Bootlegs Part 10
The LEGO Group has tried and failed to trademark its signature system of interlocking bricks. The result is a wide range of imitators. Some, like Mega Bloks, put out a decent product of their own. On the other end of the spectrum are bootleg companies that truly do sell knock-offs of official LEGO sets. In the middle you have a company like Best-Lock. Their set designs are original and can look really cool. I was certainly tempted when I saw their assortment of Classic LEGO Space-esque “War of the Planets” sets in Toys R Us. But let me tell you, I have never had a more frustrating experience building with plastic bricks. The ships I’ve assembled held together very tenuously. Blink your eyes at the Hawk or Condor sets above and they fly into 1,000 pieces. Part of the reason might be that it seems like they were designed in the computer program that created the instruction manuals. The other reason is that the bricks just don’t hold together very well. I would NEVER mix these with real LEGO. Another fine touch on Best-Lock’s part are stickers that cover multiple bricks, making it pretty much impossible to use those bricks for much else or use the stickers again. So, no, Best-Lock sets are not truly bootlegs. But compared to LEGO, they certainly feel like a pale imitation to me.
– This is not an official LEGO comic. This is a tribute. This also has nothing to do with Best-Lock.
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Are we gonna get to see Not-Schwartz and Not-Galanos face-to face? I’m anxious to see if they are some kind of low-grade clones or come from a parallel universe where “Best-Lock” is the best the Space Agency can manage.
You’ll get to see them. I’m enjoying keeping them hidden for now. 🙂 They actually are in their respective ships, but the windows perfectly obscure them from view.
I think it’s only in recent years that Mega Bloks has upped its game with regard to quality (of design and materials). Actually, there are still some people in the AFOL community who swear it’s crap… I’ve not tried it, nor have I seen anything to make me want to (yet).
I know growing up, I never had any Mega Bloks, but my friend Josh did. They seemed like they were a pretty high quality plastic, but they didn’t always completely fit right. The studs on them were a little bigger, so sometimes you could force them together and sometimes they would gap when combined with Legos no matter what you did. The Mega Bloks always ended up in a pile on the side that we generally wouldn’t use until after we had used all the Legos that could do the same thing. It does look like they have improved a lot over the years though. Some people call me a snob when it comes to bricks, but experience has taught me to be wary of mixing “compatible” parts.
I have picked up some of the Kre-O sets though (mostly just to get Transformer heads) and they work quite seemlessly with Lego products and seem to be made of identical grade plastic.
Growing up, we wound up with a set of clone bricks made by Tyco. They were actually pretty decent, but the minifigs were rubbish. They also had Duplo clone bricks, with closed studs. To accommodate compatibility with these, there were a bunch of grey bricks in the regular set with almost nothing on the underside. We could use these to create a limited sliding joint. Still have a few around somewhere.
As for the clone Gamma-V, is anyone else noticing a vague resemblance to the Eagle 5 from Spaceballs?
Holy crap, you’ve got a point about Spaceballs!
The only thing about KRE-O that interests me are the Transformers minifigures. Sell a series of just them, blind-packed, and I’m certain it would be a hit.
I have impressions of Mega Bloks once being crappy, and remember other people saying so. But the sets I’ve purchased from them in recent years were decent, like the Dragons stuff. They hold together, although there are a good number of large, molded pieces.
I like where this story is going!
Apparently the Viper-style ship exists because Best-Lock almost got the Battlestar Galactica license, if a set’s early picture on the Toys-R-Us website is to be believed. We can all be grateful that didn’t come to fruition.
Ryan
I hasn’t heard that Best-Lock had been seeking the BG license! Yeah, I don;t think that would have been good for anybody. Only if Best-Lock could increase their quality control.
I was born in ’88 so missed the Lego Gamma-V completely, but my mother bought a bunch of second-hand Donald Duck magazines from 1985 at a flea market and one of them had an advert that featured the Gamma-V. I was surprised to see “old Lego” that looked this cool (and after discovering stuff like Ebay and Bricklink it’s on my wishlist now). The Best-Lock thing, on the other hand… let’s just say it’s not my taste.
I know exactly what you mean. A friend of mine who is a couple of years older had catalogues showing discontinued LEGO Space, Town and Castle sets from the late ’70s and early ’80s and I always wished there was a way I could obtain them. Back then you didn’t have eBay or Bricklink, so they were just GONE. I was the same way with the earlier Transformers. When I got into them big time, most of the characters featured in the first season of the cartoon were no longer available.