Daily Fail: Street King

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

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Street King, better known on late-night TV as "King Rikki", is a 2002 film that re-frames Shakespeare's Richard III as an urban gang war. It stars Jon Seda and Mario López. I haven't seen it myself, and even Wikipedia is pretty sparse on details. Still, the poster looks pretty cool.

Street King is also a crappy bootleg from the evil cloners at BRICK.

Aside from the name, what do these two things have in common?

Absolutely nothing.

Still, it's amusing to think of Spider-Bootleg as a mixed up in a Shakespearean rewrite.

This is the bootleg of our discontent

Made hideous plastic by this son of a BRICK;

And all the licensed toys that lour'd upon our house

In the deep bosom of the knock-off buried.

The box for Street King is pretty much identical to the others in this latest line of BRICK failure. Check out the review of Speed Racing for all the badly translated slogans and malformed verbiage.

The box art shows that Street King has no need to follow the roads - either that or they captured him in the middle of a bootlegger's reverse.

Street King comes with the same tiny instruction sheet as the others in this line. Notice the similarity of the "jet pack" at the rear of the bike to the on on Speed Racing and the tiny Spidey in step five.

This toy had the same strange smell to it that TERMINATOR had - I suspect it's the "rubber" used in the tires, but I wasn't about to start sniffing the toy to find out.

Speaking of TERMINATOR, here's the bike from that set side-by-side with today's FAIL. Hmmmm. Somewhat similar, aren't they? Pretty much just an inversion of colors and slightly different accessories.

At least Street King here doesn't have the the genetic defect of two right arms. Here we see him easily kicking the ass of the TERMINATOR Spider-Bootleg.

If I had thought about it, I could have shown the LEGO Spider-Man kicking Street King's ass in a final photo.

Oh well. Maybe next time.

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

Episode 680

Read the comic here.

Daily Fail: Terminator

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

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The second of the newest BRICK bootlegs. The last one, Speed Racing, featured Spider-Man. Today we have.....TERMINATOR.

Terminator also features Spider-Man.

In fact, most of this bootleg is identical to Speed Racing. The box is roughly the size of a pack of playing cards. The front and back are almost identical except for a bit of badly translated text. That badly translated text is the same as on Speed Racing.

The Spider-Man figure shown is identical to the one on Speed Racing.

The toy is a repeat of another BRICK set - CHALLENGER - the only change is the color scheme and the lack of a helmet and pistol for the mini-figure.

The instructions come on the same 4" square scrap of paper that we saw in Speed Racing. The scale on the Spider-Man in step five is better this time, though.

The figure itself, though...well.... he'd be better if BRICK hadn't given him two right arms. And look at all that untrimmed plastic. This is truly a Spider-FAIL.

The cycle looks okay, at least. The colors come across as strangely USA Patriotic. The guns are cast in black plastic, an improvement over CHALLENGER's red versions.

I should mention, though, that the plastic on this set smells really funky. I don't know what sort of chemicals they mixed into the brew, but I'm sure they've taken years off my life.

Here's Spider-Fail trying to drive his bike one-handed.

Maybe he's on the way to the hospital to get that arm looked at.

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

Episode 679

Read the comic here.

I like the sense of interaction you get in the last two panels. Luckily Tony's singular "smarmy" expression works in so many situations.

Daily Fail: Speed Racing

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

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I know what you're thinking. "Oh, no...not another stupid race car bootleg." Trust me, I'm tired of them, too.

Speed Racing from the Super Bricks Series. That sounds suspiciously like "Speed Racer", doesn't it? And LEGO had a line of licensed Speed Racer Toys just last year. Could it be....?

No.

It's better.

Well. Sort of.

My friend Joe of The Undiscovered Playthings sent me a box of six new "sub-impulse" bootlegs - each one packaged in a box roughly the size of pack of playing cards. BRICK is back, and this time it's personal.

Of course the first thing you're going to notice is that instead of Speed Racer, we're looking at another hero....Spider-Man! The second thing you might notice is that the BRICK logo looks almost identical to the LEGO logo. The third thing might be the tag line "Handsome Appearance". After that, your eyes will glaze over and you won't have to face up to the fact that the car part of the toy is a slightly-modified clone of the LEGO set 1363 - Stunt Go-Cart.

The back of the box is pretty much the same as the front, minus the part counts and branding. The classic BRICK slogans do re-appear:

Vivid Andgreat In Style
Handsome Appearance

I really wonder why the "Andgreat" typo continues to appear. Are the BRICK graphic designers just cut-n-pasting from one line to another? (The answer: Probably.)

Speaking of the Cut-n-Pasting of errors we've seen before, the side of the box has this to enjoy:

Most New Catena
Completely New To Come In To The Market
More New Items Available

The instruction sheet is a fairly tiny scrap of paper - about 4" on a side. Note the super small Spidey figure in step 5.

Speaking of Spidey - here he is. As usual, the actual toy is complete crap - look at all that excess plastic around the edges of the molds. The fact that his mask is a printed piece only helps a little...

...considering his hand won't stay in his arm. The poor quality of the hand casting is at fault this time - there's no friction points to attach the hand to the inside of the arm.

Spidey's head isn't a LEGO part - it's actually lifted from a MegaBlok set! (The MB figure is shown at left.) Check out the square peg-hole in the neck on the BRICK version - it almost fits on the round peg from the LEGO-mold torso.

Almost.

The other parts suffer from the same lack of trimming as the mini-figure. Here's a close up of the steering wheel - that's a huge chunk of sprue still attached.

Finally, here's the completed toy. Due to poor castings Spidey won't click onto the car - and the entire rear "jet assembly" falls apart at the slightest touch.

You might notice that one of the flames has fallen off in the photo above, along with Spidey's hand. After five failed attempts to get a decent shot with both attached, I just gave up. This is one Bootleg that refuses to stay assembled.

Will any of the other five sets in this series do better? Stay tuned...

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

Episode 678

Read the comic here.

I think Whiskey is a little scared I'll put him back into stasis for another month or two.

Bad Day: Things get worse (or better, depending.)

The Bad Day gets worse for the citizens of Micropolis - another batch of entries arrived over the weekend. I've updated the entry grids with them - browse and be amazed!

We scored a blog mention over at The Brothers Brick, so hopefully we'll be reaching a even wider audience with this contest. Reasonably Clever fans have had a few extra weeks to work on their creations, though, so I'm still hoping for a "home team" advantage.

Remember, you have until May 3rd to get your entries in!

Ian Healy's entry: Cthulu Released.
If a busy webcomic author like Ian has time to build and entry, so do you!

Daily Fail: Rayish Battleplane

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

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"-Ish".

As a suffix, it indicates approximation. You've probably heard it used it yourself - "The banana was sort of greenish - I didn't want to eat it." Or even "The MegaBloks were LEGO-ish, but clearly inferior."

It's an unusual grammatical construct - and one I was surprised to see appear in the name of a bootleg. Behold!

The Rayish Battleplane - The bootleg they couldn't quite find the words to describe clearly.

Today we return to the normally-sized impulse sets from our "friends" at Zephyr Knight. Rayish Battleplane is number 1010 in the series, placing it next in line after Awoke From The Nightmare.

The box art shows us roughly what to expect from this toy - a clone of the LEGO Life on Mars alien (a strange Mustard-yellow clone) riding a...well...."rayish battleplane". "Plane" as in "a very flat surface", apparently.

The imagery suggests an underwater scene, with our yellow friend gliding along with the Manta Rays that may have inspired the model. The presence of Grecian columns suggests that this is either happening in the sunken city of Atlantis, or maybe in a financial district of San Francisco after the ice caps finish melting.

