I have a soft spot for the UKRD figures of the 90s, as they were among the first dinosaur toys I collected as a kid, and I’ve reviewed quite a few of them for this blog. I’ve now reached the Stegosaurus from 1992 and thought it would just be an “also ran” kind of review, as the figure itself is one of the less interesting ones.
Author: Funk
Reviewing childhood toys rescued from my mom's attic...
All reviews by this author
Review: Female Velociraptor (Jurassic Park III Candy Container by Topps)
3.5 (2 votes)
There are still odd tie-in lines released with the original Jurassic Park trilogy that are left unexplored on the blog, so here is our first look at the figures that came with the Topps Candy Container eggs alongside Jurassic Park III back in 2001.
Review: Brachiosaurus (hatchling)(Jurassic Park by Kenner)
4 (2 votes)
While the blog is currently full of Jurassic World toys, the pool of unreviewed, original Jurassic Park toys is far from exhausted yet! In another entry in the series of figures-I’m-surprised-haven’t-been-reviewed, we’ve reached the dinosaur hatchlings that came with the human action figures released by Kenner in tandem with Jurassic Park in 1993.
Review: Woolly Mammoth (Dor Mei)
4 (5 votes)
A few days ago, the first Columbian mammoth figure was reviewed at the blog, which reminded me how much I love mammoths, so I was inspired to review my oldest mammoth toy; the Dor Mei woolly mammoth. I can’t find much info about it online, other than that it’s supposedly from 1983 and part of a line called “Galaxy Fighters Warriors”, but I have no idea what that means or if it’s even correct.
Review: Velociraptor (The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Site B Erasers by Impact Inc)
3.7 (3 votes)
While the merchandise accompanying the release of the various Jurassic Park films ranged between everything from watches to bed-sheets, the most exciting items for me were of course the dinosaur figures. So I was happy to find this cool little Velociraptor figure with a big The Lost World logo on the packaging at a Copenhagen dinosaur exhibition back in 1998, only to find when I opened it that it was… A rubber pencil eraser?!
Review: Palaeoscincus (Imperial)
2.6 (5 votes)
In these days when dinosaur toys only get more and more hyperrealistic, it’s easy to forget that there was a time when they could be inaccurate not just by following outdated science, but also due to complete disregard for any kind of scientific considerations.
Review: Tyrannosaurus (Monster In My Pocket by Matchbox, Series 6)
2 (3 votes)
Monster In My Pocket was a toy franchise that released waves of, you guessed it, pocket sized plastic-monsters throughout the 90s. Several of the series included dinosaurs or near-dinosaurs, and some of the later series consisted almost solely of dinosaurs. The figures all seem to have come in at least three colour-variants, and included cards.
Review: Apatosaurus (1992)(Dor Mei, UKRD)
3.7 (3 votes)
Other reviewers seem to have stopped covering UKRD figures years ago, but there are still a lot of them left to go, so I guess that’s my lot in life. While they may seem like mass-produced dreck to most people, I find them interesting and charming because they often reflect outdated or downright bizarre ideas and vintage palaoart, usually (with some notable exceptions) based on John Sibbick’s paintings from the 1985 book Enyclopaedia of Dinosaurs by David Norman.
Review: Ankylosaurus (Animal World Dinosaurs by Bullyland)
3.3 (4 votes)
Having been described in 1908 and being the eponymous ankylosaurid, Ankylosaurus has long been a staple of dinosaur toys. Originally known from rather fragmentary material, reconstructions of this dinosaur historically evolved from Stegosaurus-like before the tail-club was known, to the version that was made familiar by Rudolph Zallinger’s 1947 Age of Reptiles mural and the 1964 World’s Fair model, with their nodosaur-like spikes, sprawling limbs, and dragging tail-clubs.
Review: Dilophosaurus and Stegosaurus (die-cast metal dinosaurs)(Jurassic Park by Kenner)
4.6 (5 votes)
To my surprise, there are still figures that were released as tie-ins with the original Jurassic Park film in 1993 that lack reviews here, including the die-cast metal dinosaurs line by Kenner, who of course made the main action-figure line for the film as well.
Review: Iguanodon (UKRD)
3.2 (5 votes)
This is my first review as an author rather than guest reviewer at this blog, so I’ll start out with a classic figure, the UKRD Iguanodon from 1992. Iguanodon of course has the distinction of being the second named dinosaur genus (after Megalosaurus), and has remained relatively famous for a non-American dinosaur, even being the protagonist of a film, Disney’s Dinosaur.
Review: Tyrannosaurus rex (Bendable by UKRD)
2.2 (22 votes)
Review and photos by Funk, edited by Suspsy
Yet another Tyrannosaurus toy review you say? Well, this one is unlike most others, and is rather baffling in some of its design choices, so there should be enough novel things to say about it.