The Legion of Silly Dinosaurs! Dino Riders/ Definitely Dinosaurs face off

In previous posts, I have mentioned the two main dinosaur toy lines of the 1980s, Dino Riders and Definitely Dinosaurs. It had the makings of a great rivalry, but it never really materialized. In hindsight, the wider world wasn't ready to support toy dinos as much more than a niche market. On a more immediate level, the two lines were too different for close competition. One was clearly aimed at younger kids, the other aimed for an older market, and few parents were going to pay for both. In my own experience, I was supplied a generous collection of Definitely Dinosaurs, and only once or twice made it known I might like a Dino Riders toy. By the wonders of online auctions, I have finally acquired a Dino Riders dino for comparison, and I know which one 8-year-old me would have chosen. 

The dino I acquired is a Dino Riders Styracosaurus, while the dino I brought out for comparison is a Definitely Dinosaurs Triceratops, in my book in the two or three best of the line. From the accounts of fans, the Dino Riders Styracosaurus was one of the most prominently featured on the show (which I saw once or twice at most). It must have been one of the better selling items in the line, because it is still quite cheap. I literally bought this one for less than the typical price of one of the "minifigure" pilots (previously covered in my Dropped Pilots post). The first thing that was obvious is that these were much smaller than Definitely Dinosaurs counterpart. Here's more picks of the two separately and together.

The most interesting detail of the Styracosaur is that he has a simple and decent action gimmick; if you move the tail, his head goes back and forth, and vice versa. On this specimen, it's squeaky and a bit difficult but still working. The downside is that the designers clearly sacrificed the realism and styling of the figure to have enough room for the mechanism. A further oddity is the position of the horns in the  frill, which are at quite unnatural angles to each other. Here's a few more detail shots.

Of course, the big Dino Riders gimmick is that they can carry a pilot. A set that still has the saddles and gear (never mind a figure) would have cost a lot more, but I did have the pilot monster/ villain from last time. But Definitely Dinosaurs came with their own riders, midsized caveman figures with saddles that I considered including in the Dropped Pilots lineup. Here's the two with riders.

Finally, here's a lineup of a few more Definitely Dinosaurs. The Tyrannosaur was big and nice enough to serve as Godzilla, but the Parasaurolophus was and is a thing of beauty.

Dino Riders and Definitely Dinosaurs have remained on disparate trajectories. The former remain very expensive, the latter are generally cheap apart from a large and rare Ultrasaurus I never even saw on shelves. But it's the Definitely Dinosaurs that are most likely to be out of the box, played with and clearly loved. Sometimes, the runnerups are best.