SDCC was a while ago, and usually NECA's exclusive game is strong. This year's exclusives had a bit of a summer theme, including a surfing Chucky and a Tiki-headed Ben Cooper kid, but the only one that interested me was TMNT's "Bodacious Beach Bros." set. It's another toon exclusive, but it's their first SDCC release to feature outfits not from the show. We've seen line-exclusive variants for a while (including a beachgoer Slash that looks fun), and I'm always open to stuff like that. Even though summer is long gone and we're close to winter, I may as well review this set before it gets any colder.

The packaging is really cool, as it has an illustration by Ken Mitchroney on the front. He's been doing all the illustrations for the Adventures figures, and seeing his style for the cartoon line is a pleasant sight. It has the turtles riding the waves on a giant board, with the Technodrome and an unmanned Turtle Blimp in the background, making for an active scene. This is actually a sleeve, as inside is the more-standard type of packaging, with illustrations by Aaron Hazouri, as well as a larger, windowless box for accessories. There are some big accessories here, but I'll go over those later.

One thing to note about the sculpts is that there's no reuse here (save for the pizzas and their boxes), with everything done by Tomasz Rozejowski. This means new heads for the turtles, and I feel these match the show a bit more than Jason Frailey's heads did (though the heads Paul Harding did for Samurai Mikey/Space Don are still the most accurate IMO). Each turtle has a different look, as Leonardo has a top hat and shades, Donatello has a beach hat, Raphael has a baseball cap and more determined-looking eyes, and Michelangelo is just bareheaded. Both he and Don have open mouths, while Leo and Raph have closed ones. These are two-piece heads, but if you're planning to use them with previous heads, don't bother; these are too big to work with those.

The turtles each stand between 5 1/2" and 6" tall, with their headgear determining their height. Leo, Don, and Raph are all dressed in funky Hawaiian shirts with various colors and patterns. Leo has a yellow shirt with blue flowers, Don has a pink shirt with yellow trees, and Raph has a red shirt with blue lines and some weird yellow shapes. While Leo and Raph have the same short mold, Don has a larger shirt that goes down more to his thighs. They're also wearing shorts, and those are fabric, ensuring a good look while retaining full leg movement. The colors are much like the previously released Punk and Pizza Club figures, with bolder colors and no shading, and the paint work is very clean.

Mikey is different from the others as he has no shirt; just a pair of swim trunks, and those are also removable fabric, allowing for a better comparison to the previous turtles. Despite being around the same size, these turtles are a bit chunkier in build. The bodies here feel more accurate to the show, and that's probably why NECA opted for new sculpts. The work on them is great, and while I don't mind the belt initial just being painted on, being solid black is something I'd change. The new bodies also mean some changes to articulation, as these are the first plain turtle arms to have double-hinged elbows. This means a deeper bend, but they look somewhat awkward when posed. The mask knots go back to being just swivels, which is a bit of a let-down, but a minor one. The rest of the movement is the same, with barbell head, neck, and chest, swivel/hinge shoulders, wrists, and ankles, ball-jointed hips, swivel biceps and thighs, and (now pinless) double-hinged knees. There are tons of hand options here, with four pairs of grips, four pairs of fists, four pairs of thumbs-up hands, and five pairs of relaxed hands. The larger size unfortunately means they won't work very well with previous turtles, and vice versa, but it's nice to have a lot.

The main draw of this set, aside from the new sculpts, is the surfboards. There's a board for each turtle, including an orange one with a turtle shell, a light purple and yellow one with a carapace pattern, a pink one with a red stripe, and a solid purple one with a windsurfing sail. The boards all span about 8 1/2" long, and have both foot pegs and ball-jointed stands. The plastic for the boards is very stiff, and I wish it wasn't, as it's partially the reason the stand pegs got stuck in them, separate from the ball-pegs (which also led to the windsurfer's stand becoming very loose). It also made plugging in the sail difficult, and it doesn't help I had to reglue two pieces of that damn thing already. My advice is to shave out some plastic in the sockets, so that the add-ons won't be so tight in them.

Then we have the reason this set needed two boxes: the giant surfboard and wave. This solid yellow board spans an impressive 11" long, and bears a rough texture the smaller boards don't have. The wave is even cooler, as it's semi-transparent to give off a watery look, alongside white paint, and it's stiff enough to support the board, which plugs into the tip of the wave with a barbell joint. The joint is somewhat loose in the wave's socket, which can make getting it to support all four bros impossible. If you don't have that issue, then you'll have plenty of fun displaying them all together with it. I mentioned there being pizzas earlier, and there are three of them, two of which are the same one the Pizza Monster had, and one reused from the Punk four-pack. There are also two boxes that are the exact same, and both have hinged lids to put the pizzas inside.

NECA probably assumed this set would be a tough sell due to the basic beach outfits that didn't come from the show, so they offered $40 off through their online store, and it got me buying it, especially since it helps offset the fees for shipping and tariffs. While there are more flaws with this set than I'd like, such as the boards and incompatibility between these new turtles and the previous ones, it's still a cool, unique release. And if you missed out on these and/or weren't in the mood for giant surfboards, then the Vacation Turtle two-packs (with outfits actually from the show) should interest you. These boards kind of suck anyways.

- 11/11/25...[See More]

Favorite Series: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
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