Yeah, we at Topless Robot think the playthings based around Jurassic Park and its sequels are generally great (that whole "dino-damage" thing was - and still is - pretty cool). That's not to say that the toys have a lick to do with the plot. Yeah, they generally look like their on- screen counterparts, but man; the figures came with bizarre accessories, turning characters who spent a good amount of time running for their lives into certified dinosaur hunters. Unfortunately, some of that same logic was applied to the vehicles, adding weapons and features where there weren't any, or otherwise completely making them up to begin with. And so, today's list. We're limiting these to the transportation that was supposedly based on the movies, not the expanded universe stuff. So yeah, read on for some freewheelin' foolishness, guys.
5) Jungle Explorer
With the Jungle Explorer, the cool-but-harmless, track-bound SUV from Jurassic Park was transformed into some kind of makeshift assault vehicle. According to the packaging, the missile is of the "Blood Sample" (of course!) variety, and is apparently most effective when fired into space by Robert Muldoon instead of at the nearby T-Rex enjoying the hood as an hors d'oeuvre. Safe to say, remove the weaponry and it's a solid toy.
Our favorite part about this thing is Dr. Grant's expression and body language on the box, which makes him look like he's stuck in rush hour traffic instead of a life-threatening dinosaur attack. If he'd only been looking at his watch, we'd insist on framing it.
4) Glider Pack
Apparently undeterred by the crushing injuries he sustained in his last prehistoric adventure, the toy form of mathematician Ian Malcolm decides to take to the air with this glider to fire missiles at Pterodactyls. You'd think a man of numbers would see the flaw in this reasoning and deduce that there are far too many dinosaurs for one chaos theorist to slay, but clearly, Ian Malcolm has no limits. Where'd he get that doctorate again?
3) Bush Devil Tracker
Why, it's the return of the Alan Grant-Bob Muldoon tandem, back to kick some more dinosaur butt! This time, it looks like young Timmy is in tow, possibly being used as live bait. It's true that Grant doesn't like kids, but this is probably taking it a step too far.
The toy is similar to the Jungle Explorer in that it's a regular vehicle featured in the first film modified to fail at capturing dinosaurs. We find this a questionable alternative to leaving; what happens when they run out of gas? What about the T-Rex? Oh well. It seems Dr. Grant's okay with the whole idea as long as Tim becomes raptor chow.
2) Dino-Snare Dirtbike
If we walked away with one bit of knowledge from Jurassic Park, it's that Velociraptors absolutely hunt in packs. You'll have to excuse us, but that makes this thing's mere existence more painful than any evisceration an escaped dinosaur could serve up. We know stuff like this was kind of used by the hunters in The Lost World, but seriously, what's the plan here? Snare the dinosaur's neck, and while you're trying to stop it from biting you, attempt to stay topside on your motorcycle and ride away before his friends catch up? Man, we'd hate to be the guy stuck with this thing. Give us the blood sample missile-shooter car any day of the week.
1) Capture Copter
Try to ignore, for a moment, that the box portrays Dr. Grant as a man who can not only fly a helicopter, but simultaneously use one to capture dinosaurs with nets. What really stands out is that this is a toy of an aircraft placed in Jurassic Park, a story about trying to find a way off an island overrun by giant, murderous lizards. Look -- there it is. The answer to all of your problems. You can leave now, guys. You have a helicopter with a ridiculous mouth drawn on it. Just go home. No? Going to stay for a while? Try to capture all the dinosaurs, you say? See where that gets you? Okay. Makes sense.
*wipes a tear* This article made my day. I have these vehicles kept locked away till I can get rid of some of them. They're pretty useless to a guy of my age group. The Capture Copter is still pretty badass though.
As for Chaos Effect, there was that equally weird Trike Dozer that could have fit to the list.
Malcolm flying a hang glider with missle launcher while wearing his cool shades, Hell Might as well give the kids a Bazooka and the attorney a jet-pack, Makes you wonder how much thought go into coming up with these toys.
Well, the movie was pretty useless, too. So it fit.
