I’ve mentioned several times that it seems most of the really entertaining stuff ends up in the American dollar stores, but then again, I find some stuff I can’t seem to find anywhere else online so either no one has posted it or it isn’t around.
I tend to avoid any food isles the dollar stores might have in favor of the toy section, but maybe I have to start taking a closer look since Joe Eskenazi came across boxes of cereal from Israel at a One $ Store in San Francisco.
He comments on how the staff didn’t want to go into the details of how they got it, but with some investigating, it seems it may not be from Israel. The cereal was manufactured in St. Louis by a company that owns Post, the well known cereal maker, and it gets imported to Israel by Monday, Ltd. Monday is the most prominent word on the box, dwarfing even the name of the cereal, Coco Crunchies, and at the very top.
The store staff did say that the cereal is very sweet and sells really well, and why not, it looks like Cocoa Puffs or Cocoa Pebbles.
According to the Financial Post, with Dollarama taking control of the “bargain basement retail segment”, it could quite possibly double it’s store count.
With new stores immediately adding to earnings and generating new cash flow, in addition to being at the top of the “bargain basement retail segment”, they see no competition in expansion so they plan to increase the density of Dollaramas in other provinces like they have done with Quebec.
They also plan to incorporate “not a real dollar store” pricing by selling things for more than a dollar with three additional pricing scales, $1.25, $1.50 and $2.00. That’s probably the only thing that could hurt them since many shoppers bash dollar stores when merchandise is priced more than a dollar and it’s likely people would be turned off by the new price points. There’s already a dollar store with items costing $2.00, it’s called Buck Or Two.
Anyway, store chains expand when they do well and it’s not surprising with the current economy that people are trying to save money so they shop at dollar stores. There are plenty of good buys there if you know what to look for. Just remember to avoid things like vitamins, batteries and anything electrical as they are well known to have issues.
So here it is, the last Dinotron on the list, and you didn’t have to wait over a month to get it. Again, sorry about that.
I tried to save the best for last, but everyone has their own favorite. This Dinotron is a Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur called is Tyranno Tron. At least, I think it’s supposed to be a Tyrannosaurus, it doesn’t really look like the usual T Rex you might think of. Now Grimlock, one of the Transformer Dinobots, looks like the T Rex he’s supposed to be.
The Tyrannosaurus Rex form of Tyranno Tron
The figure is kind of awkward, not having a good center of balance. If you stand it straight up makes it look up at the sky and leaning it forward tends to make it fall over.
Another thing that stuck out like a sore thumb was the pair of guns sticking out of the cheeks of the dinosaur head. I would think that would make it very hard for the dinosaur to chomp down on anything very big with guns in the way.
Watch the Transformation
The “cooler than the rest looking” robot form of Tyranno Tron
The robot form is probably the coolest looking of all the Dinotrons. The Tyrannosaurus arms swing back and they remind me of wings. It also stands much better in this form.
The cheek guns are removable and fit in the fist holes in the hands of the robot form and the legs can be pulled to extend them. I forgot to pull the legs out before I took the picture so it’s actually taller than the picture shows, but not by much.
So that’s it for the Dinotrons. Too bad they didn’t have a Dinotron Pteranodon like Swoop from the Dinobots. I mean, they already had the other four.
No, the site hasn’t been abandoned. December was insane and that resulted in a five week break between posting.
The Stego Tron Dinotron transformer is the third of the four Dinotrons. The first two shown were the Bronto Tron and Tri Top Tron.
Stego Tron is a stegosaurous that you can transform into a robot. If this sounds familiar, you’re probably thinking of the Transformers Dinobot Snarl. Stego Tron, however, is no Snarl
Stego Tron in Dinosaur Form
In dinosaur form, it looks just like a brown and gold stegosaurus so that’s a plus since the last one doesn’t look like the usual dinosaur it’s named after. In addition to the normal ridges on the back, Stego Tron has a twin cannon mounted right on the middle of the back.
Watch the Transformation
The Robot Form of Stego Tron
After a little bit of and very basic transforming, you have the robot form of the Stego Tron. The twin cannon aiming forward while in dinosaur mode aims up when in robot form so it’s not very helpful.
At least this one stands much better than the Tri Top Tron and it’s robot head isn’t by the dinosaurs butt.
Last week I presented Bronto Tron, the first of four Dinotron dinosaur robot transformers and this week I have Tri Top Tron.
If you couldn’t quite figure it out, Tri Top stands for Triceratops. This makes Slag the Dinobot of choice if you want the Transformers version. There’s a significant difference between Tri Top Tron and Slag though to call Tri Top Tron a unique figure and not a bootleg.
The dinosaur form of the Tri Top Tron Dinotron
In dinosaur form, it looks like it has two heads when viewing from the front since the upward ridge behind the head has a gap where the robot head is supposed to be. At least his robot head wasn’t in a poorly chosen spot like Bronto Tron.
It also has a couple of attached guns/cannons on the shoulders.
