When you are an innocent child, toys will generally come and go into your life with regularity. They're provided by your loving carers so often, you see, that their individual value is diminished (unless you're a poverty-stricken Icelandic kid hopeful to merely avoid being eaten by the Yule Cat).
Some of them, however, are acquisitions so momentous, they stand out in your mind. My exact recollection of the day I landed the Technodrome is a little fuzzy, but I just remember seeing it, wanting it, and knowing that it was a big ask — its sheer size no doubt inflating its price tag by quite a bit.
Despite this, mom and dad relented, and I grappled with the idea that I was about to receive the single biggest, baddest playset short of Castle Grayskull. I peered over at my mother, a look of shock crossing my face.
"Reiner," I gasped. "Are we doing it?! Now?! Right here?!"
"Yeah," she muttered in response, a stoic look crossing her face. "We settle this... right here, right now!"
Mikasa Ackerman then emerged, seemingly from nowhere, burying her blade deep in the side of mom's throat. A bloody battle would ensue.
I'm pretty sure that's how it happened, anyway. So let's take a closer look at the home base for nefarious baddies like Shredder, Krang, and Short Stack when he wants to feel popular.
Sensing this is a place where turtles come to die, the passing Dry Bones feels a chill up its spine. Or perhaps its greater concern was the enormous thumb that was holding the apparatus in place.
Foreboding though the Technodrome may seem at first glance, my version is decidedly lacking. Practically every knick and knack once contained within has long since gone missing, rendering it less into an impregnable stronghold and more like a ransacked supermarket in a zombie movie.
In its completed form, this dastardly hideout was a sight to behold, riddled with traps and torture devices that made it the perfect training ground for consolidating homicidal maniacs. Do you think Jeffrey Dahmer would have gotten a kick out of subjecting the heroes to every manner of abuse? Or Ted Bundy? Or Ed Gein? Or Donald Trump?
Without any of these, it is literally and functionally an empty shell, tragically adorned with only one blue platform that inexplicably remained intact, and a series of haphazardly planted stickers that make it resemble the Springfield police station radio.
Indeed, my miniature Tokka Technodrome actually comes out looking more like the real thing. It at least has the iconic eyeball still available — perhaps the reason the full-size version is so barren is as simple as them having lost their only lookout system.
As you can see, Toon Raph has since taken up residence, using this as a means of forcibly wresting leadership duties from his brother. Rest In Peace Leonardo, you were a real one, for sure.
The ravages of age have stained the plastic casing, but curiously this is isolated only to certain locations. The left and middle sections, which have been inside the house for all these decades, are yellowing as if they took up smoking at some point in the early 2000s. Meanwhile the right section, left to rot in the garage and thereby exposed to the nastiest of elements, is encrusted with dirt but otherwise untarnished.
It truly begs the question: what in the fuck am I breathing in this house and how am I not dead yet?
Most disappointing than anything else, is the guilty realisation that beyond its initial purchase, I don't necessarily have any vivid memories attached to this thing. I've exhaustively described my affinity for childhood protagonists over the many years of this blog, so ownership of a playset that operates like a wicked sex dungeon doesn't really align with my values.
In actuality, I probably spent most of my time having Raphael ninja kick things while spouting pithy one liners. Rob Paulsen would have been proud of little Anthony, though probably ashamed of big Anthony who is somehow still playing with his Ninja Turtles toys.
Odds are, after this entry is complete, I will inadvertently track down some of its remaining accessories, from its crucial wheels to its home and contents insurance. For now, at least, I hope you enjoyed this reflection upon its battered state. Like the very children who adored it over thirty years ago, in 2022 it finds itself somewhat incomplete... but who knows what next year shall bring?