Part of Zephyr Knight's ever-present "Series Transformation", the Rayish Battleplane has four different builds. All of them are shown skipping across the top of the water like a jet-ski - not exactly something you'd expect to see a Manta Ray doing. Oh well, they only promised us "ray-ish."

The included clone alien has the same face design as shown on the box, but the Non-LEGO yellow coloration has been replaced with a close-to-LEGO lime. Of course, since they decided to use that lime color for all the parts, it appears our alien friend is butt naked. A shame really, since the red hair and freckles suggests that he's going to sunburn easily.

Here's the Battleplane itself. They came really close to matching the color scheme from the box art. As far as impulse sets go, it's not a bad build. The blue side wings extend on a hinge to create a "swooshable" shape. But it wouldn't be a bootleg without some sort of fail, now would it? So let's try and put the alien onboard....

The strange choice of controls (a gear shift and a spout) may look alien, but making the alien use them requires our pilot to really contort him-(her? it?) self. Maybe this is why so many of the Zephyr Knight sets lack any sort of control surfaces for the drivers - they can't figure out how to have the pilot reach them.

Or maybe it's because they're cheap, crappy bootlegs.

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

Episode 677

Read the comic here.

I know Marvel is in the process of un-demonizing Tony, but for a while there they seemed to be doing their best to make him as icky as possible. Another reason I just read the Green Lantern books these days.

Daily Fail: Power Spaceshuttle

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

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As hinted by Skeleton Town Treasure, there's more to the Zephyr Knight's line of over sized-Impulse thefts than just LEGO Racer designs. No, there's some truly....otherworldly....offerings in there,too. Case in point:

Now...is that Spaceshuttle Power or Power Spaceshuttle?
(And why isn't "spaceshuttle" two words?)
(And why is the sky blue?)

Quite a departure from the endless Racing Car rehashes, eh? This set (# 2007 in the Zeyphyr Knight line) takes LEGO set 7467 (International Space Station), strips it down to just the vehicle and then....does things....to it.

But before we get to the toy, let's take a closer look at the packaging. In particular, let's zoom in on the two astronauts on the lower left...

A "For Sale" sign? Is this a spoof of this photo?

The back of the package reminds us that this set is part of "Series Transformation". There are three alternate models for the Space Shuttle....strangely combined with a mini-figure. This shows that Zephyr Knight couldn't let go of the Race Car theme, even when they changed scale and abandoned roads back on Earth. And that they couldn't let go of "Series Transformation" even when the model in question clearly wasn't designed to have alternate builds.

My favorite is the bottom photo where the Moon Giant just stands by and waves.

The astronaut clip-art is repeated from the front of the box, but those "clever" graphic designers flipped the image to make it fit better. As you can see in the close-up above, "McDonnell Douglas" and "NASA" are inverted in the art. That's attention to detail, right there.

The top of the box has the Spaceshuttle Power logo (Power Spaceshuttle logo?) with the addendum of "INTERNATIONAL" - a possible holdover from the original LEGO set name. (International Space Station)

The bottom of the box has an astronaut and some more NASA clip art. It's strange just how little emphasis they put on the toy this time around.

The instruction sheet allows us to pinpoint just when the bootleggers decided to get drunk: Step 13. Adding a giant pull back motor to the Space Shuttle - that's some impaired thinking right there. Or maybe not. Maybe we should forward this design concept to NASA. I think they'd be impressed with the "outside of the box" thinking on this one.

Here's the toy mostly assembled. The nose piece comes with the desgin printed on it, but you have to apply stickers to the sides and tail of the completed model. Of course, if you DO apply those stickers to the side of the craft, you can't take it apart ot make the alternate models. I'd like to note that this set lacked two of the 1x1 round plates used to assemble the jets at the back of the shuttle.

And where is our Moon Giant mini-figure?

I feel cheated!

Who am I kidding? This is a bootleg! I WAS cheated!

And so, I leave you with a shot of "Monster Truck Shuttle Endeavour".

The Space Race is ON!

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

Episode 676

Read the comic here.

Daily Fail: Race Car (Yes, Again.)

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

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First there was The Equation Races Car. That was kind of clever. Then it was Super Sonic Races Car. Also sort of clever. Then came Cross Country Race Car. Obviously a retread. And now...it's come to this. No clever adjectives. No hype. No selling angle. Just Race Car.

This bootleg is #2004 in Zephyr Knight's inventory, the stock numbers neatly following the linear progression of suck.

Like the others in the series, this toy is a direct copy of a LEGO product. This time LEGO set 4539 - Desert Racer is being pirated. The colors have been changed, but they kept the sandy background art.

As part of "Series Transformation", the Race Car has thee assembly options. Note the terrible job of photoshopping the car into the background photos.

The sides of the packaging show the box fronts or others in this series and the usual batch of child-safety warnings. There's also the continuation of the strange "3-T's" branding for the race car knock-offs. In case you can't read it, the three T's are:

T- Interesting
T-Intelligence
T-Amusement

They seemed to have forgotten "T-Errible."

Following the pattern set by the earlier sets, the Race Car instruction sheet shows both a legless driver and the one-piece driver body from LEGO. The toy included in the box is just a normal mini-figure - who of course is too big to fit into the Race Car in any logical way.

Speaking of parts, here are the three "goodies" in the set. Two pre-printed bricks and a pull-back motor. Note that the printed bricks are the same as the ones seen in The Equation Races Car and Super Sonic Races Car. Maybe they're all part of team 30/45. It's also worth pointing out that the "30" brick is a different style than the red detail brick (with the stars) seen in the cover art and instruction sheet.

Back to the included mini-figure. The driver of Race Car is constructed of parts we've seen in many a Zephyr Knight set in the past. The helmet is the same style as we've seen in the other Race-clones...but this time the construction is so poor that the visor won't attach at all. You can't even prop it up an hope...it just falls to the ground. Classy.

Other than the goofy colors, the final toy isn't that bad looking. That'll happen when you steal LEGO's designs and part molds.

The FAIL of this toy is apparent when you place the driver on it, though. With no way to steer, he holds his visor aloft and screams "Where is Your God Now?"

Evil is like that. With any luck, Divine justice will fall upon Zephyr Knight and force them to produce real, legal toys for once.

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

Bad Day: An Entry for every Grid

More submissions to Bad Day have arrived...and now there's a contender for every category. So someone is going to win those fabulous LEGO sets. It could even be you...but if you don't play your odds of winning a prize are, frankly, pretty bad.

I've updated the entry grids - take a look at the competition and then get to building! Remember, you have until May 3rd to get your entries in. You can enter a model in each of the four categories if you're feeling particularly competitive!

(Mookage's entry: Big-Head Rex versus the Lava Scorpion : Smackdown Downtown.)

Episode 675

Read the comic here.

Don't get me wrong. I love Grant Morrison's writing. But it can get a bit crazy for his characters.

On the other hand, I'm still extremely bitter about Joe Quesada "annulling" Pete and Mary Jane's marriage. I had this image on the groom's cake at my wedding. Mr. Editor-In-Chief-of-Marvel-Comics is messing with my own personal history now. Bastard.

Episode 674

Read the comic here.

Episode 673

Read the comic here.

Daily Fail: Cross Country Race Car

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

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One of the complaints I heard about the impulse sized 2002 LEGO Racers line was that so many of the sets were nearly identical. While the pull-back motors were a cool innovation, while the one-piece mini-drivers were sort of cool in a blobby sort of way, the lack of variation kept a potentially great theme in the ranks of the merely "pretty good."

