#954 DINO RIDERS SMITHSONIAN - DIPLODOCUS and STYRACOSAURUS (1992)

The dinosaurs from Dino Riders, at the time in which they were made, were supposed to be very accurate 1:32 scale reproductions of dinosaurs. The castings were nice, they had "glass" eyes, were sprayed with state-of-the-art methods and so they were advertised. Today, they are not so eye-catching anymore, and there are better options available in the market, but, of course, more than 25 years have passed since them.

When you visit natural history museums, you usually see plastic toy dinosaurs in the museum shop. I guess back in the early 90s, somebody in charge of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington noticed the quality of some Dino Riders' dinosaurs and probably contacted Tyco to deliver a series of figures to be sold in their museums.

The dinosaurs made for the Smithsonian collection were slightly modified from their Dino Riders counterparts. All electronic circuitry for the walking feature (and the battery cover) were removed, wheels and slots to fit harnesses were also removed and the paintwork was modified in some cases. The box was also designed expressely for the museum. Bigger dinosaurs were sold in big boxes, medium dinosaurs were sold in couples. The boxes had a quality seal "Authorized Replica, Smithsonian Museum". A nice trick to point out the quality of the product.

I have two dinosaurs: the Diplodocus and the Styracosaurus. In general the Smithsonian animals are more difficult to find than the Dino Riders equivalents. And among the Smithsonian´s toys, the Ice Age animals are far rarer than the dinosaurs. It is unclear, if the Killer Warthog was also made for this series of if only the other three Ice Age creatures were actually manufactured and sold in the green boxes.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: DIPLODOCUS and STYRACOSAURUS
• Toy Line: The Smithsonian Institution Dinosaur Collectio
• Year: 1992
• Company: Tyco (U.S.A.)
• Scale: 1:24

#911 DINO RIDERS (ICE AGE) - GIANT GROUND SLOTH with ULK (1990)

 

The last wave of Dino Riders had a subseries called "Ice Age", that included 4 prehistoric animals, but no dinosaurs. For me, this was a complete error, since dinosaurs are so much more attractive! Maybe they thought that dinosaurs were very similar to each other and they were already reusing existing casts too much.

The four animals produced for this subseries in the closing wave by Tyco were:

-Woolly Mammooth with Grom

-Giant Ground Sloth with Ulk

-Killer Warthog with Zar

-Sabre-Tooth Tiger with Hub

Some people consider this subseries as a separate collection and until recently the interest for this series was very low. Now I regret not having bought these boxed a few years ago, when they were sold at very low prices. Currently they are becoming more and more difficult to find and the prices are rising accordingly.

Another news to this wave was a new figure cast, representing a prehistoric human, some are marked as Neanderthals, oder as Cro-magnons, but the cast is always the same.

These characters have rough-sounding, one-syllabed names and all play for the Valorians, not the Rulons. That is, they are nice guys. The figures have the same articulations than any other figure, but with some simian feature, like shorter legs, that have to have slightly bent knies to stand, and different colours ranging from light brown, to dark brown, to grey, to almost black. The characters carry also different paintings in their chests and different designs in their loincloths.

The four Ice Age animals included one figure each, equipped with grey weapons as the dinosaur´s figures from wave one, and four more figures from 2-packs. These came together with some Rulon figure, and the card also had some Ice Age decoration behind. Interestingly, this series 2-packs Rulons (also the two Valorians) were done in quite cold colours, like different blue shades, white, purple.. also giving the impression of an Ice Age, compared to the bright colours of the second series´ figures and the golden/silver of the first series´ figures.

As usual, the boxes in this series came in several sizes, the mammooth is big and has walking feature, the Warthog and the giant ground sloth are kind of medium, and the Sabre-tooth tiger is small. Maybe they thought this could be a bit short, so they also made three dinosaurs: the big Pachyrhinosaurus (also with walking action feature) and the small Quetzalcoatlus and Chasmosaurus. These three were probably decided after the Ice Age animals, since they are repaints of older models with slightly different heads or no changes at all and they do not match the concept of the line originally (although the line was already mixing dinosaurs from different geological eras).

