TOYS: BOOTLEG TOY SPECIAL

When ever a great toy line is released there will always be dodgy Mexican and Chinese companies that will make knock off versions of them. It is kind of like piracy in the form of toys. To avoid any legal issues these companies change the spelling of their toys and do all sorts of other customizations which more often than not, end up in disaster. Some times the toys them selves are great and you would not know the difference but in most cases these products are poorly made to the point where hilarity will always be prevail. The funniest thing is that these toys were made by non English speaking countries so most of the time they will be named in broken English. Even though these toys were fakes they are highly collectable and I have seen some go for fortunes. Here are some examples of some classic bootleg toys.

ROBERT COP 2

This is a great bootleg toy of Robocop except for one thing.. the packaging. They could have called this toy "Robot Cop" or "Cyborg Cop" but fucking "Robert Cop" is probably the worst thing that anyone could suggest. When I was a kid I spent a lot of my childhood abroad and bootleg toys were available everywhere. I picked up my Robert Cop in Gozo which is one of the smallest islands in the universe.

OP"THOMAS" PRIME

Cashing in on the Transformers wave that swept the planet during the 1980's and also the fact that everyones favorite train will always be over, some weird Japanese company made this classic knock off. I named this one Op"Thomas" Prime and I don't know what the original toy was called. If you think that this cross over hybrid is bad then the next one will amaze you even more.

GOD JESUS

Ever wondered what would happen if you mixed Jesus and God together? Well this is the shocking result! A crucifix wielding robot from Japan. I have no idea what so ever what God (if that is his real name) or Jesus have to do with anything but it works as far as I am concerned. I wonder who would win in a fight between God Jesus and Robert Cop 2? I don't know if God Jesus is a bad guy or a good guy as he looks quite menacing. Also who would his enemies be? A bloke dressed as a scientist called the Atheist? Hang on one minute I have the answer!

OCCUPY CYBERTRON

Now these are blokes in suits with the heads and legs of Transformers. Corporate greed mixed with cyborg technology makes these figures the ultimate bad guys. I blame them for JFK and September the 11th. These figures are so bad that they are almost modern art.

 MR T BOXING PUPPET

The Mr T boxing puppet was a classic. With Mr T being the most famous guy on the planet in the 80's he also became the target of many bootleg toy makers. There were many of these puppets released of all sorts of different characters and celebs but the Mr T one is the most remembered. The puppet had levers inside which when pressed would make the puppet throw some punches. This was an amazing bootleg toy but shame about the dodgy Islamic robe..

BA VAN

This is a hideous bootleg A-Team van from the 80's. If you couldn't afford a real A-Team van then I guess this would have been your only option. There's not much I can say about this really, its just a shit van with some stickers on it.

MR T

I am not sure if this is a Mr T bootleg figure or a Mr T tampax device? Either way it is proper rubbish. Maybe the string is meant to be a pony tail like that bloke in Kickboxer had? Or it is a Christmas tree decoration.? It looks like he has a glass eye as well. I piity the fools who can't make decent Mr T knock offs.

GAME CHILD

This is a god awful Nintendo Game Boy rip off. Yet again the wells of originality and creativity run very shallow when it comes to naming this product. God awful thing that made any long car journey and plane ride ten times worse.

INCREDIBLE HULK

This is a really bad Incredible Hulk knock off but as a kid I would have been happy with this. I must say he is rocking a pretty badass afro.

I actually like this bootleg Hulk figure. It looks like Lou Ferringo but also looks like zombie on steroids. Actually the more I look at this figure the more it scares me. Kinda has the same vibe of a cursed painting.

SHITTY FAKE HE MAN

This is a classic example of a shitty bootleg He Man toy. With the popularity of the Masters of the Universe line a few decades back He Man bootlegs swarmed like a plague of Locusts. Some of them were cool and were welcome additions to your home made Eternia. Others were welcomed to being set on fire and other means of torture.

TOY STORY WOODY

This is a knock off Woody from Toy Story. You can tell by the sadness of this Toys eyes how he hates being a bootleg toy that has been frozen forever in a suggestible pose. Bend over a Barbie in front of this toy to see what I mean. He should be casted for the next Toy Story movie.

NIGHTMARE FEDDY

Just like Robert Cop 2 Nightmare Feddy is a brilliant knock off apart from the terrible naming on the package. What the fuck is a Feddy?? 

MONSTER

Here is another knock off Freddy figure. This came from a line of toys that also had a Dracula, Frankenstien and another weird monster. I painted the white stripes on my one green because it really bothered me! After that it didn't look to bad.

THOMAS THE TANK ENGINE

These are not as epic as the Thomas the Tank bootleg I mentioned earlier. These knock offs that have used the exact moulds of the real Thomas the Tank Engine toys and just re-sprayed them in horrible greens and brighter colors. Insert Thomas the Wank engine joke here..

SUPER HERO BOOTLEGS

Finally we come to the Super Hero section of the bootleg toys. Super heroes are the most targeted group when it comes to bootlegging exploitation. Most of the super hero toys I owned as a kid were bootleg copies. Sometimes they make decent ones but like usual 90% of them are dog shit rubbish! Look at the above picture for an example. Not only is Supermans costume the wrong colors but his eyes are crossed as well. The "S" on his chest must clearly stand for "Spaz" in this case.

