These bootleg toys really capture the imagination. Their titles are exactly what you’d expect from a knockoff. It’s interesting that the re-casted MEGO heads fit perfectly into the head holes in the windup robots. I’m curious about the original robot design and what the original toy might have been before someone thought to steal a few heads from the Hong Kong factory . . . grab some plastic, some tools and start making toys! Surely seems innocent enough. Just look how they raise their sorta Wondergirl gloved arms with “Whoopee!” in their eyes.

Between the two sets, “Bionic Man” and “Space Visitor,” one might argue there to be a total of six characters. Superman and Batman are easy to spot. Casshan has the white face with black stripe on top and the yellow pointed wraparound boomerang. Groizer X is the one with the red, green and blue face. On the back of the packaging, there are pictures of the remaining two characters that we don’t have yet. The one with the blue nose stripe appears to be Ultraman and the other looks like an early Transformer, though he is probably Marveller from Japanese Spiderman. “GP-7! Spidercar!” But seriously, if you know who they are, please leave us a comment.

(Thanks to http://toyboxdx.com/ for the help!)

Please send along any ideas or theories about how these abominations came into being (don’t worry, we love them). They are wonderful little vintage oddities from the underbelly of the 1970s toy market. And yes, the windup roller motor does indeed work. These guys JAM across the floor!

Here’s an odd one. It feels like a Japanese wind-up toy, but they turn up mostly in Italy nowadays. The head is definitely a squishy soft recasted MEGO Superman with no copyright markings on the neck. Everything about the look of the face is a perfect match. He really does wind up and drive around a bit. And why should he not? Superman gets better service at Mel’s Diner with his wheels anyhow.

No copyright information on the neck. It uses a MEGOesque plug to sit securely inside the robot torso.

So, what do you know about “knockoffs” and “product stealing”? Do you have any stories? Any insight? The Madison Puppets (marionettes!??!) are a more famous example of stuff taken from MEGO factories and used for other profit ventures, but tell us something that would have us keel over. We here at WorldMEGO have our eyes and ears open at all time looking for cool MEGO-related Monstrosities! Give a MEGOhead a hug today! Every day! And have you visited our pal Lou’s MEGOlike.com? Word!

Look who else you can find, if you're lucky!