Shoddy Knockoff Product / Toys

• This often happens when any toy line takes off, especially if it has some relation to a popular television series. The knockoffs usually don't carry the logos of whatever franchise they're based on, but try to resemble them, using similar names and/or fonts and sometimes using stolen official artwork on the packaging. The companies responsible for the knockoffs sometimes actually copy the molds used by the original manufacturer, but not their solid plastics or detail quality. Dolls in particular often also have low-quality hair which falls out easily and is nearly always tangled. These copycat products can be found in a wide variety of stores both large and small.
• The bootleg market can be so strong that even legal pursuit failed to take it down; case in point is when TT Hong-Li made Gundam knockoffs. Bandai had issued a lawsuit against its parent company, but market demand is large enough to resurrect the company from the brink of death. The shoddy part comes from the fact that, while the models are 90% accurate, it has excessively bad quality control such as extremely brittle plastic and toxic dust.
• LEGO knock-offs. LEGO has its share of these due to its popularity. Because LEGO's age and sheer, overwhelming dominance in the modular plastic building block market gives it a massive advantage over these upstart manufacturers, these tend to be cheap modifications of sets, or fill niches LEGO doesn't, such as and war themes, which LEGO has chosen to avoid. Often, they will not copy new parts, whose patents haven't expired yet, but will copy older ones and devise new parts to fill the same niche as the LEGO counterpart (e.g. minifigures are patented in the Commonwealth until at least 2025, but Mega Bloks has released a posable figure that performs a similar role, but doesn't use the same limb design and lacks removable head and legs). Fortunately, it's fairly easy to tell the difference when you have one of the same sort of piece from each to observe; LEGO elements tend to have better 'clutch power', subtlely different colours, and have LEGO printed on the top of each stud; fakes will often have blank studs, or even have the plastic injection on the stud, something LEGO never does. By the way, as one of the largest geek communities on earth, fans tend to strongly favour LEGO to alternative products, and will vehemently oppose any remarks that other brands are superior in any way.
  • Even though they are compatible with LEGO, many kids are often disappointed to receive Mega Bloks instead of proper LEGO from a parent, relative, or friend unaware of the difference between the two and just going for the cheaper product. Unlike most examples, Mega Bloks doesn't really actively pretend to be LEGO — its branding and products are fairly well-differentiated from LEGO, and it tends to produce relatively different sorts of sets with a greater emphasis on licensed cash-ins (including Halo). According to the SCP Foundation, sentient self-assembling LEGO brick specimens aren't particularly pleased to see instances of Mega Bloks either. Yes, even Eldritch Abominations hate Lego knock-offs:
  ...a small mound of Megablocks (a common copy of Lego) was placed near the community. When this happened, everything constructed of 387 stopped moving, turned slowly towards the Megablocks and [EXPUNGED].
  Addendum 387-6: Jesus fucking Christ. — Dr. Arch
  • LEPIN, a Chinese brand, on the other hand, does actively pretend to be LEGO; its sets emulate LEGO sets piece-for-piece, with entire themes such as 'Girl's Club' (LEGO Friends) or licenced themes such as 'Cities' and 'Creators' for LEGO City and LEGO Creator respectively, 'Star Wart/Star Wnrs' or 'Star Plan' for Star Wars (thus ripping off not one but two franchises), and even the 'Lepin Movie II'.
  • Or, Cock Bloc.
  • Back during their respective runs, BIONICLE and its successor Hero Factory tended to get hit very hard with knockoffs from all over the world; some of the most well-known discovered ones including "Invincibility Robots" and "Maskers". Interestingly, most BIONICLE knockoffs were visually near-indistinguishable from the real thing — many even used the exact same packaging and canisters, though with the BIONICLE and LEGO logos edited or removed. Amusingly, one discovered instance of a knockoff took the 2005 Rahaga sets and replaced their heads with what appeared to be Darth Vader helmets.
  • In the last few decades, LEGO has become a very popular target for bootleggers, with brands like "LELE", "LEPIN", or "LEBQ". In flea markets, it's common to find entire LEGO sets duplicated brick-for-brick (with matching copied box art) with varying degrees of plastic quality, but sometimes bootleggers get more creative and put out knockoff minifigures of Marvel, DC, anime, cartoon, TV show, video game or Star Wars characters that do not have official minifigure representations. Then, bootleggers have actually gone a step further and are producing knock-off kits based on fan creations posted online.
