This, my friends, is the Hong Kong kaiju dinosaur critter that would one day grow up to become the classic Dungeons & Dragons monster, the Owlbear.

These guys, along with what would become the rust monster and the bulette (as well as a bunch of other weirdos that never turned up in D&D), used to fill out packages of plastic toy dinosaurs. For some reason. The sort you would occasionally find at super markets or five and dimes back in the 70s and 80s (and, honestly, I’ve seen rust monsters in similar cheap-o toy packs as recently as a couple years ago in my local Foodtown). Gary Gygax used them as miniatures in his games, and thus they transcended into legend.

I wish I could talk to the person who sculpted this thing and get a sense of what they were thinking. Its so…doofy. But magical. I’ve read that these weirdos were intended to be knock-off Ultraman kaijus and that sort of makes sense – the Owlbear does look a bit like the Kappa from Japanese folklore. Kind of. But whoever made the decision to include them in the States with plastic dinosaurs was some kind of mad genius. I love it.

For whatever reason, of the three, the Owlbear is the hardest to come by. I’ve been looking for one for decades, but boy, was it worth the wait. Oh, and, a little bit of extra D&D history  – this particular Owlbear was one of several owned by no less an august personage than Tony DiTerlizzi, who offered to sell me one when he was cleaning out his shelves. If you told me 20 years ago that this was how I’d finally get my hands on an Owlbear, I’d have spit in your eye and called you a no good dirty liar.