I can’t get enough of the miscellaneous background mutants of the TMNT world and I think it has a lot to do with my years as a youth playing the TMNT Roleplaying game from Palladium. One of the more prominent groups of mutants from the ’87 cartoon, the Punk Frogs are a natural for the NECA ‘toon turtle line and kick off with a two-pack of Rasputin and Genghis Frog. Let’s take a look!
The Punk Frogs come in the now-familiar two-pack NECA style with some lovely character art on the front of the box and clear photos on the sides and back. I especially like the how the insert artwork behind the figures is a background painting of the Punk Frog’s home in the Okefenokee swamp.
The set comes with the two Punk Frogs and a plethora of episode specific accessories including two pre-transformation versions of the punk frogs, two turtle-coms, four extra hands (two pointing, two peace sign, two fists, and two open grips), a disguise, two extra heads, and a mutant trap.
The Turtle-com is pretty familiar if you collect this line, but it is so appropriate for these guys because they call the Turtles a lot in their episodes. Also, it’s a great accessory with some really nice sculpted detail painted cleanly.
The disguise is one piece and comes from a specific episode when Genghis visits the Turtles, traveling by bus. It’s just such a fun conceit from the show that these hat/mustache and glasses would make people overlook these massive mutants on the street and the piece sits perfectly on both head variations.
The mutant trap was something used by Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter in his eponymous episode of the cartoon to trap mutants and has that classic cartoon tech style. That was a fun episode, could this be a hint for a future figure?
Rasputin comes with his bow and arrows in a quiver including a trick arrow. The quiver can be slung over either shoulder, but I think it is intended to be worn and looks best with the arrows showing above the right shoulder. The bow is pre-strung and there is a small peg to help balance the arrow. The slightly open hand has some perfect spacing between fingers so Genghis can hold the arrows easily.
Genghis comes with his axe and it has some nicely sharp edges and some clean paint with detail lines along the blade.
The pre-transformation frogs are cute little slug figures that have corresponding colors to the mutated frogs and match the cartoon artwork well.
Both frogs have alternate portraits, one with a pleasant grin and one grimacing in fear, which feels like a good representation of how they behave on the show, vacillating from chill content to fear for their lives. The Punk Frog name has always struck me as a little funny since they are really so sweet and chill and often put-upon by the likes of Shredder and Leatherhead.
The alternate heads and hands swap easily and stay on securely and I didn’t have any nerve-wracking moments fearing that I might break the things because they were too tight.
The frogs share a base body that captures the top heavy and spindly legged look from the toon well. The articulation allows them to get down into a nice crouch and the ball joint in the head allows for a nice expressive posing.
The scale is good with the frogs clocking in shorter than the turtles. You can make them even shorter by crouching them down more as their relative scale to the turtles does seem to vary between and within episodes.
The articulation includes:
- Ball and socket barbell neck and mid-torso
- Swivel/hinge shoulders, elbows, wrists, hips, and ankles
- Swivel biceps and thighs
- Double hinged knees
I really like how the bicep and thigh swivels are designed to swivel at the shirt and short sleeves for minimal sculptural interruption. The shorts have a soft plastic crotch piece so the leg articulation can kick forward and I like how using the different pieces really make the shorts and shirt feel separate from the frog body.
The painting on these figures continues to be a joy with some beautiful matte finish and painted black lines to highlight the details. I especially like that the shorts are cast in the intended color, so there is no worry about paint scraping off the soft rubber.
Overall this is another fantastic set from NECA and should be hitting Targets very soon. These two frogs are fun to play with and have so much colorful personality that make them a joy to photograph and I can’t wait for their brothers to arrive. Thanks again to NECA for sending this set along for an early look!