SENSE OF RIGHT

This 6 pack of decent figures also shares the curse of Robert Cop with the broken English packaging. Sense of Right? Actually its growing on me. I love how the yellow Ranger is thrown in the mix also.

SILVERBAT

Silver bat is Batgirl riding a horse. It is battery operated so God knows what this thing does when powered up. More than likely kicks its legs and plays the theme song from Spider Man!

SUPER BAT

Super Bat is a radio controlled skateboard with Batman riding it. If you cant afford a Tony Hawks game then I guess this could come in handy. 

SPECIAL MAN

This is a decent Superman figure but "Specialman" is probably the least flattering name of the lot. 

I am not going to even say anything about this one.

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THE AVENGERS ON FILM: THEN AND NOW

So this weekend the dream comic book movie hits the movie theaters around the world. When the Avengers was first announced a few years back every comic book fanboy soiled them selves and waited for what seemed like forever for this movie to come out.

It is great to see that Hollywood is finally taking comic book franchises seriously as in the past this has not been the case. It has taken a long time for this day to come (a few decades even) but finally the time has come, and the movies the fans want are finally being made. Thanks to advancements in film making more things have become possible which makes the end result something more spectacular.

Today I will be showing you the previous attempts to bring these characters to life on the big screen.

THE HULK (1970'S=1990'S)

 The 1970's live action television show of the Incredible Hulk was a major success. Bill Bixby played the part of Dr David Banner the man who while trying to tap into human rage in an experiment became the Incredible Hulk. Now in the comic the character is in fact called Bruce Banner and the TV bosses changed it to David because they thought Bruce sounded gay, Mr Universe runner up Lou Ferringo was painted green and played the rampaging Hulk. The transformation scenes were pretty good for its time and Lou Ferringo was great as the Hulk but when you watch it today its very corny. One episode the Hulk fights a bear in a lake and the water is washing the green paint off of his skin. 

I and I am sure many people have great affection for this incarnation of the green skinned behemoth as it was the original and the show kicked ass back in the day.

In 2008's Incredible Hulk (which really stayed on the same path as the TV show) Lou Ferringo played a cameo role as a security guy receiving a pizza from Bruce Banner.

They killed this version of the Incredible Hulk off in a TV movie titled "The Death of The Hulk" in the early 1990's after David Banner falls from a helicopter. Bixby would also sadly pass away soon after. Everyone will always have a special place in their heart for this partnership of Bixby and Ferringo.

HULK (2003)

I remember being at my computer monitor in film studies crowding everyone round to watch the Superbowl trailer of this movie in early 2003. I was so excited that the Hulk was being given his own live action movie with all the CGI trimmings. When the movie finally hit the big screens in the summer awful reviews followed. I thought "they must be wrong or they just hate comics or something" so I watched the movie and.. they were right all along. Ang Lee decided to give us an hour or so of a bullshit background story which had nothing to do with anything and by the time the Hulk turned up it was like receiving an out of date birthday cake 10 days after your fucking birthday! This was also the year that Daredevil and Terminator 3 disappointed millions across the globe.

THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008)

In 2008 the Hulk franchise was rebooted to kick start the current Avengers movie. This time round we completely forget the last movie ever happened (which is fine by me) and start fresh. Edward Norton does an excellent job playing Bruce Banner and the movie is made with the same formula from the classic TV show and even uses the same music. The Hulk looked great and the battles with Thunderbolt Ross and the military are nothing short of breathtaking. Tim Roth becomes the Abomination and his clashes with the Hulk are bang on straight from the pages of Marvel. A great movie and if you have not seen it yet check it out before watching the avengers.

THOR (1988)

Thor made his screen debut in the 1988 Incredible Hulk Returns movie. Eric Kramer (from Robin Hood Men in Tights) donned the viking helmet and the hammer for the role. As a kid I loved this movie and Thor is great. He has an epic fight with the Hulk in a science lab (in which everything explodes) and ends up teaming with the Hulk to beat people up. He drinks beer all the time and has bar fights. 

Thor and the Hulk grab a picture with their creator the legendary Stan Lee

THOR (2011)

 In 2011 Thor was given his own mega Hollywood make over and hit the big screens last summer. A well written and casted movie Thor was great fun to watch as a comic fan or just a general movie goer. Chris Hemsworth does a spectacular job playing the god of thunder from Asgaard. With a great supporting cast with names like Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins and great direction from Kenneth Branagh the movie was an all round action packed success.

CAPTAIN AMERICA (1990)

With the successful release of Tim Burton's Batman a year before you would think they would up the game when making a Captain America movie a year later. The truth was they did the complete opposite and made possibly the worst superhero movie of all time. I have never been able to sit through the entire film it is really that bad. Try and sit through the whole thing without burping sick I dare you!

CAPTAIN AMERICA (2011)

Shortly after the release of Thor we were treated to Captain America: The first Avenger a few months later. This was last movie released to fluff us up for the 2012 Avengers movie. Unlike Steve Rogers last trip to the big screen, this time round it's a home run. Great story telling straight from the pages of the comic telling the story of how Hydra came to power in WWII. Evans is great as Steven Rogers and Hugo Weavings portrayal of the Red Skull is superb.

AVENGERS ASSEMBLE (2012)

We now come full circle with this weekends release of the Avengers movie. For the first time ever all these guys are going to be put together on the big screen for the dream movie. What will the end result be? Check back for my review shortly..