Halfcourt

One side, Geoffrey! The home team advantage goes to Halfcourt, the jumpshot jammin' giraffe. With his beehive basketball pumped and primed, Halfcourt's ready for some rough one-on-one action with any Foot fool who dares to come out 'n play. Halfcourt'll pump 'em up with his tire pump pistol and dribble 'em straight to a slam dunk - that's two points for the Green Team! It's always a game of sudden death when the Shredhead tries to take on Halfcourt. But with the help of his extendo neck, Halfcourt's got the height and the skill to score. And with his attachable backboard shield, Halfcourt is always ready for a game or a good fight. He's one Turtle Team player who knows the score - Turtles win, Foot Clan loses! So all you street warriors out there, watch out for the baddest blacktop bouncer to ever bash in a backboard. He's Halfcourt and when he shoots - he scores! Halfcourt the jumpshot jammin' giraffe was released in 1993, same time as Scratch, which means there is a non-zero chance that I saw the single most valuable vintage TMNT figure from the original line in person at regular retail and just chose not to buy it at the time. Oh, if only there were some way to communicate backwards through time! I have such tips to give you, past-me! Why did you have to be more interested in basketball than 1920s-style prisoners, you fool! Yes, because "giraffes" = "tall" and "tall" = "you must play basketball," Halfcourt is a giraffe wearing gym shorts, a white T-shirt, and a red jersey with the number 34 on the chest. He's sculpted wearing high-top sneakers (because THE '90S!!!!!!!!!!!) that are split at the toe to represent his hooves. To really drive home how tall he is, he's got a basketball hoop and net ringed around his neck, suggesting he just stuck his head up through there and ripped it off. The '90s Playmates TMNT line was not averse to action features, should the need arise, and Halfcourt gets one. It's nothing major - no water-squirting accessories, no jars of slime that can flow through his body, no pop-out facial features or the ability to transform between mutant and human modes... but it's still fun and it still suits him. See, for those times when being a tall giraffe just isn't tall enough, his neck is extendable, just pulling straight up and adding about half an inch to his total height. It's impressive that they made him look good no matter how far the neck is out, and that it doesn't stop looking natural and organic in any position. Because of the way the neck is constructed, it stays in place when you turn the figure at the waist. Even discounting that, the toy's articulation is above-average. You have to remember, it wasn't uncommon for the figures in this line to move at the neck, shoulders, wrists, and hips, and then nothing else; Halfcourt is unique, because while he does lose the wrists, he gains elbows - hinged elbows, instead of swivels like most of the other elbow figures got! Why hinges, Halfcourt? Is it so he can better fake dribbling a ball? That's entirely possible. So help make the figure more stable, his left foot is sculpted flattening a basketball, allowing them to make the part of the toy in contact with the ground larger, and thus more stable. Of course, it's hard to tell that, thanks to the major corner that Playmates has always been happy to cut. Even as a kid, I was never happy with how many paint apps the TMNT figures skipped: there would be all this sculpted detail, all these fun little elements the artsists would include, and then they'd just be the same color as everything around them. So I took it upon myself to do quite a bit of customizing on Halfcourt (something we've seen before with my vintage Muckman), meaning the photos in this review don't reflect the actual vintage toy. Like, startng with what we were saying in the previous paragraph, the basketball he's popping was just the same solid blue as his shoes are, so I painted that orange and black; the knee brace was entirely unpainted before I went at it, as was his tail; Playmates didn't bother painting the number on the back of his jersey, or the hair of his mane; heck, everything below the elbows was just yellow plastic, so I had to do his wristbands, the ties around his left elbow, and all the spots! Even on the upper arms only like half the spots were painted at the factory, so I had to do the rest of those, as well. I completely forgot about all that work, and it was only when looking up photos of the toy that I realized how badly Playmates had halfassed things. Halfcourt's accessories include a ball, a gun, a shield, and a sidekick. The Beehive Basketball has a hole so it can plug onto the palm of his hand, and is sculpted with splats all over it - either honey, or squished bees. Since the gun is identified as his Tire Pump Pistol, you can probably guess what item it's built from (though I think maybe the pump was intended for inflating a ball, not tires). The Backboard Shield has a handle so he could hold it in his left hand, but there's also a sqare tab that can plug onto the back of the figure's collar, completing the "stuck his head through the basket" look by allowing him to wear it back there. Finally, his sidekick is Ruff the Ref, which I believe is supposed to be a flamingo - it's hard to tell, since all the accessories are molded in dark grey plastic and have zero paint. Ruff can't stand on his own, because he's posed with one leg up (the only clue that he's intended as a flamingo, even if it's being held up by a sling, like he's been injured), but he's molded wearing a striped shirt, is holding one wing out to the front like he's signalling someone to stop, and is lifting a whistle up to his mouth with the other wing. His neck is bent and crooked, and like many cartoon flamingos, his beak is treated more like a nose than it really is. Also, it's weird that one of his legs is mostly smooth, while the other is ringed all the way down. Halfcourt never appeared in the comics or on the cartoon, but he did get referenced in an episode of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and had a background cameo in the Mirage level of the 2024 "Dimension Shellshock" DLC for Shredder's Revenge, hanging out with Mondo Gecko and watching you fight; another background in the same stage had some of the other Mighty Mutanimals, so is the game suggesting he's supposed to be one of them? If so, what's his 1990s-mandated environmental message? He's a pretty cool character, for how late in the series he appeared, but man do those missing paint apps make the toy way worse than it should be! -- 02/05/26 What "message" would you have given Halfcourt, if he were actually used in the stories? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.