TMNT Mikey Turflytle Review

Buzz Buzz! The newest hero on the Turtle team has just flown in and boy are his cardboard wings tired! We’ve got Mikey in his Turflytle costume on the review block today!

Unlike many of the vintage “Costumed Turtle” figures, this Mikey Turflytle figure is an episode specific disguise that Mikey has used in a couple of episodes. Originally he dressed up to be bait for the mutated Kirby Bat.

 

Mikey is on the new character specific card with Michelangelo on the corner

 

Out of the package we have Turflytle in his full glory. The wings are a separate plastic piece with four stickers making up all the details.

 

Turflytle comes with two Nunchucks. These are the same pre-posed Chucks we’ve seen Mikey come with in the past.

 

The Turflytle costume can be mostly removed. The goggles come off easily and the wings connect in the back with two small tabs (The wings are separated in the package and you have to attach them once you open it) Underneath the costume, Mikey looks like he’s using the same body and head as we saw in the Battle Shell Michelangelo figure from a year or two ago. I’m sure there was a bit of retooling for the new shell piece with the glued on fake arms.

 

 

Mikey Turflytle fits in pretty well with the other Mikey figures and if you didn’t get the Battle Shell version, this gives you a new, more show accurate head than the first Michelangelo figure.

 

The articulation is pretty nice on Turflytle, he’s got swivel hinge joints on his shoulders, elbows, hips & knees and his wrists swivel too. Along with the ball jointed head, this figure can strike a few good poses

 

I’m digging the figure and already enjoyed the “character” from the cartoon and I’m glad to add this figure to my collection. Which is saying something because my #1 rule for TMNT collecting is no costumed/variant Turtles…..I now have 5 counting the LARP Turtles 🙂

All that said, there is one issue I’d like to discuss right now……paint applications. I understand it is a cost cutting measure and it’s very possible that’s why these figures are still under the $10 mark at most stores with other figures of equal size closing in on the $20 mark, but it’s getting a little bad with the cut paint apps. If you compare this figure to the press picture Playmates released, just this past February, you can notice a glaring different in the fake arms and goggles…

Then if you look at the figure that was on display at Playmate’s booth at Toy Fair this year, you’ll notice that while the figure in question, has already lost all paint apps on the Turflytle parts, he still had the wraps on his hands painted. The released figure even lost these.

Mind you I didn’t even notice the loss of the hand wraps until I looked at this picture, but it’s still a problem that so much is getting cut back from what we’re originally shown. I recently passed on the Mystic Donatello (I know, another costumed Turtle that I said I’d never buy) just because most of the paint apps were taken away. The toy looked too simplistic. I’m sure this isn’t as much of a problem for the kids who love the toyline and therefore not a threat to Playmate’s bottom line, but I would like to see a little more paint apps added back in, or at least not see fully painted mock ups that are going to lose half of the paint apps by the time they’re released.

In the case of Turflytle here, I liked the character so much that I was willing to paint him myself, but I don’t want to always have to do that.

Ending my review, I would say, paint apps aside, I do like the figure a lot. The costume was designed to work well with the figure and making the pieces separate made it easy to paint, plus the figure has a great range of articulation. If you like Mikey or Turflytle, definitely grab this figure….then get him a new paint job 🙂