20 Mar 2013

TOYS: BOOTLEG TOYS II: THE REVENGE OF THE BOOTLEGS


OK so this month was supposedly meant to be the Wrestlemania countdown month but due to the real Wrestlemania countdown being luke warm as fuck I have decided to carry on with business as usual on Lost Entertainment.

So last year I wrote an entertaining piece about Bootleg toys (click here to read) where talked in great detail about the counterfeit toys which have been made in Mexico. As there are so many fucked bootleg toys out there I decided to write a sequel and here it is. Bootleg Toys II: The Revenge of the Bootlegs.

ADVENTURE MAN

With Rambo being popular as hell with the kids in the 1980's it is no big surprise that bootleggers ended up ripping him off as well. I had a really good Rambo bootleg which I believed to be real for many years as it was that good. However this evil eyed cheap one is a load of crap and the fact he is called "Adventure Man" is just the icing on the cake.


I love the way the guy on the packet looks like Ellis out of Die Hard. The figure must have had a shave before getting packed off to the local flea markets and off licences all over the world.

THE BATTERY OPERATED MIGHTY CAR

Like I said in the past article some of these toys are so fucked up on many levels that they become modern art. This badboy is a testament to this. A bootleg light up A Team van with Mr T's head popping out of the sun roof (which lights up for good measure) while his giant arms brandish weapons from the side windows. I would actually pay top dollar for this, whats not to like? read the box! It has five lights, a mighty driver that moves up and down automatically and the driver has an axe and a rifle! She will be mine.. oh yes she will be mine!

SUPERMAN BOOTLEGS

Being arguably the biggest and most recognizable super hero of all time, Superman gets bootlegged all the fucking time. Check the above picture, He has Batmans cape, Spidermans body and oh yeah he lights up as well.. YAY. I've only ever seen a few decent Superman bootlegs, as on a whole they are dog shit awful.


Would you buy this for your kid? A special blowjob action Superman soft toy! Why does Superman have the mouth of an inflatable sex doll? Any parent who bought this for their kid and did not think this looked a sex toy was a moron. This has to be one of the outrageous bootlegs I have ever seen in my life.


When I was a kid it was nearly impossible to get a figure of Superman. You could get Batman and everyone else but never Superman. All you could do was look on the back of Aquamans box and just dream. During my quest as a child to get a Superman figure I ended up with many shitty bootlegs. This was one of them, a non articulated toy with a crap sticker and his arms are always stuck in that position. This toy came with a parachute which was more like a plastic bag. Oh the minutes of fun we had throwing this piece or crap in the air and watching it slowly glide down to safety.


"SUPERMAN COME BACK" is another example of how messed up the world of bootleg toys actually is. Where do I start? Well superman is riding a dinosaur which has a "TRY ME" sticker pointing to its anus. Why Superman would be riding dinosaurs is just beyond me. The Superman on the right has no eyes.. or he is he sleeping? I would wanna close my eyes forever as well if I got stuck on a box with this lot.


Like I just said, Superman figures were very hard to come by and as a kid this one here was probably the best bootleg I found resembling Superman. How ever it was a great big chunk of rubber which had a string attached and still looked like shit. I had Batman and Spiderman toys which were very similar as well.

TITANIC BOT

Imagine if the Titanic could turn it self into a giant robot? Think no more as the answer to our prayers is here.. TITANIC BOT!!!! This toy is so stupid and fucked up on so many levels I don't know where to start or end for that matter. Who needs life boats when the most famous luxury cruise liner can turn into a cyborg right?

TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES GUN

If you are not the best at mastering the martial arts skills of the Turtles then here is your answer, shoot the twats in the face with the Turtles Gun. They will never see it coming as its bootlegged and makes no sense what so ever.

ROBERT COP 2

If you remember RobertCop the super cool Robocop bootleg from the last article then this will blow your socks off. When I wrote about Robertcop last time I actually forgot to mention he was in fact Robertcop 3. Just before I show you the figure check out the label from the packaging. We have Robertcop who has an Optimus Prime logo on his chest, C3P0's head on the T-1000's body and Johnny 5 from Short Circuit looming over the pair of them. I want a T Shirt of this!


However the label on the bag is the only thing worth keeping as the figure it self is beyond dire. He looks like a zombie version of Robocop. Robert Cop 3 was the best when it came to ripping off Robocop.

STREET FIGHTER 2

The mini Street Fighter 2 bootlegged action figures and play-sets where very good toys and examples of how sometimes bootlegs can be decently designed products. The toys came packed inside of mini bootleg SNES controllers which opened up into this.


The figures them selves were of a pretty decent standard and could be twisted at the waist. The figures had different paint jobs to their on screen counterparts but some where painted matching the characters real appearance. The Blanka for example on the right is painted using his official colors but E Honda is in white not blue.


These figures and play sets were of such good quality that I remember me and my friends competitively collecting these toys. We actually thought they were licensed products at the time they were that good.

WWF

Wrestling figures have always been the most bootlegged thing going. I could talk about the really bad ones but that is to easy and would take me an eternity to do. Today I am talking about the better bootlegs. The ones pictured above were released around late 1992 and were a collection of mini WWF figures which were pretty damn cool. Like the Street Fighter toys these bootlegs were so good we thought they were the real thing. Just take a look at them, each one looks and had has same colors of their real life counterparts at the time. These were another group of bootlegs I competitively collected among my friends at school.


This Ultimate Warrior has to be the best bootleg wrestling figure of all time. Using the molds from the Spanish line of official WWF dolls and taking the head off of the giant talking Hasbro Warrior toy, they managed to make the ULTIMATE Ultimate Warrior toy. Great paint job to boot as well. Hats off to these guys great job.

THE DRAGON

Now this is another bad ass bootleg. Using the same box and mold of the Superman super powers collection they made this super cool bootleg of Bruce Lee. I was lucky enough to have an official Bruce Lee action figure when I was a kid but I would have killed for this. A decent looking Bruce Lee bootleg in the Game of Death attire.  

More Lost Entertainment next week.

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