Zephyr Knight, though, had no problems with the lack of unique parts - for these bootleggers it was a sign that duplication of the LEGO product was going to be easier than normal.

Behold the next in the line of over sized Impulse repackages: Cross-Country Race Car.

This bootleg is #2003 in Zephyr Knight's inventory. The packaging is again very similar to the two earlier stock numbers" 2001 - The Equation Races Car and 2002 - Super Sonic Races Car.

At least this time they left the "s" off of "Race" to give us a product name that seems to make sense.

The toy itself is a duplication of LEGO's 4592 - Red Monster. Perhaps in an attempt to disguise things, Zephyr opted for a more blue color scheme for "Cross Country." Or, as usual, they probably just didn't care.

The back of the package identifies this set as part of Zephyr's "Series Transformation". This is shown by the three different model designs in the photos. Note the background of flame - a hint that we've entered Hell.

The side of the package has one of the alternate models racing against a poorly-photoshopped background. All of "Cross Country"'s background images are poorly photoshopped images of canyons. Normally Zephyr Knight takes some time to at least try and fit their toys into the fake background - but this time they couldn't be bothered with such trifling details.

The opposite side has the "3 T's" graphic seen on the other race cars in this set. If you've forgotten, those three T's are "Intelligence", "Interesting" and "Amusement".

Nothing too unusual about the instructions - like the others in this set they show both a legless minifigure as a driver, as well as the 1-piece driver body as envisioned by LEGO. As we'll see in a moment, the set actually contains a minifigure complete with legs.

Once again, the pull-back motor has been pirated from the LEGO design.

Super Sonic, the figure from set 2002, appears again as the driver of the Cross Country Race Car. He's exchanged his blue helmet for a lemon-yellow one, and his racing togs for a red prison top, but there's no mistaking that stolen-from-LEGO facial expression.

Once again the helmet is poorly constructed, and the visor refuses to clip to the sides as expected/designed.

Here's Super Sonic with the completed Cross Country Car. No, the color don't match any of the illustrations.

Finally, here's a shot of Sonic on the car. "What am I to do with my hands?" he seems to ask. Perhaps he should have thought of that before he decided to pilot yet another bootleg.

Serves him right.

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

Bad Day: More entries ahoy!

More submissions to Bad Day have arrived...and I've updated the entry grids to hold them. Looks like we might just have a fight on our hands for those excellent prizes.

Remember, you have until May 3rd to get your entries in. Or it could be a really Bad Day for you as well!

(Dragma's entry: Tsunami bad day.)

Daily Fail: Super Sonic Races Car

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

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A few days ago we looked at The Equation Races Car. As reader Capt Straw pointed out, the set was probably a bad mistranslation of "Formula One Racing". To me it sounded like an outtake from Speed Racer - where our plucky hero was up against an opponent called "The Equation."

Today, we have another episode in "Speed Racer versus the Bootleg Bandits" as Speed takes on...Super Sonic. Yes, in today's Fail, Super Sonic Races Car.

This bootleg is #2002 in the "Over sized Impulse Set" knock offs from Zephyr Knight. The packaging is nearly identical to #2001: The Equation Races Car.

The toy being bootlegged here is LEGO's set 4591 - Star Strike. Here's a shot of the actual set:

As you can see, Zephyr Knight prefers to have their sets colored Green rather than blue. Or maybe they thought changing the colors slightly would throw LEGO legal off their trail. Bootleggers can be silly like that.

The back of the packaging is again quite similar to The Equation Races Car. There are the usual three alternate-model photos, the "Series Transformation" label and the inexplicable 3 T's - Amusement, Interesting, and Intelligence.

The instruction sheet shows the set in it's original LEGO coloration - note the two versions of the driver shown. The first (upper left) shows a legless minifgure - the building instructions show the use of the 1-piece "mini-racer driver" body from the LEGO racer sets.

The parts in the set include a working pull-back motor and two bricks with printing on them. LEGO addicts may notice that the blue "engine block" on the left is not the same part as shown on the box. (The box (and source set) uses a more angular detail brick.)

You might also notice the attention to detail Zephyr Knight put into their copy - the engine block is labeled for car #30...the fins on the back are for car #45.

Super Sonic's face is a LEGO duplication- strangely, this is the face that should have come with the Flash Turbo set - duplicated by Zephyr as The Equation Races Car. His torso decorations are non-LEGO, but a pattern we've seen in Zephyr Knight sets in the past.

His helmet, cast in a goofy looking robin's egg blue, came out of the mold misaligned - as a result the visor won't clip on to it. You can sort of balance things if you're willing to go that route.

Here's Super Sonic's car. Of course the colors don't match the instructions or the packaging. Were you really expecting them to?

At least the lack of any sort of steering gives Super Sonic the chance to hold his visor in place.

It's hard to be overly critical of these bootlegs - they're too close of a copy of the real LEGO sets. The pull back features work, the designs aren't bad at all, there's some nice detail printing on the bricks.

But never forget that these are bootlegs. That pull-back motor may work now, but it's sure to explode after a few dozen uses. And the plastic is sharp and brittle, and those swanky details are probably done up in lead paint.

If there's any Racing to be done, it should be done by you - racing away from these and to a shop that sells real LEGO product.

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

Episode 672

Read the comic here.

Thanks for all the comments on the last episode, gang. Yes, there's a reason for Fox's actions. No, I'm not going to confirm or deny anything at this point. What fun would that be?

Oh. Just so you know - when I was thinking about going on hiatus/stopping the strip, I was ready to have Whiskey die on the operating table. Today's strip nearly ended with a big "THE END."

Episode 671

Read the comic here.

Daily Fail: Racing Car

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

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So. Small, impulse-sized LEGO bootlegs. The next one out of the "to be reviewed" box is yet another race car and driver. Will there be anything new to write about?

As a matter of fact, there is. Today's bootleg comes to us from a new "company": LWDRAGON

It's a toss up on which side of the box is meant to be the front, so we'll just pick a side at random.

Let's start off by checking out the text - that's always good for a chuckle or two.

The logo has a little "TM" next to it, suggesting once again that somewhere paperwork may exist on these people. But I somehow doubt it.

Alpha Test - Building Bricks - Hours of Fun

Hrm. Okay. I guess that makes "Alpha Test" the line name - like "Hot Wheels" is a part of Mattel. Maybe the huge block of text under the Alpha Test/Bricks logo will clarify things...

Set your imagination free and try to build as many coloured models as you can with the pieces you find in the box. Follow the photos on the box or invent other 1000 coloured models of your own!

Wow. That almost makes sense. "Coloured Models" sounds a bit racist, though.

No. LW19131 - Dynamic racer world

Apparently a stock number and yet another line/theme name. I guess they couldn't make up their mind what to call this set. And yet "Racing Car" get the biggest font. Sad, really.

Oh. And "Collet Them All!" I'm sure "Collet" would like that.

The other side of the box encourages you to "test your skill" with the 22 pieces inside. There's also a big "02" in the lower right corner, suggesting this may be set two of a larger batch. (But then why would the stock number end in "1" instead of "2"? It's a mystery, I tell you. A mystery.)

But wait! Racing Car is apparently also a "Little White Dragon Product of Honor". Heh. A bootleg. A "product of honor." Riiiiiight. This also means the the company name is extensible to "Little White Dragon" from the LWDRAGON seen in the logo.

One side of the box has the usual batch of safety warnings.

There's also this little line of icons. They express, from left to right: "I could have had a V-8", "Sad Pac-Man", "Sad Pac-Man wearing a turtleneck", and "The Comedian and The Comedian's Little Pal Joey"

(Click for larger view)

The other side has all this mysterious text. I have no idea what any of it says. We do get ye another stock number added by sticker: HFY03012

The bottom(?) of the box has even more safety warnings. These are also pretty funny, as they seem to instruct you to hurt yourself and others:

This toy contains tiny parts. Do not put into the mouth to avoid accidental swallowing.

(Of course not! You put into to the mouth to feast on delicious plastic.)

Do not allow children under 6 years to play.
(Children under 6 should be putting in a full day of work at the coal mine.)

We also get yet another line name for this bootleg: Intelligence Toy Bricks. (A possible tie to Xin Qi Le?)

Inside the package was a small slip of paper with the following printed on it:

Inspected by "06" perhaps? Made on 2006? The mystery deepens... And note the full(?) company name has expanded to "St Little White Dragon Toy Industry Co. LTD."

Despite the text suggesting you follow the pictures on the box, LWD (or SLWDTCL) also provided this instruction sheet. How nice of them.

The pieces included are pretty generic - while a few (the grill tile, the steering wheel assembly) are clearly recast from LEGO molds, the rest of the bricks could be from any bootleg line. The top of the studs are blank - a change from the other bootleg lines we've seen.

There is one strange innovation, though: Hubcaps!

I'm somewhat surprised LEGO doesn't have something similar in their product line. It's a nice effect.

The included mini-figure is a strange mix of MegaBlok and LEGO styling. While the body is mostly MB in shape, the head is nearly LEGO-standard. The helmet is a LEGO re-cast. The visor for the helmet is a complete joke - it doesn't attach at all.

Here's the completed toy - note the joy the figure has in holding his visor aloft. "Here I am," he seems to say. "Love me, or leave me to rot. It matters not to me, for I have a chunk of curved plastic to call my own."

I'll end this review by pointing out that despite the high production values on the box, the apparent concern for children, and the inspection by 06, this is still a crappy product.
The pieces don't fit together at all. You can really tell in the rear view - at the slightest bump the mis-aligned red tiles at the bottom will pop apart, shredding the entire rear of the Racing Car.

I think that's what the bootleggers would call an "action feature."

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

Episode 670

Read the comic here.

Daily Fail: The Equation Races Car

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

--

Are you a fan of Speed Racer? I am. I love that show. In particular, I love the goofy names. "Inspector Detector". "Cruncher Block".

..."Trixie."


Anyway, today's bootleg carries on the grand tradition of goofy race car driver names. Today...
The Equation Races Car.

Some failed English translations are easy to correct. Some are trickier. I can't figure out what this toy started out life as, though. This name is wide open to any attempt at meaning you care to apply to it. I like the idea of a driver called "The Equation", so I'm sticking with that. But there are certainly other viewpoints to consider.

For example: Maybe there's a racing circuit called "The Equation Races", sort of like a MENSA version of NASCAR.

The box reveals that this toy is "No. 2001" - making it the first in the set of over sized Zephyr Knight "not quite an impulse set" bootlegs. The toy itself is a poor reproduction of the LEGO set 4590- Flash Racer. Which, if we turn an objective eye to it, also has a very goofy name for a race car driver. (Maybe he's nicknamed "The Streak".)

As part of "Series Transformation", the Equation races three different versions of his car. I think there's also a small matching game presented on the box art...take a closer look at the bottom left corner:

Are we supposed to match up each of the three versions with the "Interesting", "Intelligence" and "Amusement" labels? If so, I'm guessing "Amusement" matches up with the middle model that shows the Equation sitting backwards in the driver's seat as the car flies over some mountains. (Either he's sitting backwards or driving in reverse. Or the art department put the "moving forward" swoosh effect on the wrong side of the tires.)

The side of the package has a bit of clip art showing a very stern looking driver on the left. I think he's pissed to be shown on the same box with the Equation.

Note that the instructions show a different color scheme from the box art - but keep the same non-LEGO-set head choice for the Equation. It's also worth noting how they display the mini-figure. There are inset instructions on how to assemble him - but the full sheet shows the driver replaced with the one-piece "micro driver" from the LEGO set. This becomes important in a bit.

Amazingly, the Zephyr Knight folks duplicated the LEGO pull-back motor part...and it actually works. Not well, mind you. But it does work.

And here's the Equation as he comes packaged. Note the uneven printing and shoddy/mismatched construction values on the blue helmet. The torso is a standard Zephyr Knight print.

Here's the assembled toy. The white "exhaust pipes" in the pack aren't sized correctly and won't stay attached. Shocking, I know.

And here's the Equation sitting on his ride. If Zephyr Knight had used the small "micro-racer" body, he would have been able to drive the thing. As it is, he sits precariously atop the car without any steering or firm attachment point. A disaster waiting to happen.

Hold on..."waiting" to happen? Sadly, the Equation Races Car is already here. There's no more wait. It's a disaster now.

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

Bad Day: First Entries are up.

The first submissions to Bad Day have arrived...and I've created the entry grids to hold them. I'm a bit concerned, though...is no one competing this time around? Or are you all waiting until the last moment?

You do have until May 3rd to get your entries in, of course. But right now I'm worried that the Micropolis might start to resemble Detroit...

(This is Brick Alchemist's Vacant Lot Entry. Timely, no?)

Episode 669

Read the comic here.

Daily Fail: Awoke from the Nightmare

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

--

I thought yesterday's FAIL was a trip. I was young and foolish. The real problems started when I Awoke From The Nightmare.

This is the second set in the latest series of Zephyr Knight bootlegs. Stock Number 1009. While yesterday's FAIL had some ties to early LEGO Space sets, today's offering appears to be based entirely on the drug use alone.

The obvious question is: "If you've awoken from the nightmare, what the heck is this creepy stuff?" Are they suggesting the nightmare has followed you home somehow?

Well...think about it. At this point you've invited a bootleg set into your home. Just like Vampires, they now have free access. I'd call that a monumentally bad idea, wouldn't you?

I mean, even if the package's claim that "Every Styles Fully Wonderful" were true, it's still A BAD idea.

Does the TIE-fighter-esqu window in the castle mean anything? Are those bats or gargoyles flying around the tower on the right? And who the heck does that face belong to? It kind of looks like a Vampyric Sinéad_O'Connor.

The back of the package offers no hope, either. As part of Series Transformation, Awoke From the Nightmare is fated to appear to you in four terrible shapes - each more horrific than the last. It is also, as noted on the box, a choking hazard for children under six years of age.

The enclosed Mini-Figure is a gruesome skeleton cast from the LEGO mold - only in brittle, sharp plastic with untrimmed edges. The helmet is from the Insectoids LEGO line, cast in a ghoulish transparent dark green.

The enclosed toy is a strange mix of hoses, prongs, and control panels lifted from the Arctic Alpha Team. It has no visible means of propulsion. The parts don't fit together well, either.

Acid flashback or continuing bad dream, it means little. Awoke From The Nightmare isn't here to make your day any sunnier.

Better run.

Better hide.

Not that it'll help.

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

Episode 668

Read the comic here.

Daily Fail: Little Flying Boat

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

--

Today we introduce another "collection" of LEGO-impulse Bootlegs from Zephyr Knight. No longer satisfied with duplicating LEGO themes and models, these pirates have instead overdosed heavily on acid to bring us a startlingly new assortment of failure.

We'll start off with the first of the series: #1008: Little Flying Boat

I've heard of flying fish - but a flying boat? That's a new one to me. The closest I could imagine would be one of those planes with the pontoon landing gear -it's a air/sea hybrid that exists. Of course, Zephyr Knight had no reason to stay based in reality...

As the box states, Every Styles Fully Wonderful. Little Flying Boat is 24 pieces of incoherent suckage.

