The Dinosaur Toy Blog

By forumite Foxilized (edited by Horridus)

Historical background

The oil company Sinclair (USA) was, since its very beginnings in the new born 20th century, closely related to dinosaur imagery. They chose a “Brontosaurus” –yes, not the deceptive one but the thunder lizard instead- as the main logo to sell their oil. The reason was because it was seen as big and powerful, attributes which of course any company desires to be identified with, but also because they claimed their oil was really ancient, and probably made with the remains of true dinosaurs. So, they were sorta selling the idea that you would be filling your car with dinosaur essence. Who on Earth wouldn’t prefer driving with dinosaur power?  The idea was so succesful the company still use the same old-fashioned tail dragging thunder behemoth as their logo today.

Sinclair, in their obsessive desire to be identified with dinosaurs, became one of the most important popularisers of palaeontology in history. Way before ‘Jurassic Park’ (and even before ‘The Flinstones’), American audiences knew the delights of introducing Mesozoic monsters into their daily lives through an exhibition produced by Sinclair in 1933. Following the great paleoartist Charles R. Knight’s works, a bunch of life-sized dinosaur sculptures were built and displayed outdoors, and millions of families enjoyed being terrified and amazed by the look of those creatures, seen for the very first time in all their – at the time – scientifically accurate splendour.

The Sinclair Company would repeat this success a few decades later, in 1964. This time the company took advantage of the World’s Fair universal exposition that was going to be on in New York, and prepared ‘DINOLAND’, with a new set of dinosaur sculptures. These were also life-sized and scientifically accurate –again, at the time… well, not really, but we all know how hard to swallow the bizarre birdie-dinosaur propositions of that odd bunch of hippies were…

The oil company recruited Louis Paul Jonas, who had worked at several museums building sculptures, and was also a close friend of Charles Knight. Louis Paul Jonas’ intention was to sculpt dinosaurs that would follow the look of those in his pal’s old paintings, but this time trying to add a groovy ’60s feel to them. So, we got for example a tail-dragging “Trachodon” with a psychedelic colour pattern that Andy Warhol would have been proud of. The complete set included a must-have Tyrannosaurus, a must-have-too Triceratops, a Corythosaurus, a “Trachodon”, an Ankylosaurus, a “Brontosaurus”, a Struthiomimus and also of course the good old Stegosaurus. The exposition toured through the States during the next few years and, simultaneously entertaining and educational, it was another direct precedent for ‘Jurassic Park’ in terms of the succes of ‘dinomania’.

Photo by flickstadt (from Flickr)

And with dinomania… came the hunger for dino-toys! And here we are. Knowing that dinosaur merchandise would sell like cold beer in the Gobi Desert, a number of Mold-A-Rama machines were placed all over the Dinoland exhibition. Those machines allowed, after inserting a coin, to choose a dinosaur figure from a list and watch how the machine created the toy in front of your eyes. In minutes, some liquid waxy-plastic material was poured inside a mould, and then it solidified into an accurate copy of the Tyrannosaurus rex sculpture from the exhibition!

Photo by Monkey River Town (from Flickr)

The complete set of figures included each of the life-sized sculptures…minus the Struthiomimus (d’oh!). Check them out here.

Review

After this historical review, which I sincerely hope you enjoyed reading – maybe you didn’t and jumped directly to the figure review…or maybe you jumped directly to one of Horridus’ much more fun and right-to-the-eye ones [shurely shome mishtake - Ed]…in which case you aren’t even reading this…in which case I’m talking to nobody…in which case I definitely need to get out more…we arrive at the SINCLAIR MOLD-A-RAMA TYRANNOSAURUS review. It’s compared in size below with the equally retro little Schleich –which interestingly enough, appears to be based on the very same old painting by Charles Knight as the Sinclair one.

As aforementioned, the figure is made of some kind of waxy plastic. It’s hollow on the inside, which makes the figure a little bit delicate, and it must be treated with loving care.

Colours vary, with the originals from the Dinoland exposition much more bright and Jefferson Airplane-ish (blue, pink, green, orange…). The Mold-A-Rama machines were at the same time placed in museums and zoos, and the figures made in those other places appear to have a less strident colour. The figure has a base where the name of the animal is, on one side, and the other side was where the Mold-A-Rama machine was placed.

