Toybox of FAIL: Thunder Charger

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Thunder Charger

Jing Zhiwei toys continues their run of LEGO knock-offs with a small helicopter model. A very familiar helicopter.

In fact, everything about this bootleg should be familiar to long-time FAIL readers. Why? Because other than a company name-change from BRICK, this set is identical to the one I reviewed back in March of 2009.

Take a look at the packaging:

The same part count. The same graphics. The same fonts. The same goofy log cabin in the background shot...

And remember the badly translated slogans?

Well, check out the top the new box...



"But what about the toy?" I hear you ask. "Surely it's a bit different!"

First the BRICK version:


and the latest:





Oh. Wait. They are different. And the Jing Zhiwei version is even crappier looking.

I would have passed up this review all together, but my photographer would have been mightily irked to have suffered through building and documenting this piece of crap for nothing. So now her suffering becomes yours.

You're welcome.

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As always, many thanks to Joe from The Undiscovered Playthings for sending me this set to review.

Photos of the Jing Zhiwei Thunder Charger are © 2009 Alyska Bailey Peterson /
PointyKitty Studios

Toybox of FAIL: Violent Wind Speed

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Violent Wind Speed / Cross-Country


Jing Zhiwei toys continues to up the "WTF" quotient of their knock-off toys. Just when you get used to the idea that they're blatantly stealing LEGO product designs, they go and make their packaging even more incomprehensible.

Is today's toy called "Violent Wind Speed"? Or "Cross-Country"? "36 pcs"?

Maybe "No. 803"?

Whatever it's called, a better translation would have been "crap."


(Click the pic for more views)

I mean, just look at this thing. The colors are crap. The pieces are crap. The printing is crap. Heck, even the figure's hand is a malformed piece of half-digested waste.

If this car was subjected to "cross-country" or "violent wind speed" there's no doubt in my mind it'd end up in at least 36 pieces.

Bleh.

Still, thanks as always to Joe from The Undiscovered Playthings for sending me this set to review. Sorry I wasn't more bitter, but I've had a long day.

Photos for this set © 2009 Alyska Bailey Peterson /PointyKitty Studios

Toybox of FAIL: Death's head VS Astronaut

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the Toybox.


Death's head VS Astronaut


Today we continue our look at Jing Zhiwei toys and their ongoing quest to distribute bootleg LEGO product as their own. Today's offering is what can best be described as a "battle pack" - there isn't really much building involved, but you do get two mini-figures and some accessories. According to the box art, the two figures are "Death's head" and "Astronaut". As one of them is a skeleton and the other is an alien, I leave it to the reader to decide which is which. It's really not much of a puzzle.

What is a puzzle, however, is the ever-present question of just what Jing Zhiwei designers were smoking when they came up with this set.

One figure in red on a white board. The other in white on a red board. It's Ying vs Yang, Good vs Evil, Crap vs Even more Crap.

Let's take a look at what you get inside the box...



Two minifigures. On skateboards. Who fight.

Sadly, the product colors don't match the box, but by now we know better to expect that. What is shocking is that all the parts shown on the box are actually present in the set.

Sure, the alien...excuse me...Astronaut...is LEGO-original teal instead of the martian red, but at least the spider attached to his back is the correct transparent yellow plastic. And he comes with two weapons that look like weapons.

Now, Death's head may be in for a bit of trouble. One hand is on fire, leaving just has a gem to try and hit Astronaut on the head with. Maybe he's secretly aligned with the scorpion and extra spider. Or maybe he has some other super power beyond just being an animated skeleton.

The only thing left to decide is...who will win? Who will lose? Who will end up regretting they have a crappy bootleg instead of actual LEGO mini-figures and weep bitter tears when the cheap plastic cracks and puts out an eye?

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The Toybox of Fail. Brought to you by people who really should know better.

Thanks to The Undiscovered Playthings for sending me this set to review.
Photos for this set © 2009 Alyska Bailey Peterson /PointyKitty Studios

Toybox of FAIL: Mars Baby

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As if I don't have enough going on in December, I've found a way to start showcasing more horrors from the Toybox of Fail.

The secret? I've enlisted the aid of Pointykitty Studios to help out with the photography! (Considering how amazing these photos look, I'm sad I didn't think of asking sooner.)

The reviews also have a useful new feature: As the photos are hosted out on Flickr, you can click through to see larger versions of all the shots.

So...what are we waiting for? Brace yourself as we reach into the Toybox and find...


