NECA: TMNT Muckman and Joe Eyeball Review

In the ’87 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, Muckman and Joe Eyeball are garbage men who sound a lot like Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton (not that one) and turn into monstrous heroes when exposed to mutagen from the Tropotron labs. He’s made of garbage and comes with slime. What else do you need?

The box continues the the current NECA style and features excellent artwork that captures the feel of the old TMNT video tape compilations to perfection. The cover has a velcro seal and the inside has a nice photo of the figure in action and the box has a big window so you can see all the good stuff that comes with Muckman.

Muckman and Joe Eyeball come with a small mutagen canister full of slime, a blaster, a trash can, two sets of hands (open and grip), and two mouths. The blaster looks familiar, and while I can’t quite remember the episode, but the signature cartoon tech style comes through brilliantly here and it fits well in Muckman’s alternate right grip hand.

The mutagen canister is a bright green plastic barrel and comes wrapped in shrink wrap to prevent slime spillage. I really like that there’s a Tropotron labs sticker on the barrel, but I didn’t realize until after I cut it off that the sticker is attached to the shrink wrap rather than the barrel. The slime has a nice, drippy viscosity and boy does playing with the stuff take me back. It can be a little tough to clean of all the crevices in the detailed sculpting on the figure once you are done.

A fun and unexpected feature for this figure is you can swap Muckman’s mouth piece to get different expressions. He looks dead bizarre without the mouth piece, but the parts swap easily and stay on well.

My favorite part is the little trashcan that attaches to Muckman’s back. It can pull double duty as a carrying pack for Joe Eyeball or just a super cool, cartoony trash can for the TMNT display. The can attaches to Muckman with a little hook and stays on well and Joe fits in there perfectly.

The sculpting here is another great translation of the 2D into reality and I especially like all the little bits of garbage sculpted into Muckman’s massive body, the banana peel toupee being a highlight. The mostly green parts also have a disgusting dripping sludge feel to them and he looks like he would really stink.

Joe Eyeball is a great little character that translates well into plastic here. He’s got a really classic alien vibe to him that I dig and the face has a ton of personality sculpted in there. His tiny little feet make him tough to balance, but the tail holds him up fine.

Articulation for Muckman is what we’ve come to expect from the line and he moves well, though the sheer size of his arm and chest make it a little tricky to get a two-handed blaster pose, but it can be done. I did enjoy how stable he is since he’s basically got a figure stand permanently attached to one leg and the ankles get nice swivel considering how large the feet and legs are. Joe Eyeball has less articulation, but the ball jointed head and swivel/hinge shoulders allow for a lot of expressive posing and his lower arms are posed in a way that they can hook onto the back of Muckman’s shirt and hitch a ride there too. Muckman has:

• Swivel/hinge shoulders, wrists, hips, and ankles
• Bicep and thigh swivel
• Ball and socket mid-torso and neck
• Double hinged knees and elbows

Overall, these two are another great addition to the TMNT line and brilliant translations of the animated style. I got these samples from NECA, but I’m seeing people have picked Muckman up from oversees, so it shouldn’t be too long until this guy shows up here.