Growing up in the 1980s ensured kids of the decade had plenty of action figures to choose from with franchises like He-Man, Thundercats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and more all filling toy shelves across the years. With hundreds of different figures available, all costing parents a sizeable amount to keep their youngsters happy, some figures outside the core heros and villains didn’t quite get the attention they could have and very quickly fell into obscurity. One such Thundercats toy is now available for sale on eBay for $4,000 and it is likely that most people don’t even remember it existed. Although toy boxes everywhere were filled with figures of Lion-O, Panthro, Mumm-Ra and others, ask someone about the Astral Moat Monster or Tongue-A-Saurus and they may just give a blank stare.
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Third Earth, the setting for most of the Thundercats‘ adventures, was a large place, with many locations and creatures appearing infrequently in the cartoon series and subsequently as action figures in LJN Toys’ extensive range based on the characters. Like many toy lines of the decade, the first waves of Thundercats figures sold in vast amounts, making their worth in today’s vintage toy sale market a little on the low side, even if they are preserved in pristine condition. However, the last waves arrived when other new and exciting franchises were building momentum and were both produced in lower volumes and did not sell as well. That means these figures now command the most money from collectors when they come available at auctions, such as the recent sale of the fearsome Tongue-A-Saurus monster figure.
The Forgotten Monster of the Thundercats Toy Line
Courtesy of 101footyfreak/ebay
Once LJN Toys had quickly exhausted the most popular characters of the action adventure cartoon, the need to keep shelves stocked with more new additions that would make children badger their parents into buying for them. This included some obscure vehicles seen only a couple of times on screen, and deadly monsters that the Thundercats encountered in maybe just a single episode. Released as part of the final 1987 wave, the Tongue-A-Saurus was larger than your average figure, with huge teeth and a tongue fitted to a mechanism that allowed children to turn a handle that would make the tongue shoot out of the creature’s mouth and entrap an unsuspecting figure. Like any gimmicky toy, the actual toy did not exactly come to life in the way the advertisements suggested, but the imagination of children is something that can turn even the most basic action movement into a thrilling recreation of Saturday morning cartoons.
The Tongue-A-Saurus in this particular auction ended up selling for $4,308 as an extremely rare boxed version with fully working mechanism. As the seller notes, finding a loose version of this particular toy – along with others such as the Moat Monster released around the same time – is hard for those wanting to complete their collections. Finding a fully functioning version with its original box and packaging is almost as rare as it gets. That may beg the question of why such a rare item didn’t sell for even more than it did, but that comes down to the fact that items will only make really insane money if they come sealed and graded. If such a perfect example went under the hammer with a site such as Heritage Auctions, then it could sell for substantially more to the correct bidder. In the end, though, an old child’s toy that originally cost around $20 selling for over $4,000 is not a bad investment return from a toy that was played with before being packed away for almost four decades.
Do you have the Tongue-A Saurus, or is it one of the Thundercats toys that passed you by? Let us know about your obscure Thundercats toys in the comments.
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