Episode 664

Read the comic here.

Episode 663

Read the comic here.

I made a custom LEGO Italian Spiderman outfit months ago - I couldn't resist sneaking it into the strip somehow.

Makes you wonder why Tony had it in his Owlship, though....

Friday Fail: 1 Police Patrol

Every Friday at noon I showcase 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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I'm reaching the bottom of the pile of my first batch of LEGO knock-offs - that means it's time to venture into more of the "carded and boxed" Xin Qi Le bootlegs. I thought it best to finish this suicide run in sequential order, so we'll begin with stock number 101 - the 1 Police Patrol.

As usual, we'll take a look at the packaging first.

In a departure from the other knock-offs we've been looking at, the "1 Police Patrol" box features a drawing of the toy, rather than a doctored photo of a LEGO product. It's not even a particularly good drawing. (Not that a photo would have accurately represented the toy either, mind you.)

This set is part of the "Combinatorial Series" of "Intelligence Toys". Twenty-four pieces of crap to make you question the existence of God.

The back of the package has the old LEGO catch phrase of "Just Imagine." You have to imagine, because you're not going to get any fun out of this bootleg by itself.

The "combinations" are again drawings rather than photos. And what a combination they are! You can....ride the motocycle! Or.....ride the motorcycle! Or......push the motorcycle! Maybe you're supposed to imagine you ran out of gas.

The sides of the box re-use the images from the back. Notice that they must have thought the whole "out of gas" motif was much more exciting than driving along under your own power. Why else would they re-use that image twice?

Nothing too odd about the child safety warning on the bottom of the box. By now the mangled English of "Design is not stand for original product" fails to even be slightly amusing.

The contents of the box are standard, too - a baggie of parts and a folded bit of instructions.

As expected, the parts almost match the packaging in shape, but fail completely in color matching and design. They manage their 24 parts by completely dismembering the mini-figure.

The instructions are pretty straightforward and can actually be followed. Or, rather, they could have been except for these tires:

Notice all that gunk inside the rim? I had to take a pen knife and trim it away before I could insert the yellow hubs. A sad increase in difficulty - I didn't expect to have to use tools.

If you've looked closely at the illustrations above you might have noticed something odd about the vehicle: it's a two-wheeler. Why is that odd? Because the LEGO part that they're duplicating is for a three-wheeled trike! (The same 3-wheel motorcycle we saw in the aptly-named "3 Wheel Motorcycle" bootleg set in fact.)

The rear wheel mount is duplicated from the front handlebars, and the cowling is slightly modified to allow the rear wheel to turn.

Here's a side by side with the Bootleg (in black) and the LEGO version (in white).

From the rear you can see the modification to the cowling - the rear headlight clip has been removed. Otherwise the parts are identical.

The "Policeman" figure for this set had a slight problem - his left arm was so cracked that his hand won't stay attached. Maybe it's the weight of that strange green sidearm causing all the trouble.

The face we've seen before - a single color transfer of an official LEGO design. The printing is really sub-standard this time. The photo above is in focus - it's the printing that' s blurry.

The torso is a single-color reprint of a torso designed for the Viking theme.

Yes, that really says "officer of the law" to me.

And here's the full "1 Police Patrol" toy, ready to....well, fall apart, I suppose. It doesn't really roll, the pieces stuck on to the back are just posed there - they fall off with the slightest jolt - as does the headlight. And we've already talked about the problem with the figure's left hand.

Yes, "1 Police Patrol". For all your quality law enforcement needs.

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

Episode 662

Read the comic here.

Mary Sue's outfit is my guess at the new "Tyrannical T-Men" costume design that's yet to be unveiled over at Adventures of the S-Team. I haven't seen Ian's design, but I thought it'd be funny if Mary Sue ended up looking like part of that team completely by accident. But will Ian have his characters cross-dressing as well?

Only time will tell.

Handtruck Challenge: Winners Announced

The Handtruck Building Challenge '09 is over! I've posted the Judge's comments (where applicable) to the Entry Grid and posted the all new Winner's Grid page. (There were four judges: Myself, Nathan, and the infamous Players A and B.)

For those of you wondering what the "special prize pack" was for the builder who used the most handtrucks....it's a Baggie of Handtrucks! Because, obviously, that builder knows how to make use of them, and I sure don't need a huge pile of them.

The winners have email waiting for them on how to claim their prizes.

Thanks to everyone who played! Details for our next (BIG!) contest are being finalized now...look for details very soon!

Episode 661

Read the comic here.

Traveling like this is a well known practice.

Episode 660

Read the comic here.

Another exterior shot since the interior ones didn't work. Some of the humor is definitely lost this time - the 3rd panel (as written) had Mary Sue in a really wacky super hero outfit.

