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Bootleg Zones

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Bootleg Zones is an offshoot of Phelous, where Phelan reviews Shoddy Knockoff Products based on merchandise of popular media. Shortly after, the series receive a spin-off called Bootleg Zones VG, covering mockbuster video games.

Due to overly disturbing content, please do NOT link to the Evilstick review or its follow-up video.


And the Tropeleg Zones overall is Tropes/10:

  • And I Must Scream: The Spider-Man Robot has no facial features, molded or painted, underneath the mask. This trope is thus referenced by name in the ending skit.
  • April Fools' Day: The episode on the Wooden Star Wars set. Despite being obviously low-quality wooden cut-outs, the set gets a perfect 10/10 in all categories because it's not a "knockoff" in the strict sense, it's something Phelan and his friend made when they were children.
  • Armed Legs: Gun Man figures are a particularly scary example: these Galaxy Warriors figures have their lower bodies replaced with very leaky water guns. Phelous immediately notices the Toilet Humor implication.
  • Awesome McCoolname:
    • The RoboCop knockoff figure called Robert Cop 2. Phelous gives it a perfect 10/10 overall score based on the name alone.
    • Dinosaur Invincibility is also given a high score because of its ridiculous name and packaging.
    • Motorcycle The Pooh got a 10/10 for its name alone.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: Many toys, especially ones manufactured in China, come in packages with poorly translated English or other languages printed on them.
  • Broke the Rating Scale:
    • The Rock N Dancer doll was creepy, unoriginal and did not work. Its only use was the box it came in being loved by Lupa's cat Ash as a bed, so it got a rating of cat bed out of 10.
    • One set of Turtles knockoffs he reviewed was so bad that instead of getting a 0/10 in the overall, it ended up getting a "1"/10...with the "1" being the finger.
  • Butt-Monkey:
    • Bat Hero gets no respect, not from Phelous, his enemies or his girlfriend Steffi Love, who puts him in an embarrassing dress.
    • The Rock N Dancer got even worse, ending with him being destroyed.
    • Baltard from Galaxy Warriors is constantly ridiculed, from his name to his Paper-Thin Disguise. Anubi especially makes fun of him.
  • Call-Back: Ending skits often feature knockoffs reviewed in previous episodes, to the point of forming their own plotlines.
  • Chainsaw Good: The GR Flex Force figures are professional wrestling bootlegs that come with chainsaws for no reason.
  • Crack Is Cheaper:
    • The Galaxy Warriors due to how many sublines, spinoffs, variants and bootlegs the figures have. He often refers to them as the "Galaxy Black Hole" or "Galaxy-Hole" when discussing them.
    • It gets to the point where Phelous finds that Turtles Fighters, another bootleg line, uses accessories from a line of Galaxy Warrior bootlegs, making them technically part of the Galaxy-Hole.
    • At one point, Phelous explains that even the bootlegs and spinoffs have bootlegs and spinoffs, and that this goes at least 5 levels deep. Crack is cheaper, indeed.
  • Creepy Doll: Shoddily made dolls and action figures that look unintentionally scary are a series mainstay.
  • Crossover: Many toys are combinations of intellectual properties, and they're not always crossovers that make narrative sense either.
  • Double Entendre: Many action figures are held together by very conspicuous screws, some of which are driven into the figure's back. Phelous says of them that they're "screwed on the back."
  • Edible Theme Naming: Many of the Pokémons on the Pokémon GO cards are named after Chinese food, e.g. Chow Mein the Tangela, BokChoy the Oddish, NgauLam the Tauros, while others just have English localized names or nonsensical names.
    Apparently the Chinese bootlegger [was] quite hungry while playing Pokémon GO.
  • Effective Knockoff: The show extends to reviewing bootleg products that are of decent quality almost matching (or in some aspects succeeding) the originals. Part of the rating system used for the reviews is how well they fare as a substitute for the originals and their overall quality. For instance, a 3rd Party Krang figure, while still being a knockoff, is an excellent figure with only a few minor flaws and thus receives a perfect 10/10 rating. Meanwhile, a knockoff of the discontinued NECA Ninja Turtles figures managed to be rather on par with the actual ones besides some minor details, while an IPhone-themed Iron Man, despite its goofy concept got a high score for being surprisingly well made and a bootleg of the Transformers Nike shoe also scored high for being similar to the original figure while having some extra features.
  • Even Nerds Have Standards: When reviewing a set of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles knockoffs based on the Nickelodeon series, he prefaces the video by warning that they're an inferior product passing as the original, compares them unfavorably with the NECA bootlegs (which also passed themselves off as the original toys, but had quality comparable with those figures), and gives them the second 0/10 on the show.
  • Evil Laugh: The Evilstick is a light-up wand with a ridiculous gimmick, where some wands have pretty images and cute jingles and some have scary images and play ominous cackling. The one Phelous has is the latter type.
  • Failure Hero: Due to unfortunate packaging, Bat Hero is interpreted as sentenced to hang for all the trouble his attempted heroics cause.
  • Frog Ninja: The battery-operated Ninja Frog and Terror Toad.
