What's the story behind Stinger?

Collecting LJN ThunderCats Toys
1

I was just lucky enough to score a pretty good condition Stinger for $25.00, and while it’s in the mail, I got started thinking “Why did they even make him?” Was it some kind of new villian they intended to introduce? I feel like there were so many other villians/heroes they could have produced, that its weird to have made Stinger instead. Was there a certain story behind this guy?

2

http://www.thundercatslair.org/toys/mailaway.html

Read further near the bottom of the page

3

To make matters worse… have you ever seen any Thunderwings Lion-o or Luna Lasher Mumm-ra on the cartoon series? No, still they are considered by most fans as the Holy Grails, Beats me why The same goes for the Laser Saber Bengali.

Apparently they were ‘invented’ just for the Toy section but never appeared in the whole Series.

4

so other than those two comic slides, he is basically a complete mystery in the Thundercats universe. It’s odd to me that they would even bother to produce a toy of a character that was not in the show, when they had the Lunatacks and all other kinds of enemies they could have done.

5

Just to add to what I wrote in the article, I believe it’s a case of LJN creating a character and then it’s down to whether Rankin Bass used said character in the series… I believe toys such as the Berserkers and Tongue-A-Sauras were developed as toys before appearing in the cartoon.

The reason I say this is because the Berserkers had different names (wasn’t Top Spinner originally Tornado?) and I believe the developer of the Tongue-A-Sauras posted about it’s creation on the forum a while back… though that only appeared in just the one episode!

So I guess they never got around to writing The Stinger into the cartoon, which is a shame as he would have been a really cool character :wink:

6

Thats a bummer. I remember as a kid seeing the Driller character and I never even knew they had made a toy of him. The same goes for Driller, and the unproduced characters like Red Eye and the other Berserker (forgot his name).

7

Damn Stinger Is usually busted and pricey. Funny that because a fig wasnt showcased on the show which prolly resulted in no one buying it which then later resulted in it being rare and selling a t gouge prices

8

Would’ve been an interesting question for the LJN employee, whether LJN created their own characters or not.

Based on what you can find on this site:
I think the Berzerkers as a whole (noteably Hammerhand) are probably Rankin Bass characters. They appear in episode 7 of the show: “The Terror of Hammerhand”. Since the show originally aired in January of 1985 (according to Wikipedia) we can assume they were introduced right around that time. The toys of the 4 Berzerkers however didn’t appear until Series II in 1986 (also from this site). Top Spinner and Ram Bam though didn’t appear in the show until much later (not sure which episode), so its entirely possible those two fall under Blackiecats argument of being created by LJN.

I’m not sure about Cruncher since I’m not sure if the bigger pirate from the generic group of Berzerkers in that episode is ever actually referred to as Cruncher. Will have to go back and watch it and see.

This is almost identical but in an opposite way to She-Ra’s Shadow Weaver character. That character was created by Filmation, and thus Mattel has to be granted rights to that character in order to create her in any toy capacity. There are a number of other characters that I’m sure Chris (He-Fan) can probably name that fall into this category.

So this almost certainly (unless WB purchases the LJN copyrights from the Acclaim bankruptcy) will be the only version of Stinger produced in toy form for the forseeable future.

9

So I finally got my Stinger that I managed to score off ebay for 25 bucks. His right wings are missing two and the third is hanging on by a thread. I figure I’ll super glue him up tonight, but his left side is nearly perfect(just stress marks at the connection points).

http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv213/cloudraker19/Picture018.jpg

http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv213/cloudraker19/Picture019.jpg

http://i685.photobucket.com/albums/vv213/cloudraker19/Picture020.jpg

Not that I would ever sell this guy, but is the price high for one with all his wings? I usually don’t even look for Driller/Stinger on ebay due to how high they cost, but I’m curious about looking for a more complete Stinger now. Thanks!

10

Stinger was most definitely created by LJN, as were most of the Bezerkers and Bubbler. It was incredible how much LJN actually played in the development of the series. They would create characters, and then Rankin would insert them into the storylines.

Enjoy this:
[CENTER]http://www.hollywoodheroes.com/ebay/stinger.JPG[/CENTER]

Best-
Jordan

11

$25 for a Stinger with helmet and half his wings is a steal (assuming you are talking American dollars here). A complete loose one will run you in the ball park of $100-$150 these days. The helmet alone is probably a pretty high dollar item.

12

Was stinger found on Grand Toys card back?