In general, we could say that the dinosaur and animal armours for this wave are also quite simple compared to armours in previous waves. most of them come with a big piece that serves as a base from everyhting else, including the figure/seat. Two new types of pieces are those made of transparent plastic (like some kind of windshield or igloo) and flexible plastic tubes.

The Giant Ground Sloth (a.k.a. Megatherium) is maybe one of the references in series 3 with the most elaborated armour. Or maybe not the armour, because it matches the description above, but for two extra pieces that attach to the armour and that build an igloo with three cannons when assembled (leaving the animal unarmed!). It is the only dinosaur that comes with some detachable stratucture that can be played independently in the whole toyline (the Rulon traps cannot be attached to the dinosaurs) together with the Dimetrodon, that had something similar.

 

The animal itself is quite cool, it can stand on two or four feet and move its head up on down to look good either ways.

Excellent toy! Looking forward to get or complete the other three Ice Age plus all individual figures.

To finish the article, here are the German instructions for this toy.

 

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: GIANT GROUND SLOTH with ULK
• Toy Line: Dino-Riders (Wave 3)
• Year: 1990
• Company: Tyco (U.S.A.)
• Scale of the beast: 1:24
• Size of the figures: 2½’’ or 6,5 cm

#854 DINO RIDERS – DIPLODOCUS with QUESTAR, MIND-ZEI and ARIES (1988)

The Diplodocus is one of the biggest dinosaurs on the first wave. Tyco promoted this toyline saying the dinosaurs were realistically made in the correct scale, but I actually doubt it. The Triceratops or the Torosaurus are (quite) as big as the Diplodocus, and compared with the Deynonichus or the flying sauria, I would say something is not fitting.

No matter what, the Diplodocus was presented as the second biggest dinosaur of wave 1 (only the T-Rex was bigger), and the biggest dinosaur of the Valorians, the one that came with Questar, the heroic leader and Mind-Zei, the elder and wise Valorian. There was a third figure included, named Aries (this character did not have any elaborated background in the cartoons). Besides this dinosaur, only the T-Rex and the Brontosaurus came with 3 figures.

The Diplodocus had walking function and also moved the neck from side to side. It was operated by one battery located at the stomach of the dinosaur.

The armour is one of the most impressive ones, with two huge compartments at the sides, each of them opening with six doors that reveal a big number of cannons and one controller seat where 1 figure can seat or stand. There is a pilot cabin behind the neck, which is articulated, but after some usage, it does not stand anymore in any position you like, and the cabin does not close as it should. There is place for one figure there. Remember that the valorians can communicate telepathically with the dinosaurs by using the AMP, so there is no need for controls other than for the cannons and weaponry.

Finally, there are four more accesories, two of them are placed on the neck of dinosaur and two more on the tail, and in my opinion, these are great add-ons! The dinosaur looks pretty amazing with them.

As usual the figures included one rack of accesories, in this case the grey ones corresponding to the first wave. Three figures, three sets.

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: DIPLODOCUS with QUESTAR, MIND-ZEI and ARIES
• Toy Line: Dino-Riders (Wave 1)
• Year: 1988
• Company: Tyco (U.S.A.)
• Scale of the dinosaur: 1:24
• Size of the figures: 2½’’ or 6,5 cm

#786 DINO RIDERS - COMMANDO ASTRA (1989)

The Dino Riders Commando series is a short series of figures sold in blisterpacks during wave 2 (in 1989). The blisterpack included one figure and several accesories/weapons, and both the figure and the accesories are based in new casts that are similar among them, but that were not available or reused for any other reference in the whole toyline.

 

They were made in shorter runs than the classic 2-packs (see #704) and are therefore much harder to find today. In addition to this, some of the accesories were really small and if you are a completist, like I am, you´ll have trouble finding all of them. Buying them MOSC is most of the times the only way to get them 100% complete.

