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Three Spooky Fictional Knockoff Toylines!

That’s right, as the big writing piece for this spooky time of year, it’s three spooky toylines ripping off bigger properties in a way that do not exist.

These are all public domain/CC0, free to use for whatever you see fit, though crediting me and linking to my Patreon or Ko-Fi would be nice. 

Shoutout to @genustoys, @phelous and @therobotmonster for heavily inspiring these with their work!

Now, LET US BEGIN!

Monsterlords of the Nether Realms- This line is an odd duck in that it was a knockoff of a toyline that wasn't all that popular. Namely, Inhumanoids.

It was seemingly designed to be cross-compatible with the large monsters of that line, yet in all irony it stuck around seemingly far longer, likely due to the lower price points it was was able to get away with due to being a “non-branded” product and the cross-compatibility of play pattern with the larger figures.

And they were shockingly lavish for what was seemingly a “low rent” property, which has lead to suspicions of it and its related properties being a money-laundering scheme, or at least cover for something unsavory, though others say it could simply be good craftsmanship and the evidence in favor of and against such is perhaps a story for another day.

There were five of them that ended up bumping around store shelves, give or take a few “extras,” which we will cover as they come.

The first piece; likely intended as the “mascot” due to its prescence in promotional artwork is the one known as MOLINTHA, or “ANTHILL EVIL” on certain variants, a large figure encased in a roughly mountain shaped “shell” when curled in a specific position; with an ominous “maw” that turned into a torso when the figure was uncurled.

The mountain pieces themselves (Which were free-standing on their own) provided a large amount of play value with platforms seemingly shaped for various 3&¾-inch figures, but the body itself was a gorgeous design, with the “scaffolding” where the mountain clicked on turning into a series of platforms for figures to climb and clamber over,

The articulation was low, but the sculpting was pleasantly gnarly, resembling some dark ancient castle covered in mystic carving given humanoid form, without an articulated head but instead a snarling “maw” in which figures could be placed inside. Though, there has been some speculation that this head was ripped off a similar design from the front of the classic D&D Dungeon Master's Guide, and I would be lying if I did not see the resemblance.

As expected, it did not come with any figures, but did come with a large assortment of commonly-circulated plastic “bugs” molded in a clear rubbery plastic; along with a few of the notorous “Chinasaurs” that ended up as the basis for D&D monsters bizarrely enough.

The second known most commonly as “LEVIATHOIN” was a piece that had a similar yet wildly different gimmick. The main “body” was actually simply an inanimate idol, which one might say resembles a very specific image of Baphomet, but the smaller figures were of real interest.

Four five-inch ones, bearing an odd resemblance to a scaled-down Molhilintta minus the scaffolding and with a few odd tweaks, with a similar simple articulation scheme, but also a feature in which the arms and legs could “click” together tightly, which leads to the real draw of such.

Each figure attached to a socket in the main “idol” and functioned as a crude combiner., forming a huge “creature”. Each figure could function as n arm or a leg on either side, and the color variants (Including a few alledged remolds of these torsoes) could be their own article in and of themselves.

The third known as MECHA-SHAG was an extremely simple design and yet also one of the most bizarre of them all. It was a hairy “core” akin to the Masters of the Universe Grizzlor, but with a strange robotic face; limbs and at least a dozen missile launchers. They were Micronauts-styled “safety” missiles, but still fascinatingly odd all the same. There is evidence for the pieces origin as a possible Shogun Warriors/Jumbo Machinder knockoff, but again that is a detail for another day.

The fourth one was known as RUCIBEDO, and was unusual even for this line. It was a stylized kaiju-esque “pterodactyl” with a flapping action; its oddly “bio-mechanical” look seemingly giving credence to the idea that the enigmatic company behind the linwas making a Shogun Warriors knockoff-series before they decided to switch gears, but those are not the only notable parts.

The most blatant one is the fact that it is sculpted in a bright red; translucnet plastic, and not only that but had electric lights wired to the flapping mechanism in some bizarrely spacious “alcoves” in the back (Possibly for aborted missile-firing features), creating an immensely striking effect. Albeit one that had a tendency to break; though there are repair guides out there.

And the fifth PLUCHUN is an odd duck, because it should by all accounts be considered kind of a “ripoff” due to using far less material for the same price point as the others, but is often the most fondly remembered.

It is a small torso seemingly made of organic “pipes with a “hatch” on the head and a button slightly below. It also came with a small container of “slime” indicating its function. Namely, put it in the back of the head; press the button repeatedly; and the slime drips out of the holes in the creature, with a pumping rubber “heart” completing the effect. Weirdly; while the rubber on most of these has rotted off, there appears to be a fully sculpted (Albeit much cruder) “heart” that still moved in and out when the button was pressed.

The whole thing was capped off by immensely long rubbery bendy-limbs in the same style as the “main body's” pipes. These tended to be very fragile, and while memorable, this has the fewest surviving specimens out of them all.

As said before, there are other specimens that may be covered at a later date; such as the odd hand-puppet and the bizarrely remolded Imperial Dinosaurs linked to the line and the smaller-range figures, but this is running a bit long, so I'll leave it here for now.