What, if anything, are we being shown in the background above? Is the boat on a sea? In outer space? Crashing into a very small planet?

Are those flags at the rear of the ship supposed to be rocket exhaust? Or just festive? We're only at the font of the box, and already I feel a massive headache coming on.

The back of the box reveals that, once again, this set is part of the over-arcing "Series Transformation". Instead of the usual three model variations we get four - not that any of them are interesting in the slightest.

The background shows us a planet seen from space - so maybe Little Flying Boat is also Little Flying Spaceship Boat. Or maybe they just didn't care.

I'm leaning towards the "didn't care" angle, personally.

I've scanned the instruction sheet mainly to show just how lame the build is on this creation. This is what happens when you don't copy LEGO's plans, but instead rely on a third grader to do your design work.

The included mini-figure varies slightly from the one shown on the box - instead of a Zephyr Knight-almost-custom-torso-design we have this strange sleeveless inverted Blacktron jumper. The face, at least, is new - even if it is clearly based on the standard "smile with eyebrows" design seen on many LEGO heads.

Here's the included toy. Even when they're working with their own design, Zephyr can't manage to match all the colors on the box. The control sticks are lying flat because they don't fit together at all - there's no friction to hold them upright.

And - again - what the heck is up with the flags at the back?

Finally, here's a shot of the pilot flying along in the Little Flying Boat.

Hey. Wait a moment. Maybe they meant "A boat that does very little flying" - as in a NORMAL boat. That'd almost make sense!

Nah.

Little Flying Boat. First in a series of trippy suck. You've been warned.

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

Episode 667

Read the comic here.

The joke being that somehow Mary Sue thinks that killing minor characters is completely okay.

Today puts Brick House on a "Fridays and whenever I get a bit of extra time" schedule. That means there should always be a Friday episode, but you might get lucky and get an extra strip or two to break up the workweek as well.

Daily Fail: Skeleton Town Treasure

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

--

LEGO impulse sets are a prime target for bootlegging. Why? Because LEGO designs them to be small, cheap and fun - just the right mix to tempt someone to drop a couple of bucks without a second thought. Exactly the sort of product that Bootleggers want to copy on the cheap - riding high on LEGO's designs, advertising, and copyrights like Aladdin on a magic carpet. (Aladdin was a thief, if you'll remember.)

But what if you want to make your bootleg seem even better than the real thing? Why - you put it in a bigger box of course. Today's bootleg tries that route - repackaging a small LEGO set into some decidedly dicey packaging.

It's also appropriate that today's set moves away from the usual "figure and a vehicle" nature of LEGO bootlegs and into the creepy realm of low budget horror! Prepare yourself, if you can, for Skeleton Town Treasure!

Skeleton Town Treasure is another offering from Zephyr Knight - a bootleg brand we've seen before. This is a new assortment, however. Six over sized knock-offs, each taken from a licensed LEGO set. I've jumped ahead in the series to stock number 2005 - mainly because I couldn't wait to share this one with you guys.

The front of the package shows us what the set looks like in the ideal world of actual retail product. We know (or at least strongly suspect) that the toy inside is going to be a garishly discolored abomination. Zephyr Knight warns of this with the standard disclaimer, located at the bottom left of the package:

Specifications colours and contents may vary from illustrations

There's more text along the left hand edge - a pledge of sorts from the bootleggers. If only any part of it were true....

To adopt advanced technology
superior materials
superior performance
superior manufacture
modern techniques
luxuriant design

If you don't recognize where this toy was stolen from, let me give you a big hint with this photo:

Yeah. It's a complete copy of LEGO set 7409 - Secret of the Tomb. The photo used on the Zephyr Knight set is slightly different - but the posing is more or less identical.

Moving to the back of the package, we see that Zephyr Knight has continued use of the "Series Transformation" logo from their impulse sets. We see two of the "transformations" here.

Atop the map is an image of the Skeleton standing atop a shrine like build, taunting the top-hatted explorer with his gems.

The second image is much friendlier - the Skeleton has apparently opened a roadside vendor stand and has sold one of his gems to TopHat.

Looking closer at the art, we learn that Skeleton Town must be in Cumberland somewhere - just north of Westmorland. At least, that's the area the map is showing us. I don't know if there are any wooden bridges near waterfalls (the other background imagery) in Cumberland, though. So maybe it's not much of a geographic hint after all.

The side of the package shows another "transformation" of the parts. It's a little hard to make out in the shot above, so here's a closeup:

Is the Skeleton being tortured, or is he just working out? Maybe he just wants to hang around. We may never know the truth.

The top of the package has this shot. At first I thought the Skeleton and Top hat weren't meant to relate to the background. And then I noticed this on another panel:

Apparently the mini-figures are HUGE! Titans among men! The relative size of skyscrapers, crushing mankind and all who get in their way like ants!

Or there's just a lot of bad photoshopping going on. You be the judge.

The instructions are copied direct from the LEGO set. But how close did they come to duplicating the actual bricks?

As we can see here, they failed pretty bad. Instead of the swanky Explorer figure, we get....this guy.

We've seen that torso before in other Zephyr Knight bootlegs - and the face is a blurry copy of a LEGO design. But that bright yellow tophat is new. At least it matches his gun.

And what of the Skeleton. There's not a lot they could do to mess THAT up, is there?

Well. Gloopy plastic overruns, cracked connection points, and a dull red body. I guess if you really work at it, you can ruin anything.

Speaking of things being ruined, you can't even assemble the full model. Zephyr Knight included the wrong type of flag pole - the part they used can't be connected to the base. What a shame that the powder-blue flag won't be aloft for YellowHat to admire.

Here we see the toy "in action". The crappy construction of the RedSkeleton causes the reveal to fail - he flops forward like a rag doll. There's nothing menacing about his appearance. And his "gems" are clearly dull plastic. YellowHat has had enough. He's going home to watch Oprah.

The Skeleton Town Treasure will remain where it belongs - rotting among the bootlegs.

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

Episode 666

Read the comic here.

Episode of the beast.

Daily Fail: Building Block Sports Car

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

--

Today's bootleg is interesting not so much for the vehicle, but rather for the huge amount of theft involved in the figure's torso. Intrigued? Then read on to learn the secrets of the Building Block Sports Car.

The BBSC comes from the shifty folks at Kazi - the same folks who brought us yesterday's Fail of Drill Car. Today's set is stock number 6308. Combine that with Drill Car's number of 6311 and I'd guess that we're looking at a 12-vehicle assortment. That's just a guess, as I only have these two sets to work from.

The front of the box shows the BBSC racing down the road in front of a city skyline. The art and production values are fairly high, and if you weren't familiar with the company named "LEGO" you might mistake this for a legitimate toy.

The back of the box shows three assembly options - a fairly standard practice for bootleg LEGO impulse sets like this one. That all three models are decent looking is a bit of a shock, though.

At least we can rely on the sides of the packaging to give us some broken English and hint at the Bootlegged Nature of the toy. The text on this side reads:

Specifications colours and contents may vary from illustrations

In other words, you might find the toy shown on the box inside, or there might be a rabid woodchuck. You pay your money and you take your chance.

The flip side has the Kazi "Mission Statement":

By developing intelligence, and inspiring potential. To make children grow up with happiness.

I'd be more likely to trust a motto like that if it weren't stuck on the package of a LEGO knock-off. As it is, you have to wonder at their definition of "happiness" includes forcing LEGO workers into unemployment...

