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20-Pc. Dinosaur Playset
For around two bucks, this is an all right set. It's interesting to me because
several of the dinos in it are Marx ripoffs. They are not to scale with each other, obviously. But for the price, not bad.
The paint jobs could use some help, and I have seen some of these custom painted--so I may try to soup them up a bit (they
certainly are cheap enough to play around with as far as custom painting goes). All cheap dinos like this usually have some
paint rubbing too, just from being in the bag together.
As for accuracy, accurate they ain't, but I have to keep reminding myself that
these things *are* made for kids, and kids (well, most kids anyhow) aren't going to be that particular. Most of these
probably wind up gettting chewed up or buried in the yard and forgotten anyhow.
Included in the 20-Pc. set are a plastic playmat, 13 dinosaurs and six scenery
pieces. None of the dinos is labeled as to what type it's supposed to be, so I am assuming here.
Below we have (what I assume to be) the Tyrannosaurus
Rex, who bears a slight resemblance to the Marx T-Rex, Ver. 2. Notice the very large and slightly contorted-looking
forelimbs with three fingers. The feet look like the hands--like someone melted them and stretched them wayyyy out. They look
alien-like to me. Someone clearly tried (keyword here 'tried') to copy the Marx T-Rex though--it's the same pose and more
or less the same head...
Closeup showing his totally funky looking hands:
Shot taken next to the Marx T-Rex v.2 to compare:
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Triceratops #1, with
a definite Marx influence. He is just slightly smaller than the Marx T-tops. The set comes with two of these.
Compared to the Marx Triceratops. This T-Tops is a bit smaller than the Marx
one:
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Triceratops #2. The
set comes with two of these as well.
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Stegosaurus, again, with
that 'Marx look' about him:
Here are a couple of shots of him next
to the Marx Stego for comparison. As you can see, he's just slightly larger than the Marx Stego:
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Pteranodon is a
decent looking guy, but is a lot larger than the rest of the dinos. The Triceratopses dwarf in comparison. This Pteranodon
mold (notice the feathers) seems to have been around for quite awhile, as has the yellow and orange color scheme. I remember
having pteros as a kid that looked like this one. Below is a shot of his underbelly, showing the large talons.
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Brontosaurus (Apatosaurus) is mimicking Marx again. He's just a teeny bit smaller than the
Marx Bronto, but as you can see from the pictures, the pose is nearly identical.
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Parasaurolophus, an
okay looking figure that doesn't seem to be an imitation of anything, Marx or otherwise:
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Styracosaurus, also not a Marx knockoff (two are included in this set).
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The two Dimetrodons
that are included in the set. Or are they supposed to be Spinosaurs? Hmmm...
And now for the remaining seven pieces that complete the 20-pc. set...the nifty
landscapes pieces!
First off, four very 2-dimensional trees that have suction-cup-like bottoms
(I can't get them to stick, so I don't know whether they are supposed to be suction cups or not):
Next, a hollow rock-face:
Here's another rock that could possibly double for a pile-o-dino-dung...if the
dinos were a lot bigger.
And lastly, a playmat, that actually has a halfway decent picture on it. It's
make a better backdrop than playmat, though:
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12-Pc. Dinosaur Playset
This one was picked up at Wal-Mart for 88 cents. It's a bag of 12 dinos that
are similar (and some identical) to the ones in the more expensive set. With this set, we get only dinos and no cool
landscape stuff (dang it).
The thing that makes this one interesting is the inclusion of two mammals: Macrauchenia
and Uintatherium. For a cheap bagged set, these really look pretty good, especially the Uintatherium. I remember, before I
really got back into collecting dinos, spying this set on the shelf and buying it for the sole purpose of the inclusion of
the Uintatherium. I was amazed, because this animal isn't represented much in the toy world.
I have seen a Ja-Ru bagged set that is quite similar to this one (see my Ja-Ru page for a review of this set).
Below is a very tiny Brachiosaurus. I have actually got two of the 88-cent bagged sets, and noticed that color can vary from bag to bag. On the
top is a brown and green Brach, and below him a yellow and brown one.
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Next up is a bright orange Tyrannosaurus
(but it has three digits on its hands, so I'd be more inclined to call it an Allosaurus. I am guessing, though that it was
intended to be a T-Rex). He's not nearly as strange looking as the one in the 20-pc. set, nor does he appear to be a
copy of anything (not that I've seen so far, anyhow). Again, the color differed in the two bags I acquired; below the orange
Rex is a yellow one.
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Triceratops #1. A
really tiny copy of the Marx T-tops?
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Triceratops #2 looks
like T-Tops 2 in the 20-pc. set, only gray.
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Styracosaurus, identical
to the one in the other set, but again differing in color.
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This
time, we get a different Stegosaurus than the one in the other set.
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A slightly
Marxy-looking Ankylosaurus (but a lot smaller than the Marx one).
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Allosaurus, Obviously a Marx copy. Or an MPC copy. Although MPC dinos are said to be
copies of Marx ones...so a copy of a copy? Oh man, this could get confusing...
Compared to the Marx Allo(top) and MPC Allo (bottom):
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A tiny Spinosaurus.
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The Trachodon... do I even need to say it?
Marx copy! Marx copy!!!
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Uintatherium, my
favorite figure in the set (and, as I said, my whole reason for buying the thing in the first place). He looks pretty darn
good to me, except for the bright orange paint job.
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Macrauchenia, not
a Marx copy but perhaps an MPC copy. You be the judge...
Pictured here with the MPC Mac:
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As noted on the 20-pc. set, these dinosaurs
are way out of scale with one another, for the most part. To give you an idea, I have a shot here of T-Rex and the Brachiosaurus
together. A quarter is added so you can gauge the size better.
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