Friday Fail: Intelligence Toy Glider

Due to popular demand, and because this site is my own personal playground and it's time certain readers realized that, I've made a switch. Brick House will now publish only on Fridays and we'll get bootleg reviews every day!

Yes, it's time for me to introduce the

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Every day Reasonably Clever showcases a real failure of a toy. And by "Failure" I mean "a cheap, crappy knockoff toy that should be destroyed before it infects humanity with some sort of degenerative disease".

But first: A reminder of some basic info. These posts are meant to showcase FAILURE, not to act as a catalog. I'm not selling these bootlegs, nor should you go out and look for them on your own. These are posts about what to AVOID buying. Go spend your money on real LEGO parts. You'll be glad you did.

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Today we have more of the "carded and boxed" Xin Qi Le bootlegs. Moving sequentially through the stock numbers, today's FAIL is #102 of the bunch: Intelligence Toy Glider.

"Intelligence Toys" brings us the "Intelligence Toy Glider". What a shocking coincidence. This 19-piece rip-off of a LEGO X-Treme Stunts 6561 Hang Glider. Sure, it's missing a few parts and (supposedly) has a new mini-figure, but there's no mistaking that basic construction style.

As part of the "Combinatorial Series" the Glider has three versions - Flight! (The glider) Plane! (the glider with the figure sitting on it!) and Faster Yacht! (Faster than what? Who cares!) Of the three, the Faster Yacht is my favorite. Mainly because the mini-figure just sits completely unsecured on a triangular platform and waves as the world speeds by. Controls? Who needs 'em? Maybe he stops the propeller with his hand.

The sides of the package showcase two of the three "Combinatorial" forms - the Plane appears twice, but is only labeled once.

He's the safety warning - included as always for completeness. This will be the last time you see one of these unless some new form of fail works it way into the warning.

Normally I have a shot of the package contents at this point, but I forgot to take a photo this time. Whoops. Not that you're missing anything - it was the usual poly-bag of parts and a folded instruction sheet. Astounding!

Here are the included parts - 23 + sticker by my count. Strangely, this is a lot higher than the 19 promised on the box. Maybe they didn't mean to completely dismember the mini-figure this time.

Of note in the instructions is the mini-fig subsection. Normally, the bootlegers don't show you having to assemble the arms and torso like that.

Here's our pilot mini-figure after assembly. Note the excess plastic on his hands, the slightly deformed leg, and poor quality of printing on the face. The face and torso are LEGO designs (although only reproduced in one color) - this same set of parts appeared in our last excursion into failure, the 1 Police Patrol. The only difference is shockingly red crew cut. (A LEGO part, but yet to be produced in anything near that color.)

The sticker is a new design, I think. It clearly labels the top of the vehicle as "top." Handy.

Speaking of the vehicle, here's the completed caft. Note the complete mismatch of colors compared to the packaging. Expected, but still a bit shocking. This is one BLUE hang glider.

And here's our intrepid pilot about to go for a ride. I hope he has a very firm grip - because if he lets go he's on a one way ticket to splats-ville.

Overall, this wasn't too shocking of a bootleg. It's just a poor copy of a licensed LEGO set. I feel bad for anyone who was tricked into paying real money for this thing, though.

Heck, I feel bad for anyone who was tricked into giving away counterfeit money for this piece of crap.

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