The instruction sheet is two sided, printed on decent paper, and fairly detailed and easy to follow. I included a scan of it for no particular reason. Oh. I guess I could point out that it's a rather odd choice to use two 1x6 plates in the assembly instead of a single 2x6 one. There. I've justified my scan.

The minifigure is cast from standard LEGO molds, but, as mentioned earlier, it's the design on the figure's torso that deserves some attention. For starters, it has the Kazi logo on it. That's a bit odd in itself...but look at where the rest of the design comes from!

The two inset photos show the designs for the LEGO X-Treme team and Star Wars Stormtrooper torsos. It's easy to see Kazi copied the collar design from one and the ammo belt from the other. Why would they do that? I have no idea.

The face design, by the way, is also a LEGO duplication - that smirk was first seen on the LEGO Han Solo mini.

Like the minifigure, the toy itself is identical to what's shown on the box art. Apparently that huge disclaimer about "contents may vary" was just a bluff.

Like the other Kazi bootleg we've seen, the parts are all cast of decent plastic, the wheels and hubs are individual parts, and the bricks actually snap together well. If it weren't for "KAZI" being printed on the tops of all the studs you'd think you'd found some actual LEGO product.

But don't let the "Super" on the figure's torso fool you. This set is anything but. This is a bootleg.

A nasty, icky bootleg.

And don't you forget it.

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

Daily Fail: Drill Car

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

--

Not all bootleg lines are created equal. There are always varying levels of suck - some lines are made of super brittle material, some are slathered in paint with the skill and care of your typical two year old. And some....some would be completely fine if they weren't stealing toy molds from other companies.

Today's FAIL is a failure of the later sort - out of the package it takes a careful eye to spot the problems with this bootleg. Luckily for the consumer, the box is enough to scare just about anyone away. Let's take a look at....Drill Car.

When my source sends me bootlegs 99% of the time their in fairly good condition. The toys inside might be cracked and broken, but the packages usually look quite nice. Today's set is the exception to that standard.

As you can see, the box is in pretty rough shape. Luckily(?) the contents were intact - and you could still read enough of the box for the lulz.

This is the first time we've seen the "Kazi" brand logo on a bootleg. I have two sets from assortment 63xx - the Drill Car and tomorrow's Fail. Both come in boxes just slightly smaller than the standard LEGO impulse set.

I'm not sure if there's some relation between the name and the strange pyramid type logo, but apparently they've trademarked it. I say "apparently" as I somehow doubt there's any paperwork out there with real information on it. If there were, I'm sure LEGO Legal would have had a word or two with these guys already.

The font choices in the logo are the first hint that we're in for something strange - the over sized "R" makes the toy name look like "D-Rill Car". It's for "5+ Ages" - no direct hint as to what those ages might be, though. I'm guessing Mesozoic and Jurassic for at least two of them.

The back of the package shows a couple of alternate builds for the Drill Car. They did a decent job with the product shots, at least.

The side of the package has an "action shot" of the Drill Car. Apparently the main job of this vehicle is to create potholes.

This side of the package has the Kazi mission statement presented in fractured English.

By developing intelligence, and inspiring potential.
To make children grow up with happiness.

That's fairly deceptive, considering the UN-happiness that bootleg toys bring to children.

The instructions sheet is two sided, and shows the build steps in good detail. Strangely, they show you how to put the minifigure together from component parts, yet the figure was packaged with the torso and legs assembled. (You did have to put the hands into the sleeves, though.)

The bricks are all fairly sturdy for a change - all of them are marked with "KAZI" on the studs.

Here's the assembled mini-figure. The torso's decoration is new, as is the figure's face. The parts themselves are duplicated from standard LEGO molds, though.

Here's a shot of the assembled Drill Car. Note that the rubber tires and yellow plastic hubs are separate pieces - an unusual find for a bootleg line. (More often wheels are re-cast as a single lump of fragile black plastic.) The yellow is a different shade from the LEGO version, and the studs all say "KAZI", but otherwise it's difficult to spot any differences in the parts.

The Drill Car is a dangerous bootleg in that without packaging it can easily be mistaken for an actual LEGO product. Luckily, bootlegs of this quality are fairly rare.

Still.....anyone want to take bets on if the paint on the figure is lead-based?

I didn't think so.

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

This and that

I've gotten some email asking what's up with the scheduling and projects around here. This post will address some of it - and hopefully give you guys an idea of what you can expect to see on Reasonably Clever in the coming months.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, things are in flux as I try and find a balance between my on-line, personal, and professional lives. Yes, I have a day job. Yes, I even have a bit of a life. And, no, I don't make any money off this site. The little cash that I generate from the Buy-Me-Mizer and the Google Ads go straight back into paying for the site and the LEGO needed to keep it going.

Why do I do it? Heck if I know. There are certainly days when the aggravation runs high and I'm tempted to just shut the site down and move on. But - for now - I still enjoy the projects that keep Reasonably Clever going.

Anyway, here's the news that's fit to print....


Comics:

Brick House is in flux at the moment. I nearly put it on hiatus, but decided I'd at least try and get one episode a week out. I'm not overly happy with the strip at the moment, so I've been working on a script to fix the issues as I see them without resorting to a complete "reboot" of the story.

My goal is to return to at least a 3-day a week schedule for the strip within the next month or two. We'll see if that happens or not. For now, look for episodes on Friday. The format of the strip will probably stay the 4-panel layout I've gotten comfortable with, but I might use more than one layout per day. It'll all depend on how much time I have free to devote to it.

I'm also in the design phase of a second comic project. This time I'll only be responsible for the illustrations - I've teamed up with an up and coming comic author to provide the visuals for her story. It should be a new and interesting challenge for me. Look for that late in the year.

Reviews:

I'm getting a kick out of doing the Daily Fail. I started out my Internet Life writing bootleg toy reviews, and it's nice to return to familiar ground. The new review format is still taking shape - I have some ideas to make them a bit more focused that I'll be trying out in the coming weeks. I still have weeks of LEGO knock-offs in the queue, and when they're done I may start covering non-LEGO bootlegs again.

I've also been toying around with what to do with the bootlegs once they've been reviewed. Several people have suggested destroying them or doing "death match" type contests. I'm looking into that as a possibility - it'd certainly make for some interesting video clips, anyway.

I've been asked if I'll be returning to reviewing LEGO sets as well. The answer is "probably." Once the review format for the Fail is established, I'll likely make a variation of it for legit products. Ideally, it'd be nice to have one "real" review a week, perhaps taking the place of a daily Fail. Again, we'll just have to see how things work out.

LEGO building:

With all that going on, I still have to find time to do some actual building. I'm currently working on some very large models to be shown at CONVergence - with a bit of luck I might even have them ready to preview at BrickWorld.

Serenity is on indefinite hold. I'm still interested in the project, I still have a ton of brick incorporated into various half-complete beta builds. But right now I've got too many other pressing issues to devote any real time to it.

Contests:

I'm hoping we'll see some action on the Micropolis contest soon. I've been answering some questions in email about the standards, but I haven't seen the expected batch of early entries I normally get. Maybe people are daunted by actually having a strict set of rules to follow - or, more likely, it just takes longer to build something to a standard than just making it up as you go.

That said, I'd appreciate it if people would help promote this contest a bit in other blogs - submit it as a news item over at Brothers Brick or your LEGO forum of choice, mention it in your own journal, etc. There are some cool prizes up for grabs, after all.

This will likely be the last contest for a bit, too. Unless I do something small in May it'll be late July before I have the time to devote to another contest.

In Conclusion....

...I'm still looking at spending way too much time doing crap for this site.

Oh, well. I'll figure something out.

