Following yesterday’s review of the electronic Jurassic Park Dilophosaurus, let’s look now at its more basic counterpart in the line – the classic ‘water pistol’ Dilophosaurus, among many people’s earliest and most fondly remembered dinosaur toys. It was the first JP toy I owned, actually.
What is most striking when looking at this one in comparison with the electronic version is that it’s much more slender. The neck and legs are longer and more gracile relative to the rest of the body (more like the real animal, actually, although of course the head’s still rather wrong). The paint job is very nice – a wavy white line separates dark and light green along the flank, with a white underside and like the larger model there’s a patch of red skin underneath the throat and jaw. It’s a lot more interesting to look at than the ‘Dino Screams’ toy. This toy was re-released a few times, but this is the one with the best paint scheme in this reviewer’s oh-so-humble opinion.
Unfortunately, other features conspire to make it look a little bit of a doofus. While the legs are articulated, the arms, alas, are not. When the bunny-hands posture is combined with the permanently open mouth the overall effect is of a puppy begging for a treat – not very becoming of a fearsome Jurassic carnivore. (What was it with Kenner trying to make Dilophosaurus seem wimpy, anyway?) There’s a nice level of scaley detail at least, but once again the claws haven’t been painted. FOR SHAME! And such.
One other thing worth mentioning – the action feature. Immerse the figure in water, squeeze a few times and you’ve got yourself a cute little saurian water squirter. It shoots a fairly decent stream of water out of a nozzle located in the back of its mouth. This is obviously meant to emulate the ‘venom spitting’ seen in the movie (and book) and is quite a fun little addition. There’s no frill though, thank God. If you like you can stick on the frill from the electronic toy, but it looks even more ridiculous on this skinnier model.
Overall, it’s a nice little action figure, even if it its immobile arms make it look a bit daft. The soft, flexible body is perfect for playtime and it displays…adequately. It lurks in the undergrowth of eBay now and then. Try eBay here
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This was also my first JP toy and I remember being happy @ the time that there was.no frill. Still love this figure after all these years!
I suppose the not-particularly-fearsome appearence is in keeping with how it was in the film. It was so harmless and cute then OHGODMYEYESAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH.
This one’s much nicer-looking than the other one.