Dinosaur Toy Blog

Review: Stegosaurus (Invicta)

4.8 (16 votes)

Some dinosaurs have undergone quite radical image changes over the years – sauropods moved out of their swamps and got into shape and theropods went from blundering tail draggers to sleek, deadly (and quite horizontal) predators – some of then even gained feathers. It might be tempting to presume, however, that Stegosaurus has remained much the same – slow, stupid and stacked with plates like a big reptilian dishwasher.

Review: Tyrannosaurus (Dino-Riders by Tyco)

3.3 (7 votes)

Any child of the eighties can recall the baritone jingle of “Dino-Riders!” in their incessant TV spots. Their adventures could be found in comics and television, but what really mattered were the dinosaurs. The story pitted two factions against one another in high-tech, futuristic battles with armored archosaurs donning heavy armor and weapons.

Review: Tyrannosaurus (Invicta)

4.5 (37 votes)

The Invicta dinosaurs are well-known for being quite anatomically accurate for their time, and especially when compared with contemporary competition. Here, then, we have their rendering of the most famous dinosaur of all, and while it’s not bad – especially when it comes to superficial details – it’s certainly not Invicta’s finest hour.

Review: Elasmosaurus (Dinotales Series 7, by Kaiyodo)

4.8 (6 votes)

Review by DinoLord and Plesiosauria
Elasmosaurus was a plesiosaur that lived in the great inland sea of what is now North America during the Late Cretaceous Period. It is one of the most popular plesiosaurs, second possibly to Plesiosaurus itself, but it is also one of the most poorly known of the elasmosaurids.

Review: Dimetrodon (Inpro)

2.7 (9 votes)

Enough has been said about Dimetrodon. Although it is not a dinosaur, it is among the four best-known prehistoric creatures, together with T.rex, Mammoth and “Brontosaurus”. Dimetrodon is a favourite choice of nearly every company. This seems to have a long tradition, since even Marx and Linde in the 50s and 60s released this Permian synapsid as a figure.

Review: Velociraptor (Jurassic Park by Kenner)

2.6 (12 votes)

Lock up your annoying grandchildren – it’s time to look at the Jurassic Park Velociraptor. Well, one of them – the electronic ‘Dino Screams’ version.

Ah, the Jurassic Park Velociraptor – you have a lot to answer for. Unfortunately you made such a lasting childhood impression for a lot of people that when it was revealed that Velociraptor, their favouritest dinosaur, was actually feathered, many of those people simply refused to accept it.

Review: Albertosaurus (Carnegie Collection by Safari Ltd)

3.7 (26 votes)

Albertosaurus was a mid-sized theropod that flourished throughout what is now North America during the Campanian era of the late Cretacious about 75 million years ago. It can best be described as a smaller, more lightly built version of its later, more famous relative, Tyrannosaurus rex. It coexisted with and most likely hunted other famous dinosaurs like Parasaurolophus, Styracosaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus just to name a few.

Review: Dilophosaurus (other one) (Jurassic Park by Kenner)

3.7 (10 votes)

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.

Review: Dilophosaurus (Jurassic Park by Kenner)

3.5 (10 votes)

More Jurasic Park I’m afraid – although here we have a figure of an animal actually featured in the franchise. Dilophosaurus was last seen giving Wayne Knight a good seeing-to in the first movie, but proved so memorable that Hasbro were still releasing figures of it for the Jurassic Park 3 line.

Review: Chasmosaurus (The Lost World: Jurassic Park by Kenner)

3.4 (14 votes)

Chasmosaurus is surely one of the strangest additions to the Jurassic Park toyline. Although it was at least a dinosaur (unlike Dimetrodon, Estemmenosuchus etc.) it was never mentioned in the books or movies, and isn’t the sort of dinosaur that your ordinary MOTGP (Member Of The General Public…nothing to do with the Moto GP, hail Rossi) could recall from memory.

Review: Ichthyosaurus (2010) (Carnegie Collection by Safari Ltd)

4.8 (16 votes)

Review and photos by Dr Andre Mursch (“Brontodocus”). Edited by Plesiosauria.
Ichthyosaurus is one of the most iconic fossil marine reptiles, being a milestone in vertebrate paleontology since it was discovered by Mary Anning, and it was subject of a German poem about the lower Jurassic (“Der Ichthyosaurus” by Viktor von Scheffel, 1856).

Review: Baryonyx (Invicta)

4.6 (20 votes)

The spinosaur Baryonyx was big news when it was unearthed in England in the 1980s, so it’s understandable that Invicta would have wanted to produce their own model of ‘Claws’. This 1989 plain-coloured toy is (sadly) still one of the best spinosaur toys yet produced, in spite of its outdated posture.

Review: Styracosaurus (Battat)

4.9 (23 votes)

Review and Photos by DinoLord.
In 1994, the Boston Museum of Science released a line of dinosaur figures produced by the toy company Battat and sculpted by professional paleo-artists. While new figures were released in 1996 and 1998, the project was scrapped in 2002, and the line remained discontinued.

Review: Tsintaosaurus (CollectA)

3.3 (12 votes)

Available from Amazon.com here.
Tsintaosaurus was a duck-billed dinosaur, or hadrosaur, that lived in China about 84 to 71 million years ago. Like many Lambeosaurs, Tsintaosaurus is believed to have sported a fancy crest on its head. In this case, the crest is a skinny rod that stuck out above of the dinosaur’s face much like a mythical unicorn’s horn.

Review: Mamenchisaurus (Invicta)

4.9 (21 votes)

Here it comes, straight from Bob Bakker’s 1970s fever dreams – the infamous banana flavour Invicta Mamenchisaurus, surely among the stranger serious sauropod toys.

As any kid with a dinosaur book will tell you, Mamenchisaurus is best known for having an extraordinarily long neck, making up half of the animal’s overall length.

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