League of Extraordinary Bloggers: Knock it Off!

It's that time again kids! The League of Extraordinary Bloggers is back and this week the topic is:

Bootlegs, knockoffs, and third-party products.

And let me tell you, I had been scratching my head over this one. I don't have a ton of bootleg items to be honest... and I just wasn't sure if I was going to be able to join in this week. Then! I remembered one item that I featured during the League's Spacemen week back in January. This guy:

I'm POOOOOSEABLE!!!

My Space Defender Poseable Figure from Hunson toys! Who's Hunson toys? Who the hell knows! (A Google search turned up a weird, nebulous importation company which does in fact deal in a bunch of action figures, but I would say their Space Defender days are well behind them). I picked mine up at Maine retail chain Reny's. 

You're fooling exactly NO ONE.

It's ridiculously transparent who he's supposed to be, even if he is colored pure, snowy, virginal white. Let me give you a hint: It rhymes with Garth Nadir. In fact, that is what I am officially naming this character. Garth Nadir, Space Defender. Guys, I love Garth Nadir. There are other figures in this series that also look suspiciously like Power Rangers in red and blue... and as you can see above Garth here even shows up in all black plastic as well. Imagine!

Party on Garth.

 Locally, I was only able to find those four figures, and the only one I fell in love with was this albino version. I've also seen these show up online as "Robot Spacebots" but which are obviously the exact same toys. I couldn't bring myself to pop him out of his packaging, because it would just ruin the whole effect. Here's a close-up of Garth's face. Look at that sculpt! Look at those details! It almost looks like he's got some sort of breathing apparatus going on there...

Or... he's sucking on a dog-tag. 

 I know there's an obvious money-grubbing element to all knock-off toys like this one, but there's also this goofy cheap innocence to them as well. A kid can see this and HOPE that play-experience with it is going to be as awesome as playing with an actual Dar- I mean... famous, officially licensed space-themed action figure... And at this price point, there's a much better shot that a kid can bring this guy home.

Says he's ready to play.
So... Let's play. 

He's even got a "glow sword" that lights up when he does his AMAZING play feature! And what might that be you may ask? Well, let's look:

Pretty outstanding right? This also falls into the category of "cheap toys you can buy for your friends kids so that you friends with put their ear-drums out with an ice-pick". This guy is maybe only slightly behind buying a gym-teacher's whistle or a drum set... and so much more affordable. 

That's it for me folks! Let's see what the rest of the League is Bootlegging this week: 

- Chris over at Tupa's Treasures features a BUNCH of awesome bootleg toys! Some of them I would be proud to own!

- Rediscover the 80's shows off some awesome Streethawk... or... GI Joe... or some kind of figures and playsets. 

- The Nerd Nook explores the seedy side of Super Powers action figures. 

- Brian at Cool and Collected shows off a Cardboard flying... Super-- er... Saturn Man?

UPDATE!!! I totally beat the Trash Man over at Pop Pop! It's Trash Culture to doing a post about this AWESOME toy!!! I am crowing it from the rooftops!!! I forced him into some kind of incoherent babbling about knock-off comic books featuring TMNT-esque teams of Mad-Libs like [Insert Age Here] [Insert Science-y Adjective Here] [Insert Fighting Style Here] [Insert Random Animal Here] super-fighting teams from the 90's. And if you ignore the obvious fact that he was crying uncontrollably until he got the hiccups while trying to write it, you'll see it's pretty Awesome Post! 

I'll be back soon with more Geeky Goodwill Goodies! Until then, Happy Hunting!