Chinasaurs
No, that's not a racist name, it's a placeholder! These are some of the "Made in China" generic pseudosaurs that have been sold on the cheap shelves since at least the early 1970s (I'd wager '60s). Now, there are many more figures than these, and most of those are actual, real-life dinos. You can still find the non-weird ones in stores to this day, although sadly the stranger figures such as the ones pictured are very hard to find. Two things make the above weirdos significant:
1. When Gary Gygax was developing Dungeons & Dragons (Probably 1970-71, considering that the first version of the game was published in 1972), he bought some dime store dinosaurs and used them to invent a few new monsters. In the pic above, you can clearly see two Rust Monsters and a Bulette, matching the original artwork perfectly. He also claimed the Owlbear from the same set, although I am not sure which figure it was, and there is a possibility that the white mandible dinosaur turned into the Umber Hulk.
2. There is a very strange possibility that these are kinda-sorta Ultraman Kaiju. Sort of. They do not match anything from the show, but a couple of scans from ananonymous magazine (or fan zine, or catalogue, or poster) seem to show Ultraman grappling with a few of these monsters. But this is hard to figure out - the scans show no real identifying details, and magazines had a tendency to make up their own unofficial Ultra Kaiju, anyway. The chances of one of those custom Kaiju getting an official toy are very, very low... but the picture is there! There is also the possibility that they showed up in Ultraman manga, but that stuff is insanely obscure. If anybody is interested in helping me solve this puzzle, ask and I'll try to forward you all the info we have!
I've had these particular toys since I was quite young. The little yellow rubber guy was my first glow-in-the-dark toy that didn't glow basic white/green, in fact!
Chinasaurs
No, that's not a racist name, it's a placeholder! These are some of the "Made in China" generic pseudosaurs that have been sold on the cheap shelves since at least the early 1970s (I'd wager '60s). Now, there are many more figures than these, and most of those are actual, real-life dinos. You can still find the non-weird ones in stores to this day, although sadly the stranger figures such as the ones pictured are very hard to find. Two things make the above weirdos significant:
1. When Gary Gygax was developing Dungeons & Dragons (Probably 1970-71, considering that the first version of the game was published in 1972), he bought some dime store dinosaurs and used them to invent a few new monsters. In the pic above, you can clearly see two Rust Monsters and a Bulette, matching the original artwork perfectly. He also claimed the Owlbear from the same set, although I am not sure which figure it was, and there is a possibility that the white mandible dinosaur turned into the Umber Hulk.
2. There is a very strange possibility that these are kinda-sorta Ultraman Kaiju. Sort of. They do not match anything from the show, but a couple of scans from ananonymous magazine (or fan zine, or catalogue, or poster) seem to show Ultraman grappling with a few of these monsters. But this is hard to figure out - the scans show no real identifying details, and magazines had a tendency to make up their own unofficial Ultra Kaiju, anyway. The chances of one of those custom Kaiju getting an official toy are very, very low... but the picture is there! There is also the possibility that they showed up in Ultraman manga, but that stuff is insanely obscure. If anybody is interested in helping me solve this puzzle, ask and I'll try to forward you all the info we have!
I've had these particular toys since I was quite young. The little yellow rubber guy was my first glow-in-the-dark toy that didn't glow basic white/green, in fact!