BOOTLEG GODZILLAS
-
Somewhere in the blizzard of strange toy mashups that was the 1980s, and driven by the booming popularity of skateboarding, a lot of mini toy-figures on skateboards hit the market. I was way too physically uncoordinated to ever get on a skateboard or view them as anything other than instruments of torture, but many were…
-
In a previous post (‘“Call me Ishmael”: the hunt for the great white Gojira’) I discussed a close-knit group of white Dor Mei Godzillas, all produced in China and with the copyright date ‘1986’ under their feet. It is clear from that post that the manufacturers struggled with their materials in the production of these…
-
Toy bootlegging, at its heart, is an anonymous pursuit, usually operating on or outside the boundaries of copyright law and trying to avoid simple detection. Thus, the companies involved often did all that they could to cover their tracks, and not lead any disgruntled toy manufacturers to their doorstep whose designs may been ‘borrowed’ or…
-
Before we get going with this post, it should be recognised that at least half the work below has been done by my esteemed friend and bootleg co-hunter and researcher, Jamie Francis (see here and here). Thus, this blog is published in both his and my name as a collective research project. Like any good…
-
If these little critters, with spring-loaded arms that allow them to be clipped to objects, don’t bring you immediate waves of warm nostalgia, then I’m afraid you might be too youthful and filled with zest, vigor and natural joie de vivre to be reading this blog. … Ok, now it’s just us old farts lamenting…
-
Some bootleg Godzillas are so glorious that it would be wrong to look at them too quickly – so just breathe with me and keep your eyes focused up here, and we can count together to steady our nerves: 1-hippopotamus, 2-hippopotamus, 3-hippopotamus, 4-hippopotamus, 5-hippopotamus. Ok, now look down: We finally come to the wonders that…
-
Just as Spain has the crown in the western part of Europe for the number and variety of bootleg Godzillas and kaiju (see my earlier posts on JHL and Hermanos Pardines), then Poland has the equal honour in the eastern part of Europe. There are many similarities to the bootlegger’s art in both, and also…
-
Two notes before we deep dive into the nerdy details here (I can tell you already as excited as me) – the first is the quote in the title here is obvs. from Shakespeare’s Othello, act 3, scene 2. The second is that some of what it written here has already appeared in my vast…
-
This post is a little different to my others, as it originates from a nearly empty file of mine, despite lengthy searches for information. I have hit a wall, and so this post is more an appeal for information, than a crystallisation of my conclusions. It concerns an exceptionally rare Godzilla bootleg, produced in hollow…
-
I read somewhere a long time ago that one of the problems (and excitements) of archaeological research into early hominids (species of ancient human-like creatures) is that when researchers went back to a dig site to try to find more fossils from this or that species, they frequently also found fossils from a completely new…
Confessions of a Kaiju Hunter 