Even though I previously said that the figures were the perfect small twins of the giant sculpts of the expo, this is really not so. The life-sized sculpts were pretty realistic –you know what I mean – since these intented to portray life-like animals. The plastic figures were thought to be toys for kids. Simple as that. Therefore, they look sort of cartoonish and in the particular case of the T. rex, he resembles a psychopathic Barney. Giant round head, neck growing right UNDER the head –just like a monstrous human instead of a theropod, it would perfectly fit in a kaiju flick. Of course, he is such a good old tail dragger.

The head sculpt is detailed enough to make the figure worth owning. Sorry for the bad quality pics (mobile phone…) but in person the head looks really good. It has very well defined teeth, nostrils, eyes, even ears. All that, as said, not very realistic but still creating a charming beast (with a very bad-ass attitude, as every kid wants!). The body is, obviously, much less detailed, with only the generic skin folds here and there. There’s a thin line of osteoderms along the dorsal spine of the animal, from neck to tail. The rex is in a walking pose, though there’s not really too dynamism there, more the straight and static position of a model waiting for the camera flashes.

Finally, it’s worth mentioning that compared to the other Mold-A-Rama figures, the rex is surprisingly the smaller one. A curious thing is the Triceratops figure is like two times bigger in comparison, and that makes a sort of strange diorama when you place these two together for the all time classic battle, where a very crazy short Rexie approaches an hyperbulked Trike for no other apparent reason than dying in a very un-epic way.

If you are sensitive enough, you surely feel sympathethic towards this freaky looking fella as soon as you look at him. You can find the rex on eBay, they aren’t too abundant but with patience you will hunt one for sure. Yes, usually at not too cheap prices –which is ironic, when you think that the figure had to cost only a few cents back in the ’60s. Keep in mind, though, that this is a very, very rare figure and also a true antique. A highly collectible item, and definitely a valuable little piece of dinosaur history.

Since I reviewed both Jurassic Park Dilophosaurus figures (the electronic one here and the other one here) it seems only right that I take a gander at the standard JP Velociraptor now that I’ve got my sweaty mits on one. I’ve already embarked on a mini-rant over the JP raptor’s odious influence over people’s perceptions of dromaeosaurs when I reviewed the electronic version, so this time I’ll just get on with it like.

As I said last time, the Kenner Velociraptor action figures never captured the look of the movie creatures particularly well. Out of the two, however, I actually prefer this one in many respects; it’s leaner and the ramrod-straight, tapering tail and better-proportioned legs give it a sleeker, more dynamic look. Until you get up to the head it’s a really rather decent take on the movie creatures, but unfortunately it’s there where things fall apart a bit. The action feature – squeezing the legs to make the jaws open and head strike forward – makes the toy great for playing with when you’re a kid but it does result in a rather ugly-looking hinged head, with oversized goofy teeth and shocking pink gums. The eyes are a little poorly done, too, with a simple black bar painted down through the lime-green iris. Not too nice to look at.

Elsewhere things aren’t so bad in terms of detailing. Scales are represented by crosshatching, making it inferior to the Dilophosaurus toys, but all the claws are painted (except the two missing ones on the feet, which are missing) and there’s some quite bulging musculature, particularly on the legs. The colour scheme is nice in a subtle sort of way; brown with darker brown stripes that make it look suitably predatory, and a white underbelly. This toy would go on to be repainted and re-released for other JP toylines, notably the Lost World line, which rendered it more orange and tiger-like – a colour scheme that’s probably better simply for being more interesting, but this one’s closer to the look of the creatures in the first movie.

Adult collectors searching for a JP-looking ‘raptor’ could do worse than this one, although the rather hideous head does detract somewhat from its more positive aesthetic qualities. For kids, though, this is a great toy – as I can testify having played with it for many hours as a child. It stands up on its own two feet with its tail in the air and can adopt a variety of poses to suit attacking puny humans, attacking a Tyrannosaurus, being helplessly chomped by Tyrannosaurus etc. In terms of playability its neutral pose and moving parts make it one of the best figures in the JP toy line. In the end, does that not make it a success? [You're fired - Ed]

Being helplessly chomped.

If you would like to get your own clammy claws on one of these, then you’ll have to take a deep breath and prepare your wallet for eBay and vintage toy stores. However, they aren’t rare and therefore you’ll be able to spare an expense (see what I did there? It nearly worked, too). Otherwise I’d recommend the Papo Velociraptor, a facsimile of the JP theme park monster, or this if you fancy something a little more on the more modern, accurate, feathery side.

Yes, another Achelousaurus and yes, that’s a nickel its standing on.  Let me introduce the second member of the Antedeluvia collection to be reviewed here on the blog, David Krentz’s rendition of Achelousaurus.  If you would like more information on this particular ceratopsian dinosaur simply scroll down a bit and read the first paragraph of my review for CollecA’s version of it.