  • Gorn: Phelous's version of the Evilstick, which is also the most well-known, shows an image of a demon-like woman committing self-harm. The picture is a stolen piece of photomanipulation from Butcher Ludwig, who specializes in photos with similarly Gorny special effects.
  • Hanging Around: Bat Hero's packaging comes with a tie around his neck to secure him to the box. Naturally, Phelous interprets this as a literal death sentence for him.
  • Henpecked Husband: Bat Hero is relentlessly abused by Steffi Love.
  • Joke of the Butt: The two Disney Princess knockoff doll lines have their buttocks molded with a weird checker pattern but without a clear underwear outline. This is quickly dubbed the "butt weave".
  • Leitmotif: Steffi Love is notable for being the only knockoff toy with its own theme song.
  • Luck-Based Mission: The Evilstick is a randomized toy with a "good" variant with pleasant images and music and a "bad" variant with scary images and an Evil Laugh.
  • Made in Country X: Phelous eventually becomes exasperated upon learning that any piece of knock-off merchandise is made in China.
  • Medal of Dishonor: While he has given 0/10 scores in the sub-ratings, there have been only five toys that have gotten an overall rating of 0/10: Rock N Dancer (for failing to perform any movement), the Nickelodeon Ninja Turtles Bootlegs (for looking exactly the same as the official toyline at first glance, despite being vastly inferior products), the Super Ninja TMNT bootlegs (for reusing an already bad mold that's been shown several times on the show, as well as being unbelievably cheap and breakable), the Funny Toilet Guy (for being an unfunny toy based around Toilet Humor that didn't even work properly), and the Pretty Girl Barbie bootleg (for being incredibly cheap and poorly-made even by the show's standards as well as being completely uninteresting).
  • Never Trust a Title:
    • The vehicle that Motorcycle the Pooh rides is a four-wheeler, not a motorcycle.
    • Despite the name, the Satyr Masters are figures with humanoid Galaxyesque bodies and poorly painted animal heads. None of them are caprine, let alone satyrs.
  • Nominal Hero: Galaxy Wrestler Hogan is Ax-Crazy and indiscriminately beats up everyone else, even his friends, to steal their champion titles, yet is still a face.
  • Noodle People: The Princess Dolls have horrifyingly skinny, stick-like legs. Phelous rants about how disgusted he is by them.
  • Not Blood Siblings: Raphaelangelo and Shredder from the Super Power TMNT set are Ship Teased while established as being son and father. The former uses this trope as an excuse to still harbor feelings for the latter.
  • Only One Female Mold: Galaxy Warrior Girl figures are criticized for lacking in variety and creativity compared to the male Galaxy-hole figures, being very generically humanoid compared to the various outlandish races seen in the male lines.
    But it's probably the mentality that "girls just want regular human doll figures" that kept [creative designs] from happening.
  • Overheating: Many battery-operated toys have faulty electronics that heat up the toys and sometimes make them emit a burning smell. The Terror Toad's electronics are especially bad: it's dangerously hot within only a few seconds of operating.
  • Overly Narrow Superlative: He calls Motorcycle the Pooh "the best Gangnam Style Winnie-the-Pooh battery-operated toy out there".
  • Picture-Perfect Pose: Some episodes have a "Making the Face" segment where Phelous attempts to imitate the facial expressions of the bootlegs being reviewed.
  • Refuge in Audacity: There's a Transformer-type toy based on the RMS Titanic. The episode on this makes note on how hard it is to review it without coming off as insensitive.
  • Screamer Prank: The "bad" variants of the Evilstick, which show scary images and play an Evil Laugh when switched on. The one Phelous has is the notorious one with an image of self-harm.
  • Shoddy Knockoff Product: The whole point of the show.
    • The title card mentions "with the Phaylus!" Yes, the shoddy knockoff product segment has a shoddy knockoff host.
  • Slashed Throat:
    • The Princess Dolls have gashes across their necks due to being tied by the neck to their box.
    • The blow-molded Galaxy Gladiator figures have their forearms and hands permanently faced downward without elbow or wrist articulation. This means that when one raises their arms when they hold their weapons, the weapons would end up at the figures' necks. The ending skit thus has two of the characters threaten to slash their own throats to force others into compliance.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: Many toys play wildly inappropriate music for whatever character or aesthetic they're supposed to represent. For example, Motorcycle the Pooh plays Gangnam Style, and even more bafflingly, the Walk Robot BB-8 plays the Hatsune Miku version of Ievan Polkka.
  • Spectacular Spinning: Many battery-operated car-type toys, for instance Motorcycle the Pooh, have a rapidly spinning gimmick for no reason.
  • Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: The ending skit of the Galaxy Gladiator episode, where two characters threaten to slash their own throats when they don't get their way.
  • The Unpronounceable: A set of gummy-like Pokémon Puzzle League bootlegs is officially named "Uzlauzl Pzegege". Phelous naturally has trouble pronouncing it.
  • Weird Crossover: Many knockoffs combine two or more franchises in bizarre ways. Most notably, "Marsrobot Go" figures are Star Wars-based Transformers figures with Pokémon companions.
    A TIE-3PO is a spiffy litle Pokémon master.

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Phelous

Phelous has a "fun" time opening Steffi Love.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (2 votes)

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