It Figures: Trekkin Turtles

Sometimes, two great things taste great together. This is the principle behind most brands of crossover. And today on It Figures, we look at one of the most absurd to come into being.

The products of the minds at  Playmates Toys, the Trekkin' Turtles have a clear thought process behind their insanity. Namely, that the Ninja Turtles were selling like hotcakes, and so were their Star Trek action figures. The clear answer that Playmates saw, was to create a toy that combined the two into a single product. And thus, the Trekkin' Turtles came to be.

Strange as the juxtaposition was, it was what ended up rendering the resulting designs so interesting. The Turtles are detailed thoroughly, with the Starfleet uniforms bulging and wrinkling from the contours of their shells and carapaces. Each also is more than simply dressed in the attire- they are made to represent each of the four leads of Star Trek, based vaguely around their personalities. The leader, Leonardo is decked as Captain Kirk, complete with a Shatner style mop of hair. Donatello, the brains of the team is the equally brainy Spock, complete with one hand in a Vulcan salute of sorts- humorously, he is unable to properly give it with three fingers, but the visual idea comes across. Hotheaded and bellicose, Raphael fits perfectly as Doctor McCoy, with only Michaelangelo seeming slightly miscast as Scotty. The figures came equipped with standard phaser, tricorder, and communicator- the only instances of mold-reuse from the Star Trek or TMNT lines- as well as new, uniquely designed futuristic takes on their signature ninja weapons. Strange as the combination was, it sold- and is one of the more expensive subsets of the classic line to collect, second only to the Universal Monsters Turtles that were their contemporaries!