Is Nothing Sacred?
Knockoffs of Marx and MPC
Here's an embarrassingly chintzy bag o' knockoffs from Ja-Ro ("Jacksonville, Florida - MADE IN CHINA"), front (left) and back views -
They're cheapos, but being rips of moderately serious figures from other manufacturers they are at least meant to portray genuine animals, so I have to put them in my second category, "semi-serious" figures. I left them in their original bag to preserve its collector value [You're kidding, right? -- Ed.]. Really, I left the bag sealed up so nothing could scamper out and lose itself in with the better stuff. Let's look at the label first -
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100 MILLION YEARS AGO - OK, more or less, that's not too bad, seeing as how there are no cavemen in the bag
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REALISTIC - right
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NON-TOXIC - calibrating the veracity by the above realistic statement, I don't know that I'd care to trust anyone's health to this assurance
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HAND-PAINTED - strangely enough, these have paint on them, usually a light dash of spray on the backs and a big blob of black obscuring the eyes; I wouldn't say results justify the effort
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ASSORTED STYLES - styles? how about Genera? Types would do
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AUTHENTIC FIGURES - if authentic means realistic, they already tried that; if it means they're the Marx and MPC figures they're pretending to be, it's not easy to take seriously, either
Peering through the bag, in the left-hand photo we see -
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a poor copy of the MPC Macrauchenia
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a copy of the Marx Allosaurus (not so much like MPC's version), a bit smaller than the original
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a Stegosaurus, very much like the Marx and MPC versions, but midway in size
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a Styracosaurus, not really a copy of either MPC or Marx
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a small Triceratops (I think that's what it's supposed to be ....), not a copy of either MPC or Marx
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a very small copy of the Marx Ankylosaurus
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a damn-near microscopic incarnation of the Marx Brontosaurus
And on the right we can see -
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an extremely nasty copy of the Marx Trachodon
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an even nastier copy of the MPC Tyrannosaurus, itself a pale shadow of the Marx Tyrannosaurus (b)
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a tiny copy of the Marx Triceratops
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a miniscule clone of the Marx Dimetrodon (not the MPC one, which has that strangely reversed right-rear leg)
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But finally, at the bottom of the bag, something interesting — a Uintatherium or some closely related genus of Dinocerata. This must be copied from somebody else's original, but I don't know whose.
The uintatheres are the earliest known large mammals. The largest of them were between rhino and elephant size. They had six small horns and large upper canines (possibly a case of sexual dimorphism - i.e., the boys had the canines and the girls didn't). There were other peculiarities of the skull and dentition but they're not so prominent as the horns and canines. They also had very small brains. The Ja-Ro figure looks fairly decent, except that I think the hind legs are much too short.
Uintathere taxonomic relationships are confused and their evolutionary history is obscure.
Wal-Mart sells a very similar bundle o' dinos, though cheaper.
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