Watch the Transformation
The robot form of the Tri Top Tron Dinotron
In robot form, the feet don’t transform well and it doesn’t stand up on its own quite well. If you look closely, you can see the robot feet don’t touch the ground as they should so you have to position the rotated dinosaur feet properly for it to stand.
There’s not really much else to say about Tri Top Tron so we might as well move to the next one.
There are only two more Dinotrons to go in the series.
Sorry for the very long delay in posting. Things have been quite busy in addition to a general lack of energy with the days getting shorter and colder up here in Canada.
So far I have only posted one other cheap transforming toy, the cheesy Transport Transformer toy which is a total bootleg of Optimus Prime from the Transformers. Now, I have a collection of four transforming dinosaur robots, the Dinotrons, that I got from a Dollarama store.
This one here is a robot that transforms into a brontosaurus, now called an Apatosaurus, dinosaur and vice versa. The transformation is probably what you’d expect from a cheap dollar store toy, although you don’t have to remove parts to complete the transformation like the Transport Transformer Optimus. It looks more like a robot wearing a dinosaur costume rather than something you really transform. You just peel back the layers to find the robot.
I never had the Dinobots, but I don’t think this is a bootleg of Sludge though. They couldn’t have made him this crappy.
The Bronto Tron Dinotron in dinosaur form
Watch the Transformation
The Bronto Tron Dinotron in robot form If you can’t tell, the brontosaurus is still largely intact, like the robot has one on its back.
One thing I found most quite amusing is that the head of the robot is where the butt of the dinosaur is supposed to be. I just have one question.
North Carolina Firefighters are pleased with a recent statewide ban on novelty lighters. These novelty lighters are modeled after a wide variety of items, including toys, that catches a child’s interest to play with them.
This has lead to the start of many accidental fires since parents can’t always tell the difference and they don’t notice it in time to stop their kids from playing with them. North Carolina thought it best to just ban lighters made to look like things other than lighters, which is probably the best solution to that problem. As they say, an ounce of prevention.
Firefighting is one of many jobs where its better when they are doing as little as possible, like a funeral home operator. They can then be ready for real emergencies rather than accidental fires started through something like a kid playing with a lighter they thought was a toy.
I am just wondering if those so called novelty lighters were in fact lighters or if they were some of those toys that were recalled for starting on fire when played with.
It would be quite the twist if they were just toys that started on fire when you played with them, or is that a fair description of a lighter?
The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued another penalty with the offending party being the Target retail store chain for selling toys with high levels of lead paint. Again, this violates a lead paint standard started over 30 years ago to keep toys safe for kids.
They have to pay $600,000 which sounds like a lot, but to some people it should be more. For many companies such as this, $600,000 is a drop in the bucket so it seems more like a slap on the wrist than a big hit to the companies wallet. Perhaps a larger fine would get companies to buckle down on meeting the toy safety standards.
The toys were sold back in 2006 and 2007 so they were already recalled, voluntarily by Target and CPSC. There’s nothing really new to worry about at the moment, but that was near the start of the long line of recalls so they are just now getting to the fines to ensure companies comply with toy safety standards or else face further penalties.
I have posted my fair share of bootleg/knock off toys over the years, but all in all, I just show toys you can get at dollar stores. Some of them are bootlegs, some of them aren’t.
If you want to see more bootlegs/knock off toys, and I mean some really bad ones, you should check out bootlegactionfigures.com. It’s all bootlegs, all the time.
I thought I had some pretty funny bootlegs, until I went here. Mine are still good, and seemingly undiscovered, but there are so many bootleg toys here it will keep you busy for hours.
The chest light found on a few of the toys I have shown isn’t an isolated occurrence. Many toys shown there include that for some reason.
There are several categories of toys including Batman, Superman and Spiderman meaning there are several toys found with the likeness or obvious similarities to them and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You can’t help but laugh seeing the Spidarmen or Patman, yes Patman with a ‘P’, toys. Another great is the Imitator toy, a bootleg of the Terminator, but I can’t ruin all the surprises.
I always knew all the good bootlegs are in the USA or Mexico.
Despite the recession, some store chains are reporting a better second quarter compared to last year’s second quarter for different reasons.
Dollar General has been doing very well so far this year with an increase in sales by over 8 percent in the second quarter and over 11% for the year. There are plenty of useful items you can get cheaper there and it seems people are spending more time at discount stores to save money.
Toys R Us has also announced an increase in profit, even with a loss of total sales compared to last year, just by streamlining margins and cost control. They have been able to turn a profit while the economy is down, showing they can handle the downturn. Increasing sales doesn’t always increase profit, sometimes you can increase profit just by lowering expenses and cutting costs.
It will be interesting to see if this trend continues when the economy gets better or if people will fall back into the bad habits of overspending and not saving for a rainy day. I’ve always tried to get sales or the lesser price anywhere I could to save money. Why pay more for the exact same thing somewhere else?
Have you started shopping at discount stores to save money?
If you can’t tell, the brontosaurus is still largely intact, like the robot has one on its back.