Daily Fail: Mini Racing Car

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

--

Xin Qi Le is back with the last of their carded, then boxed, then bagged bootleg offerings. The sad part is, just like limburger cheese, no matter how many times they wrap the goo inside, it's still going to stink.

When it comes to bootleg LEGO impulse sets, it's not too surprising to see a lot of them are race-car themed. When you're trying to appeal to a child in under 30 pieces, it's hard to go wrong with a mini-figure and something for it to drive. At first glance the XQL #107 Mini Racing Car is just another in this sad tradition.

When we move closer, though, past the cheap blister card and to the box, we find that there's a strange twist on the standard go-kart theme. This is no ordinary car!

Yes, the Mini Racing Car is....propeller driven!

This bootleg is all about the cheat - the poor stock NASCAR drivers in the background art have no chance of keeping up with this sleek rip-off! It's 25 pieces of pure win! (If by "win" you mean "breaking the rules so badly that they shatter and lodge in your eye like a splinter of glass coated in Tabasco sauce.)

The back of the box breaks free of the "three photos of slightly different versions of the same model" standard we've seen on all the other XQL bootlegs. Instead we have another copy of the art from the front of the box, and a "photo op" pose, shown below.

The sides of the box show the driver (featuring a strangely colored green version of the LEGO Coast Guard torso) waving while standing at the side of his car. For some reason they decided that one pose wasn't good enough - and opted for a second with the figure's helmet off.

I guess when you're out of ideas, you're just out of ideas.

The instruction sheet is pretty standard - although the quality of the drawings is down a bit. (Check out the huge tires and awkward scaling of the mini-figure. ) The set comes with the 25 parts promised on the box, most of them with the "HOLI" stamp on the studs.

The driver is very similar to yesterday's 4 Wheel Stakeboard rider - in fact, other than the black gloves and the replacement of his hat for a helmet, they're the same parts. Senior ElStupido rides again!

Here, Senior ElStupido approaches his sweet bootleg ride. Sure, the colors and designs don't completely match the box illustrations, but why start now?

And here's Senior ElStupido sailing off into the sunset. If you look, you'll see that he's missing his left hand in this photo. That's because it fell off somewhere between the last shot and this one and vanished on the floor somewhere.

I'm sure at some point I'll be waling around barefoot, step on it, trip, and crash through a window.

Bootlegs, after all, are dangerous toys.

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

Daily Fail: 4 Wheel Skateboard (Xin Qi Le)

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

--

Today we enter the strange realm of "Didn't I just read about this?" bootlegs. Yes, back on February 27th I presented a set called 4 Wheel Skateboard.

Today, I also present to you:

Prepare yourself for disappointment.

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Or, in this case, the Zephyr Knight 4 Wheel Skateboard or the Xin Qi Le 4 Wheel Stakeboard? If we go by stock numbers the Xin Qi Le arrived first with a label of 1003 vs. Zephyr's 1004. If we go by quality....well, the both fail. But I think today's offering fails just a littel bit more.

Like the other Xin Qi Le bootlegs, this version of 4 Wheel Stakeboard arrived in a blister pack. If you sqint and look close you can make out the sets we've already taken a look at like 1 Police Patrol, Warrior and Intelligence Toy Glider. You might also be able to spot the last carded XQL bootleg - Mini Racing Car. I'll be reviewing that set tomorrow. This is a generic blister that is the same for all of the XQL impulse sets reviewed so far.

Inisde the blister is a second box. The blister card really doesn't add anything to this bootleg - the invididual packaging is where all the fun, such as it is, lives.

The similarities to the Zephyr Knight version are readily apparent - the main difference being that the XQL set only shows a single mini-figure in the set. It's also worth pointing out that while the background is a photo of the licensed LEGO set, the mini-figure and "stunt bricks" are all drawings. Easier than posing toys for a photo, I guess.

The back of the package places the 4 Wheel Skateboard n the "Combinatorial Series." Note the amazing variations - you can have the figure skate near the other bricks, on the other bricks, or go hog-wild and have the mini-figure jump over the bricks. (Also note the orphaned figure from the Zephyr sets skating forlornley by herself in the background.)

The sides of the box feature enlargements of the "Combinatorial" product drawings. Gotta love how dorky they managed to make the mini-figure appear.

Speaking of dorky-looking minifigures, here's the figure that comes with the set. It's all LEGO-knockoff parts this time around - from the single-color Racer head reprint to the single-color Viking torso design. (A different Viking toso showed up in the Intelligence Toy Glider set - someone at XQL must have stolen a LEGO Viking set just as they were pritating the Combinatorial line.)

The full set contained 20 parts plus a sticker sheet - one more part (and sticker) than the box art promised. The grey plate bears the imprint of "YIHE" on each stud. Also notice the classy trans-neon-yellow flame. It's shown as trans-green on the box art. What the heck is that supposed to be, anyway? A flare? A fountain of urine?

And for those wondering, no, I didn't skip the instruction sheet - for a change the bootleggers didn't include one! I was on my own to figure out how to assemble the mini figure and accessories. Thank goodness for the box art, or I might have gotten completely lost and built something like this:

I think my "Robotic Flame Sniffing Sled" is a better "Combinatorial" than the ones shown, though. Doesn't it look menacing?

Senior ElStupido seems to think so! Run, Senior! Run!!!

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

Daily Fail: Challenger

First time here? Please take a moment and read the DAILY FAIL DISCLAIMER. Thanks!

--

Suddenly, a Challenger appears.

Today we return to the Bootleg Brand that sparked the Daily Fail: BRICK. Part of the "Super Bricks Series", Challenger confronts you with all the rage and hate that a bootleg can muster! Don't be too scared, though - it's just a hunk of crappy plastic.

The package front is a nice mix of product imagery and stock photography - the atmosphere of a ruined inner-city wasteland fill the air - much like it does here in Detroit.

Note, as usual, the BRICK logo's use of LEGO's trademakred colors and fonts. No attempt to confuse the customer there!

The back of the box has more "Challenging" images for us to enjoy. This set isn't a direct copy of any single LEGO product - in fact, there are some parts included that aren't even clones of LEGO bricks. We'll look at those deviations in a little bit. For now, just enjoy the lack of proof reading in the classic BRICK copypasta:

Vivid Andgreat In Style
Handsome Appearance

I included this side panel just for the strange background photo. It looks as if the Challenger has stopped at Mackinac Island for some fudge. (Yes, another regional Michigan reference. Sorry.)

Since it's been a while since we've looked at a BRICK bootleg, here's the text from the side panel again:

• Most New Catena
• Completely New To Come In To The Market
• More New Items Available

The instructions are pretty easy to follow. Most of the 23 parts (as listed on the box) come from having to assemble the mini-figure from scratch - truly "some assembly required." The instructions fail to show how to put the figure together - an assembly step that is often left out by the Bootlegers.

I don't know if the windshield is lifted from another clone brand or not, but it's certainly not a part manufactured by the LEGO corporation. A shame, really, as it could be a fairly useful part in the real world.

The cycle itself is a heavily modified 2-wheel version of the LEGO 3-wheel bike. We've seen this retooling before in a bootleg released under the Xin Qi Le brand: 1 Police Patrol.

The mini-figure is mostly LEGO duplicates - the face is a single-color reprint of an Exo-Force face, the torso a reprint of a classic CITY Police design. The helmet is Non-LEGO. (We've seen the hemlet before in the Ack Ack bootleg, another Xin Qi Le offense. Maybe BRICK works out of the same factory.)

It it weren't for the odd colors (red and tan guns?) and sad looking Mini-figure this would almost be a nice set. Provided you didn't, you know, want to play with it or anything. Because this plastic is brittle and pointy. And probably filled with lead.

