Beastly blues

Mini figure lines in this photo: Panzer World Galient, Villgust, Diener Space Creatures, Gorewad Monsters, MUSCLE/Kinnikuman bootleg, TMNT companion figure, Necros Fortress, Diener Mythology Creatures, vending machine bootleg kaiju, Musclemania, Mini Boglins, Monster in My Pocket, Freakies, Dragons N Monsters

Ornery oranges

There are a lot of moments in my life where I just stop what I'm doing and say to myself, "Damn, I'm a huge geek." One such moment came during the process of taking the above photo, during which I spent way too much time picking out, arranging and shooting a group of orange toys. I had so much fun taking a pic of a bunch of green mini figures together that I wanted to do the same for other colors, starting with orange. See? Huge geek. But if being a toy geek is wrong, I don't wanna be right. Now to figure out which color to do next...

Here are the toy lines featured in this photo: Dragons N Monsters, MUSCLE, Mini Boglins, vending machine knockoff of Marty Toy space creature, Diener Space Creatures, Garbage Pail Kids Cheap Toys, Necros Fortress, Freakies, party favor monster, Space Ace, mini vending machine kaiju, Monster in My Pocket

Dragons 'n Monsters

Arco figures

Toys N Things figures

What: A very cool fantasy-themed mini figure line that came out of the '80s. It consisted of eight different plastic, one-color dragons and monsters (surprise, surprise) packaged with a hollow plastic castle with a removable lid, allowing for the figures to be stored inside. There are two different versions of these: the original figures made by Arco and a later line using the same sculpts by Toys N Things. Figure colors included blue, green, orange and red, with the original line having a bright, waxy, almost translucent look to the plastic and later versions having a more matte look.

When: Originally early-mid 1980s, with versions being sold into the 1990s (I remember buying some at Toys R Us in the early-mid '90s. It's possible they were named differently)

Where: U.S. (at least), sold at toy stores, department stores, variety stores

Who: Originally produced by Arco, '90s line by Toys N Things