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Familiar Faces in Unfamiliar Places
Like most GC collectors, I heard about the case of plagiarism that happened in Australia a while back. Since then, I have been on the hunt for companies that use Grand Champion molds and accessories. It turns out, too, that GCs have taken the form of other horse manufacturers' products!
Here is one that escaped my notice for years, a Breyer foal that
seems to be a modified GC foal. But it turns out that it was
Marchon who did the modifying ! Info on these little
guys comes from Alice, who confirms that the Breyer
foal predates the Marchon, and was in fact designed after a
Hagen Renaker foal from even earlier. At first they don't appear
that
similar. The Breyer's legs look different, and the whole body has
musculature and detailing. However, when you look at them from the front, you see that they have the same "attitude," and the same kind of foalie expression that is well known to GC collectors. The set of the ears is alike, as are the step, pose, and body dimensions generally. All of that creates a sum of the foal's expression that I do not think could be duplicated by chance alone.
Here is a
front-ish photo that shows the strange bend that the foals have in
their left forelegs. The wrist is bent backward unnaturally,
even moreso on the Breyer. You can see that the Breyer foal has cute little legs and hoofs compared to the GCs thick fetlocks and heavy feet (I don't know why "better" legs always means "smaller" legs, but in the world of horse molds, it does). This is a remold foal, of course, so the original Marchon foal was much nicer and had refined feet.
Here is the really telling aspect. The Breyer foal has the very same
outward spread of its hind feet that is so characteristic of the GC
foal. Right at the fetlocks, the feet turn to the sides just so and
face outward. I should mention, too, that the distance between
the leading forefoot and the trailing hind foot on both foals
matches up perfectly. It's uncanny! The Marchon's trailing foot has
been set down just a little bit, I think to make it look like
a different foal. So while the original Marchon foal is such a classic, very cute, and the backbone of the whole GC line, he is something of an imitator !
Moving on... There are several cheap, ugly lines of flocky horses that use the GC brushes and tack, and some of their packaging mentions being owned by Galoob, one of Empire's offshoots.
The tack on these flockies is usually the Western 3-Diamond
saddle of old, the classic
Western bridle, and the Grand Champion brush we all
know and hate.
(Well at least I do !) The above pic is a comparison of a
real GC Brush and a modified knockoff of it. They are
the same brush except for the modified one's having a different
back design, one with the
incriminating details removed/smoothed away. I got this from a
kit that included a little flocky horse that came with full tack
- the mini version of GC's saddle as well.I don't have a comparison saddle pic here because they are identical to the authentic ones except for being made of softer material. I've seen the 3-Diamond on at least two different horse brands, Boley being one of them, and HERE is a link to a page of their site (Yeah, they have a site !) that clearly shows it on some of their own horses. They have a couple different saddles, but you can look at this pic:
and follow the arrows to the Diamond saddle and some suspicious-looking foals. (You can check out the big version of this pic yourself, HERE.
Ahhh, now this is an animal I've been after for some time. I first saw it in 2000 or so, and it took me this long to find another and acquire it. This is a classic Fantasy Filly Fakie, produced by another company, in Empire's Gaited Stallion mold. It looks like a clear case of copyright theft, but because it's so obvious I guess it must be legal. OR, as with the brush above, the thing has been modified enough that it would not count as infringement.
That seems hard to believe though, because the animal was definitely produced directly from Empire's mold, and only a couple of things have been changed. First, the similarities:
Ok,
Copper Traveler is modeling for us (I know, I should have used a
Fantasy Filly "Prisma," but I don't feel like dragging mine out of
storage right now.) and you can see this is nearly the same horse.
The only noticeable difference is the left foreleg, which has been
bent in closer to the body. Here, they are positioned to the same
viewing angle (as close as I could get it, anyway.) and even the
quirks of the Gaited Stallion are copied to the other animal.
Most of the goofiness of the guy is here: his round, formless fetlocks and pasterns, and his asymmetrical gaskins - the right one being slender and the left thick... and the drumstick look of the left hind leg is there. The muscle has been removed from the knockoff, though - His shoulders and thighs are smooth.
One cool thing about this Fakie is its brightly gold hooves, which are more gleamy and lustrous than any I've seen on model horses.
They are alike from the front, too. (Note that the jugular muscle lines are still there.) They have the same swollen right cheek, leftward lean, and even the same slight bend to the left in their raised feet. The faces are a little different around the muzzle; the Fakie's nose has lost its lumped-over moosey look, and its mouth is more upturned. You can see in this photo, too, that his left wrist is more pointy due to having his cannon angle adjusted.
The brand on this guy reads "1998 Prime Time Toys Made in China."
Fantasy Fillies
were launched in 1995 I think, and had been discontinued by '98,
or maybe even earlier, so bringing out a knockoff at the same time
the original ones were dying wouldn't seem to make sense. Maybe
Empire decided that, since FFs were decidedly a failure, there
could be no harm in selling off the concept to a smaller toy
maker. This Fakie is of poor quality generally - He is made of a more brittle, lightweight plastic than GCs are, his paint is flat (unlike the genuine FFs with their sparkly paint) and he has plain white hair.
To the right is another Fakie of the same type, and I recently saw another one that was blue with lavender points. There may also be another blue one with orange points, and possibly others. I have never seen one of these MIB, so it's hard to know what they might have been called or where they were sold. I do wonder if this is a legal use/alteration of Empire's mold, though.
I believe these are the famous Chestnut Ridge horses that allegedly caused the legal battle between Empire and Toys R Us in the 90s. They look SO much like real FNNs, it's scary ! And FNNs are scary enough by themselves !!
From the near-identical neck joints to the eerily similar molded forelocks, these "Eat n' Snuzzle" horses are copycats of the highest order! Or is that "lowest" order? Or is that "Munch n' Snuggle"? "Nosh n' Cuddle"? "
In conclusion: Wow. Gross.
©2005 Sloane Eljay
Blue Paradise Stables