Just saying.

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

Clone trooper variation?

Okay, I don't really follow all the Star Wars LEGO news, so maybe someone noticed this before. (I didn't spot any discussion after a quick Google search, though.)

I hate hate HATE the "Chrome Vader" promotion LEGO is doing. I spent a LOT of money on LEGO products. More than I should, really. And how does LEGO reward this loyalty? By making sure there's here's going to be a hole in my collection. All because:

1) I'm not lucky enough to pull a "randomly packed" figure at 300-1 odds

and

2) I'm unwilling to pay $70+ on the aftermarket for it

It pisses me off. I had resigned myself to having collection gaps when the Chrome 3PO came and went...but this is Vader. I like Vader. I covet the Chrome version.

So, like the addict I am, I've been buying some of the smaller battle packs in a vain hope to score one. I figure at the worst I can just put the parts into the Buy-Me-Mizer and eventually recoup a portion of my costs. Maybe.

Anyway, I was parting out a few sets last night when I noticed this:

See the variation? Although listed as the same part, these Clone Trooper faces are clearly looking in different directions.

It's probably due to variable alignment on the spray-op for the brown paint used for the iris, but the distribution of the faces was roughly equal for all three versions in the batch of heads I was looking at.

Weird, eh?

Episode 665

Read the comic here.

Daily Fail: Racing Car

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Every weekday 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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If you missed yesterday's FAIL, you'll probably want to take a moment to read the review. Set 1006 - Glider is the first half of this two-part crapfest. Today's FAIL goes by the name of Racing Car.

You have to wonder what the Zephyr Knight folks were thinking when they decided on the photo for this particular set. Did they intend to have two different colors of wheel hubs? Is the strange yellow prison uniform worn by the driver a photo manipulation of a LEGO part or a photo of one of their knock-offs? While the toy inside the box is almost always a mismash of colors and brittle plastic, the image on the box is usually eye-catching and well designed.

Someone was clearly asleep at the graphics editor this time.

At least the logo for this set is kind of neat; I like the Möbius strip racetrack. I doubt my enjoyment is going to carry me much further into this review, though.

On the back of set 1007, we find the usual "Transformation" grid of three alternate construction styles. The Race Car as shown on the front of the box starts us off...moving to a second, more go-kart looking build, and finally to a fururistic looking hover platform. Notice that the color of the bricks change from photo to photo. (The 2x3 slope goes from dark blue to light blue, for example.) That's some great quality control. More proof that someone cared even less than normal about this set.

The side of the box has the usual semi-translation of "Specifications colors may vary from illustrations" - warning the innocent customer that they hold a ticking time-bomb of disappointment in their hands.

The instructions are printed on decent paper and use linear time to guide you though the construction process. Of course, they assume the bricks will hold together, which turns out to be waaaay too optimistic.

The included mini-figure could almost pass for The Stig, except he's 100% lame. In fact, he's just the driver from the 3-Wheeled Motorcycles set after washing his outfit with far too much bleach. Of course, neither version of the mini-figure looks anything like the driver in the box art.

As usual, the colors of the toy itself are also quite random compared to the photo on the front of the box. Assembly took a while, as the parts refuse to hold together. Fun, fun, fun.

But what of the Combination factor?

The top of the package again helps the poor, duped consumer know that they need to shell out the cash for the "Gilder" set to fully form the "Combination I" model.

Looking at the combined model (as shown here on the side of the box) you'd wonder why anyone would want to build it. But, for the sake of entertainment, we'll fake some brain damage and forge ahead.

We start with the two sets...

...then, following the instructions in the Glider kit, we combine parts to form the lovely artifiact shown above.

Flipping over the instruction sheet from the Racing Car, we find, "continued of part I", the final 6 steps to complete our model-o-muck.

The combined model uses all the parts except for two sets of tires. It's a flimsy bit of contstruciton, made worse by the fact the bricks don't hold together anyway.

The best (worst?) part, though, is the lack of thought that went into the combined design. While one mini-figure can pilot the craft more or less normally, the second mini-figure has to stand on the wing! As he has nothing to secure him, I'm sure that his flights are pretty short-lived...smashing into the ground when you get blown off the plane will do that to you.

So there you have it. Our first two-part bootleg. Did having a second set help the experience any? Of course not. It only hurt twice as bad.

You really think we would have learned that by now....

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

New Contest! Bad Day for Micropolis

It's time to announce the next Reasonably Clever contest! This time, we've teamed up with TwinLUG.com to present a challenge unlike any we've offered before. Working within the Micropolois Standard, it's time to bring on the disasters.

Click the pic for details!

Daily Fail: Glider

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Every weekday 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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I was sorting through my pile of to-be-reviewed bootlegs when I realized I had missed a small stack of Zephyr Knight knockoffs. I had set these aside as sets that had a bit more to offer than just lame colors and fragile plastic. Sets that show that even when a bootleg tries to be creative, it's still made of nothing but FAIL.

So, it's with some malicious delight that I bring you today's Daily Fail - Zephyr Knight's Glider.

At first glance Glider looks to be just another in a long line of impulse-sized LEGO knock-offs. A small plane flies in front of a science fiction backdrop (stolen from who knows where.). We get a stock number of 1006 - making this set the next in the series after Photo Graph Car.

You do have to wonder why they called this set "Glider, " though. It sure looks like a single-prop airplane to me.

As part of the "Transformation" series, the back of the package has the usual graphics of the included parts being arranged in a variety of odd ways. You have the plane - excuse me! - Glider - as seen on the front of the package. There's a second "rough landing" version with the wheels stripped out to make a little cart. And there's a super-cool "low rider" version with with the pilot stretched out for a nice relaxing flight.

The side of the box has a better look a the "easy rider" version. I wonder if the little yellow brick by his feet is supposed to be a control panel of some sort - or just a very hard to see through windscreen. Either way, by leaning waaaaay back it sort of defeats the purpose. Our pilot must be controlling the Glider through mental telepathy.

The instruction sheet is pretty plain. Strangely, there's no insert-shot of how to put the mini-figure together. That's been pretty standard up until now.

The figure is pretty close to what's shown on the box - if you excuse the colors being different and the use of a completely different head. The torso design is lifted from a LEGO Ice Planet figure, the head a slighly new take on the standard LEGO "grin with eyebrows."

With the helmet on, it really looks like he's saying "What? Me? A Crappy bootleg?! I had no idea!"

For a change, the colors of the plastic aren't that far off from the choices pictured on the box art. The wheels are single-cast plastic now, and the undercarriage is in lime green - but still - pretty close compared to the atrocities we've seen before.

The bricks all have the "HELO" stamp on them. While they do snap together, they don't want to hold. In particular, the lime-green base refuses to meld with the black "wing" bar.

Even with the close color match...so far there hasn't really been anything remarkable about this set, has there? Where's this "attempt to be creative" I talked about at the start of this review?

Well, take a look at one of the other side panels on the box.

What's this? Combination I?? What happened to "Glider"? And where did that second mini-figure come from?

The answer is revealed on the top of the box:

Yes, gentle reader, this is our first TWO PART BOOTLEG! When you add in set 1007 - Racing Car - sold separately, of course - you get Combination I. I've decided to call the combined model the Racing Gliding Car or RGC for short.

The included instruction sheet is two sided...and the flip side gives us a start on making the RGC.

Exciting, eh? Well, no, not really. But it's certainly a change from the self-contained Bootlegs I've reviewed so far.

Tune in tomorrow for the 1007 - Racing Car review...and we'll see if two wrongs make a right - or if they just equate to twice as much suck as normal.

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

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.