Painted by Griffin

Like all of the members of this line, this little guy comes separated from its base and unpainted.  A little handy work with super glue and paints (If you so choose) is required.  While some may find this a hassle, to me, this is half the fun.  This one is pretty easy to glue on since it’s a quadruped and it’s in a sitting pose so there are four points of figure-base contact.  Therefore, unlike the bipedal models, you don’t need to stand there holding it in place while the glue dries.

The sculpt itself is beautiful.  First of all let me say that this is as scientifically accurate as it gets.  The proportions are all right with a nice big head and a short tail and the arms are correctly splayed slightly to the sides.  The only tiny detail that is slightly off due to very recent information is the fact that the palms are facing backwards.  Still, this is a very accurate figure.

The pose is really cute.  David Krentz featured a whopping three ceratopsian models in this line (much to my delight) so I suppose it was decided to make this one’s pose a little different so that they all don’t look too similar.  Achelousaurus is sitting down much like a puppy dog with its left arm raised up and its head tilted to the side.  For a model based off of a twenty foot beaked, frilled dinosaur with a lumpy mass of bone on its face this still manages to look absolutely adorable.

Detail is impressively acute for a figure that’s in 1:72 scale.  There are a fair amount of wrinkles and even little bumpy scales raised up all down the figures back.  The bosses have ridges and the toes and epoccipitals (bony bits lining the frill) are all nicely defined.  This figure comes unpainted so there is no color or paintjob to review.  You are just going to have to put up with my paintwork for this entire review just keep in mind that this is not the way it comes.  The owner is free to paint it however he/she pleases.

Unpainted photo provided by Postsaurischian.

In conclusion, like any member of the Antedeluvia line, I have nothing bad to say about this guy.  It’s tiny, it’s detailed and its accurate.  This is one of the smaller figures in the collection so it is on the cheaper (relatively speaking) side.  It was about seventeen US dollars if I remember correctly.  I highly recommend it to anybody.

Achelousaurus was a ceratopsian that lived during the Campanian stage of the late Cretacious period.  It is named after the Greek river deity, Achelous who, according to myth, had his horn broken off during a fight with the famous Greek hero, Hercules.  The skull of Achelousaurus has a low, flat boss (or lumpy mass of bone) on its snout that looks like the animal has had its horn broken off.   All three discovered skulls of Achelousaurus look like this.  Achelousaurus is a close relative of Pachyrhinosaurus and in life would have coexisted with dinosaurs such as Daspletosaurus, Maiasaura, Eouplocephalus and its fellow ceratopsian, Einiosaurus.

Collecta’s version of this interesting dinosaur is a bit of a disappointment unfortunately.   If you want to look at it from a scientific accuracy point of view there is quite a bit wrong with it.  First off, the head is way too small in proportion to the body and seems to be the wrong shape overall The snout should me much taller.  Also, the tail is too long.  Ceratopsian tails are typically rather short. In my opinion the legs are all too skinny and the front legs need to be sprawled out to the sides more with the palms facing inward not backwards (a rather new discovery so I don’t hold it against this figure, however).  It has the correct number of digits but they are not of appropriate lengths.  It is, however, still recognizable as Achelousaurus because the low boss on the nose and eyes accompanied by the two long horns on the frill are present.

The detail on this figure is actually pretty good.  It is covered in little pebbly scales with a nice amount of wrinkles and creases as well.  The only thing is it seems that the more modern reconstructions have a more crocodilian-skin look to them with wide rectangular scales on the back but again, I won’t hold it against this figure since this is also a very new idea.  It’s nicely detailed none the less.

The model has a base color of sandy gold with a warmer amber colored belly and horns with dark brown toes, beak, frill lining and striped pattern on the body.  The frill holes and bosses are all red and the e tongue is painted pink.  Finally, like almost all CollectA dinosaurs, the eyes are orange with vertical slit pupils.

One last thing I feel a need to point out about this figure.  It looks like it was chasing parked cars.  By this I mean that if looked head on, the snout of this figure is totally crooked as if it were smashed resulting in a broken nose.  Boo.

As a whole I would say that most people should skip on getting this figure.  Not only is it inaccurate, but it’s just plain ugly.  I have it because I collect ceratopsians specifically and this figure happens to be roughly in 1:40 scale.  If you do feel a need to get this model it can be readily available anywhere CollectA dinosaur models are already sold.