Video Dracula

Dungeon Reviews: Ratchet and Ironhide (1984)

Of the 1984 Autobot cars, perhaps no others have such a great disparity between toy design and character design.

“You break it, I’ll remake it.” | “High-tech circuitry is no replacement for guts.”

In today’s Dungeon Review, we’re taking a look at these two mysterious figures and we’ll discuss how many of their play features didn’t quite work as intended within the Transformers mythos.

Dungeon Reviews: The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1987)

On a previous Dungeon Review, we discussed Playmates’ 2021 reissue of Donatello from the 1987 TMNT line. Today, we’re gonna look at all four original turtles.

For me there are few sets of toys that bring me more joy to see on a shelf than these four original turtles with their varied greens, battle-ready stances, and toothy grimaces. Let’s go into what makes each of these ninja teens so special.

Dracula’s Top 10 Toys of 2021!

Let’s face it: 2021 sucked. It sucked a little less than 2020, but it still sucked. Fortunately, there was plenty of plastic nonsense to keep us distracted from the everything else, and I’d like to share some of my favorite plastic nonsense.

This list is (mostly) presented in an unordered fashion. I love all my plastic children and it’s too hard for me to do a strict ranking. But don’t worry. If this displeases you, there are probably other people ranking nerd culture fetish objects elsewhere on the Internet. Also, I limited myself to toys that were released in 2021, though a few may have trickled out at the tail end of 2020.

Dungeon Reviews: Jetfire (1985)

Jetfire is the original Transformers holy grail. Even to this day his name is spoken with an aura of reverence, of Christmases and birthdays and Toys “R” Us top shelves remembered. Let’s take a look at why the Autobot air guardian was so beloved.

“Among the mysteries of science lies the key to victory.”

Jetfire was released in 1985, the second year of the Transformers toyline. The toyline was experiencing such unprecedented success that Hasbro began buying up licensing rights for other transforming toy robots beyond the foundational Diaclone and Microchange lines. While most of these robots’ source material remains obscure, Jetfire hails from The Superdimension Fortress Macross, a famous mecha anime and film series that was later repurposed into Robotech.

Dungeon Reviews: Donatello (Playmates 2021 Reissue)

If you were an American kid cognizant during any of the late 1980s or early 1990s, you remember the Turtles hype. The heroes in a half-shell were literally everywhere, particularly in the toy box. And for many of us, the most highly prized figures in the original Playmates line were the four standard turtles.

In 2021, Playmates reissued all four of the original 1987 Turtle boys, but how well do these 80s relics hold up in the 21st century? And how do they stack against the original ninja teens? In today’s Dungeon Review, we’ll try to answer those questions using Don here as a test subject.

Dungeon Reviews: Megatron (1984)

You can’t have an iconic hero without an iconic villain. And there are few more iconic toy villains than Megatron.

Megatron was released in the first wave of Transformers toys in 1984. The toy has its origins in Takara’s Microman line, where it was part of the “Microchange” subline imprint. Microchange featured a variety of household objects that could convert into humanoid robots.

Dungeon Review: Optimus Prime (1984)

We’re kicking off Dungeon Reviews with one of the most iconic action figures of the 20th century: the original Optimus Prime.

Optimus Prime was released in the first wave of Transformers toys in 1984, repurposed from the Diaclone Battle Convoy figure as the leader of the heroic Autobots. For this review, we’ll be looking at the 2019 Hasbro reissue of the classic toy, paired with a vintage trailer.

Dracula Files Update!

It’s been a bit, but I’ve just updated the master list of Dracula Files with a new sub-section for the 2015-2018 Generations sublines (Combiner Wars, Titans Return, and Power of the Primes).

I also updated the Siege and Earthrise pages with all of the files I’ve made since the original update! Go on over and check ’em out, maybe.

And keep your eyes peeled for more features coming soon!

Welcome to Dracula

Hello. Enter freely, and of your own will. This is the Internet Web Castle of Video Dracula, who you may also know as @video_dracula or maybe just Dracula. I started this page mainly to accommodate the Dracula Files, a set of posts I made on Instagram that people seem to like.

For now, you can head right on over to the Dracula Files page to see all the ones I’ve made so far. I’m gonna be adding more stuff to this page/blog later. PLEASE LOOK FORWARD TO IT.