There’s something so endearing, sad, yet hopeful about ripoffs. Wanting so hard to take part in a trend or success, they’ll go to great lengths to copy or put their own take on a popular product or character.
This collection of ripoff toys spans so many popular characters, and we found ourselves cracking up at some of the bad translations, hilarious facsimiles, and straight up weirdness of them.
The “Stars Warsiors” is a particularly great one, featuring a mashup of a ‘wise puppet, karate farmer, and door ladder’. The Yoda ripoff has a certain Eddie Murphy charm to it, which is even better. The toy features the tagline: “Galaxies are far far away”. Too true.
Have a laugh at this collection. Via Design You Trust:
Wow! Those are such hilarious pictures! I can’t believe toys like that existed. The fake Gundam model and the Thomas the Train Engine Megazord thing were hilarious.
The Buzz Lightyear thing was funnier to me, but on a metatextual level because even that Toy Story character wasn’t original to begin with since he is a male ripoff of Meteora from Jim Henson’s The Christmas Toy. https://iridiumeye.wordpress.com/2021/04/06/top-7-characters-that-fans-are-reluctant-to-call-blatant-ripoffs/
So funny! Where do I begin?! Ace.