Glow-in-the-dark Dinosaurs Dimetrodon Action Figure Made in Hong Kong, 1980s
Day #2,394: February 10, 2022
Glow-in-the-dark Dinosaurs Dimetrodon Almost clear, with blue highlights
Dinosaur Toy
Item No.: No. n/a Manufacturer:Made in Hong Kong Includes:n/a Action Feature:Glows in the dark Retail:$??? Availability: 1980s Other: Synapsida Blues
Kids today don't know how good they have it - in the 1980s (and earlier) our dinosaur toys weren't only scientifically inaccurate, but they were cheap too. Articulated limbs were extremely rare before the late 1980s, but toys like this Glow-in-the-dark Dinosaurs Dimetrodon - rubbery, ugly, cheap (or free with skee-ball tickets) were abundant. I have boxes of old dinosaur toys from when I was a kid and precious few have any moving parts at all, which made things like Hasbro's Transformers or Tyco's Dino-Riders such a tantalizing proposition. Even things like HG Toys' Dinosaur Warrior - dumpy and lumpy by any standards - were neat because you could nudge the limbs and some had opening jaws. Figures like this rubbery dimetrodon were far more commonplace. I don't even know who made this ugly thing.
I almost got rid of it - but I realized it glows dimly in the dark, which resulted in me keeping it and you seeing it today. Please note some of the glow pictures were enhanced slightly due to how dark the glow is - if you see the comparison shot below next to the Glyos Knights of the Slice figure, you can see it does glow - just not terribly well.
Articulation is not there. You can squeeze the big, ugly toothy maw closed because it's rubbery and largely a hollow toy. That sail is also pretty thin, as you can almost see right through it.
He doesn't glow well. I had him since the 1980s (I think), and I didn't realize he can glow until a couple of years ago. He's pretty faint, but it's something. There are other, better glowing dinosaur toys out there, but how many of them have a dusting of blue paint on the top, and black eyes? Not many, I tell you what.
I wanted to wrap up by saying "this isn't a good toy," but it is - it survived several moves, in many toyboxes, across several homes over decades. There's some ugly un-trimmed flash on his legs and it's a pretty low-quality figure, but nothing is broken, no paint is chipped, and nothing is ripped. This dimetrodon is a survivor - how could I possibly get rid of him? I can't find him on eBay so I have no idea if anyone buys or sells them anymore, but who cares? He's neat.
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