Raise your hand if you lost one or both over the years. ;)
the bike and Jeep were used in the Lost world....not to catch velociraptors and T-rexs though, that would be dumb.
That's essentially Tremors 2.
... At which point I reread the title, wonder how in blazes I missed that salient piece of information, and slunk off quietly.
(though now that you mention it, I think the Chaos Effect mash-up dinos should've had saddles)
I love Jurassic Park and all the insanity that came with it. What a great movie.
lol i had the motorcycle one as a kid.
Do I need to feel bad if I tell you I have two vehicles (nr. 5 and nr. 3) of these list still lying around here somewhere? I must've known something was wrong with the jungle explorer when I was a kid though because I refused to use the rocket launcher.
Yeah, they re-used several Ewok items for RH:PoT. That had to be the most useless toy line ever.
That they were! I was always amused by the back of the packaging where they'd list the figures in the line, and there you have Grant with his net launcher, Ellie with her grappling hook launcher, Tim with his snare, Muldoon with his tranq-missile bazooka, and instead of Nedry's tranq-spray pack, his description simply read "Dennis Nedry's arms rip off to reveal dino damage!"
Is it on the net somewhere? Can it be found? Why was it never realized?
Why has no one brought up the fact that the Nedry toy's arms were removable?
How the hell do you aim a missile from the back of an air glider? If it has it's own targeting system, why would you need the glider at all? Wouldn't the missile firing thrown the glider off-course, or set it on fire? Couldn't Jeff Goldblum turn into a human fly and use his own wings?
I seem to recall Ian McKellan telling a story about getting drunk with his significant other at Christmas and doing increasingly obscene things with a 12" Gandalf that somebody had given him.
Yeah~~! I agree with you ~
I was thinking more along the lines of Roy Orbison.
now you are making me think of hot dogs in the natural casing .....
I recall Alan Rickman expressing contempt/disgust at this Sheriff of Nottingham figure on some late night talk show.
You are not far from the truth. There actually was a Jurassic Park animated pilot done but the series never made it to TV.
I vividly remember an interview with Sam Neil just after the film came out where he was shown the Dr Grant action figure. The look on his face was priceless. "Ah, I'm very, er, muscly..."
That was the moment when my little 9-year-old mind realised that not everyone is on the same page when it comes to awesomeness.
Jeff Goldblum as Nightwing FTW! Awesome.
The GI JOE cartoon announcer voice makes the Jurassic Park Jeep almost seem cool.
The whole movie saga is sort of ruined by the fact that real velociraptors were smaller and covered in feathers. Though a remake of people being chased by what amount to dog-sized man-eating chickens would be amusing.
The best was the Robin Hood Ewok village.
you need to now do a list about the other toys. The human toys had Dennis Nedry, or at least a guy named Dennis Nedry, who looked NOTHING like Wayne Knight, and would barely even qualify as pudgy. XD
The coolest thing about him was that he too had "dino damage", meaning you could pull his arms off.
Then when it was obvious that this Jurassic Park franchise was practically shitting money, they started adding a buncha weird stuff to the series, like the "Dino Trackers" and the "Evil Raiders", new original characters who either looked like rejects from either a Tarzan movie or Crocodile Dundee.
The worst was the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves line. EVERYTHING in that line was a re-used mold. Look under Friar Tuck's robe ... Gamorrean Guard body from the RotJ toy line.
Uhmm.. the title of the article is <I>5 Ludicrous Jurassic Park Movie <B>Vehicle</B> Toys</I>.
I don't think that any of the Chaos Effect mash-up dinos I had came with saddles.
Million to one shot, doc....million to one.
