Beast Wars –KNOCKOFFS

Perhaps one of my very first K.O.s was the below Leo Primal (Prime?) Beast Wars II toys. Sure he isn’t white and you can’t open up the panel to his spark chamber, but it was still cool at the time I found it because we didn’t get this toy in the U.S. These were called “Animism Defenders” I also bought the Tigatron, TM Optimus Primal and TM Megatron toys in this series. They came with some kind of little plastic creature and weapons that were sometimes absolutely junk.  These were all purchased at my local Grocery Outlet store, I think for a bit under $7 at the time.

One of the biggest differences with the TM Optimus Primal is that the hands do not spin around so they are right for both modes. Also, the gun here is not spring loaded to shoot the mace missiles.

The TM Megatron’s tail here is not movable, it is a single molded piece.

When I was at BotCon 2004 I was able to pick up a few more Beast Wars type KOs. The first one was on a very good copy of Tigatron’s package, but it was Terrorsaur. Problem was the toy was missing one arm and his weapon.

A more interesting set that I bought there was this set of miniaturized BW characters. Note how Tigatron, Cheetor and Dinobot (can’t see really in the pic) have separate parts for the robot arms.I’ve included the above Tigatron in Beast Mode so that you can visualize the scale:

Front Row L-R: Tigatron, Rhinox, TM Cheetor

Back Row L-R: ?, Cheetor, Dinobot

More recently (xmas season of 2005) there was a resurgence of the same toy manufacturer that made the Animism Defenders, (Agglo—Distributed by Midwestern Distributors Inc.) but this time they called them Space Warriors: Beast-Tech Fighter.

The Optimal Optimus toy above is a clear example of how brittle some of the plastic can be. Let’s just say I didn’t have him out of the package less than 5 seconds and I was twisting a part that really should have turned the direction I was trying to move it before it broke. Some of the main differences you will notice is that the KO does not have firing missiles and how the cockpit is one piece of orange plastic, not to mention the color differences.

Here we have BW/BM TM2 Megatron and RID Megatron, then BM Optimus Primal. It seems the company really liked the original BW Optimus Primal’s sword since they made a black pair for OP above and below you’ll note a golden one for TM Rattrap:

The regular Rattrap’s hands were drilled too big so his gun sort of just balances barely in the hand if you get it just right.

Here we have their versions of Laserbeak, Armordillo and Iguanus. The colors are a bit off, but they are still cool for a collector on a serious budget.

The two on the Left are TM Fuzor types? Then we have a RID Slapper.

Here’s a comparison of RID Gaskunk. Note the higher number of paint applications on the real toy.

Well, that’s my huge Beast Wars KO collection. It’s funny that many of the Real versions I have were bought after I acquired the KOs, mostly by chance at garage sales, or thrift stores. (Actually, I bought the Optimal Optimus toy at the Cybertronian Conference of 2005 in Washington.) Next time, my Gesalts KO Collection.