Ridiculous Mario and DK Bootlegs pt. 1

The year is 2020.

Life is crap. I'm sure that needs no explanation. Things have changed considerably, but I still find a lot of solace in video games. If anything, my urge to think about these games and the media that spun from them encourages me to post new things. Now, blogging is... kind of old-fashioned. If I had any self-confidence I would have made video essays but I'm shy. Without further ado, here is a post I was writing on a year or so ago...

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It's been a while, huh? Well, I want to move the focus from exclusively Donkey Kong and Rare games to also engrossing Mario from time to time. Though I still consider Mario as a whole to be absolutely distinct from DK, I insist Mario is a Donkey Kong character. Remember the first game he appeared in? Exactly.

On to the topic; bootlegs! I absolutely love bootlegs in a somewhat schadenfreude kind of way. Sometimes they're also the only way to get a character in toy form. It seems bootleggers know this... even in recent times, games such as Five Nights at Freddy's and Undertale have received baffling amounts of bootleg merchandise. The former has a ton of official stuff available while the latter does not, so it doesn't seem to influence the volume of bootleg merchandise created as long as something is popular enough.

I decided to make a list of bootleg merchandise I find super interesting, funny, or just cool. In the end, you're best off supporting the official creators, but when there's characters that don't get any official merch, it is a nice alternative in a pinch...

1. The Baby Waluigi plush

Nintendo's Mario department is known for spamming babies, in a manner akin to a queen ant who continously produces offspring. As with ants, whether they're cool or not is up for debate. It is however odd when something appears that literally has no base in canon.

Baby Waluigi being one of these. Despite the main amount of Nintendo characters having baby versions of themselves, no matter if it is awkward in terms of canon (looking at you, baby Rosalina --  baby DK as well, but he is forgiven on the grounds that he's, well, DK) because the target audience loves small cute things. Wario did get a baby version of himself in Yoshi's Island DS, but has faded into obscurity. (2020 update: Baby Wario has made a triumphant return in the mobile Dr. Mario game. Yay?)

The mere notion that baby Waluigi exists at all might be to blame on fan art, considering he appears alongside the canon babies a lot and people just enjoy the idea of the entire cast having baby equivalents.

Overall, the plush doesn't look too bad, and certainly fits very well among the other, official plushes. It's a neat, but also weird little thing. Nice to know that bootleggers appreciate Waluigi, though.

2. The "San-ei" Dixie Kong plush

Dixie Kong has received a modest amount of plushies in her likeness over the years, most of which based on Donkey Kong Country 2; Diddy's Kong Quest and the animated series. However, she seemed woefully absent in the otherwise very good line of San-ei Mario plush toys.

Leave it to bootleggers! This plush isn't very bad at all, although she has a bad case of felt lips. It kind of ruins the overall plush for me. Her shirt is made of a flimsy material and the tongue looks glued on. I know this because I've seen this exact toy once at Comic Con. Apart from that, this is probably the only plush of Dixie in her modern design (note the bigger earrings and lack of kneepads, a post-Rare-buyout design choice.)

Now that Dixie received a starring role in Donkey Kong Country; Tropical Freeze, we have thus seen one official figure in the World of Nintendo line, along with various DK, Diddys, and a Cranky. I was hoping for at least one Snowmad and a Funky Kong, but the brand seems to be more interested in pumping out repaints of existing molds... and shipping out weed to hapless customers.Yeah.

3. Twila figure

In terms of obscure characters, this one takes the cake.

Twila is a character that appears solely in Mario Party 8 alongside their partner Brighton. They're a sun and moon couple who host the board games. Mario Party is known for a lot of things but rarely for its plots, so why they chose to represent one half of a couple of a game that definitely wasn't the best-regarded in the series is a mystery. However, the toy looks fairly good, and if it's about obscure characters you can't be very picky, alas. I can only imagine a fan of the character being elated that this even exists at all. I and many friends of mine have this exact problem with a lot of characters... what if I told a bootlegger that Conker's Bad Fur Day's weasel guards are secretly really popular and that everyone will buy their figures?

4. Are you a man, or a mouse? (Mickey Mouse Mario...?)

Mario and Disney aren't intimately connected, but they always manage to find each other somehow. Mickey Mouse had many games on Nintendo consoles, Wreck-it Ralph by Disney included Bowser, and mr. Miyamoto has cited Disney as an inspiration for his work before. More recently, Nintendo has slipped into some business practices that remind a lot of Disney's, for better or worse. The Disney Vault, also known as Guilttripping 101 for Fun and Profit, is easily compared to Nintendo's recent release of Super Mario 3D All-Stars, which will go away later next year, for absolutely no reason. Artificial scarcity and scalpers and inflated prices, oh my!

Regardless, on to the darn thing I was talking about. Mario is super charming, and so is Mickey Mouse. What do you get when you fuse them together?

Yeah. Mickario? Mariocky? Admittedly a cool concept, but there's something inherently unsettling about the figure. And it definitely isn't the only one of its kind... one wonders where it came from. Sometimes, bootleggers do take inspiration from fan art, especially popular pieces. This Mickey might've been an one-time thing by an artist which bootleggers caught wind from and hilarity ensued.

5. Conker?

Conker is one of my biggest comfort characters, so I've taken it upon me to hoard any merchandise he gets. Now with the recent release of the new official plush by the excellent Fangamer, there was a time where getting a Conker plush for a normal price was almost impossible.

The Live and Reloaded plushies pop up on eBay ocassionally, but be prepared to pay in the triple digits for him. I was lucky I got him a long time ago when he wasn't as ridiculously expensive yet. There has been an enigma between official releases, though.

From left to right: Conker Live and Reloaded army and single player Conker plushes (2005), bootleg Conker plush (?), Fangamer Conker plush (2020)

One of these things is not like the other...

Indeed, Conker bootleg stuff exists, and more of it exists than you think it would. His likeness has been seen on nut containers and ads for... I think mental health awareness in children? The sheer irony, considering Conker is not at all a character who is in any way supposed to be a good role model. This plush has various sizes and pops up from time to time. Although it probably is more likely to be a generic squirrel plush, the similarities are striking. That muzzle shape and colours used just say Conker to me. Though going with those other less-than-official Conker appearances, it might just have been people eyeballing him without prior knowledge of the character to make a plush. 

The only picture I found online before my partner bought it for me

He has a flimsy paper tag with some information. It says "Specialty toys direct, Burnaby, BC.Canada Made in China" and did a quick Google (though I should really go to the duck site instead, oh well...) to find that they actually have a site that's still up and has a 2020 license date on their main page. 
They focus mainly on carnival prizes and are, obviously, located in Canada. Their site is surprisingly concise, and they even offer popular IPs by name on their site. Considering how big they seem to be it does not feel like bootlegs. Fake Conker is not on offer on their site, but I am desperate enough to send them a mail about it sometime to get to know more about this confusing little bootleg.

That's it for now! I intend to write more on this blog, so definitely keep an eye on that... as soon as I find the time.