• Oddly enough, the August 2007 issue of Popular Science featured an article on the various shameless ripoffs from China. Main part of the article was one of the copied cars getting the attention of the actual manufacturer — and offered to fix it up to them (the copied car was extremely dangerous). It explains how some companies manage to get crap electronics out the doors, even when they're only on display (they literally have loads of engineers photograph the living shit out of electronics on display). Hell — there's even the "iClone" episode, where there was a surprisingly good touch phone (before everyone else started to Follow the Leader!)
• There are a lot of Barbie or Bratz imitations that try (and succeed) to convince older people that they are Barbies or Bratz dolls.
• Transformers knockoffs:
  • Twist n' Change Robots. You can find them at many toy stores and drugstores. They're actually based on old Takatoku molds, which were also the basis for Select's Convertors Defenders toy line, and some official Transformers such as Whirl and Roadbuster.
  • There's even a Combining Mecha Thomas & Friends knockoff. What are you, Thomas the Might Gaine?!
    • Amazingly and bafflingly, there's a knockoff of this knockoff. The trains have generic smiley faces on them instead of the trademark Thomas face, but the molds are otherwise the same.
  • Kmart's Just Kidz Robo Morphers toy line includes a Rodimus knockoff that becomes a Ferrari Enzo lookalike, a Movie Ratchet knockoff, and a Cybertron Evac knockoff.
  • Big Lots has several, including G1 combiner bootlegs, "Robot Kings", and the "Battle Robots", one of which is an even flimsier clone of the aforementioned Rodimus Ferrari wannabe.
  • Befitting the franchise's Merchandise-Driven nature, there are fans who actually collect bootlegs and knockoffs, and that's without getting into the fan-made "reproductions" of Classics and G1 toys, along with downsized Masterpiece figures.
  • Some of the bootlegs are fairly impressive for bootlegging things that existed 20 years ago using modern molds. The Classics Sideswipe/Sunstreaker/Red Alert mold, for instance, is getting a lot of use producing, among other things, bootlegs of G2 Sideswipe, Japanese-exclusive Tigertrack, and Generation 2 Streetwise, whose only officially released toy was a Botcon-exclusive redeco of Universe Prowl.
  • One Chinese company has managed to do something fans have dreamed off for the longest time in the most bizarre, brightly colored way.◊ These are miniature Dinobots, all clearly using tiny versions of the original alternate modes' molds, but with entirely new robot forms. They combine into... this garishly colored thing◊. No known Transformers product remotely resembling this thing exists, either; likely knockoff victims like Monstructor or the Scramble City-type Transformers simply don't match up to the details. The closest they come is apparently being a hybridized combination of Dinobot bodies and Predacon assembly patterns, which makes the combined form distantly similar to Predaking.
  • Transformers X Titanic = Titanic Bot!
  • Why have a robot that turns into a truck or jet plane when you could have the Appliance Heroes? The fact that certain versions of the toy make the appliance form have a goofy face, thus also ripping off The Brave Little Toaster, just adds to the hilarity factor.
  • A bit more of a grey area are the higher quality third party Transformers which are clearly based on Transformers characters, but are usually original molds. Many Transformers fans are fine paying high prices for them due to their quality, and also because the third party companies often produce characters who otherwise might not get toys at all. For example, until the Combiner Wars gave us reasonably priced combiners, many Transformers fans paid out the nose for combiners with names like Uranos (Superion), Calamity (Menasor) and Feral Rex (Predaking).
  • And then there's Taikongzhans (a poorly transliterated version of "太空戰士", Chinese for "Space Warrior" and coincidentally the same name they gave to Final Fantasy), which are starting to show up in numbers in lesser toy stores in Asian third world countries. Whatever company they're from, they have the audacity to copy Hasbro's packaging and the toys bears enough resemblance to the real deal that the differences are unnoticable to the ignorant.
• Cracked.com published this article profiling cases of unintentionally funny knockoff toys.
• Star Wars toys are frequently knocked-off, and some have actually become more valuable then the actual toys. The vintage Turkish and Polish varieties are the most popular.
• British convenience store Poundland stocks My Lovely Pony, "Tommy the Train", "Little Explorer" and "Spider Power" merchandise. Amusingly, another My Little Pony ripoff is available, sold as My Lovely HORSE.
