Bone Age

You know, there was a period of time where kids toys were almost exclusively made up of the bones of other animals. For some reason, adults just thought kids like skeletons, and you know what? They were RIGHT. As a little girl, I was obsessed with skeletons, roadkill, death and anything related. That being said, while this is a neat idea for a toy line, it's barely even that. All you really did was took one of those archeological dig sets they make for kids to get them interested in natural history and added a little action figure guy to it. That hardly qualifies as an original toy design. That being said, I could easily imagine all the adventures ones imagination could conjur up with these things, probably because I myself would've done just that.

Bone Age, made by Kenner through 1987-1988 during a particularly difficult time for the company as their popular lines M.A.S.K. and Ghostbusters were nearing their end and their new toylines like Sky Commanders weren't doing well, was something they really needed to succeed. The fact that it didn't succeed, or at the very least not to their expectations anyway, is both upsetting yet not surprising. For one thing, the line just...wasn't all that cool. Sure, you've got giant dinosaur skeletons you can make into other stuff, which is an awesome idea in and of itself, but it's so bare bones (no pun intended) that you can't really even use imagination to build anything around that ultimately. Therefore it's failure was kind of inevitable. On the other hand, it's a shame, because I think had more work been done on crafting some kind of extra lore around the line, then it could've really worked. But as it was, they just gave you neat rearranging dino skeletons with a dumb little plastic guy to go along with it, and that's just not enough quite frankly.

It also didn't help that the line - unlike most toy lines from this period - didn't have a cartoon series or a comic book to help propel the toys, and so instead they sort of languished on the shelf before being ultimately canceled before the second iteration ever managed to launch. Which is, admittedly, a shame, because I think if given the proper time and appropriate effort, this could've been something very cool and unique.

The thing is, I'm not even sure what - if any - playsets were even released for this line (I looked, but I didn't find any), but again, therein lies a problem. Dinosaur skeletons that can be transformed into other things is an almost futuristic concept, and yet they seem to have tagged Cavemen (who, historically, never interacted with Dinosaurs to begin with that's a whole other issue altogether) onto them, so we can't go the futuristic route.

This whole thing just feels so...lazy. That's the worst way to put it, frankly, is that it feels half baked. Like they had the idea of the dinosaur skeletons that could be built into other things, but then didn't expand on it anymore beyond that initial concept. In fact, the lack of much content has also, as you might've noticed, made this post itself rather lacking in content because there's just not that much to talk about. I guess I just don't understand how you underdevelop an idea as cool as "sentient dinosaur bones that can turn into other stuff", but I suppose anything is possible.

And there's so many possibilities too, which is what's really a shame. Had this been given the proper attention it deserved, it could've been so much more. 

I really wish I had more to say here, or more information to give you, but alas when a toyline fizzles out so fast, there's only so much I can be left to work with. So, in summation, allow me to leave you with a horrible joke.

This toyline died faster than the dinosaurs themselves.

No, I'm not proud of myself. But it's all I've got, goddammit.