Not only that, but Kenner is NOTORIOUS for re-using old toy molds and just rebranding them. For example: Kenner made a Stormtrooper Blaster rifle back in 1978 for the Star Wars Toyline. Quite popular, they used it again in 1981 and 1983 for the next two films (sans foldable stock). Then when they got the Batman License in '89 they used it again, this time for some type of sonic rifle weapon that hat a batman symbol coming out of the barrel on a dish, and a Batman logo on the butt of the gun. They then REUSED the mold again for the Power of the Force toy line when it relaunched in the late nineties albeit a different color and called it a "Snowtrooper blaster". They are still using that mold to this day for their Stormtrooper rifle, but for whatever reason ditched the foldable stock on it after the '78 toyline. So, there you have it: one of Kenner's cost saving measures done a hundred times to other toylines as well.
Cool Story, Bro...
This reminds me of the one birthday party I went to in my youth where the school's "rich kid" threw a huge birthday party at the local roller-skate ring (now a garage/junkyard). His parents got him THE ENTIRE Lost World toy line, vehicles and all, and he just kind of opened them and threw them to the side, with extreme apathy. Later on, because my parents were still at work, I had to wait at his house for a couple hours until they could pick me up. The whole time he hoarded the entire thing of toys and made me sit in the corner; his mom came by and flipped out, told him to share his toys. He did, for a moment then just hogged them again. Two hours later my parents came for me and that was the end of that. Kid was always a d-bag anyhow, still is.
The best Jurassic Park toy ever was the thin, muscular, grenade-wielding Dennis Nedry.
seeing this list makes me think kenner was just oh lets slap the old jurassic park name on it for one that glinder is just screaming be eaten by a tyradactal plus the dirtbike would not last long with the trex.
I'm somewhat astonished that not a single Chaos Effect toy is on this list. Compared to things called "Ankyloranodon," "Compstegnathus" and "Velocerapteryx," Copter-Capture is practically mundane. Hell, Number 1 could've just been "Every Single Chaos Effect Toy."
The Glider is sort of from a storyboarded scene that didn't make it to the film, although not with missiles. Basically there's a storyboard on the DVD that shows them trying to go over a chasm using gliders, when pteranodons start attacking and pick them off one by one. Part of the sequence was retooled into JP3's Pteranodon scene. Basically the Pteranodon scenes would've been the climax of the movie instead of the Tyrannosaur/San Diego sequence-they built animatronic robots and CG and everything, but in the end it was only used in the scene at the island at the end and of course modified for JP3.
with.... ....... <i><b>CARTER!!!</i></b>
(Apparently related to Mitchell.)
Itchy...tasty.....
I've still got the screaming Velociraptor and it works perfectly after all these years. It used to sit on my drawing board in the Marvel Bullpen and whenever things got quiet or boring (which was rare) I'd pick it up, do my bad Ed Sullivan voice to announce "Ladies and gentlemen...The Beatles!" and then pull back the toy's legs to make it emit that shriek. I swear to god it sounded like one of those screaming girls greeting the Fab Four when their plane landed in that famous footage. It was either that or doing the scream from James Brown's "I Got You (I Feel Good)" right after letting fly with a bad imitation of James going "So good, so good...I got you!"
I can only assume it whickers, and quite possibly honks.
I love the Jurassic park movies (well the spielberg ones )& the books by Crichton were just superb!
the downside is they make me hungry! No srsly ! Seeing all the carnivors eating left & right makes me think that I'll have to get me some meat for later! & since we're in full Ramadhan right now the HUNGER IS WORSE! FOOOOOOOD! I ASK FOR BLOODY FLESH WITH MUSHROOMS! NICE MORCEAUX LIKE HEART, LIVER , MUSCLES , TONGUE.... MEEAAAAAAT!
"How the hell do you embezzle a duck supply?"
It depends on which politically incorrect ethnic enclave you go to.
I had the Capture Copter when I was little and I loved it, granted I didn't use the net to try and capture dinosaurs. I used the net to gather action figures I had grown bored of as food for the dinosaurs.
And don't forget, he should be eating while reciting his lines. Jeff Goldblum is one of the finest masticating actors alive today.
It does keep things lively around here. And ever since I found out that ZADR was a fan-fic thing, I've wanted to change. You've... you've inspired me man!
