action figure stuff.

 

Speaking of Action Figures - this unbranded set has an interesting action-figure scaled swamp-bike at the top! I can't really make out the figures, but I think they are the little ones we've seen many times now from Poundland and the long-gone 99p Stores?

 

While Brain Rot is . . . err . . . a knock-off? Continuation? Extension . . . take? I think we'll call it a 'take', a cleaner take on the Skibidi Toilet meme-stuff, which we also saw here, also courtesy of Brain a while back, apparently not coming out of Italy, I shall defer to Jan, who covered them on his Site of Curiosities a few weeks ago, and found a link which goes some way to explaining!

N is for Nerfing Necrophiles!

Had a brilliant eMail from our roving reporter in New York last night, an enhanced shot of the Scully & Scully Christmas tree has been added to the bottom of that post, and he sent us these;

 

And, because they are Lanard Toys, they may well come to the UK, specifically Smyths, who carried their (Lanard's) sci-fi set for some years. Indeed, this may already be here, I had a disappointing visit to Smyths the other day, but I wasn't necessarily looking properly in the Nerf Gun section, so I'll head back there and have a look? Ideal xmas prezzie too! Many thanks to Brian for finding these.

N is for Not a Follow-up!

As a sort of [pretty tenuous] follow-up to the last post, and the mention of Crong, I'm posting something which was already in the queue, but isn't coming in the order I'd like it to, and doesn't tell all the story, but hopefully still of some use to some Loyal Readers!

 

Donated by a friend of the blog who prefers not to be named, but occasionally comes up with little treasures, Battle Knights by Feva UK, is one of the more recent iterations of a carpet 'wargame', commonly known as Crossbows and Catapults (Tomy, Base Toys, Action GT, Zatu, et al), but also having iterations as Weapons & Warriors (Pressman), and Battground (Moose), which has been around since the 1980's.

 

The originals have produced several generations of two figures, a small squat fantasy figure (Doomlords of Gulch) in a putty-coloured polymer, and a sort of Hollywood Viking/Barbarian type (the Impalers of the Clannic Shelf), in various shades of brown or ginger, which we have seen, in various mixed/plunder/donation posts over the years, but which I haven't posted-on, formally, yet as my main sample has always been in storage.

 

The Pressman version changed the dynamic slightly, with press-pads instead of loose walls, and other innovations have tried to make it more fun or keep it relevant to new generations of electronically-distracted kids, here it's spring-loading. Pressman also changed the figures, to medieval types (Castle Storm), along with a pirate version (Pirate Clash), both also seen here, in past mixed-lots/shots. 

 

This Feva version adds mounted figures, and they are the unknown figures from the Crong post (the tentative link being used here!), although this set has green bases. The foot figures are scale-downs of the Pressman set, and I now think they are all Games Workshop knock-offs?

 

 Other useful bits!

A couple of banner-flags (or pennants?) missing 

 

Could be useful, but would need work to hide the nature of the balls or discs all these sets fire at each other, the oversized culverin for instance has quite an Elastolin look to it . . . fill in the hole and give it an antiquing, with washes and dry-brushing?

These turn-up in every junk-lot on evilBay, the Supreme medieval knock-off's from several brands have versions of them, and there have been large bow-like ballistas and larger cannon, but they'd all need a lot of effort to get realistic-looking.

 

As a Brucey Bonus, these are the Moose Toys figures from the other more recent iteration, Battleground Crossbows & Catapults, and were also a donation, I think from Graham Apperley, but hidden in a PW plunder-post a few years ago.

 

Smaller at around 25mm (the Feva are 30'ish, the older sets closer to 35 (C&C) or 40mm (W&W)) and a soft PVC, against Crossbows' polyethylene/propylenes and Weapons' polystyrene. It's quite a franchise, with many US and foreign-language/foreign-market sets, and worth a proper study, which will appear here one day!

F is for Follow-ups - Recent Posts

A few 'matters arising', as it were; things to add to recent posts, which have come-in or been found since I posted the original stuff!

 

Power Rangers

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/09/m-is-for-mighty-morphins.html

 

I had the commercial art/shot in Picasa all along! And this white chap, who would seem to be a knock-off, came in some mixed lot and was shot separately by me, back in 2010, and I'm not sure where he is now, as he wasn't in the over-view post a few years ago?

 

True Legends - Mythical Warriors

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/09/o-is-for-once-upon-time-in-june-sci-fi.html

 

Brian Berke sent this shot of his 'Goodly Hero' as they tend to be called on the gaming table, all painted-up, and fighting a mini-Godzilla from the Wicked Duels / SCS Direct sets, also painted.