• My Little Pony has had a very wide variety of knockoffs for around as long as it's existed:
  • The German toy giant Simba introduced their own My Little Pony Shoddy Knockoff Product when the real deal had fallen into unimportance due to neglect by Hasbro. They copied the G3 molds, modified the printing and named the result "My Sweet Pony". Hasbro noticed and sued, and Simba had to apply a few more changes and re-release their small toy horses (not ponies) under the "Filly" brand. Due largely to G3.5's oft-disliked style shift and emphasis on Spinoff Babies driving people away from My Little Pony itself, Filly has become so popular among little girls in Germany who have never heard of My Little Pony that the fourth MLP generation would have ended up in obscurity, were it not for the bronies. The Filly brand is also popular among a particular group of former My Little Pony collectors due to the stylistic direction Hasbro has taken with MLP (read: Filly ponies actually resemble ponies, which G4 My Little Pony ponies generally don't). Filly even has an Animated Adaptation called Filly Funtasia.
  • There was a very obscure, short-lived, and Japan-only My Little Pony line made by Takara. Genuine Takara ponies are extremely rare. However, there are many more knockoffs copying the official molds than there are real ones. The bootleg ones are rarely labeled as being ponies of any sort, mainly because they're so stylistically different that one would never know the Takaras are even My Little Pony toys at all without being told. Since the real thing is nearly impossible to find, collectors who want them often opt for knockoffs.
• When Beanie Babies were at the height of their popularity, there were a ton of counterfeits of the official toys and cheap imitations trying to capitalize on the craze.
• There are "Super Hero/Sense of Right Alliance/Crew/Avengers/League/Etc." toy lines which consist of Marvel, DC, PowerRangers, Naruto, Ben 10, Shrek, Smurfs and Cars characters teaming up to fight crime or something.
• This version of the Shugo Chara! Humpty Lock might seem like the authentic version at first, but then it does not talk like the characters and plays "Jingle Bells".
• Variant: Brazilian toy company Glasslite made Jaspion toys by putting his helmet on RoboCop dolls and painting the body like Jaspion's armor. Just look at both◊, and then at the toy◊ (even the distributor of the show admitted, adding that they preferred to licence it to Glasslite instead of importing the Japanese toys).
• Beyblade has a couple of prominent bootleggers, the biggest of which is Hongyi. Their fakes are sold under the name Rapidity and advertised as "compatible" with Beyblade parts. However, quality control is nonexistent, and the metal wheels are lead-based pewter. They deform and break much more quickly than the real thing, and release toxic gas if heated. The plastic parts are a fair bit closer in quality to the real thing, but still fall short.
• Mini 4WD cars tend to see a number of these in third world countries thanks to the popularity of the anime adaptation of the mangas among grade school children, who usually don't receive much allowance to have left over for saving anyway. They often cost one tenth of the genuine Tamiya model. Notorious bootleg companies include Diamond, Jiada, Gokey, Heipao and Auldey and unlike Tamiya brands with separately sold motor, those bootlegs usually prepackaged with a motor and sometimes packed pre-built. A side note: these bootlegs tend to come from mainland China, and are made of clearly inferior plastic (although Auldey is often cited as an exception with decent build quality and later instead of knocking off Tamiya's designs they create their own, but they are still frowned upon by Tamiya purists).
• There exists a Ouija Board knockoff called "Wee-Ji".
• There exist two blogs in the Pokémon fandom devoted to these. And plenty of bootleg plush can be found on places like eBay, with many unwary buyers getting ripped off.
• Very early Airfix figure sets dating from the 1950's are still in circulation, even though the figures are wooden, crude and blobby and the original moulds have passed through several owners and have not been improved by sixty or seventy years of continual use. They are now marketed by a firm based in Spain called Barcelona Universale Modeles and can very correctly be described as BUM models.
• Mecha Thomas, a Humongous Mecha version of Thomas the Tank Engine.
• Troll Fighters, troll versions of the Masters of the Universe franchise. What’s even more fun is that they clearly using Galaxy Fighters parts making them part of the Galaxy hole.
• Beauty Soldier Shirley Moore, a line of bootleg Sailor Moon dolls.
• Titanic Legend, a handheld Titanic video game.
• Shark Norris, Exactly What It Says on the Tin - a shark version of Chuck Norris.
• Remember when Spidey used a skateboard in The Amazing Spider-Man 2?, me neither!.
• Educational toys are now part of the fray thanks to the lucrative market for them. Check out a second rate toy store in a second or third world country and you'll find pretty blatant knockoffs of Fisher-Price and Leap Frog products. Oftentimes these things are voiced by VAs with a tenuous grasp on the language they're supposed to teach (usually with a heavy Chinese accent), raising the question of the effectiveness of the bootleg.
