Thread: Animated Playskool Baby Pterodactyl toy to Baby Dragon

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I stumbled upon one of these animated kids' toys from Playskool, a Pterodactyl, part of the Kota and Pals Hatchlings while at a Goodwill the other day for only 99 cents. Runs on 3AAA batteries and has an on/off/try me switch. To me the pterodactyl toy looks like it would be a great animated project if turned into a baby dragon, given the toothed beak and wing design. Some modifications to the body, claw up the feet a bit and add a tail and should look pretty good as a dragon.

I loaded it up with batteries and when you "feed it" by touching the tongue it acts like it's feeding and squawks and moves its wings a bit. When in the On position and activated, it will go through a series of movements and sounds for a period of time before it goes to sleep. I really like this little guy and certainly the price was right.

I liked it enough to have found more of these on clearance on Amazon right now (Here's the link), for $3.74, reg $19.99-14.99 (btw this item has been discontinued by the manufacturer). The Amazon seller at this price is Target.Com btw. I bought an additional 3 of these off of the Amazon site and they shipped today, and have seen the total available go from 12 to sold out twice now but they seem to be refilling the available as more come up for sale at the Clearance price of $3.74. Shipping wasn't bad either (3 shipped UPS for $6.53). At least Amazon keeps track of their inventory and doesn't oversell something (like Lillian Vernon did to me recently, grrrr). BTW you might notice that Amazon has the name pterodactyl misspelled in their product title in case you try searching for it while on their site.

Whether used as a lone baby dragon in a cage located in a wizard's or witch's cabin, or as part of a group of them in a nest in a castle scene, I thought someone here might want to check them out for a similar prop project. I'm thinking the younger ToTers might enjoy trying to feed them a fake worm or bug using some long tweezers or something like that, which of course would then activate them.

Here's a few videos of them in action:

Playskool demo: YouTube - Kota and Pals Demonstration

ZombieDawg's video: YouTube - Kota & Friends Pterodactyl


The "skin" of the pterodactyl seems to be cleverly attached to the toy. So far I've found 2 release tabs and am looking into removing the feet which I think will allow me to lift off a large section of the covering. I'm taking pics and will post once I have it figured out.

Lots of possibilities there. Looking forward to your progress pics.

They are 12.99 now.

Funny this morning at 8am I noticed they were listing the seller as Target.Com and the Amazon site said there were 5 left. The Target site also now says they are sold out. If you are interested in picking one up, I would keep checking back. Over the last few days I have seen this number go to zero (for the Target seller) and then another 12 units would get listed at the Clearance price of $3.74. It's always possible that they finally sold out of all their inventory but if you are not in a hurry I'd check back. This is probably the 2nd or 3rd time I've seen the stock being sold by Target get depleated to 0.

And in case you guys didn't know this it also pays to go the main Amazon page for an item where you can see the new and used listed. Amazon uses some sort of ranking system for listing that featured price and it's not always the cheapest.



Update: It's 6:53pm now and I'm on the Amazon site linked to on my original post and it is now showing 2 units available for $3.74 (sold through Target.Com). When I go to the Target site it's now showing you can order from there also. Like I mentioned, if you are interested in these keeping checking back even if it shows sold out of the cheap Target priced ones. I don't know whether Amazon blocks out units for sale if you put them in your cart or not for a certain period of time, and then releases them if they are not paid for within so many hours or what, but the inventory on these does seem to change.