 

White Ghosts

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/10/w-is-for-white-buttons-white-ghosts.html

 

Confirmation of this year's trend for short, fat, funny-faced ghosts, with an odd plate and bottle-stoppers shelfied in TKMaxx, and some 'Illooms' or illuminated-balloons from B&M, and it's not ghosts per se, they've been a feature of Halloween stuff since before I was aware the event, it's this half-opened shroom-head design, which is so strong at the moment!

 

Rado Industries / Ri-Toys Centurion 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/10/b-is-for-back-to-london-july-1-of-2.html

 

Purely a confirmation shot, tying the tank into Ri-Toys sets, where it did stirling service as a British, American and German WWII AFV!

 

Noddy
 

Mentioned in passing a couple of times recently, figures in one's or two's, this is a partial set of what I suspect is over 18, maybe 20-plus figures, and which I think are Marx? But were they a Swansea 'Kins' thing, or contract manufactured for someone else? I have a PC Plod somewhere, and the damaged Skittle, plus a couple of others I think?

 

Marx . . . check, Noddy . . . check!

 

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2025/10/weve-found-noddy.html 

 

How desperate is he? And he didn't "pick it up", it was relisted on eBay the other day! 

 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/277455102102

 

So he's lying, to copy me, and scrape doll shite, off of evilBay without any apparent context, why? How threatened is he feeling? It's almost more fun than annoyance now! What an idiot! he also managed to check-off the unknown Power Ranger knock-off above, with some Mexican Luchador he knew nothing about, so when it's not faux ignorance (what do you think readers?), it's actual ignorance! And he did skulls the day after me, it's faintly tragic!

M is for May Visit - TV, Fantasy and Sci-Fi

So, to the last of the plunder I picked-up in May, and it's all the less than realistic or historical stuff, with a little bit of everything!

 

Another Weetos cereal premium, I seem - over the last few years - to have gone from waiting for the full set in any colour to how many do I have in all colours?! A knock-off MPC and a rocket which might be a missile from a big-box set?

 

Four Phidal 'Busy Book' superheroes, or villains, I already have the second from the left, but without the freezy-fronds, and it was the Archer which kicked that particular odyssey off, back in 2017!

 

Christmas cracker angel, I have quite the orchestra now! Unicorn's were Unique or The Works I think? A Battle Beast sans weapons, often the way, but I do have spares bags of odd action-figure sized accessories, so there will be a mating-up session one day. And a Gem putti/Eros/Cupid cake decoration.

 

Those generic superheroes again, I did find their post the other day, with help from Brian we'd ID'd them one side of The Pond at least as both 'Aircraft Warrior' (JPW I think), or Warrior Super Fighters (as a generic), but - in both cases - sans these little companion figures (here missing the blue one),

 

A vinyl-rubber modern Santa, and an older styrene one, the latter sold as a cake decoration, the newer, probably as part of an eraser set? Soon be Christmas . . . again!

 

Elves or children? Obviously from a board game, and they seem to be moving on tippy-toe, and shushing, with their finger, so maybe they are night-caps, and it's a bedtime game?

 

I thought this was one of the Gormity figures from Ideal we saw, in some shelfies a year or two ago, but they were gunmetal and different poses, so he's still a mystery, and a chunky one!

 

Ben 10 on the left, prbably the green one too, and maybe the chap with a red shirt, I think the last one is Star Wars? While the gezzer in the middle looks like a Disney Princess type knock-off, some kind of price or suitor?

 

Two Mighty Morphin's, Micro Machine on the left, unknown mini on the right.

 

Two of the Hing Fat 'Galaxy Cowboys'. 

 

A mixed lot, with a rack-toy Ninja, Iwako eraser bear, Toy Story's 'Combat Carl' from Phidal, slightly damaged, poured-resin ceremonial bear (needs it's pole-crown replaced), a Munch Bunch banana, and what is, I think, Jess the cat from Postman Pat?

 

UFO with little Aliens, I actually saw these in the store on a more recent visit to Peter, and I can't, for the life of me, recall if they were drowning in slime, or surrounded with candies, but it was one or 'tother? Green or purple, and they are in that stiff but softish synthetic rubber/PVC replacement elastomer, while the saucer is a bog-standard 'styrene. Note they have charm-loops but no chains.

 

Many thanks as always to Peter for most of these, I got the Phidal's and the game pieces from the Toy project I think, he found everything else.

T is for Two - The Works

I popped into The Works the other day and found a couple of bits which might be of some interest, to some people, reading the Blog, so a quick T is for Two... presented itself as the obvious, despite it being more than two of any measure, the 'two' being sharpeners and erasers!

 

Stubby little moon-rocket pencil sharpeners, not terribly realistic, as is, but a coat of paint could render them useful cargo containers in some space-station/space base diorama, and, like a lot of space-based stationary . . . A bit of fun!

 

We may have seen all these before, but the larger Dinosaurs may be new to the Blog, or new in these small 'back to school' containers, but I got them and shot them, because the Blog is a bit of a gaping maw which requires constant feeding!