Mars baby


Jing Zhiwei toys is the latest Bootleg toy label to use the "Intelligence Toys" logo. (We've seen it before on sets like Ack Ack from Xin Qi Le). Mars baby is set 801 and contains an estimated 23 pieces.

We can see from the product shot on the front of the box that the Bootleg Designers were on a very potent blotter of acid the day they designed this set. An alien (cloned directly from LEGO's Life on Mars theme, only sunburned an uncomfortable shade of red) stands atop...something. Part wagon, part table saw, this vehicle is a propeller-driven mishmash of themes. That apparently fights whatever foes it can find in the deep desert.



The back of the packaging has a layout we've seen many times before - right down to the "combinatorial series" logo. Not that there was much doubt that many of these bootlegs flow through numerous shady pipelines - but sometimes you can be a bit too obvious about cloning your competition.

There really isn't much mix-n-matching you can do with the parts in this set, and the bootleggers show that in their product shots. Note the amazing transformation of the vehicle by basically turning the figure around to face the other way.



Inside the package we find the usual assortment of fragile, broken, and misshapen parts. The photographer was barely able to get these shots as the toy kept falling apart whenever she took a step away from it.

The color of the parts fails to match the box, but that's not uncommon. What is uncommon is the decision to cast the wagon wheels in bright blue plastic. I guess it makes the set look more "spacey".

The alien, by the way, is cast in LEGO-authentic teal. Of course, he's not assembled the way LEGO intended, creating a misshapen, twisted creature that can only be called....Mars baby.

You can click the following photos to see larger views of Mars baby. You know you want to.



The Toybox of Fail. Brought to you by people who really should know better.

Thanks to Joe from The Undiscovered Playthings for sending me this set to review.

Toybox of FAIL: SOLDIER Part 2

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Yes, the Toybox is back, and still filled to overflowing with bad knock-offs and questionable items. Sorry this took me so long to get back to - things have been busy for me lately.

Anyway, picking up more or less where I left off, here's the second in the SOLDIER series of FAIL.





As you may recall, the first SOLDIER was a a strange mix of Bionicle and Star Wars. This second SOLDIER shows that BRICK was satisfied with a single Vader head, yet strangely decided to duplicate the Bionicle color-assortment with its various weapons.



Say Hello to Rahaga Kualus, or "Santa Kualus" as I like to call this snow-themed bootleg.



The back of the SOLDIER's box again doubles as an instruction sheet. Notice, though, that they did include both the correct white color scheme as well as the correct weapon for the toy. That's more than BRICK usually manages. Of course, the drawings still aren't to-scale with the real toy, making the technic rod length diagrams pretty pointless...



And speaking of pointless, check out this little gem. This set came with a half-molded brick! This is the pin that's used to hold the figure's head onto his neck...



And its lack leaves the toy in a somewhat...less than ready for action state.



Adding insult to injury, this set was also missing the technic rod to complete the figure's weapon. Missing AND broken parts. If there were ever any doubt about this being a bootleg....

Oh well. At least White SOLDIER has a free hand to carry his head around. Maybe he can audition for a role as the Headless Horseman...

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As always, many thanks to Joe from The Undiscovered Playthings for sending me this set to review.

Toybox of FAIL: Ice Car Transformer

First time here? Please take a moment and read the Toybox of FAIL Disclaimer. Thanks!
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I still haven't made it out to see Transformers 2 in the theater - from the reviews my friends have given me, I'll probably wait until it hits video before I bother with it.

But what, in the meantime, can I use to fill the void of transforming robots in my life? Well, maybe a bootleg will help.



Sounds impressive and Transformer-y, anyway.



Of course, it's NOT.

To appreciate the FAIL of today's bootleg, let me familiarize you with a LEGO set from 2004. It's from the tail end of the Alpha Team theme, when the Agents-Precursors were chillin' in the arctic.



This is set 4742 - Chill Speeder. Like most of the arctic Alpha Team sets, this small vehicle "transforms" into a walking Mech-Suit for the driver. It's a fairly clever set with some decent engineering and play value.

Do you have the product image locked in your mind. Okay. Let's move on with the FAIL.



Number 504 in the Zephyr Knight "oversized impulse item" line, the Snow Surface Transformer is a more-or-less direct copy of the Chill Speeder. The art focuses more on the "Robot mode" of the speeder, but you can see the vehicle mode clearly in the background on the right. It's even in roughly the same pose as the LEGO box art.

