Easter Dinosaurs

I don't really go all out for Easter -- chocolate is great when you're a kid, but as an adult you begin to realise that eating an excess of it could have serious consequences, diabetes being one of them. A typical Easter for me tends to involve church on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, then hanging out with friends and/or family for the rest of the long weekend (and I think I may have built some Galaxy Squad Lego last year).  Easter has become an increasingly solemn occasion for myself as I have grown older. Too much chocolate is usually consumed, but not to the order of magnitude that occurs during childhood.

Nonetheless I was in Target the other day, and passed through their Easter section, which is now getting into full swing. And I spotted this:



Eight dinosaurs for five bucks alone is a bargain, but GLOW IN THE DARK as well? Not to mention the four Easter eggs. I had to have it.

The chocolate was better than anticipated. I expected that dreadful compound stuff that's so prevalent among cheaper Easter fare. But as you might expect, the real draw was the dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs. Titanic beasts of prehistory. Favourite creatures of children and adults around the globe. I don't think they have a whole lot to do with the modern celebration of Easter, though to be fair they did lay eggs -- which means there's more of a connection than a lot of the other Easter merch doing the rounds.

The package contains the following creatures (L-R):

*Plesiosaurus -- waterbound creature, possibly best known these days as being a potential Loch Ness Monster. Not a dinosaur.

*Pachycephalosaurus -- probably used to have awesome headbutt fights.

*Styracosaurus -- like a Triceratops, but not.

*Bronto/Apatosaurus -- a herbivore, formerly at the centre of a naming controversy.

*Pteradon -- not actually a dinosaur, but lived in the same era. Soared above in the skies and
presumably rained death from above on its prey. A prehistoric Starscream, I like to think.

*Triceratops -- one of the most awesome herbivores. This bad boy could give most carnivores a run for their money in the violence stakes.

*The green one -- I assume this is a T-Rex, but it doesn't look quite right. So we'll go with cool-looking generic carnivore.

*Dimetrodon --not a dinosaur either, but actually a mammalian reptile. Lived about 60 million years prior to the Triassic period. Probably my favourite piece of the set.

So as we see, there's actually a number of non-dinos included here. This was pretty common with a lot of the toy dinosaurs I owned as a kid too -- I remember also having a sabre-toothed tiger, and even a set which included Neanderthals. So we won't hold it against them.

The figures themselves are cast in that "not quite soft, but not too firm either" plastic that you'd be familiar with from dinosaur toys in childhood. Some of the detailing is obscured due to the GITD colour scheme, but that's pretty standard. I'm pretty sure I've seen some of these molds before, back when I was a child -- the Pteradon looks particularly familiar.

As for the glow-in-the-dark feature, they all glow the standard yellow-green colour. I expected some other colours in there too, based on their non-glow colouring, but apparently not. Still, it's satisfying to see them glowing away on the bookcase as I drift into sleep after a hard day at the office.

Questionable links to Easter aside, this is a pretty cool toy set! $5 well spent. Recommended for any dinosaur or glow-in-the-dark fan. And if I don't get to post before then, have a happy Easter everyone!