Last year was an exciting year for Irritator! Not only did we get two new figures by Mattel, but we also got a new study looking at the jaw articulation of Professor Challenger’s Irritating creature from Brazil! Join me, Emperor Dinobot, as we look at one of the most interesting figures Mattel has given us thus so far, barring the lack of accuracy and focusing on the artistic license given to this swampy animal!
Something I want to say about open boxes is that given Mattel’s quality control issues, it is better to have the open box so a customer can try the action features and make sure the electronic or motion operated dinosaurs aren’t broken, and that their eyes are painted correctly. Buying the figures in person is always a must, even when there are risks involved; risks such as exposing oneself to pathogens and the like. I have gotten figures with misapplied color apps through the mail, and this is not just an issue with Mattel’s figures, but with other figures that sadly are only available online. Now that I have gotten that out of my chest, let us move on.
This is a nice figure, generally speaking, and within the scope that make Mattel’s Jurassic dinosaurs so very uniquely theirs. It has a detailed molded texture, great colors, ball jointed arms, lots of attitude, but it has the weirdly jointed legs that plague all of Mattel’s dinosaurs. I have spoken about it in the past when I reviewed the first Roarivores in 2015, and sadly, almost a decade later, they have not changed their ways when it comes to their dinosaur hips, especially on bipedal dinosaurs such as Irritator. This problem turns them into essentially a brick, and you must rely on the action mechanism to get some sort of articulation out of it. The tail rotates at the base, but that bit of articulation is pointless as it destroys the animal’s spine, giving it an unnatural look. Irritator is around 13 inches long and 4 inches tall, which is the standard in this size class, putting it at around 8-9 meters long at 1:18 scale.
A lot of Mattel dinosaurs have this three color scheme, which they use as an excuse not to paint the tails, which come detached from the bodies, with the front of the animal being nicely painted, and then it just sort of blends away towards the tail. The tail is a dark cool gray, as are the legs, with terracotta red spots. The rest of the body is also dark terracotta red. The top of the skull is also dark cool gray. There are nice olive green scales across the top of the skull, the neck, and the top of the body. It is a very serious, very sober color scheme. The claws are unpainted as usual, but one good thing worth mentioning is that the hands are not pronated as they often are with many theropod toys. The eyes are red, which does make it look rather aggressive. The neck has a wattle, which is nice, and the animal, like a lot of their other theropods with some exceptions, is lipless. I do not know what the general consensus is when it comes to spinosaurid lips, several propositions have been laid out, such as only the anterior part of the upper jaw teeth exposed, with some still preferring them with all of the teeth exposed, like crocodilians due to similar skull profiles and lifestyles. But the truth is that they probably had full lips, especially Irritator, which probably had a lot of fleshy parts all over the jaws and neck. Recent studies revealed that the lower jaws “could rotate and open laterally”, like a pelican, which probably means it had a pouch. With all of these fleshy parts around the jaws and neck, we can be certain that it had some nice lips to smooch us with. Not this specimen, though…
It does have the sagittal crest that rests on its nasals, but it is nestled between large lacrimal crests, with a horn on top of the frontal, and a large crest on the prefrontal. These are traits usually associated with other theropods such as Allosaurus, but not with Irritator, whose posterior skull happens to be very well preserved, despite its turbid history.
The action mechanism, unique to Wild Roar Dino Trackers, involves a lever on its back, which when moved either left or right, it will cause the neck and head to move left or right accordingly, opening the jaws on each instance, and letting a very loud series of roars. Irritator hides is better than the other Wild Roar figures. I cannot get over how loud these dinosaurs are.
As with all of Mattel’s dinosaurs except for Hammond Collection figures, the tabs on their back near the hips reveal the code for the Facts App, which feature nice animations of the figure. The animations have gotten better through the years, which is commendable. I still cannot get used to the tab’s groove which makes dinosaurs look strange. It is still better than permanent dino damage, but it is very obvious on some figures. Irritator hides it very well because one can pull it straight up using the spine, which is very clever. Stegosaurs hide it under their plates, and most of Mattel’s spinosaurids hide it that way, which is great. Speaking of which…
I’m sure that these all have crocodile DNA spliced onto their base animal. Not shown are the other many other Baryonyx, Suchomimus, or Spinosaurus figures. I have only included the Hammond Collection Baryonyx, whose review can be found here. This pantheon is going to have a Ceratosuchops sooner than later, which is exciting, as well as two more figures of Suchomimus. Mattel has been very generous with their spinosaur offerings, and for that I am very grateful being a fan of this mysterious family, whose gaps are slowly being filled in with new studies and new fossils being unearthed every year.
When the Sound Strike Irritator was announced, I thought it was Ichthyovenator due to the sacral spine gap on the shadowed teaser, and while that is a nice figure with tons of artistic license, I always have felt that it was Ichthyovenator rather than Irritator, so I cannot say that this figure is better or worse as they are obviously different species, with the Ichthyorritator (huh, clever…) drawing inspiration from the postcranial remains of other spinosaurids. In my mind, this is the true Irritator, and the Sound Strike one is Ichthyovenator, even though the shortened spines are at the base of the tail. The subject of Irritator’s cranial remains, which I briefly touched on above, it’s synonymity with Angaturama and more will be discussed in my review of the Hammond Collection Irritator, coming soon to a DinoToyBlog near you! The excuse here will always be that they are all genetically altered hybrids, and all figures, spinosaurid or not, are drawing artistic inspiration from art depicting other family members. In this case, I will have to accept them as such given the historically fragmentary nature of both animals, historically meaning that they have been looked at several times over in recent years. A review for Dominion’s Ichthyovenator is also forthcoming, so stay tuned! I apologize for some of the pictures, and I suggest you zoom in on a different tab.
“I’ll take both!”
Irritator is a nice figure, but again, like most main line Mattel figures, this is one that probably belongs in a kid’s collection, or in the collection of a die-hard Jurassic figure collector, such as myself. It might strike the fancy of a spinosaur fan, since there are not too many figures of Irritator that I could find out there. I happen to be all of the above, so I am happy with this figure. Paleoart is always in a state of evolution as more fossils are brought to the surface. This is especially true when it comes to reconstructions of spinosaurids and their famous megalosaurid cousins, which have also made their presence known in Mattel’s Jurassic Bestiary. It is still a very nice attempt despite the exaggerated features. If you’re not convinced…
“Yeaargh!”
…If you’re not convinced, Irritator can be found at most outlets one year later after its release for a very nice $7.99! I have seen it at Ross stores and at Burlington outlets VERY often. Sadly, I paid full price, but I won’t be making that mistake again! I am just glad to finally get this figure off my chest, especially after it graced the top banner for our glorious forum for the entirety of 2023. The last good year…
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