• Behold◊, bootleg action figures of Hol Horse and Noriaki Kakyoin. The former is called "Cowboy", looks absolutely nothing like himself and almost like Waluigi, and the packaging implies that his Stand is The World^note Hol Horse's Stand is actually a gun rather than any sort of humanoid. The latter has a just plain horrifying face, is called "Hua Jing", and the packaging again depicts the wrong Stand.
• Galaxy Warriors are probably one of the most notable knockoff lines. Made by Sungold to cash in on Masters of the Universe toy line. Despite the fact they were obviously trying to ride the coattails of He-man the figures were pretty high quality. Now, this is where the confusion comes in, with the combination of the figures being high quality and Sungold being an easier company to rip off without a lawsuit, many people decided to bootleg the Galaxy Warrior figures to cash in on He-man without the worry of being sued making Galaxy Warriors one of the most bootleg lines out there. Phelous goes into their history here. Some notable examples in the Galaxy Hole include.
  • Galaxy Fighters by Sewco is the first major knockoff, or is it? There’s honestly a lot of confusion about whether it really was a knockoff line or the company had some kind of deal with Sungold. Many factors point to one way or the other, examples including the character Sunhawk appearing on Sungold’s Sword and Sorcery line with Galaxy fighter armor or Sewco using Galaxy Warrior figures for some of the promotional material, on the other hand, the three figures that took their heads from the Galaxy Warriors had their names changed in later releases of Galaxy Fighters implying Sungold may have taken issue with the line. It is clear however that the line was trying to cash-in on Galaxy Warriors officially or not. Yes, a cash-in line on a cash-in line, don’t worry it gets more insane later on. Despite this, however, the figures were still pretty good quality
  • The Turly Gang - Fighters of Freedom by euro play is probably one of the most infamous knockoffs, attempted to cash in on TMNT with He-Man knockoff figures. Like the Galaxy Fighters, we do not know for sure if euro play ripped off their molds or they commissioned Sun Gold to make them. The line got into legal trouble with the TMNT distributors in Europe. As such the heads of the two leads, Primus and Sekundos were replaced with a modified Galaxy Fighters Iguana head. The line also had repaints of some of the mounts from Fighters. If you’ve subscribed to the theory that Sun Gold made the figures but they didn’t have a partnership with Sewco then that means that they bootleg their own bootleg line for another knockoff line. It should be noted once again the figures were still pretty nice quality.
  • While there is some confusion with the other two lines if they were connected to Sun Gold in some way, there is none with Galaxy Heroes and Muscle Warriors that knocked off a bunch of Galaxy Warriors along with some touches of Galaxy Fighters. At this point, any semblance of quality was gone and there are also some heavy implications that these lines themselves were bootleg...and then those bootleg were bootleg. meaning some figures like the Iguana ripoff figure could have been a bootleg of a bootleg of a bootleg of a knockoff of a knockoff.
• Jurassic Park is hit by this sometimes, with things like cheap dinosaur toys that imitate the films’ style in their packaging and toy companies stealing color schemes of JP figures to appeal to either kids or confused parents. Some also have straight up used official figures as molds. It’s especially noticeable in older knockoffs when the bootleggers didn’t bother to remove the areas where buttons or flesh damage existed in the original figure, leaving the bootleg with weird looking skin features. Other companies make cheap toys that are imitations of things like the Indominus Rex and Indoraptor because they’re iconic to the franchise. And many have put out raptors painted like the tiger raptor or Blue or JP-inspired Spinosaurus and T.Rex figures, as well as Dilophosaurus with frills. Note this isn’t including better companies like Papo and Rebor who do make imitation or inspired-by figures but still put decent quality into them at least.
• Knockoff Tamagotchi consoles have been around since the franchise's inception. Most of them utilize what is known by the fandom as the Bunny ROM, a multi-pet rom that lets you choose from over 100 pets, some of which are plagiarized from Tamagotchi and its sister franchise Digimon. One modern knockoff Tamagotchi that is notable is the QPet, an unlicensed attempt at translating the Tamagotchi Plus Color to Chinese and English, with the shell even replicating that of the official product. However, the sprites often do not match those of the original programming, and some elements are altered, like the pet celebrating Chinese holidays and Patrick from SpongeBob SquarePants replacing the travel agent character. Earlier versions of the QPet were also known for displaying the word "Shitty" when you lost a game, with later versions instead using the word "Poor".

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