Hello, I'm not sure if this is news worthy, but I went into a Sears in Austin, TX on a routine hunt, and found some transformers knock off from Just Kidz, called Robo Morphers. All i found was a car and helicopter whose robot mode looks very similar to Transformers Universe Blades (Red Helicopter). Also pictured on the back, but unfortunate i couldn't find, was they also have a TF movie Ratchet lookalike.
Saw those at Kmart and posted pics almost a month ago: http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/trans...-off-transformers-thread-377.html#post5871741
Can these really be considered knock offs? The humvee resembles ratchet's alt mode, but that's about it.
This question gets asked occasionally in the KO thread. In recent years, TF fans/collectors use the term in a broader sense to include off-brand transforming-type toys that change from something into a robot. There are naturally those who disagree with this (I'd call them "KO purists", but that sounds like an oxymoron), but because it's a subgenre of TF toy collecting, no one really seems to give a crap about debating it because they're amusing and interesting to discuss and follow as a hobby. Even the TF Wiki includes some off-brand manufacturers that don't make outright bootlegs, but fans still consider them KOs: Knockoff - Transformers Wiki And in the TF KO thread, you'll find examples of toys that have qualified as TF KOs by using variations on the TF brand name and/or trademarked character/toyline names, even if the toy itself looks nothing like a Hasbro original. For example: Then there are imitators which try to copy the look of something in the TF 'verse to try to sell a toy by association (and it doesn't even transform), like the toys pictured below: And sometimes there are other forms of imitation that qualify as KO product, like Thumbs-Up Valentine's BumbleHaul here:
I had a cheapo Deluxe-sized version of that helicoptor which was awful. The one pictured looks probably better quality though. I quite like the look of that yellow car bot and Not Ratchet.
Thanks for the clarification, Voiceroy. I would vote these as "off-brand" personally. But what you said made sense about how people just lump them all in the same category.
Another type of KO I forgot to mention previously are instances of ripoff artwork on toy packaging. I forget which toy company is the primary offender (Chinese or Hong Kong manufacturer), but they completely ignore copyright laws on official Transformers artwork. And sometimes the image isn't even the same character as the toy, but that doesn't seem to matter to them. Just seems to be a deliberate attempt to exploit naive people. I've seen them use everything from Hasbro's G1 boxart images to IDW's character designs. That's the sort of thing that I've heard Hasbro tends to crack the legal whip on when these toys are sold in the U.S., like rumors I've heard about Big Lots and dollar stores that stock them. There used to be a vendor in the mall I worked at that sold items from this company. (The "TransF-ormers" product I linked above was one of the items sold by this vendor.) In the mall vendor by-laws, it was stated quite clearly that vendors attempting to sell bootleg product would not only be charged a heavy penalty for doing so, but the mall admin would also involve local law enforcement and they could stand to lose their business license. I don't have any pics to show as examples because they were on a cellphone that died when the battery bloated and killed it. (The TF Wiki does have an example.) At any rate, I made a comment about this to the vendor, and he didn't seem concerned about it. I told him he might still want to check his contract. The next day, I noticed when I passed by his booth that those items were missing from his display. I posted a pic of the Ratchet KO in the KO thread, but since we're discussing these at the moment...here you go: The yellow car bot is also distributed by yet another off-brand company with completely different packaging, but it doesn't have lights and sound like the "Robo Morphers" toy. I saw this one at Big Lots last year:
