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Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, we present you with yet another installment of the Movie Criticism for the Retarded Bootleg Toy Extravaganza! That's right, for the third month in a row, we give you a look at some of the worst products that Southeast Asian sweatshops have ever produced and weren't endorsed by Kathie Lee Gifford.
I had the pleasure of revisiting the beautiful FLEA MARKET USA #1 on Metropolitan Parkway in South Atlanta this weekend, again strolling by dozens of Gold Teeth-making facilities to make it to the finest dollar store in the world. I didn't expect to find much in the way of new items, but sure enough, perhaps in preparation for the Yuletide Holiday, there was plenty of good stuff to be had. So without much adieu, let's let this chorus line of Spidey Phones dance us in to this month's article:
First up, we have Batman. Not just any Batman, mind you, but Super Happy Drug Taking Batman:
This incarnation of the Caped Crusader stands at about thirteen inches tall, making him by far the biggest of the Bootleg Toys I've found so far. He appears to be made of some pretty flimsy plastic, at least judging by the fact that the package weighs practically nothing. As you can see, Batman is "With Flash", although I don't see the speedy superhero packed with him. What they probably mean is that Batman has this gigantic red LED on his belt that activates when you push a lever on his back. And "Flash" is an understatement here. This thing will light up a room. It's hard to tell from a photograph, but this is a picture of Batman with Flash lit in a dark room with no flash:
You may remember that the very first Bootleg that I covered in October was a large Spider-Man toy that was in "Batman" packaging. This toy may or may not be part of the same line. They were displayed together at the dollar store, but have noticeable size and packaging discrepancies. They both have LEDs embedded somewhere on them, although that seems to be the norm for practically all bootlegged superheros. Here's a comparison for you:
Next up, we visit the exciting world of Transformers bootlegs. Now, this is a bit of a cheat for me, because I actually found this on eBay a couple years ago, but I recently unearthed it and decided to show it off to you:
What we have here is a pitiful recreation of the classic Autobot Inferno. The packaging here is quite a piece of work, for starters. The "Transformers" logo is quite generic-looking, it contains stolen box art from the actual toy, and my favorite part of it is the fact that it says "Generation 3" plain as day. Transformers fans will note that the original series was retro-dubbed "Generation One" and a successor called "Generation Two" hit shelves in the early 1990's, but there was never a "Generation 3". Also note the ridiculous coloring that our firefighing pal has here. The original paint scheme can be viewed here. If that link dies, let's just make it easy and say the guy isn't supposed to have stupid yellow and blue highlights. Change the yellow parts to red and the blue ones to white, and it wouldn't be a bad knockoff, other than the fact that the plastic quality probably has the integrty of Play-Doh™.
Next up, let's take a look at the big green gamma-radiated superhero that made his feature film debut this past summer:
Two, two, two different Hulk figures, each on a nearly flawless reproduction of an actual Toy Biz packaging (the back, not shown, is an actual product catalogue for the Officially-licensed Marvel toys.) The beauty here lies solely in the paint jobs. Aside from the fact that they both have hair the exact same tone as their skin, I'm not sure which Hulk's paint job I prefer: The one on the left, who has purple feet, or the one in the right who has two-tone pants with blue skin from the waist down. Either way, they're both ridiculous.
And let us not continue without yet another visit from our favorite knockoff of a classic Science Fiction epic sage: STAR WARRIO!!!:
See the first installment of our little series if you want to read a little more witty banter about our heroes here, but at that time we only had Yoda, R2D2, and Princess Leia in the assortment. This time around, we bring you Amish Obi-Wan Kenobi and Mongoloid Luke Skywalker! Both look stoned out of their minds here, so I gave them a chance to pose them with everyone's favorite Jedi Master, Crack-eyed Yoda!
And just to give you a closer look at our friends here, let's give you some mugshots of this trio of mighty Jedi "Warrios":
I assure you the photographs do not do justice to the priceless looks on these three faces.
Now, the next thing I'm going to present is rather amusing, but doesn't seem all that unthinkable. I mean, Barbie is a huge property for girls all over the world, so it's not a stretch that there would be bootlegs with her face adorning them, right?:
Okay, it's a stationery kit. It has Barbie on a ruler, pencils, a notebook, and a pencil case. It also includes a sharpener. Not a bad little bootleg, and something cute enough to give to a four-year-old who doesn't know any better, right? Here's a shot of the back as well:
Oh, and the fun part, of course, is the joy of Bloken Engrish. Look closely:
: 
Here's the breakdown (said completely in context of course) in case the pictures are illegible:
When we were together
allmost took your love
for granted Now
Which is far easier to understand than this:
Ihad tomeet you hert todily
there's,just so many
thing tosay.
Translations are always welcome.
Of course, all this brings us to the grand finale this month, and if you were to tell me this existed without me seeing it I'd likely never believe you. You see, apparently, when the people who created the Barbie Stationery kit were doing market research, they decided on either one of two scenarios:
1. They needed to market to boys.
2. Spider-Man is a huge market base for young girls.
Whichever one eventually led them to their decision to come up with this monstrosity is irrelevant, because I now give you the ultimate:
It's the Spider-Man stationery set, completely decked out in the lovely pink shades you'd come to expect from the world of the web-slinger! This set includes the exact same materials as the Barbie set, but has replaced her visage with that of the wall-crawling Marvel Comics legend! Here's a look at the back of this fine creation:
I do find it kind of disturbing that Spidey appears to have a second (evil) head growing out from the base of his neck, but that's really just the tip of the iceberg when you realize how disturbing this is:
: 
Now, I know that the type is illegible in at least one of these pictures, so I'll spell it out for you again in context:
Whenever you are
blue just think
of me
That little bit's not really disturbing, just extremely surreal. But this is a bit of both:
At the unforgettable time,
Pleast remember that,
On your way to
success My earest heart will
always be with you.
My head really hurts now, and I don't quite know why.
Anyway, that about wraps it up for this month's edition of the Movie Criticism for the Retarded Bootleg Toy Extravaganza! Let's let our army of Spidey-telephones take you home with their holiday greetings.
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