Review and photos by Charles Peckham, edited by Suspsy
Definitely Dinosaurs is a toy line I’ve written about on here before. To reiterate my thoughts on it succinctly, it was a great bridge between durable, cutesy kids’ toys and scientifically accurate (for the time) models. But the Triceratops that came from Wendy’s is perhaps the worst example of this.
The first impression one gets when looking at this toy is that it’s a remarkably chubby little dinosaur, measuring 12.5 cm long by 5.5 cm tall by 4.5 cm wide at the hip. Ceratopsians weren’t known for their being svelte, and it’s not beyond the scope of speculation to suggest there were fat Triceratops. However, this toy doesn’t just look obese. It looks unnaturally obese, like an actor in a fat suit. It overall has a sort of smooth, sausage-like disposition. None of the body parts stick out from the torso very far. The widest part of a Triceratops would normally be the frill, but this one has a dinky little frill which probably would have been functionally useless.
I still suspect that the Wendy’s toys were intended to be infant counterparts to adults in the main Definitely Dinosaurs series.This figure certainly looks like what someone would assume a baby Triceratops would look like if they’d only seen baby humans. Of course, baby dinosaurs hatched from eggs, and that means they didn’t need to be smooth enough to go through a birth canal. Triceratops is a particularly good example of this, as infants had a ring of spikes around the edge of its frill, known as epipariatals, that would have gradually been absorbed into the frill as the animal aged. Its horns also would have stuck out at about a 90° angle from its skull and as it aged point forward.
The dentition of this toy also follows a mammalian cue, in that it doesn’t have any teeth. That’s great if it was drinking milk, but since it needs to consume tough plant matter, well, let’s just say it’s good this guy has a lot of body fat to fall back on. Its legs also would be hard to walk with. They’re extremely stubby, and it’s not standing on its toes like it would need to.
While I’m at it, I‘m going to say the head is probably too small. Triceratops evolved from bipedal animals and eventually had to walk on all fours to accommodate for its massive head. So it would be nice if the toy would show that.
The coloration is nice. I don’t know how likely it would be for Triceratops to be sea-green/blue, but Definitely Dinosaurs was generally good about simple and effective countershading, and the dark-to-light color is nice. The skin has an elephant-like texture, which is inaccurate, but also has an occasional large bump to represent a tubercle, which is accurate.
Overall, this is maybe my least favorite effort from a toyline I have a lot of esteem for. I do want to give it credit though. More than any other dinosaur I can think of (yes, including Dino=Riders) it looks like it came from the 1980s. For anyone who grew up in the ’80s, looking at this Triceratops remind them of the Glo-Worms and Cabbage Patch Kids. On the bottom, it even says ‘Made in China, due to Reganomics.’ Okay, I made that up, but this figure is still a perfect artifact from a strange, unique decade, and that makes it special to me.
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I still have this Triceratops…but I completely forgot that it came from a Wendy’s meal! That solves a decades-long mystery for me. And you are right, this does fit in with a mid-to-late 1980s little kid toy aesthetic.