The Undiscovered Playthings

Not even the girls toys can escape the hands of the bootleg toy makers! This two piece set that I have (which is obviously part of a larger set) was picked up so long ago, I forgot I even had them. When I pulled these things out of the box, at first glance, I thought they might be real toys.
After all, I don’t buy girly girl toys. I buy manly man toys.
So I flipped the package over and what I saw was enough to convince me these were not the real deal.
Look! See!

Yes folks, even that cute little character Strawberry Shortcake can’t hide from the gaze of the bootleg toy makers. Sure enough, it seems like most words with more than one syllable just can’t be copied correctly. The bootleg toy makers  even misspelled Strawberry Shortcake two different ways.

So let’s take a look at the package that had me fooled at first.

These look pretty darn good huh? The bubbles a little soft, but other than that, well, it could probably fool anybody who wasn’t paying attention.
Now I had one heck of a time finding out anything about this Strawberry Shortcake series of figures. Turns out they were made in 2003 by Bandai. The line of toys was called (I think) Berry Cute Girls “Strawberry Shortcake with Berry Tote”

Each package comes with one figure, tote bag, hat and hairbrush.

I don’t have the Strawberry Shortcake figure. I guess at the time I wasn’t interested in picking up all the figures in the set or maybe these were the only two available. I honestly don’t remember.

Ginger snap pictured above really doesn’t look too bad for a bootleg toy. If I’ve got the toy line right, the figures were supposed to be berry scented. I’m guessing the bootlegger didn’t bother with that ‘feature’. If I ever took these out of the package, I know I wouldn’t bother giving them a whiff. I’ve actually picked up bootleg toys that can smell pretty darn bad. No, I wasn’t trying to smell them. The scent just emanated from the toy.

Below is Orange Blossom.

If I had to guess based on the back of the card, this figure is supposed to be a black child. I don’t quite think the bootleggers got the color of the character’s skin quite right. I think the pants are supposed to be yellow instead of the faded white pants this figure is sporting.

Above is a full shot of the back of the package. The original toys were made by Bandai, but there’s no sign anywhere of the company. That my friends, is the biggest giveaway that these are counterfeit toys. Yeah, the copyright and trademark info is also non-existant. But I’m guessing there were more than a few young ladies who were probably disappointed if their parents showed up with these nuggets of plastic for them to play with.