The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were one of my eldest son Joe's favourite characters. He loved watching the animated cartoon, he had all the action figures and he could quote all their catchphrases. The pizza loving, sewer dwelling, evil fighting, heroes in a half shell captured the imagination of a whole generation of kids. And now they are back!
The return of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to the big screen, has seen the launch of a whole range of new and exciting TMNT toys. Freddy received the Z-Line Water Tower Washout Playset to try out and was excited to let them wage their wild assault across his bedroom and enjoy the same toys as his big brother did 20 years ago!
The box contains: 1 Water Tower Play set, 4 Command Strips from 3M, 4 wall
clips, 1 gargoyle launcher, 1 C-Clamp, 2 tension cylinders, 2 Z-line pulleys, 1
two-hand handle, 1 one hand handle, 2 48" Zip-line, 1 72" Zip Line, 1
Angle Gauge
Action figures are available to purchase separately.
The playset takes a bit of construction and needs a good amount of space to set up successfully. It is a bit complicated and I had to get Ian to help me assemble it and attach the pieces to the wall, door and to a chair in Freddy's room, to make the Z-Line function.
Once assembled, it took Ian a bit of time to get it working properly. The angles need to be right and the wire need to have the right amount of tension in them for it to all work. If the zip wire coming out of the water tower is too high it catches on the door as it opens, and the zip wires sometimes ping off of the mechanism. We had some teething troubles, but once we had it sorted we invited Freddy to come and play.
He absolutely adored it! If set up correctly, the first turtle is launched from the gargoyle launcher by pulling a release string (it is quite tough to pull). It then whizzes down the zip wire crashing into the pipe on the water tower that triggers the trap door and swings open the doors allowing a second turtle to be launched down the second line.
When it worked well it was very impressive, but there were a fair few crash landings, stuck pulleys and flying turtle moments. But these added to Freddy's enjoyment as he played with the set.
To reset the playset is a bit fiddly, but Freddy was happy just popping the pulleys on the line and letting the turtles whizz around. He also enjoyed using the playset as a prop for some imaginative playtime using his other TMNT figures.
The toys are stuck to the wall using 3M Command Strips, which are removable. The optimum positioning is within a corner of a room, but we ended up having to use a door and a wall, but it worked OK. The clamps attach to furniture (we had to put a chair in his room to get the angle right because none of his furniture was in the right place!)
Although I saw it as a bit fussy and fiddly, Freddy disregarded all the negatives and just immersed himself in the joys of an imaginative game of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He loved it and he enjoyed making the zip lining turtles whizz along the wires and hideout in the water tower.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Z-Line Water Tower Washout costs £29.99 from good toy retailers.
Here is Freddy demonstrating how the toy works.