Once again, the siren song of the Dollar Tree drew me through the doors and into this purveyor of cheap garbage to see whether there were any decent stocking stuffer ideas within.
Mostly not.
Let's start with this craptacular chinesium case. It has four internal compartments, and the lid is semi-secure, but the warping is bad. This is not a good way to store even these fake LEGO bricks. There are also signs of stress fatigue where the web inside meets the outside case. Something has applied force here and lines in the plastic looks pale as if it has been bent and stretched in places.
On to the stuff I stuffed into it anyway! Up first, the most Christmas-y of construction toys... zombies and tombs.
It looks like there are some Halloween-themed remnants in the toy aisle. These bricks don't feel very good. The clutch power isn't right. The sound isn't right. These are not adequate substitutes for real LEGO. but there are some interesting ideas here, some nice bricks, and a skeleton that might be better than the LEGO equivalent!
The use of car parts to make a bat is actually pretty creative, but the structure of the assembly itself leaves a bit to be desired. The cross tombstone just is not good at all with its offset claw arms. The zombie is hilariously bad. More on that later. I'm actually impressed with the skeleton design, though. I don't think LEGO uses those sloped shoulder pins or elbowed arms. I admit, it's been a while, but I don't think they changed their original design I got back in the 90s. Let me know if I am mistaken.
This is how these sets are packaged: instructions printed for ants, a bag of bricks, a bag of minifigure parts, and a torso sticker in lieu of bothering to print anything. Well, GREENBRIER INTERNATIONAL is obnoxiously printed on the edges of a few plates. That technically counts, I suppose.
Holy inflated part count, Batman! The hair looks like a straight-up copy of a LEGO wig, and the shovel is decent, but the rest is garbage. The faces are almost comedic, but clearly not designed for the LEGO hair.
I neglected to take a photo of the finished model, but it looks like the box art. That's more than I can say for the last kit though.
Is this a neat little LEGO-meets-Tonka kit that will scratch my nostalgic itch?
Spoiler alert: nope.
The crane is a neat idea, but the wheels don't really secure the tires to the hubs, the swively bit doesn't click in place securely, and the rest of the crane is just a mess mechanically. And it gets even worse...
Where is the guy supposed to sit? He can't really fit behind the cab, because the crane needs to rest in the same space as his head. Speaking of which: I got an extra head. No torso sticker, though.
"But it's only $1.00. Who cares?" Well, a kid expecting a fun stocking stuffer will probably care. Don't ruin Christmas. Buy real LEGO. One good set will last for years. This is just landfill fodder bought in bulk. I do not recommend these three sets or the storage box.
I'm not all criticism and complaints, though. Can I build anything neat from this pile of counterfeit bricks? Well, I tried sticking that extra head on the worthless crane swivel, and then built a race car of sorts around it. Not bad, really, despite the awful wheels and unreliable brick-stickage.
And again, that skeleton is surprisingly good. I may Sharpie in the features for a skull on that blank white head, too. Plus, the plant bits and car detail bits are kinda nice.
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