I'm sure you noticed it, but it's worth mentioning the duplication of the Transformers Font in the logo art of this bootleg. The more toy lines they can claim kinship to, the more they're stealing from the advertising budgets of others. It just makes good/illegal sense.



The back of the package has the usual "build other versions" photo montage we've come to know and loathe. What's odd is that they don't show the robot mode of the basic assembly as an "alternate version."

If you look, you'll see two little "T" buttons on the back. One reads "T: Amusement" and the other "T: Intelligence". We've seen these before on other Zephyr Knight bootlegs - but strangely the other toys have had a third "T", as seen from this image from The Equation Races Car...



That's right. Apparently even Zephyr Knight wouldn't label this bootleg "Interesting."

The side of the box has some product shots from "upcoming" Zephyr Knight sets:



Note how the box style will apparently be going back to standard-sized impulse with "Snow Surface Prowl Car."

I can hardly wait.



This is the Mini-Figure that comes with the Ice Car Transformer. He's a clone of various LEGO figures - spanning several themes. (An Adventure torso, a Racer head, and an Alpha Team cap) What's cute is that Zephyr Knight tried to copy the style of the Arctic Alpha Team by giving the figure one black and one colored arm. (The one-color-sleeve look was a standard trait of the Alpha team.)



There's not much to say about the toy itself - the brick is cheap, and lacks the printed-brick appeal of the real model.



It does work, more or less, like the LEGO version. So there's almost some play value to this particular bootleg.

That is, until the brittle plastic snaps and embeds itself in someone's eye.

Just sayin'.

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As always, many thanks to Joe from The Undiscovered Playthings for sending me this set to review.

Toybox of FAIL: Soldier

First time here? Please take a moment and read the Toybox of FAIL Disclaimer. Thanks!
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I've got a good one for you today. A single bootleg that manages to cross several corporate lines - creating a sickening mish-mash of a "toy", poised to shatter and cut your fingers at the slightest provocation.

It only makes sense that such a violent bootleg would carry a militaristic name like "Soldier."





Before I show you today's fail, though, I thought it best to familiarize you with the main toy that's being ripped off.



This is LEGO Bionicle set 4878, Rahaga Bomonga. Yes, it's a goofy name.

Have you taken a good look at this set? Are you ready to move on to the FAIL?

I sure hope so.



Yes, it's the return of our "good friends" at BRICK. There's really no attempt to hide the LEGO origins of this toy - from the matching typefaces on the logos, the color schemes, the base toy itself, to the duplicate instructions for the toy's flying disc feature, there's giant heaps of copyright infringement everywhere.

Oh, sure, there are little differences. The background art is (slightly) different. The line name is different.

And, oh yeah, there's the strange fact that Solider has a DARTH VADER HEAD.



Before we look at that, though, here's some fun-to-read text from the top of the package:

Modern design.
Superior performance.
Skillful manufacture.
Perfect in workmanship.
High standard in quality and hygiene.

I was buying it up until they brought up high standards of hygiene.




Instead of including an instruction sheet, this time BRICK just printed the build on the back of the box. The fun begins when you notice the "check the size to make sure you have the right technic beam" illustrations are not printed to scale. In fact, the pictures are so tiny that they're nearly illegible. Way to go, BRICK!



Here's the base toy - it's a direct duplication of the LEGO build and parts. The plastic used is super brittle - and many of the joints and parts are defective. (Not enough plastic in the mold causing gaps or too much plastic preventing things from seating properly due to overruns.) The flying disc is there, but the gearing doesn't work, rendering that part of the toy useless.

But let's take a look at the real FAIL of this toy - the replacement of the Bionicle head with Darth Vader's helmet.




In person, this toy is almost cute in that "I'm going to tear off your toenails because that's all I can reach." way. You know. Like a rabid hamster or something.



Here's a detail of the face. It's not 100% Vader, but I don't think they were trying for anyone else. I guess they just didn't have a correctly-scaled Vader Mold lying around the factory to re-use.



Flipping the head over you can see the technic mount at the neck. Some poor worker was forced to carve this thing. Or maybe he volunteered for the task. I don't really know which would be worse.

Anyway, if you know anything about Bionicle, you know that LEGO loves to release six sets with basically the same parts cast in different colors. Take that knowledge as a bit of foreshadowing as to five other reviews that you'll be seeing in the near future.

Oh yes, the pain has just started.

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Many thanks to Joe from The Undiscovered Playthings for sending me this set to review.