Nightmare Gores- Relating to the preponderance of He-Man knockoff figure lines in the 80s, and the popularity of slasher films, it was only a matter of time that the two would be combined, in ways only possible without mass-fundie-protest at least) in small lines like this.

In striking red-and-black packaging with crude art of a horde of ghoulish monsters rseemingly ripping out of the card back, with the bizarrely memorable phrase of “WE WILL KILL YOU” coming out of a word balloon, there's relatively few things like it.

It used a standard barbarian body whose origins predated the line; but from where they predated was a matter of debate (Though it is known that it most certainly was original to that company and not a He-Man or Galaxy Hole bootleg(), all the same across the line with differing headsculpts.

The headsculpts did have consistent names, and one could tell their inspirations relatively well. Joe was obviously a Freddy Kreuger without the hat, the hockey-masked Rod was obviously Jason Voorhees, Mike was very obviously a riff on Michael Jackson's Thriller Werecat (Corroborated with the usual non-caucasian color of his body sculpt) and Gross was blatantly the Toxic Avenger. Mush was a generalized “melting” face, but could be said to be taken from Cropsey of The Burning; and Hexen's gas mask was likely inspired by My Bloody Valentine's main antagonist; albeit with bizarrely added devil horns.

Then there are the oddballs. Clash is a fan-favorite alongsid Hexen due to his pure black-plastic body and strange hood in striking red with a black void for a front and two piercing red pupils, but I like Frank a lot if only for being a big ridiculous Frankenstein head repurposed for this, as was what I would call the “Baltard” of this line Stall-9 with his slighly crossed eyes and almost comical grin negating whatever intimidation factory they might have. Redd caps off the line with the strange combination of bull and horse head designs obviously repurposed from the barbarian toyline this comes from in a way that still sorta works.

Their pack in accessories vary across production, but there are some commonalities. Mike; Rod; Hexen and Clash almost always came with cool red vinyl “jackets” and Tedd and Frank almost always came with bizzarrely realistic handguns molded in bright orange. And Stal-9; Mush and Clash came with a “chainsaw: very clearly remolded from a gun.

The rest were a mushmash of machetes and hammers, and knives; axes and clubs that were clearly re-utilized from the original line. There are other “relatives” like the Killer Beasts and the Murder Lady, but we'll leave it here for now.

ShineFriendz- One of the many Tamagochi-come-latelies in the 90s, this line tried valiantly to differentiate itself from the usual Tamagochi clones by giving itself a backlite, far more extensive interaction within the limits of its mono-colored pixel art and a link function for “playtimes,” All in a model approximately the size of a modern day smartphone, and to be supported with early web tie-ins in lieu of an expensive animated series.

Of course, the fact that it was its parent company's first venture into such things; a battery company to be exact (Hence why they felt so secure in being battery-eaters), there was very little oversight into the programming. And, due to a series of circumstances too stupid to mention, the devices had  far more memory than they anticipated, and far more than they would need for the device's intended functions.

And, what happens when you have bored programmers and lots of time, you get easter eggs. Lots and lots of unsettling easter eggs. To the point where they took up approximately as much space as the “main” games.

So, they were immensely easy to run into during play, but they went unnoticed by corporate during the first three iterations of the pets. The most notorious of them was the possible evolution called only BREATHING which looked like an emaciated and decrepit eyeless version of the brand's canid mascot-species the Buroof that was continually doing what its name implied and had a legion of ominous quirks too long to list here.

Despite rumors, surprisingly none of the glitches involved causing death or injury to any of the pets. Though, that still didn't make them any less fucked up, with such examples as a “pet” known as BRILT that took the form of continual flame graphic that at times would flicker to the outline of another; random pet, to the weird “bird” known as CAUSE whose pleasure meter would go up if you hit the scold button,

There's a full list of “AnomalyFriendz” (the usual fan nickname0 that's too long to list here, but it wasn't limited to them, with such things as a “Game” that involved running from what looked like a crude pair of jaws to a “food” that looked like a wad with what was unmistakably eyes. And the web fiction didn't help, given how the actual text stories were dark , reading more like if Clive Barker wrote Watership Down with it just being barely within what was “appropriate” for kids, with increasingly less subtle allusions to the “AnomalyFriendz”

The minority of parental complaints weren't what got the execs notice however, it was actually the fans of the property, young girls who wrote in asking about those glitches. Not even in disapproving tones either, just asking whether they were intentional, or even asking if playground rumors (Or the rumors circulating across the website's own forums) were true.

This lead to them trying to integrate the macabre bits into the actual marketing for the toys, with the fourth iteration “FreakyFriendz,” with a cleverly altered shell with an ominously warped corner and more integration of the “anomalous” and “regular” Friends. And that is what sunk the line.

Because, parents actually noticed and; since this was the 90s; they bitched up a storm, leading to most of them being removed from shelves. Which is a shame, because enthusiasts say these were the best models yet.

The company left the business shortly thereafter, but there remains a small cult fandom to this day; complete with officially sanctioned web-iterations and even a few (sadly stillborn) attempts at full on revivals. But, maybe someday...

#action figures #toys #fictional toys #public domain #horror #things that need to exist #things that don't exist #macabre #weird #bootlegs #knockoffs

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