What's this mysterious purple box that I found recently in a retro toy store for a few quid, and what does it contain? Find out after the jump!
Well here you go. I have honestly never seen this toy before, but I looked it up and found one on Ebay and it turns out to be a Tomy set called 'Sonic Duel', released at the same time as toys i had as a kid such as the Mountain Quest, Pinball machine and many others. It's copyrighted 1987 on the back, presumably because like many of the other toys Tomy had just taken a toy they created back then and gave it a Sonic make over.
They are a pair of little spinning tops that you insert into the odd gun things, twist about and then shoot which should make them spin into each other. You get one of Sonic and one of Robotnik with their own designs on each gun.
The spinning tops themselves are absolutely tiny, and rather cute evn though they are a little beaten up from *shock* a kid and/or grown up saddo like me playing with them. Not sure if Sonic had a longer nose and it broke off or if the paint just came off, but the one on ebay is excatly the same so who knows.
Robotnik is particular seems to have scrapped the skin off of his knuckles from sliding on the concrete too much, the naughty scamp. Sonic has really gained weight too, possibly even passed Robotnik in the flab department. Maybe they were in an episode of Supersize vs Superskinny that I missed? Or perhaps by 'Sonic Duel' they mean 'Sumo Duel'?
Either way they are so tiny I think they might even be the smallest sculpts of the characters I have seen to date. Just look how the Sonic stacks up to the 2" First4figures Sonic, for example. If it wasn't for the gold spinning top part it wouldn't even be half it's height, as it measures at 1 inch.
Because this is the only other 'classic Sega' Robotnik toy I have (not counting the AOSTH cartoon Robotnik) here it is standing tall above the spinning top toy.
Finally to wrap things up, let's feed tiny Tomy Sonic to the badniks. Don't worry he'll do fine,
Sonic has been in this situation before.