I like the Malcolm glider because it reminds me of his completely justified resistance to go to the island in The Lost World and his snark filled attempts at getting his girlfriend off of it. It's funny to imagine him going
"Uh..so I, uh take, take this nonpropelled...uh...glider and I...uh... I guess I shoot dinosaurs in midflight?"
I still have the bush devil tracker sitting proudly on my shelf next to my T-rex. That thing is awesome! Is it impractical? Yes. Does it have a FRIGGIN SEAT THAT SLIDES OUT OF THE CAR WITH A HUGE POLE? YES!!!!
The "Bush Devil Tracker" was in the second film, not the first one, and it seems to have been represented completely unmodified.
I have the Godzilla 2000 version of the Capture Copter.
Such is the complexity of the Penguin's deluded mind! I doubt any sane man, even one as Sly as you, could begin to understand the man's twisted logic. And I tend to change my identity whenever I get bored, but I shall take requests!
These are all pretty silly in context but number one is especially gobsmacking.
"I know you wanted to save those dinos Dr. Grant, but a TRANQ-missle is a <b>T</b>actical <b>R</b>ocket <b>A</b>rea <B>N</b>uke <b>Q</b>uaratine. I guess we should have briefed you on that before you got trigger happy."
This is exactly why I had to find a new proctologist.....
I wonder if we can request identities. If so, I vote for Mad Hatter Smashy.
...How the hell do you embezzle a duck supply? How do you even gain money off it? Were these the same ducks that were almost traumatized by a bombing incident? Wait, are you going to be changing your identity every week? Can't wait for AzraelSmashy. =P
You swapped the ducks with rats? You billionaire playboys are weird.
It's like the Japanese killing whales for "scientific purposes." These are <i>hypodermic</i> harpoons! Quite sterile.
I actually have the Capture Copter. Came with a Quetzalcoatlus figure to capture.
Kenner was famous for that kind of stuff though. You should see some of the mockups they made for after Return of the Jedi The best of the bunch is the AT-AT with most of the troop compartment missing and in its place, an Ion cannon. it was like the world's coolest kit-bash.
I actually HAVE the Ian Malcolm glider...that thing is boss!
Ah, the Rapacious Raptor Capture Copter! That reminds me of the time The Penguin attacked the city aviary with his huge duck-shaped autogyro in an attempt to embezzle Gotham's duck supply, and it was up to me and Robin to -- umm.... ahhhh rats.
The Ian Malcom action figure looks like Rick Moranis in Ghostbusters
Well, I'm still waiting for a sexed-up Ian Malcolm figure from McFarlane Toys.
I'll have you know I owned every single one of those toys (well, not the glider, even in my youth I knew that was just dumb). I recently stumbled on them in my parents garage and salvaged what I could (which was not much unfortunately). I was able to save both Velociraptor toys (the one with the sound chip actually still works too).
...Because EVERY legitimate doctor or scientist knows the best way to take a blood sample is with a missile, right? At least, that's how my doctor always did it...Well, before the "incident", at least.
Poor guy on the dirt bike should at least have a rigid catchpole, rather than a snare.
On the other hand, I worked in a small vet clinic through college. I'm a firm animal lover but now I keep thinking how much fun the phrase "We need a blood sample. I'm going to go get the missile." Would have been.
I just can't get over how perfect that Malcolm figure is if you happened to be making a Flight of the Conchords toy line. Hello, Jemaine!
The whole toyline felt like it was based on some hypothetical follow-up cartoon that never materialized. [Even then, a lot of tie-in lines come out with vehicles just because "We need a couple for the next wave. Who has any ideas?" rather than something in the source.] I never collected the vehicles, but I did get the figures, because they were compatible with Kenner's other big tie-in line from that period, Aliens vs. Predator, and I needed more humans. Since they all had tags with the JP logo, I just said that they were members of a civilian adjunct, the Space Marines Junior Patrol. My favorite figure of the line, just for the unnecessary reconceptualization, was Dennis Nedry; the figure looked like a hitman.
TotalComments: 68
Nerd news, humor and self-loathing.Edited by Rob Bricken
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