Bootlegging

Yesterday I got something in the mail that I had ordered off Ebay. It was something I had seen at a convention at a much higher price, but I opted to get it on Ebay for much cheaper. It turns out it was a bootleg version, which I half expected in the first place. All thing said it's not a bad bootleg so I got what I wanted. I've seen some pretty bad bootleg things before and it makes me kinda interested in bootleg things to the extent that they can be pretty darn funny. So let's talk about the iffy business practice of bootlegging.

 

Now here's something that brings back memories. For those not in the know, Beast wars was a spinoff of Transformers in the 90s. Pictured up top is Optimal Optimus; part gorilla, part tank, part jet, and all badass robot.  This was one of the coolest toys I ever owned as a kid if for no other reason than because his arms had spring loaded exploding parts in order to...actually I don't know why. Who cares, it was awesome. So over a decade later they come out with this bootleg version of all the Beast Wars toys I had as a kid. Here we have the "Transfornables" with "Animism Defender." This wasn't even some dark corner of the internet; they had these at BigLots. I guess maybe Hasbro sold the molds to make these? Of maybe these people just don't care really hard. These were long discontinued by Hasbro so it looks like you can get away with counterfeiting anything as long as it's old and nobody's making money off it anyway.

These guys crack me up. "Robertcop" and "Spaderman" the original characters.There seems to be an art to bootlegging. That art goes something like; if everyone knows your stuff is fake then you might as well make it as hilarious as possible. At least that way someone might buy it for laughs. I've always though Robocop was creepy as shit, but now that he's "Robertcop" I can't stop laughing.

So is it an ethical business practice to sell this stuff? Not really, but it sure is funny.