Dave's Odd Lots Knockoff Rant:

     Fire-Engine-Bot
     Container-Bot
     Chrome Monstrosities I Didn't Buy

     The holiday season is upon us, which means all the closeout stores are
starting to buy lots of new cheap ripoff toys to sell.  At Odd Lots (related
to Big Lots, both are Midwestern/Eastern chains) today, I ran across several
knockoff robot toys, and picked up a couple (I also saw knockoff Extreme
Dinosaurs).
     These knockoffs were of a slightly higher production value, in that the
card art was actually of the toy in question, not of whatever toy most of the
parts were taken from.

     Fire-Engine-Bot: A surprisingly involved transformation scheme which
builds on the G1 Optimus Prime transformation.  Not a "true" transformation,
a big chunk holding the ladder detaches and clips back on to the robot (too
cheap to put it on a bar like with Inferno, I guess).  The resulting robot is
about 7 inches (18cm) tall without the ladder, has a Gundam head and Gundam
rifle, plus a cheapo large sword I've gotten with previous knockoffs.
Everything's a brittle plastic and there's very little poseability, plus the
fists won't stay extended unless they have a weapon in them (and the gun peg
is too thin for the fist hole).  However, the colors aren't too shabby, and
it's definitely worth the three bucks it cost me.

     Container-Bot: A semitractor pulling a flatbed.  This is a very close
approximation of the G1 Prime transformation, except that the fists slide out
from the forearms rather than being separate pieces.  The robot is a little
over six inches (16cm) tall, and also only poseable in the arms.  It comes
with the same sword and gun the Fire Engine does, and has a different Gundam
head (BTW, for those lost in all these Gundam refs, Gundam's a series of
giant robot melodrama anime).  The flatbed becomes a riot shield, which is a
really cool idea...but since this is a longnose tractor, the robot's arms
can't reach out past its beer gut, and the shield can't be deployed in any
useful way.  The color scheme is pretty icky, although it seems that there's
several variations, some of which are slightly better.  But all combine pine
green, blue, ref and white accents in a pretty bad way.  Still, I'd say it's
worth the $2.99 Odd Lots wanted for it.

     Chrome Thing 1: As someone else has posted, this seems to be a Wing
Gundam toy with most of the joints fused and made completely from icky, icky
chrome colors.  I didn't have a tape measure with me, but I'd guess it was
about 10 inches (25cm) tall.  Only three dollars, but not really worth it.

     Chrome Thing 2: A chrome-colored knockoff of the VF-17 Stealth Valkyrie,
with some weird helmet addition or something and the wrong gun.  Seems to be
able to transform completely, but given some of the tricky bits in the real
toy's transformation, I'd guess you'd transform this knockoff about twice
before snapping something major off.  And, of course, the chrome is
eye-searing.  Some stealth jet, eh?  Still, it's only $5, and if you don't
have the real thing, it might be worth getting this one.  I have the real
thing, so I left this one on the shelf.

     Dave Van Domelen, thinks the first two may be knockoffs of ripoffs,
since the card pictures show stickers not present on the real toys, or
superior to those on the toys....