 

• The Commando figures were:
• Astra, commander
• Bomba, munitions expert
• Kameelian, Infiltrator
• Glyde, paratrooper
• Faze, artillery expert
• Rok, mountain warfare expert

As you can see, they are quite "military". Their specialties are related to war and weapons, something which is difficult to fit in the Valorian´s background of pacifism. My guess here is that Tyco got this figures from another source and instead of marketing them as a separate toy-line, they decided to sell them as Dino-Riders. This has happened many times before, being the better known example the Meteorbs in the MotU toyline (see entry #580).

 

Despite being the same size, the Commando figures are somehow casted in a  more detailed way, they have futuristic military outfits, the look more "human" than the original Valorians: one of them has sunglasses, another one a moustache, and a third one, a beard (which within the other figures only Mind-Zei has, not considering all the Ice-Age Cro-Magnons!).

 

The only figure from this subseries I currently own is Astra, as you can see in the pictures it is MOC, It is somehow the most impressive figure from all six, the one with the most elaborate uniform (he is the squad leader!)

 

 

The card depicts all 6 Commandos in action surrounded by a few dinosaurs. One of the commandos is seen riding a Valorian Deinonychus, while the Pteranodon and the T-Rex attack. The backcard is quite ordinary and shows all dinosaurs from wave 1 (including the Torosaurus) and the 6 Commando figures.

 

Note the retail price for this figure was 2.69 US$. Uhm, if I had know I would have bought hundred of these... And also a detail pic of the "1 Point" Proof of Purchase which, as in many other toylines, was used to access to special promotions.

 

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: COMMANDO ASTRA
• Toy Line: Dino-Riders (Wave 2)
• Year: 1989
• Company: Tyco (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 2½’’ or 6,5 cm

#705 DINO RIDERS FIGURE 2-PACKS from WAVE 1 (II) (1988)

In this entry I will put pictures of each set "loose".

 

If you pay attention to the figures and you are familiar with the other figures that were sold together with each dinosaur, you´ll recognise, that all these 16 figures are repaints of already existing figures (Rulons from wave 1 are in fact, all the same, only with one out of three different heads).

 

 

Each pack included one Valorian and one Rulon figure. 13 of them are new characters, only Krulos, Questar and Mind-Zei could be considered as a "v2", that is, the original characters where included with the T-Rex and Diplodocus respectively. So if you bought these packs, you may had two Questars and two Mind-Zeis or two Krulos. The same will happen in the second wave of double pack figures, as we will explain some day.

 

Maybe this is intended, being the T-Rex and the Diplodocus expensive toys, children could still enjoy the most important characters without having to buy the big boxes, but if I were the designer, I would have packed Questar and Krulos with middle-size dinosaurs, as M.A.S.K. for example (to take a similar scale reference) did with Matt Trakker in the Thunderbird. They didn´t pack Matt Trakker with Boulder Hill, otherwise, very few children would have had this figure in wave 1.

 

All figures from the blister packs have either silver colours (for the Valorians) or golden colours (for the Rulons), and this paint is quite fragile. Only MOC samples are still really bright and good-looking. From many action figures toylines, we know that these two colours in particular suffer paint loss and decoloration over time. Maybe they are sensible to hand sweat, or maybe they are damaged easily by sunlight, the fact is that silver and gold are often gone. Gold, by the way, turns into a a more solid brown, and then to a greenish brown. Be careful when buying these figures loose!

  

Questar + Krulos (I have the mask of Krulos, but I got it recently, after I took theh pictures)

 

 

Mind Zei + Fire

 

Proto + Rattlar

 

Orion + Six-Gill

 

Nova + Demon

 

Mercury + Fang

 

Quark + Finn

 

Boldar + Termite

 

FACTS and FIGURES:

• Name: QUESTAR and KRULOS, MIND-ZEI and FIRE, PROTO and RATTLAR, ORION and SIX-GILL, BOLDAR and TERMITE, NOVA and DEMON, MERCURY and FANG and QUARK and FINN
• Toy Line: Dino-Riders (Wave 1)
• Year: 1988
• Company: Tyco (U.S.A.)
• Size of the figures: 2½’’ or 6,5 cm