Come ON!  How cute are these?    Playmates Toys have take the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to pre-school with their new TMNT “Halfshell Heroes” line of figures and vehicles.   While maybe not for every collector, this line makes perfect sense for Playmates toys as many of the children of the 80s are starting to have children of their own and are looking to introduce their kids to the things they loved.   Many other brands have already made the move to make younger skewed toys like Star Wars, Transformers, DC Comics and Marvel Comics, but the Turtles have been missing from that young development aisle until now.   Even though these are based off the newer Nickelodeon animated series, long time fans of the old animated series are sure to accept this familiar family of brothers.

It’s interesting to note that all of the packaging features the characters nicknames instead of the full names of the Renaissance painters that they were originally named for.  I’m sure that is a deliberate “kid friendly” choice that Playmates made.   The first waves contain the four turtles, later waves will open up to more of the cast of the animated series.

These Half-Shell Heroes were first debuted at Toy Fair 2014 and fans have been waiting for them to arrive ever since.   With the release of the movie this week the timing couldn’t be better.   I have only seen them at Target stores so far, primarily the ones that have done their Fall toy aisle reset.   They are right next to the Fisher-Price Imaginext toys.

The basic line are the 3″ figures who have both ball and swivel joints and come with a small vehicle or accessory.   There are also some variant figures that come with larger vehicles.

The 3″ figures:

There are also 8″ talking figures that say over 20 phrases.

And then there is big guy that moves when you squeeze a handle on his back and says over 100 phrases: