Sunday, July 31, 2011

Weirdness: Alpha 7 Name Reused in New Zibits Line

The Outer Space Men have some unusual names, but apparently they're not too unusual for another company to borrow. Senario makes a toy robot line called Zibits, and they're about $9.99 a pop. Each is a remote controller robot that's about two-inches tall. I saw these at Kmart earlier in the week and again at Toys R Us today, and felt obligated to share with you, the six or seven people who read this.

For the ultra-curious, the cardbacks of Zibits show a gold Alpha 7, but the toy is actually red.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE: Thanks to the great Mel Birnkrant, we got this information:

"...the issue of the Alpha Seven name being used by Senarlo. Gary has been on top of this from the get-go. A search on Google will disclose and verify, that he filed legal action against Senario officially in January. But I believe he was in communication with them before that. Gary writes me today:

'The pieces that made it out with our name on it were very few and Amazon pulled them. I guess that Toys r us grabbed some. As you can see here:
http://www.senario.com/products_zibits.html
they changed the name of the toy real fast.'"


In case you're reading this in the distant future and that Senario page may have been changed again, the aforementioned Zibits Alpha 7 has been renamed "Epsilon."

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