Oh well. You'll get to see the outfit in a few strips.

Friday Fail: Box-o-Badness

I was starting to worry - I was down to my last six bootleg LEGO sets. And then, without warning, I got a package in the mail...

Yes, that's another giant box of LEGO-like knockoffs from my good friend Joe (Be sure to check out his blog: The Undiscovered Playthings)

Amazingly, he'd managed to locate items that make the current batch of FAIL seem almost tame by comparison. LEGO crossed with Playmobil? Bootlegs OF bootlegs? They're in there. Just waiting for their Friday to arrive.

Oh, we're in for a bumpy ride.

Episode 659

Read the comic here.

I had planned to do this as interior shots, but I really didn't have "comic set" in mind when I built the Owlship. I wasn't able to find a workable angle.

I think the strip still works, though. Making the reader imagine Mary Sue's antics probably creates a more wacky image than I could have managed with LEGO parts.

Episode 658

Read the comic here.

For those of you haven't seen the Iron Man movie, the quote being referenced is:

William Ginter Riva: Mr. Stane. Sir, we've explored what you've asked us and it seems as though there's a little hiccup. Actually, um...
Obadiah Stane: A hiccup?
William Ginter Riva: Yes, see to power the suit... sir, the technology doesn't actually exist. So it...
Obadiah Stane: Wait, wait, the technology? Here is the technology. I've asked you to simply make it smaller.
William Ginter Riva: Sir, the technology doesn't exist. Honestly, it's impossible.
Obadiah Stane: [yelling] Tony Stark was able to build this in a cave! With a box of scraps!
William Ginter Riva: Well, I'm sorry. I'm not Tony Stark.

Friday Fail: Photo-Graph Car

Every Friday at noon I showcase 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.

--

Friday again? Already?
Well, that means it's time to get ready to be shocked and horrified by yet another cheap LEGO knock off.

Today's scum? A little piece of crap identified as Photo-Graph Car.

Zephyr Knight is back with another "Almost a legit LEGO set buy not quite" offering. This time, they've taken LEGO STUDIO theme and made a mockery of it.

The front of the box shows the LEGO Director mini-figure sitting on a mobile camera rig - filming plastic army men. No, really.

Here's a closer look. That's a plastic army man and jeep! They didn't even bother to keep the bootleg confined to a single brand.

The back of the box continues the goofiness. A part of "Series Transformation", the Photo-Graph Car changes shape ever so slightly to take on the challenges of war (I guess - the photo backround is to blurry to make anything out), auto-racing and dirt bikes. Well, mabe not auto-racing - maybe RC car racing. Either that, or our Director figure is meant to be roughly fifteen feet tall.

The side of the box has a strange bit of graphic design - the blue background is peeling like bad paint...only to reveal another completely blurred and unrecognizable photo.

Speaking of "blurred and unrecognizable" check out that text. The bootlegers have chose a font that makes it nearly impossible to guess what they've written on the side of the box.

Here's a larger than life-size view. I even ran it through a sharpen filter. My guess at the wording?

This product puts together to pack simple, the construction
is reasonable, the shape is novel, helps to educate to begin
to move the brain ability, expanding the visual field, not the is high school students friend the best to choose.

Clearly.

Here's the box top with the usual photos of other bootlegs in the series.

And the various warning labels on the bottom. Nothing we haven't seen before.

The contents of the box are also pretty standard...but check out those instructions!

They've just been wadded up and cramed into the box. "Neatness counts" has never been a bootlegger's motto, but this is just sad.

Here's the parts spread out. As usual the colors and decorations fail to match up with the illustrations. The wheels are again the single-piece hub and tire recast we've seen in other sets. The parts have "HELO" stamped on them in place of the LEGO brand name.

The instructions follow linear time for once - although they do show an extra brick in the camera assembly.

The parts went together okay - but the cheap plastic and casting resulted in the ugly (and sharp) crack in the camera mount shown here.

Here's the mini-figue. A big change from the STUDIO Director or Cameraman shown in the printed materials, eh? He looks like an albino terrorist to me. (Although why he'd want to terrorize albinos, I just don't know.)

Finally, a shot of the assembled Photo-Graph Car. Is it a simple documentary aide, or is it a weapon of mass destruction?

The answer is: C) None of the Above. This is a piece of crap bootleg.

But I bet you knew that by now.

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

Space Skulls for $20

Don't know how long this will last, so you might want to act quickly...the "Space Skulls" factory set is on sale at the US LEGO.com for $20 - marked down from $100.


Click the pic to go to LEGO's page for the set.

I ordered a few just for parts, if nothing else.